Chapter 179: Cultivation Cheat—But the Jiang Lin Version!
"Do I really have to hug him?"
"A hug doesn't cost you a piece of meat."
"Ugh… it just feels weird."
"He gains nothing, you lose nothing. Opportunities must be seized by your own hands. The Spirit Tribe is playing a grand game—grasp your chance well."
"…Alright then."
When Xiao Yan wrapped his arms around Jiang Lin's back, all three of them froze.
Jiang Lin was internally speechless—beyond speech, really. He was just testing his Dou Qi control, and now this Xiao Yan kid had latched on too?
Buzz!
With a single hand, Jiang Lin reached back and grabbed Xiao Yan by the neck, slamming him to the ground. Just as Xiao Yan thought Jiang Lin was angry, he suddenly felt a surge of dazzling crimson-gold Dou Qi racing through his body!
"One-eighth! No wonder the Forging Flame Art is so hard to cultivate! This ratio… no human should be able to handle it!" As the crimson-gold Dou Qi rushed through Xiao Yan's body, Yao Chen instantly understood the true intensity of the art.
In that moment, the meridians of Xiao Yan, Yun Zhi, and Jiang Lin formed a three-layered great circulation. The cost? Jiang Lin's cultivation efficiency was reduced by two-thirds. The benefit? Xiao Yan and Yun Zhi each gained one-third of Jiang Lin's cultivation output!
The brilliant crimson-gold Dou Qi surged rapidly through the three of them. Under Jiang Lin's terrifying spiritual sense and control, the Dou Qi formed perfect Forging Flame Art cycles within both of their bodies. A searing heat ignited within them, tempering their flesh and refining their bones and meridians!
The impurities in their bodies were quickly burned away, their physical strength reinforced, and their meridians made more resilient!
Whether it was Xiao Yan or Yun Zhi, both felt a scalding, unbearable burning sensation. Their bodies—and even their souls—were being refined by an invisible flame!
If the Forging Flame Art at the Dou Qi stage was considered first tier, then Jiang Lin's current version was third tier. For Xiao Yan and Yun Zhi, who had never practiced it before, the effect was overwhelmingly intense.
Yun Zhi, though a proud Dou Huang with durable meridians, hadn't truly refined her body. Now, Jiang Lin's third-tier art was quickly strengthening her physique, increasing its durability. The sealed Dou Qi in her bloodline was gradually melting under the crimson-gold flame, allowing her to channel a sliver of it into Jiang Lin's Dou Qi, forming energy to accelerate the art even further.
As for Xiao Yan, he was completely pinned to the ground. With the weakest physique and meridians of the three, it felt like he was being deep-fried in lava. He wanted to scream, but Jiang Lin's grip on his neck silenced him. He could only endure the increasingly excruciating burning, made worse by Yun Zhi's Dou Qi boost.
'Teacher, you lied to me!! My whole body feels like it's submerged in magma—this is worse than that gold energy from earlier!' Xiao Yan pressed his head against the cool ground, gritting his teeth as the fire scorched his very meridians. He roared mentally at Yao Chen.
"Opportunities must be seized. Countless small fortunes combined can form a great one. In the future, you'll have to absorb Heavenly Flames—now that is pain. Watching yourself burn, your flesh scorched, decaying, melting… what you're feeling now is a hundred times lighter," Yao Chen's calm voice echoed in Xiao Yan's heart, though it carried a persistent note of awe.
What Jiang Lin was doing—using his own technique, combining it with spiritual perception to sync his internal energy cycle with others'—was something Yao Chen had only read about in ancient ruins.
That state was known as… Unity of Heaven and Man—or Unity of Man and Artifact.
An artifact bore the laws of the heavens, so merging with one could represent merging with the heavens themselves. Thus, the core of Unity of Man and Artifact… was still Unity of Heaven and Man.
A high-tier Dou Weapon provided massive amplification for Dou Qi users. For example, Yun Zhi—although only a three-star Dou Huang—wielded a sixth-rank profound sword and had managed to slice off the Purple Crystal Winged Lion King's toughest horn. If the beast had dodged even a little slower, she could have decapitated it outright. Moreover, she also wore a sixth-rank inner armor made from a sixth-rank magical beast's materials, which allowed her frail human body to withstand the lion's claw strike and survive with just a surface wound. (That's canon, by the way.)
If Yun Zhi had lacked either the sword or the armor, she likely would've been killed outright by the Purple Crystal Winged Lion King. That's why the Blacksmith Guild rarely forged complete sets of high-level weapons for outsiders—they'd be too overpowered, upsetting regional balance.
But Jiang Lin's current state—Unity of Man and Artifact—allowed his Dou Qi and his weapon to synchronize perfectly, making the weapon part of his body. It could even feed energy back into him, unleashing terrifying power!
At this point, Yao Chen realized: if he imagined Jiang Lin not as a person, but as a growing spiritual weapon, everything suddenly made perfect sense.
The only pity was that this humanoid spiritual weapon had unmatched intelligence and couldn't be claimed. Otherwise, it would be the ultimate cultivation cheat. Then again, every spiritual weapon could be seen as a cultivation cheat in its own right.
'Spirit Tribe, Spirit Tribe… The founding of the eight great clans is closely tied to the eight spiritual weapons. Their bloodline traits are deeply connected to the Dao marks left by those artifacts,' Yao Chen silently observed as Jiang Lin used Yun Zhi's Dou Qi to powerfully drive the Forging Flame Art, still in awe.
'But there's one thing the other seven clans never figured out: which came first—the Spirit Gourd… or the Spirit Emperor?'
The ancestors of the eight clans were all Dou Emperors from the same era, but they did not ascend at the same time.
The Spirit Emperor was the first to reach Dou Emperor rank, followed by the Ancient Emperor, Xiao Emperor, and Soul Emperor—their order matched the ranking of the spiritual weapons.
'And the most terrifying thought of all is this: as the first Dou Emperor to appear after the Age of Desolation… why did the Spirit Emperor allow the rise of the other seven Emperors? And why did he vanish afterward?'
(END CHAPTER)
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