Chapter 14

The sky was still early, and Jiang Yi prepared to practice the River Water Technique for two hours to replenish his blue essence energy and recover the essence energy consumed by the re-refinement. His cultivation was inherently slow, and the re-refinement had absorbed too much of his essence energy. If he didn't replenish it in time, he feared that after half a month, the essence energy he had accumulated for so many years would be completely depleted...

"This Elder Liu is really something. I've consumed so much essence energy, and he doesn't even give me a couple of high-grade Spirit God Pills to replenish it..."

Jiang Yi secretly complained, then thought, it seemed he still had a low-grade Essence Energy Pill on him? He had black essence energy, right? He could completely enhance the efficacy of the Essence Energy Pill? That way, he could cultivate quickly, right?

He hurriedly took out a small green porcelain bottle from his pocket, poured out a green Essence Energy Pill, and swallowed it, immediately sitting down to meditate.

This Essence Energy Pill was the lowest-grade auxiliary cultivation pill, with a potency similar to the Yellow Ginseng Pill, which dissipated as slowly as a snail. Jiang Yi had already practiced the River Water Technique for half an hour, and the potency of the Essence Energy Pill had only just spread outside the dantian, enveloping it entirely and beginning to enhance the speed at which the dantian refined essence energy.

Human cultivation relies on the operation of a wondrous cultivation method, absorbing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth into the body, and then gathering it into the dantian to convert it into essence energy. Therefore, the dantian and meridians are crucial to martial artists, especially the dantian. Once it is damaged, it is almost impossible to repair without a holy-grade pill, and even the most powerful martial artists can only become cripples.

The human dantian is like a pill furnace, and the spiritual energy of heaven and earth is like medicinal herbs. Whether the pill can be quickly refined depends on how good the pill furnace is and how skilled the pill refiner is.

The furnace can be good or bad, and human talent can vary. The speed at which the dantian refines essence energy naturally varies. The skill of the pill refiner can be weak or strong, and the cultivation techniques practiced by martial artists can be high-grade or low-grade, so the cultivation speed naturally varies. This is why the first realm of the Tianxing Continent is called the Cauldron Formation Realm. The cauldron is the most important; without a good dantian, a martial artist's talent is limited, and the achievements they can attain in their lifetime are naturally limited.

No one knew whether Jiang Yi's dantian was good or bad!

Because his dantian was sealed, his cultivation speed had always been as slow as a snail. Although he had black essence energy and could use medicinal pills to assist in cultivation, which could speed up cultivation in the short term, the higher the realm he cultivated to, the more essence energy he needed. Unless he could take holy-grade pills like candy every day, Jiang Yi's achievements in this life were destined to be limited!

"Who sealed my dantian? How can this seal be broken?"

Thinking about the seal, Jiang Yi gritted his teeth in frustration. According to the Grand Elder's estimation, Jiang Yi's talent was not only comparable to the top geniuses of the Divine Martial Kingdom but was even slightly stronger than the first genius of the Jiang family, Jiang Henshui. Although he didn't know why the Grand Elder had such confidence in him, every time Jiang Yi thought about it, he would feel so depressed that he wanted to vomit blood.

"Hmm... the potency has already surrounded the dantian. I need to quickly use the black essence energy to enhance the potency, or this bit of potency will soon dissipate."

Seeing the dantian surrounded by a faint green potency, Jiang Yi reined in his thoughts, circulated a thread of black essence energy out of the dantian, and directed it through the meridians toward the green potency outside the dantian.

"Seal!"

As soon as the black essence energy reached outside the dantian, Jiang Yi's mind was drawn to a red dragon-shaped seal outside the dantian. If the dantian were like a walnut, the shell of this walnut was now carved with a fiery dragon-shaped relief.

This fiery dragon-shaped relief was incredibly lifelike, as if a living fire dragon were clinging to his dantian. The entire dragon-shaped seal was composed of tiny, fiery red runes, which the Grand Elder had studied for a long time without finding a way to break it, let alone Jiang Yi.

After a while of inner vision, Jiang Yi, fearing that the potency of the Essence Energy Pill would dissipate too much, quickly stopped looking and let the black essence energy merge with the green potency to envelop the entire dantian. He then reined in his mind and focused on circulating the River Water Technique to refine essence energy.

"Indeed effective!"

As expected, after the black essence energy merged with the potency of the Essence Energy Pill, the speed at which he refined the River Water Technique indeed increased several times. Feeling the blue essence energy in the dantian rapidly increase, Jiang Yi secretly became excited. If he had a large amount of medicinal pills and relied on the enhancement of the black essence energy, even with this cursed seal, he could still cultivate quickly. Although his future achievements would still be limited, at least cultivating to the fourth or fifth level of the Cauldron Formation Realm would not be difficult.

Unfortunately...

The black essence energy was consumed too quickly. In just a moment, the two threads of black essence energy remaining in Jiang Yi were completely depleted, and the cultivation speed slowed down again.

After cultivating for a while, Jiang Yi felt it was too slow and decided to stop the River Water Technique and switch to the Nameless Technique. He planned to take advantage of the potency of the medicinal pill not yet completely dissipated to speed up cultivation again. Although he had only sped up for a moment, the blue essence energy he had refined was equivalent to two hours of cultivation...

However!

After spending half an hour refining two threads of black essence energy and preparing to enhance the potency, he found that the green potency surrounding the dantian had already been completely consumed.

"This Essence Energy Pill's potency is too weak? Hmm..." Jiang Yi was speechless. Just as he was about to withdraw the black essence energy, he noticed something was wrong.

After a careful inner vision, his entire body suddenly trembled, and his eyes opened wide in shock.

"Impossible, this... how is this possible?"

He couldn't believe it, and he closed his eyes again and again to recheck. His body trembled more and more, and tears began to silently stream down his clear, youthful face, wetting his clothes...

A man does not shed tears easily!

Jiang Yi had rarely shed tears since childhood. He had only cried when the Grand Elder went missing and when he was beaten as a child. Even when he was beaten to the point of spitting blood, breaking bones, and being covered in injuries, he had never shed tears. But at this moment, his tears flowed like a river, unstoppable.

"Mother, Grandpa Gan, my child, my child's seal finally has a chance to be broken..."

He opened his eyes and softly murmured, his face full of joy and melancholy!

He was overjoyed because when he had inner vision of the seal outside the dantian, he found that one of the runes of the dragon-shaped seal was missing!

He was familiar with this seal to the point of knowing it by heart. Since reaching the first level of the Cauldron Formation Realm and being able to use inner vision, he had at least inspected this dragon-shaped seal tens of thousands of times. He clearly remembered that the dragon-shaped seal was composed of 10,800 runes, and now one was missing...

He was melancholy because at such a moment, his mother could not see it, and the Grand Elder's fate was unknown. If they could see that his seal had a chance to be broken, how wonderful it would be.

This dragon-shaped seal was extremely peculiar. The Grand Elder had already reached the eighth level of the Purple Mansion Realm, and with such powerful strength, he had studied it for two years without making any progress. He had tried many methods, but the seal had not shown any signs of loosening or changing. Now, one rune was clearly missing. What did this mean? It meant that he had a good chance of completely breaking the seal.

"Black essence energy, it must be the black essence energy!"

Jiang Yi was 100% certain that the cause of the seal's change was the black essence energy! He had taken many Essence Energy Pills before, but none had caused such a change. The only explanation was that the black essence energy could reduce the number of runes on the seal and help him break it.

He strongly suppressed his excitement and circulated the thread of black essence energy outside the dantian around the dragon-shaped seal. To his immense joy, the black essence energy began to slowly disappear, and one of the runes on the dragon-shaped seal also slowly dissolved. In the end, after the black essence energy was completely consumed, one more rune was missing!

"Again!"

There was still one thread of black essence energy recently refined in the dantian, and Jiang Yi immediately gathered it to continue attacking the seal. He successfully made another rune on the seal dissolve...

"Ha ha ha ha, the heavens have eyes! Heaven, you finally opened your eyes!"

He opened his eyes and laughed, and as he laughed, he began to cry, completely losing control like a madman. Years of suppression and frustration seemed to be fully released at this moment.

After a full half an incense stick's time, Jiang Yi finally calmed down. He wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes, took a deep breath, and meditated again. He carefully used inner vision to inspect the seal outside the dantian, confirming that three runes on the dragon-shaped seal were indeed missing, and he completely relaxed.

"Cultivation! Cultivation, I must continuously refine black essence energy and completely break this seal!"

The sky was already approaching dusk, but Jiang Yi had completely forgotten about time and was fully focused on refining black essence energy. At this moment, he wished he could directly refine 10,800 threads of black essence energy to completely break this cursed seal and see if his cultivation speed would still be as slow as before.

"Cultivation speed?"

Thinking about this, Jiang Yi was startled and subconsciously stopped the Nameless Technique, switching to the River Water Technique. He wanted to verify something: since the seal had started to be broken, would his cultivation speed be enhanced?

Just a moment later, Jiang Yi's body trembled again, and his eyes opened wide. This time, he did not cry but stood up and let out a long, loud howl, filled with joy and excitement!

The seal had only just begun to be broken, but the cultivation speed of the River Water Technique had already doubled. Although it was still very slow, he had already seen a glimmer of hope, a door of hope...