"The ancient alchemy method uses the physical body as a furnace to refine the spiritual objects of heaven and earth, seize the secrets of heaven, and reverse the universe. If one achieves great success, one can directly ascend to immortality!"
Jiang Liu found a few comments about "Dan Ding Liu" in the Daoist canon and was shocked. This alchemy manual was worthy of being classified as a high-level cultivation method. Dan Ding Liu has nine grades of alchemy manuals. "Yun Guang Shi Liu Fei Dan" is the lowest grade of the ninth grade. There are eight grades of alchemy manuals above it.
One is the body of the Taihe Natural Dragon Embryo; two is the ointment of the Jade Embryo and the Elixir of the Jade; three is the Flying Elixir of Purple Brilliance; four is the richness of the Crimson Light and Azure Clouds; five is the Nine Kinds of Red Brilliant Divine Elixir; six is the Brilliance of the Taiqing Golden Elixir; seven is the Nine-Turn Frost and Snow Elixir; eight is the Nine Cauldrons of Cloud Essence; nine is the Flying Elixir of Cloud Light and Stone Flow.
This is a method sufficient to prove one's Dao, and by refining a first-grade "Great Harmony Natural Dragon Embryo Body," one can be admitted to the ranks of the Great Luo Golden Immortals.
"Cloud Light Stone Flow Flying Elixir" is only the introductory technique of the Dan Ding School. Although it is an introductory technique, it is not easy to master.
Xie Hong wrote down all the information about "Cloud Light Stone Flow Flying Pill" in his mind, and pointed to one of the passages, saying: "What are these cloud light and stone flow? They actually need to be absorbed into the body, with the body as the cauldron, the primordial energy as the fire, and the divine soul as the water. After nine cycles of pill formation, the cauldron body can be forged, greatly increasing the defensive power, and one can also gain sixty years of magical power!"
Jiang Liu's eyes gleamed with a sharp light, showing great interest in this pill-making technique. He seemed to be deeply entangled in a conspiracy, and the slightest carelessness could lead to his death. He was constrained by his cultivation level, and although he could use his lightning techniques to overcome stronger opponents, his strength was still insufficient, and his vital energy was weak, leaving him with only the power for a single strike.
If this pill can be successfully refined, not to mention the cauldron itself, one can obtain sixty years' worth of magical power and at least reach the fifth level of refining essence into qi.
"Only then will I be able to take some control of my own life!"
Xie Chou frowned as he held the pill formula. Bai Lu frantically searched through the Daoist scriptures, turning the massive volume with a loud clatter, finally stopping at a page and saying, "Sixty years of magical power! Truly worthy of being an ancient technique. Ah Chou, if I refine it, I can take human form. The other ingredients recorded in this formula are easy to obtain, but Yun Guang and Shi Liu are no ordinary things! Volume Seventy-Five says: 'The Mother of Clouds has five names, the first of which is named Yun Guang.' This is the essence of clouds, a product of the Thirty-Three Heavens, which is rare in the Southern Continent!"
Xie Chou frowned and said, "Alu, do you remember the valley we accidentally entered before? The sea of clouds was churning, and the energy was surging. Maybe this cloud light is there! Investigate what this rockfall is?"
"Yes, yes! The Mother of Clouds exists there, and there's a high chance of seeing cloud light," the egret exclaimed excitedly.
"No need to investigate! Cloud Light is the essence of clouds, representing the heavens, while Stone Flow is the essence of the earth, residing on the ground. Both are rare and precious materials. I do have Stone Flow, but did you really discover Cloud Light?"
After Jiang Liu finished speaking, he took out a piece of top-quality imperial green jadeite, which was like a deep pool of clear water, without a single flaw. Under the light, it flowed like water, just like the stone flow mentioned in the alchemy manual.
"What a beautiful gem! It truly resembles a pool of clear water! It truly lives up to its name, Stone Flow." The emerald green color reflected in Bai Lu's eyes, seemingly about to overflow: "Master, now that you possess Stone Flow, all that's missing is the Cloud Light. Three years ago, Ah Chou and I were gathering herbs for Ah Hong when we mistakenly entered a valley. The mountains were filled with clouds, and a group of mountain demons roamed among them. The mountain demons had the advantage of terrain, and we were no match for them, so we retreated. The Mother of Clouds resided within that sea of clouds. We didn't have time to examine it closely at the time, but there's a high probability that Cloud Light existed there."
Jiang Liu carefully put away the pill formula and placed it into his storage space. Faced with this tremendous opportunity, although there were many dangers outside the city, he felt that the risk was worth taking.
"If Heaven bestows something and you don't take it, you'll suffer the consequences; if the time comes and you don't act, you'll suffer the calamity." Jiang Liu uttered these sixteen words, expressing his attitude: "It seems we need to go to that valley!"
“Master, under normal circumstances, we can come and go freely in that hidden valley. But as you know, the islands of the East China Sea have invaded, and the southeast is already in great danger. The valley with hidden clouds and light is located on the shore of Taihu Lake, not too far from the war zone! It’s not that I, Old Niu, am afraid, but Master, you must be prepared for these dangers!”
Jiang Liu nodded, looked at the east in silence for a long time, and said, "Man proposes, God disposes. Having a plan and making preparations is always better than scrambling at the last minute! But fortune favors the bold, so we can't be hesitant. Let's go to the valley to retrieve the cloud light first. If there's danger, we'll join the army..."
"That's possible, but I'm afraid those powerful sect cultivators will use us as pawns... Since the Abbot already has a plan, then I, Old Niu, dare not fail to give my all! With the Abbot's exquisite fist techniques, my strength has greatly increased. I, Xie Chou, am not talented, but these fists and this Xuanhua axe are not to be trifled with!"
Having said that, Xie Chou sat down with his arms crossed, and his first move was the extremely powerful and fierce Vajra Fist of Shaolin—the Sun Wheel Fist, which was Ba Liming's signature fist technique in "Dragon and Snake".
With a single punch, the air exploded, and the air currents surged. He was originally a demon transformed from a water buffalo, possessing an extremely powerful physique. This punch delivered a powerful and irresistible shock to the viewer.
That's right, it's the sheer power and overwhelming force that truly shakes the soul.
The egret flapped its white wings and said, "And so am I. The clouds drift across the sky, and none of you can fly yet. I have mastered the art of riding the wind and can help capture you!"
Xie Hong said, "Since everyone has made their decision, then I, Xie Hong, wish the Abbot all the best on his journey and a victorious return!"
"Cloud Light Stone Flowing Pill! I don't have any spirit stones right now, and I can't travel through time, so I have no choice but to take the risk!" Jiang Liu thought to himself.
Chapter Sixty-Seven Obstructed
1,300 li east of Jinling City, on the shore of Taihu Lake, lies a valley with towering ancient trees and a winding stream flowing through it.
By this time, it was getting dark. A burly man with a bull's head cautiously appeared by the stream. He drank his fill of water by the stream, cleaned the blood off his body, and then slung a large axe with a black glaze over his back.
"We were separated by the pirates from the East Sea, and I don't know if A-Lu has found the abbot yet... Those damned islanders from the East Sea are like annoying fly flies, we just can't get rid of them!"
Xie Chou cursed and then prepared to leave the water source. As a demon, he naturally knew that demons, humans, and wild beasts alike would come to the water source to drink.
However, just as he filled his water bag and was about to leave, he suddenly noticed something hanging on the water plants in the stream beside him. Upon closer inspection, his pupils contracted—it was an arm!
A severed hand with an extremely smooth cut, the arm armor and bones were remarkably neat, indicating it had been severed by an extremely sharp blade. Moreover, judging from the style of the arm armor, with its chrysanthemum pattern, it was definitely the arm of a fierce general from the Eastern Island Kingdom.
Resources in the East China Sea are scarce, and ordinary soldiers can only wear wooden or cloth armor. Those who can wear iron armor are definitely one in a thousand fierce generals in the army.
Xie Chou and Jiang Liu encountered thousands of invaders from the East China Sea along their journey, but only a handful of soldiers were able to wear iron armor.
Looking at the severed arm, it remained stiffly in a half-clenched fist, as if it had been holding a sharp weapon in life, and even in death, that grip remained unchanged. The arm was caught on the nearby water plants, bobbing up and down in the water. Xie Chou's eyes narrowed instantly; under the rushing water, wisps of blood, like smoke, were rapidly dissipating from the severed arm...
As a demon who had lived for two hundred years, how could he not know what this meant? This phenomenon could only mean that the arm had been cut off not long ago, at least no more than ten minutes!
That means that not far upstream in the stream... there is an extremely fierce battle going on! And this battle may have just ended, or it could even be said that it is still ongoing.
"The abbot is not far away?!"
Xie Chou quickly headed upstream...
Not far from Xie Chou, a fierce battle had just ended. Severed limbs and broken bodies were everywhere, and blood stained the ground covered with leaves, stretching along a newly carved path. Every dead man faced that path, even those severely wounded and dying, crawling with all their might in that direction.
Not a single person fled, not a single person surrendered, and not a single person was seriously wounded and forced to leave the battlefield... Every single one of them fought to the death!
These are a group of fearless warriors!
Jiang Liu stumbled onto a stone platform. Beside the platform was a winding stream with fallen leaves floating in the clear water. Behind him, the sheer mountain wall that seemed to reach into the clouds was a thousand feet high.
There was a knife wound on his chest, tearing through his clothes and slicing through his skin; it was just a hair's breadth away from disemboweling him.
"The Eastern Island Kingdom actually has such an army! A warrior at the Innate Realm leading fifty Acquired Realm warriors has forced me to this point. They are fearless of death! This kind of suicidal attack is indeed terrifying. Is this the way of the samurai?" Jiang Liu held a samurai sword in his hand, with exquisite chrysanthemum patterns forged on it. It was a high-grade mortal weapon.
"Xie Chou was right after all. The art of battle formations is enough to defeat the strong with the weak. Even powerful Qi cultivators can only temporarily retreat when faced with a large army. If it weren't for my achievements in martial arts in the Dragon and Snake World, I wouldn't have been able to win this battle with just thunder magic..."
Just as Jiang Liu was bandaging his chest wound, a large white bird descended from the sky. It was Bai Lu: "Master, I've finally found you! Oh! Master, you're injured?"
"Just a superficial wound!" Jiang Liu looked around but couldn't see the water buffalo. He asked, "Where's Xie Chou?"
Jiang Liu wasn't worried about the water buffalo's safety. Although he couldn't defeat the buffalo in a one-on-one fight, battlefield combat was different. While many ants could kill an elephant, Xie Chou's external martial arts were superb, and he wasn't afraid of ordinary attacks. In a battlefield fight, Xie Chou's chances of survival were much greater than Jiang Liu's.
"He's almost here! I'll lead you to the entrance of the valley first; we'll wait for him there! Please follow me. I just flew up into the sky to take a look..."
The egret patted its chest with its wings, clearly still shaken, and said, "Master, we must hurry! Birds are startled at the edge of the woods, which means a large group of people are surrounding us. And just now, an arrow was shot with great force, almost hitting me from several miles away. It must have been shot by an eagle archer."
As she spoke, the egret pointed in a direction, and Jiang Liu immediately rushed towards it, going upstream along the stream. After traveling for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, they saw the stream flowing out from a crack in the mountain wall, a crack about the width of a person, extending deep into the mountainside.
"Passing through this cave, we'll reach the other end of the valley, where there might be clouds. Moreover, we can escape this encirclement by surprise and flee thousands of miles away. These monkeys from the archipelago can only dream of surrounding us! But the fact that the Tang army still managed to let the monkey army reach this place and invade the heart of Jiangnan is beyond my expectations!"
The egrets call the invaders from the East China Sea "monkeys," which is quite apt. The islands of the East China Sea are poor in resources and are constantly exposed to the sea winds, so everyone there is dark and thin.
Poor and desolate places breed unruly people!
The saying goes, "The weak fear the strong, the strong fear the poor, the poor fear the ruthless, the ruthless fear the stubborn, and the stubborn fear the reckless." The islanders of Donghai Island are reckless and desperate.
The islands of the East China Sea are constantly plagued by volcanoes and tsunamis, which are natural disasters. Moreover, they are located in remote areas, far from Jambudvipa (the southern continent), where demons roam freely. Each island nation is secretly ruled by demons, and the kings of those small countries are nothing more than puppets, which is a man-made disaster.
"The invasion from the East China Sea can only catch the Tang Dynasty off guard. The northern armies have already arrived one after another, and defeat is only a matter of time. However, the Tang Dynasty clearly wants to gain more spoils. Retreating now may only draw out more opponents, and then unleash a decisive blow to annihilate them in one battle!"
As Jiang Liu spoke, he slipped into a crevice in the mountain. The stream was gurgling, and it was pitch black inside. After walking along the stream for about half an incense stick's time, the path suddenly opened up to light, and he found himself on the other side of the mountain wall.
Just as Jiang Liu and his party were being attacked by the East Sea army, the Tang army began to advance into the occupied territories of the East Sea islands.
In the morning sunlight, a cavalry force galloped across the land, charging in a spearhead formation towards the defensive positions of the invaders from the East Sea. Leading the spearhead was none other than the one-horned rhinoceros demon beast Jiang Liu had encountered earlier…
Chapter Sixty-Eight: The Chess Player
In the morning sunlight, a cavalry force galloped across the land, charging in a formation of arrowheads towards the defensive positions of the invaders from the East Sea. Leading the arrowheads was the one-horned rhinoceros demon beast that Jiang Liu had encountered before. Facing an army composed of a mix of East Sea islanders and demon beasts, the commanding captain's face was ashen.
Behind him, a personal guard held aloft a large black banner embroidered with the Xuanwu (Black Tortoise) pattern. This was the banner of the Shence Army, the elite force guarding the northwest border of the Tang Dynasty. The three purple-gold rings on the flagpole indicated that this army had performed at least three great feats.
The three elite forces of the Tang Dynasty were: first, the Xuanjia Army, the personal guard of the Tang imperial palace; second, the Shence Army, which had resisted the northwestern barbarians for more than a decade; and third, the twelve guards of the Tang Dynasty: Longwu, Baotao, Qianniu, Tiejia, Yulin, Huben, Jinwu, Feiying, Tianxiong, Dingnan, Fuhai, and Jingtao...
There are also many generals and personal guards, the Tian Ce Army of the Tian Ce Mansion, and the Six Guards of the Eastern Palace, which are powerful, but not many in number and cannot be compared with the three armies mentioned above.
Such a cavalry force of a thousand men was naturally far superior to the garrison troops of various prefectures and counties, and also beyond the reach of the native soldiers of the islands of the East China Sea.
However, the eighteen kingdoms of the East China Sea jointly invaded the Tang Dynasty in the East, all of which mobilized the strength of their entire nation to attack. The armies they led were also elite, otherwise they would not have been able to defeat the local garrison troops and occupy thousands of miles of land in such a short time.
At the same time as the Shence Army, four elite cavalry units of a thousand each also attacked, and were simultaneously entangled in the main army...
On the city wall of the besieged Jiangyin, stood a giant man, as black as a tower, holding a large axe in his hand, which was in no way inferior in appearance to Xie Chou's Xuanhua axe.
"Damn it, it's finally here! Great Demon Army, heed my command, follow me into battle!"
Having said that, he leaped down from the city wall, mounted a demonic horse, and clattered its horseshoes against the bluestone. Most of its body was covered in steel armor, revealing only a gaping maw with jagged teeth, clearly not herbivorous. White mist constantly spewed from its nostrils, as if its blood was boiling, and its eyes were burning with intensity, as if it had been waiting for this battle for a long time.
The armor worn by the burly man from the Black Tower was clearly made by the same person as the demon rider's armor, similar in style and even complementary. It was covered with sharp, black iron spikes, several inches long, enough to kill instantly in a high-speed charge. The battle axe he carried had a shaft at least as thick as an egg, and a blood-red light flickered on its blade, giving the impression that it was breathing!
It's definitely not an ordinary product!
The city gate creaked and groaned as the massive gate was slowly opened by a mechanism, and the drawbridge over the moat also lowered at the same time.
The demon riders, unable to contain themselves, pounded the ground with their forehooves. Just as the city gates opened, the burly man from the black tower roared, "Great Demon Army, fight!"
Before he finished speaking, the demon rider transformed into a wisp of wind and shot off.
"war!"
With a deafening roar, a thousand cavalrymen followed the burly man in black through the city gate and charged towards the Donghai Island Kingdom's military camp outside the city.
...
Meanwhile, in the Taiji Palace of the Chang'an Imperial Palace, a handsome man dressed in bright yellow was playing chess with a burly man in dark skin. The burly man pondered for a long time with his thick, radish-like fingers before placing a piece.
The man dressed in bright yellow laughed and said, "Yaojin, your chess skills have improved! Your giant dragon has come back to life!"
This burly, dark-skinned man was none other than Cheng Yaojin: "Your Majesty's mind is not on this game of chess today, but rather on the invasion from the East China Sea?"
The man in bright yellow was none other than Li Shimin, the emperor of the Tang Dynasty. He looked eastward and said after a long while, "The eighteen kingdoms of the East Sea have come to visit with the full strength of their nation. Tie Niu and Yuchi Baolin are not enough to handle them! And that Ghost King, he was a great hero in his lifetime! If we don't deal with him properly, we will lose everything."
Cheng Yaojin laughed and said, "Your Majesty need not worry. The Jiangnan region can be used as a battle to wipe out the villains in one fell swoop. If the Shence Army of ten thousand cavalry cannot even wipe out the small Donghai, they will not be worthy of the name Shence. My son Tie Niu is three times more powerful than I was back in Wagang Village. I was able to stand firm in Wagang, which was surrounded by heroes. How could Tie Niu, leading the strong army of the Tang Dynasty, possibly fail? If we really cannot hold it, even if he comes back alive, I will bring his head to Your Majesty."
"You flatter me! Tie Niu and Bao Lin are both rising stars of our Great Tang. You should know how many talented people the Five Clans and Seven Families have... It's not that I don't want to use them, but that I can't use too many. Using one or two is best, using three or four is acceptable, but they'll become too powerful to control. If we use five or six, we'll just be back to the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and our Great Tang's excellent situation will be ruined in an instant!"
"This game has only just begun!"
...
In a dimly lit secret room in the Cui family compound in Qinghe, sat an elderly man with snow-white hair: "I heard that a member of the Cui family is leading the army south this time. Whose child is it? The south may seem dangerous, but it is a great opportunity. My Cui family has such a son, so we should give him our full support!"
A row of men stood before the old man. One of them stepped forward, bowed, and said, "Grandpa, this is my illegitimate son, Cui Ping. He is eighteen years old this year. He has been in the Shence Army for five years and is now a captain, leading a thousand men."
"Oh, it's you! Cui Yonggui, I never imagined you could have such a son, what a blessing!"
The old man nodded and continued, “As you all know, the Tang Dynasty will never give important positions to the sons of our five clans. For the sake of its eternal rule, it will treat the sons of humble families like pigs. If Cui Ping hadn’t died in battle, he could have gone even further… My Cui family is rich, we have plenty of money, but we lack high-ranking officials in the court and great generals in the army. This is an opportunity, don’t let it slip away. As a father, you should act like one…”
Upon hearing this, the man named "Cui Yonggui" turned deathly pale.
“He is a member of the Cui family, and that will never change! I think you know what to do…”
...