Chapter 1047: Dao Raising
“Boom” At this moment, Ning Cheng felt his body reverberate as a clear yet powerful surge of grand dao’s power surged into him. The world turned clear, and the rolling dao rhythm coalesced.
Only at this moment did the embryonic form of the Returning-to-one Dao truly appear. Ning Cheng slowly stood up, and calmness returned to his eyes. Three months were about to pa.s.s, but under the influence of the Karmic Dao Crystal, his spirituality erupted, and he experienced sudden enlightenment, finally succeeding in reaching Dao Raising.
An instant after reaching Dao Raising, his dao rhythm also condensed solidly without any signs of instability. Although he had just reached the early stage of Dao Raising Realm, the smooth flow of his dao rhythm felt like that of someone who had been nurturing their dao for several thousand years. It fully merged with his body without any sense of abruptness.
During the two or three years in the Blooming Rings, he seemed to have done only one thing: to reincarnate again and again. It was only at the last moment that he suddenly had an epiphany and advanced to the Dao Raising Realm. During this period, he didn’t use any dao pills, didn’t use any external objects, relying solely on his comprehension.
Ning Cheng didn’t look deeper into the Blooming Rings. While cultivating in the Blooming Rings’ tenth ring, he understood that continuing in the Blooming Ring might be more detrimental to him at this point. However, it could still bring many benefits for him in the future. In other words, going deeper right now wasn’t the best option.
Going deeper didn’t mean he could cultivate more steadily or integrate with the Blooming Rings’ dao rhythm in the deeper areas.
No matter what, the Blooming Rings wasn’t as simple as he thought. Perhaps, it was all due to luck that he decided to stay in the tenth ring and didn’t enter the eleventh. But whatever the case, whether it was because of luck or something else, it let him keep his little life.
Ning Cheng originally didn’t cultivate the Dao of Karma, but now, because of the enlightenment, he wanted to cultivate its innate Grand Karmic Divine Ability[1]. However, his understanding of the underlying dao rhythms was still far from enough to begin.
Therefore, he removed another ring and put the Karmic Dao Crystal inside it. Although Ning Cheng knew that the Karmic Dao Crystal was an immensely powerful object and couldn’t shatter the Mysterious Yellow Bead, he dared not put it inside. He had borrowed this Dao Crystal from someone, and it would eventually escape from his ring and find Jiang Mann.
……
“Union Master?” Ning Cheng walked out of the Blooming Rings. When he stood on the verdant gra.s.s again, he found Sichen Qiutian had also come here.
Not only was Sichen Qiutian here, but Jin Molong, who had brought him into the Blooming Rings, was also here. Beside Sichen Qiutian and Jin Molong, there was also a white-haired old man.
As soon as he looked at this white-haired old man, Ning Cheng could tell that this person was a powerhouse. Moreover, his senses screamed that this old man was far stronger than Sichen Qiutian and Jin Molong.
“Ning Cheng, you actually did it.” As soon as Sichen Qiutian looked at Ning Cheng, he knew Ning Cheng had reached the Dao Raising Realm. Not only did he succeed in reaching Dao Raising, but Ning Cheng’s dao rhythm also felt solid.
“Congratulations to Fellow Daoist Ning for reaching Dao Raising.” Jin Molong followed up with congratulations.
Sichen Qiutian suddenly remembered something and quickly said, “Ning Cheng, this is Patriarch Li Feng of the Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan. He has been waiting for you here for the past two days.”
No wonder he felt so powerful. Turns out, he was the Patriarch of the Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan. It’s just that Ning Cheng couldn’t determine if this person reached harmony with the Dao. Ning Cheng had met a Dao Perfection powerhouse before, but unfortunately, Ancestor Kang’s cultivation had not fully recovered. Therefore, he had no idea about the actual strength of a Dao Perfection cultivator.
“Greetings to Patriarch Li and Dao Friend Jin. Indeed, I have successfully reached Dao Raising. It’s all thanks to the Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan’s Blooming Rings. This Ning Cheng feels truly grateful for it.” Even though Ning Cheng knew this opportunity had come due to Sichen Qiutian’s favour exchange, he still needed to show his grat.i.tude. This time, apart from reaching the Dao Raising Realm, he had also gained a tremendous harvest within the Blooming Rings.
Moreover, Ning Cheng vowed that if he could return to cultivate in the Blooming Rings, he wouldn’t give up on it. With so many powerful opponents now, he urgently needed to raise his cultivation level quickly, and the Blooming Rings was simply a treasure tailor-made for him.
Unfortunately, the Blooming Rings didn’t belong to him, and the conditions for entering the Blooming Rings for cultivation also seemed to be a bit high. What made him feel even more helpless was that he didn’t even have a shred of connection with the Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan.
“Fellow Daoist Ning is too humble. It’s purely because of natural talent and qualifications that Fellow Daoist Ning reached Dao Raising quickly. Even without the Blooming Rings, Fellow Daoist Ning would have eventually reached this level. If Dao Friend Ning doesn’t mind, you can visit my Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan as an esteemed guest anytime.” Le Feng showed an inconsiderate amount of politeness toward Ning Cheng. His tone even had hints of warmth and admiration toward Ning Cheng.
Once Li Feng finished speaking, Jin Molong quickly took a jade token and handed it to Ning Cheng. “Dao Friend Ning, this is my Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan’s teleportation jade token. As the Patriarch said, you can visit my Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan as an esteemed guest anytime.”
He was worrying about his relationship with the Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan, and now the same Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan gave him a jade token. Ning Cheng couldn’t help but look at Sichen Qiutian in confusion. He had nothing to do with the Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan, so why were they so polite? After all, he understood how difficult it was for outsiders to receive an invitation to the Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan, let alone be treated as esteemed guests.
Seeing Ning Cheng look at him, Sichen Qiutian smiled and said, “Patriarch Li Feng has shown great hospitality towards us, Ning Cheng. It would be best if you didn’t decline this offer. If you can, help the Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan refine a few dao pills in the future.”
So that’s why. Ning Cheng finally understood. Sichen Qiutian must have told them about his ident.i.ty as a Dao Essence Pill Sage, and the Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan wanted to draw him in, so they gave him the jade token.
After understanding this, Ning Cheng quickly received the jade token and said, “Many thanks to Patriarch Li and Dao Friend Jin.”
In his heart, however, he couldn’t help but think about how many times he could use this jade token to enter the Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan. However, it was just a thought that he couldn’t speak aloud.
Besides, even though Ning Cheng had reached the threshold of being a Dao Essence Pill Sage, he didn’t truly depend on dao pills to improve his strength. After all, he didn’t use dao pills to reach the Dao Raising Realm in the Blooming Rings. He felt that advancing solely based on one’s understanding of the Dao and the perception of worldly laws would produce a much better result than relying on dao pills to advance.
Ning Cheng also knew that not everyone could enjoy such heavenly encounters. After all, most cultivators had no choice but to sense the worldly laws from the dao rhythm of dao pills to advance.
It’s just that both Ning Cheng and Sichen Qiutian guessed wrongly about Li Feng’s intentions this time. Although the Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan wanted to befriend Ning Cheng, being a Dao Essence Pill Sage wasn’t the main reason. It’s not because the Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan didn’t value the Dao of Alchemy: rather, they valued talents who could advance without relying on dao pills, relying just on comprehending the worldly laws on their own.
Li Feng didn’t try to elaborate or provide an explanation for Sichen Qiutian’s words. But seeing Ning Cheng accept the jade token, he nodded and smiled, “In the future, my Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan might have disciples walking outside. If there are any difficulties, I must ask Dao Friend Ning for a helping hand.”
The Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan wants to come out of seclusion? Ning Cheng couldn’t help but feel puzzled again. But he quickly replied, “If there is a chance to meet a Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan’s disciple, this Ning Cheng will treat them with sincerity.”
With Li Feng showing such enthusiasm, the entire Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan treated Ning Cheng and Sichen Qiutian as esteemed guests. As such, they stayed over for another day before the Mysterious Ferry Ancient Clan sent them away with a fairly modest ceremony.
……
By the time Ning Cheng and Sichen Qiutian returned to Celestial Origin Sacred City, only a little over a month remained before they needed to leave to partic.i.p.ate in the Five Grand Realms’ Alchemy Compet.i.tion.
With Sheng Houtian deciding to stay in Celestial Origin Sacred City, Ba Meng left first as he still needed to help his son Ba Luo heal.
With limited time, Ning Cheng only greeted Sheng Houtian before immediately retreating and refining pills.
This time, he still chose to refine the Extreme Profound Heavenly Ice Pills, which Ning Cheng had already refined twice. Although he failed both times back then, he still acc.u.mulated some experience. Moreover, his strength improved greatly after reaching the Dao Raising Realm, and even his control over the dao rhythm became easier.
Therefore, in just half an hour, Ning Cheng began to grasp the strands of laws within the Extreme Profound Dao Fruit and the Heavenly Ice Flower. The strands of laws that collapsed at the first touch during the previous refinements were now successfully retained by Ning Cheng this time and integrated into the dao pill. After another half an hour, Ning Cheng pulled twelve Extreme Profound Heavenly Ice Pills from the pill furnace and placed them into the prepped jade bottles.
Three high-grade pills, four medium-grade pills, and five low-grade pills, but no superior-grade pills.
Ning Cheng felt excited. He refined his first Dao Essence Dao Pill without any external help. The reason why no superior-grade pills had formed was simply a matter of needing more control. If his control increased, with his understanding of alchemy, he could refine twelve superior-grade pills.
Ning Cheng finished refining the Extreme Profound Heavenly Ice Pills batches in four days. And in the last few furnaces, Ning Cheng produced 10 high-grade Extreme Profound Heavenly Ice Pills in each batch. Such an achievement was worthy of bragging about for a Dao Essence Pill Sage.
Unfortunately, the Nine Lives Fire Dragon Pill proved slightly more difficult than the Extreme Profound Heavenly Ice Pill. However, with the experience of refining multiple batches of Extreme Profound Heavenly Ice Pills, Ning Cheng succeeded in refining all five Nine Lives Fire Dragon Pill furnaces without a single failure. Moreover, each furnace maintained an average of 10 high-grade pills.
Celestial Origin Heavenly Pill was the last dao pill that Ning Cheng had to refine. He kept it for the last because it wasn’t just the most difficult to refine among the three dao pills, but more importantly, the materials for each batch were a little too precious.
Celestial Origin Heavenly Pill had two primary dao fruits, one was the Celestial Origin Fruit, and the other was the Extreme Yin Sacred Fruit. Celestial Origin Fruit belonged to the extreme ‘Yang’ category and carried a powerful dao rhythm formed from the laws of the sun. While the Extreme Yin Sacred Fruit, just like its name, belonged to the extreme ‘Yin’ category and contained an equally powerful extreme yin dao rhythm.
Refining these dao pills required the integration of the two polar opposite dao rhythms from the two opposite dao fruits without losing even a minor part of it. In other words, it would either result in a perfect batch or a complete failure.
However, not counting the two primary ingredients, Ning Cheng only had enough materials for five furnaces. One had to know that the most difficult thing for ordinary dao pills would be finding the primary ingredients, i.e., the dao fruits or the law-infused divine herbs. But for the Celestial Origin Heavenly Pills, the Celestial Origin Fruit and Extreme Yin Sacred Fruit weren’t the only ingredients difficult to find. It also needed ten other auxiliary divine herbs that were even rarer.
Therefore, Ning Cheng had to be extra careful when refining the Celestial Origin Heavenly Pill. Even for the auxiliary divine herbs, he handled each one of them with extreme caution.
With Ning Cheng’s current understanding of alchemy, he shouldn’t face many problems refining the Celestial Origin Heavenly Pill. Yet, Ning Cheng still struggled to extract the strands of laws from the Celestial Origin Fruit and Extreme Yin Sacred Fruit.
But despite the successful extraction, Ning Cheng couldn’t integrate the two dao fruits’ dao rhythms into the nascent dao pill. The strands of law within the Celestial Origin and Extreme Yin fruits’ dao rhythm just collapsed at the first touch with each other.
The first Celestial Origin Heavenly Pills batch: failed. It was outside Ning Cheng’s expectations. Before this, Ning Cheng never considered that the Celestial Origin Heavenly Pill would fail this way. Even if he had to refine the Six Yin Soul Pill right now and not use the Bestowing Lawless Fruit, this kind of failure would have never occurred.
The failure of the first batch cast a shadow over Ning Cheng’s heart. It wasn’t because he failed but because he couldn’t find any reason for this particular failure, unlike when he failed while refining other pills.
He only had five furnaces worth of ingredients for the Celestial Origin Heavenly Pills, and if he failed once more, he would have to succeed in the rest three furnaces to account for it.
[1] We changed the term ‘Spirit Technique’ to ‘Divine Ability’ based on internal deliberation on the feedback and suggestions we received to make it less confusing. We have also changed ‘Spirit Gra.s.ses’ to ‘Divine Gra.s.ses’ for the same reason.