Join my Patreon to stay 30 chapters ahead of the Webnovel releases:
https://patreon.com/ZeroMoney
You can also read on my website:
tlmasters.xyz
I'd really appreciate your support. Every membership helps keep me motivated to continue translating and releasing chapters consistently.
*****
Su Wen's Heavenly Bead Transformation encompassed all the acupuncture points across his entire body, completely including every single meridian and acupuncture point within the human anatomy.
While in theory, he would develop a four-tiered cultivation technique, the first three tiers alone required him to open and connect all of these meridians and acupuncture points.
The meridians inside the human body were inherently connected. When speaking of "connecting" them, it actually referred to nourishing and widening them with Heavenly Energy, making them more resilient to the impact of Heavenly Energy, and even allowing them to naturally adapt to its form.
As for the acupuncture points, they were opened using the unique cultivation methods of a Heavenly Bead Master. Though they were originally mere intersection points of meridians, once opened, they became akin to mini dantian centers. They stored Heavenly Energy, served as the hubs for its circulation, and even acted as bridges for the communion between Heavenly Energy inside the body and the outside world!
The Heavenly Bead Transformation aimed to open every single acupuncture point in the body.
In the first tier, he had opened 108 points.
In the second tier, he had opened around 300 points.
Now, in the third tier, he needed to integrate the remaining 300-plus acupuncture points entirely into the cultivation technique.
The hardest part of this process was sorting through and organizing them.
Possessing an exceptionally powerful perception, Su Wen was practically a genius--a monster--when it came to developing cultivation techniques. Locating the meridians and acupuncture points within his body was not a problem at all. His only concern was organizing them and finding the shortest path of circulation to encompass all the acupuncture points.
At this stage, opening the acupuncture points was naturally no longer an issue.
Following his step-by-step plan, Su Wen had already opened every single acupuncture point.
Yes, all of them.
Yet despite this, his Heavenly Void Energy had only reached the third level of cultivation.
Merely opening the acupuncture points could no longer significantly increase his Heavenly Void Energy. The key now lay in perfecting the cultivation technique itself.
What exactly was a cultivation technique? Naturally, it was the circulation path and the manipulation techniques of Heavenly Energy.
Only by unifying all the acupuncture points could Su Wen's Heavenly Energy grow increasingly powerful under the amplification of these 720 points, allowing him to break through to Heavenly Dao Energy.
"There are also differences between acupuncture points; there are real points and virtual points."
Su Wen felt the differences among the acupuncture points within his body. Some points possessed substantial physical effects. For instance, they could work in tandem with surrounding meridians to heavily condense Heavenly Energy, strengthen the physical body, or boost the explosive power of Heavenly Energy for combat. These were the acupuncture points that Su Wen had included the most in the first few tiers of his Heavenly Bead Transformation technique. As for the 300-plus acupuncture points opened in the third tier, at least 250 of them were virtual points with no obvious effects.
Based on whether they had a distinct effect, Su Wen categorized the acupuncture points into 'real points' and 'virtual points.' The fact that Su Wen had opened over 300 acupuncture points in the third tier and yet remained at only the third level of Heavenly Void Energy was largely due to this distinction.
Of course, the so-called virtual points were not completely useless. At least, Su Wen did not think so. Otherwise, he would have cataloged all the acupuncture points long ago, discarded the virtual ones, and focused solely on the real ones.
The cultivation techniques across the continent were not entirely one-sided either; the acupuncture points they utilized also included a significant proportion of virtual points.
In fact, the higher the grade of a cultivation technique, the more virtual points it contained. Furthermore, their positioning became increasingly critical, complementing the arrangement of the real points perfectly.
For the time being, Su Wen assumed that the function of virtual points was similar to a refinement, acting as supports for the real points.
Now, he turned his attention back to studying the various cultivation techniques he had obtained from the Boundless Palace.
Previously, he had skimmed through all of them and done some simple deductions, but he hadn't fully delved into cultivating or researching every single one.
At this moment, having hit a bit of a roadblock regarding his understanding of virtual points, he naturally needed to go back and study these existing techniques.
He believed he would definitely find his answer here.
Because to his knowledge, when practicing these techniques, the opening of every single acupuncture point would grant a phased boost to a Heavenly Bead Master's cultivation.
Yet the dilemma Su Wen currently faced was that the virtual points he opened did not yield such an obvious effect.
Even during his cultivation of the first two tiers, opening certain virtual points was unavoidable. However, a noticeable improvement only occurred when there were real points connected to them to form a specific structure, or when the corresponding structure was borrowed from other cultivation techniques Su Wen had referenced.
"Divine points? Dao points?"
Su Wen carefully researched these techniques and went to the archives of the Boundless Palace to search for ancient texts on cultivation. He found various definitions for acupuncture points, among which 'Divine points' and 'Dao points' struck him the most.
Among these, the points explicitly defined under these two categories were, without a doubt, virtual points in Su Wen's understanding--or more accurately, they fell into his definition of virtual points. Because of a couple of 'exceptions,' he examined them closely again and discovered that some of the points he had defined as real points actually met his criteria for virtual points. The reason they produced an effect was actually because they relied on a subtle structure formed with other real points to achieve it.
After reclassifying them, Su Wen drew a much clearer line between real and virtual points.
However, his perception of virtual points was no longer what it used to be.
It wasn't that virtual points were useless, nor were they purely meant to assist real points. Rather, the effects corresponding to virtual points were simply more 'intangible.'
Su Wen felt that his definition of this classification was spot on.
Real points acted upon reality, producing very tangible effects. Virtual points, on the other hand, acted upon the intangible. Sensing them carefully, Su Wen discovered that virtual points generally provided a noticeable boost to spiritual energy.
Upon discovering this, Su Wen began to sense them with greater care.
His mastery over spiritual energy could be considered the strongest in the entire Boundless Continent.
In fact, because he came from the Douluo Plane, he had cultivated spiritual energy and trained it using an independent system, which naturally made it much easier for him to perceive.
The reason he hadn't noticed this before was primarily that he cultivated Heavenly Energy.
The cultivation of Heavenly Bead Masters on the Boundless Continent did not have a separate branch for spiritual energy; they only had the concept of the spiritual attribute.
And what they cultivated was Heavenly Energy, which fused all powers into one.
By mixing all the systems together, Su Wen had instead overlooked the impact of these virtual points on the individual spiritual attribute.
In truth, he was merely missing this single spark of inspiration. Through in-depth research into the effects of individual virtual points, he could have completely discovered this on his own, though it might have wasted ten days to half a month.
With the true nature of virtual points cleared up, Su Wen quickly began to figure out the function of each virtual point using his own understanding of spiritual energy.
Within half a month, Su Wen gained a general understanding of the functions of the virtual points.
He also made modifications to the Heavenly Bead Transformation technique.
For the first tier, he unified a total of 108 real points, using the power of the real points to strengthen the physical body, nourish the essence and qi, and promote the cultivation of the Heavenly Essence Energy stage.
As for the second tier, after Su Wen perfected it, it consisted mostly of virtual points, focusing primarily on nourishing the spirit to assist in the cultivation of the Heavenly Divine Energy stage.
The third tier was a combination of virtual and real. First, he would connect all the acupuncture points, and then begin unifying the two categories step by step to assist in the cultivation of Heavenly Void Energy.
(End of Chapter)