Chapter 10

The Wu Emperor's mausoleum houses thousands of martial arts classics, many of which are lost arts from the Qin and Han dynasties, with a few even rated as eight-star. Dugu Feng spent half a day memorizing all these secret manuals, then went to the Sword Tomb and the Blade Grave to battle the weapons imbued with the fierce spirits of past masters, gaining insights into martial arts through combat. During this time, Dugu Feng devoted herself entirely to comprehending all the martial arts secrets in the Wu Emperor's mausoleum. When thirsty, she drank the sweet spring water in the tomb; when hungry, she went out to hunt birds and beasts. When inspiration struck, she engaged in actual combat with the blade and sword spirits in the Sword Tomb and the Blade Grave. When her true qi was exhausted, she came out to study the manuals again. She did this without rest, making rapid progress in her martial arts.

During this period, Mie Cangqiong entered and left the Wu Emperor's mausoleum several times, battling Dugu Feng multiple times. Dugu Feng grew stronger with each battle, and Mie Cangqiong also gained insights from their exchanges. After they became familiar with each other, Dugu Feng finally obtained the complete version of the "Supreme Power of Heaven and Earth" from Mie Cangqiong.

This could be considered Dugu Feng's greatest gain since entering the mausoleum. Dugu Feng did not lack in martial arts realm; what she lacked was martial arts knowledge and research direction. The "Supreme Power of Heaven and Earth," as a divine martial art left by the great god Fuxi, benefited Dugu Feng more than she herself had anticipated.

The "Supreme Power of Heaven and Earth" is divided into three volumes: Heaven, Earth, and Man. The Man volume is the Supreme Power, which cultivates pure yang true qi and profound yin soft qi. After careful study, Dugu Feng discovered that the theory of cultivating yin and yang qi in the Supreme Power was remarkably similar to the method of breaking through the void in the Tang Dynasty world.

All things in heaven and earth are ordinary. "Ordinary" means both "level" and "constant." Level means balance; the five elements and organs in the human body, as well as the yin and yang qi, maintain a balanced state. Once this balance is lost, a person will fall ill or even die. Constant means stability; whether it is the sun and stars above or the grass and trees below, all things maintain a stable material state despite their cyclic changes. The cultivation of martial arts aims to break this balance; only by breaking the balance can one obtain extraordinary power.

The cultivation of true qi primarily involves breaking the balance of yin and yang qi in the human body. Depending on one's innate qualities and the martial arts practiced, one may focus more on yin or yang, but there is no martial art that achieves absolute yin-yang balance. Absolute yin-yang balance means restoring the balanced state, which means no internal force and no extraordinary power.

Generally, the more extreme the nature of a martial art, the more powerful it is. For example, the Nine Yang Divine Skill has nine parts yang qi and one part yin qi, while the Nine Yin True Scripture mostly has nine parts yin qi and one part yang qi. However, regardless of how the nature of true qi changes, there must always be a thread of yin qi within yang qi and a thread of yang qi within yin qi. The method of breaking through the void in the Tang Dynasty world aims to transform the last bit of yin within pure yang true qi into pure yin, ultimately achieving a balance of water and fire, yin and yang, breaking through the void, and transcending the mundane.

The cultivation method of the Supreme Power of Heaven and Earth is similar to that of the Tang Dynasty world, both aiming to completely separate the yin and yang qi in the human body to cultivate the Great Yin and Great Yang. However, compared to the Tang Dynasty world's experts who relied on their own experience, the Supreme Power is much more systematic and formal. If this Supreme Power were placed in the world of "Twin Dragons of the Tang Dynasty," it would undoubtedly be a treasure that directly points to the method of breaking through the void.

The difficulty of cultivating the Great Yin and Great Yang is well understood by Dugu Feng, who comes from the world of "Twin Dragons of the Tang Dynasty." According to her observations and deductions, neither Mie Cangqiong nor Prince Yan, the cultivators of the "Supreme Power of Heaven and Earth," have achieved the state of Great Yin and Great Yang. They have at most cultivated the pure yang true qi of nine nines and the profound yin soft qi of nine nines. Otherwise, when they broke through the Heavenly Gang Qi Technique, they would have formed a profound yin inner dan like Fuxi, gaining the ability to control the five elements and travel through the vast universe.

Recalling the original comic's plot, Dugu Feng even suspects that the founder of the "Supreme Power of Heaven and Earth," Fuxi, did not simultaneously cultivate the Great Yin and Great Yang. Otherwise, the inner dan he formed at the end should have been a mixed yin-yang ultimate golden dan, not the extreme yin profound yin inner dan.

However, upon careful consideration, this can be understood. After all, without special circumstances, the martial artists in the Huang Yi world can only transform the yin and yang qi in their bodies into yang within yang and yin within yang, or yin within yin and yang within yang, when they break through the void. This is why most experts at the void-breaking level need two people to break through the void. If only one person is involved, they cannot simultaneously possess the Great Yin and Great Yang. Even with the highest talent, they can only rely on the Yang Spirit to break through the void or the Yin Spirit to reincarnate.

Dugu Feng's experiences in the world of "Twin Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" were extraordinary, as she simultaneously cultivated the Great Yin and Great Yang. This allowed her to break through the void after a hundred years of traveling the World Tree. With such experience, Dugu Feng's cultivation of the Supreme Power was a natural progression. In just a short day, she brought the Supreme Power to its peak and advanced to the Earthly Fiend Qi Technique.

When Dugu Feng began cultivating the Earthly Fiend Qi Technique, she truly understood why the cultivation of the "Supreme Power of Heaven and Earth" requires such high talent and intelligence. The Earthly Fiend Qi Technique draws earth qi, condensing it into Earthly Fiend true qi, but the true method involves using the human body as a small universe, transforming it into a vast cosmic universe. Each acupoint must connect to a star in the sky, using the yin and yang qi of the human body to simulate the four seasons of heaven and earth, adapting to the changes in the environment and the seasons. Ultimately, the frequency of the human body's qi must align with that of heaven and earth, using yin and yang as the foundation, creation as the method, and the human body as the cauldron to forge a bright and round golden dan.

The difficulty of this method lies in completely aligning the human body's qi with that of heaven and earth. The frequency of heaven and earth's qi is incredibly complex, with countless changes every moment. To match such intricate changes requires computational power comparable to a supercomputer, which is impossible without such capability. Fuxi, with his innate wisdom, naturally had this ability, but none of his successors did. Therefore, after Fuxi, no one could cultivate the "Supreme Power of Heaven and Earth" to the Heavenly Gang level.

Six months later.

At the banks of the Zhang River, where the Wu Emperor's mausoleum is located, primordial qi gathered from all directions, and within a hundred miles, the wind and clouds suddenly surged. Thunder roared and lightning flashed, with white lightning streaks piercing the sky, turning the world a ghastly white.

A vast spiral column of qi rose into the sky, spiraling upwards to the heavens, forming a terrifying red and white tornado at an altitude beyond sight. The primordial qi within a hundred miles was drawn to the center of the tornado, like swallows returning to their nests. The intense vibrations made all living things within a hundred miles uneasy, as if a great disaster were imminent, and they all knelt and trembled, bowing towards the core of the qi vibrations.

The terrifying power even distorted the sky, and the originally overcast sky was torn open, revealing a vast hole.

Through the black vortex in the sky, one could see the brilliant night sky.

Passersby within a hundred miles of the Wu Emperor's mausoleum were stunned by this incredible sight, staring at the sky in awe. Nearby martial artists even felt their internal true qi being uncontrollably drawn into the qi vortex, and in panic, they quickly sat down to meditate, barely suppressing the vibrations of their internal true qi.

The frenzied primordial qi continued for a full moment. When the absorbed primordial qi reached a certain limit, the rising spiral column of qi suddenly paused and instantly scattered in all directions. The agitated primordial qi in the air refracted into a rainbow of light, emitting a roar like dragons and tigers.

"Dan formed, dragons and tigers appear!"

In the underground mausoleum, Dugu Feng floated in the air, sitting cross-legged.

Layer upon layer of qi spirals swirled around her, faintly forming the images of the five elemental spirits: Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, Black Tortoise, and Qilin. The massive spirits, each dozens of feet tall, were positioned in the five directions, roaring to the sky like living beings, emitting red, black, white, blue, and yellow flames and light, which spread out like stars, transforming the vast space of the mausoleum into a miniature universe filled with colorful qi clouds.

Dugu Feng opened her eyes, and in her deep, black pupils, countless scenes of star clouds forming and destroying appeared. The images of the five elemental spirits guarding her body transformed into swirling qi, with the red, black, white, blue, and yellow flames blooming like the wings of a phoenix, beautiful and radiant.

Dugu Feng raised her hand and clenched her fist, feeling the abundant internal force. Every movement brought a powerful force, not a false sense of power but a real, tangible strength. The difference between the eight-star and seven-star levels is significant. At the seven-star level, she could only passively absorb primordial qi from the vast universe, using it to borrow the power of heaven and earth. After breaking through to the eight-star level, she became like a reef in the ocean, a vast and independent source of energy, not only able to withstand the violent waves of the primordial qi sea but also capable of altering the flow of primordial qi within a certain small area.

Dugu Feng focused inward and saw a luminous dan pill floating in her dantian, its color unexpectedly not the legendary golden or the green of the Nüwa inner dan, but crystal clear like crystal.

The crystal-clear inner dan emitted a rainbow of light, appearing very stable, like the purest crystal.

However, the divine consciousness integrated with the inner dan conveyed a completely different feeling to Dugu Feng. When her consciousness entered the crystal golden dan, it was as if she entered a vast micro-universe, filled with countless energy particles. Every moment, countless violent energy particles collided, tearing tiny spatial rifts in the void. These rifts disappeared instantly, but each annihilation released hundreds of times the energy of the particles. The endless energy particles continuously collided and annihilated within the microscopic level of the golden dan, yet on a macroscopic level, a strange balance was maintained, providing Dugu Feng with an endless source of energy.

The sight of red and white particles colliding and tearing the void was very familiar to Dugu Feng. It was clearly the same scenario of her using the Great Yang and Great Yin true qi to break through the void!

In a moment, Dugu Feng understood the principle of her golden dan's operation.

This was a deeper application than her method of breaking through the void, not simply separating her true qi into yin and yang, but fusing the already pure Great Yang and Great Yin true qi into a single entity. This was not a simple mixture but a simulation of the creation of the universe, where the most basic energy particles are divided into the purest Great Yang and Great Yin states, and the interaction of yin and yang breaks the void, releasing boundless elemental energy. The entire golden dan is like a miniature universe, continuously undergoing micro-breakthroughs of the void, repeating the process of the creation of the universe, where the unmanifest gives rise to the manifest, and yin and yang transform into the five elements.

Dugu Feng did not know the principle of Fuxi's profound yin inner dan, but her inner dan clearly followed the path of yin and yang returning to the unmanifest, the unmanifest giving rise to the manifest. Due to the balance of yin and yang and the five elements, her inner dan not only had the ability to control the five elements like the profound yin inner dan but also the ability to govern yin and yang. Such characteristics made the name "profound yin inner dan" inappropriate, so Dugu Feng named it the "Ultimate Golden Dan" based on its properties.

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