Ordinary People: Starting with the Chen Clan

As the days went by, Chen Xuanzhou lived a life that consisted almost entirely of going between the Sutra Repository and the Tree Tower. His only entertainment was instructing children and giving practical lessons.

As the competition for the spots escalated, his magical skills became widely known throughout the Chen clan of Xizhou. Moreover, among the six people he led, even Chen Xuannian, who had been persuaded to withdraw, could instantly defeat most of his peers.

Therefore, with Chen Xuanzhou's consent, the other branches of the family also sent their children.

Amidst a cluster of mountains, Chen Xuanzhou strolled leisurely, his movements seemingly slow, yet each step covered several meters. In just a few steps, he crossed a small mountain pass.

The view suddenly widened, and the sunlight made one want to squint.

Suddenly, a breeze seemed to blow by. Chen Xuanzhou made a move in zero frames, and an earthen wall directly protected him in front of him. At the same time, his entire body was also lifted into the air to a height of three zhang.

"Bang, bang, bang." Three crisp sounds came from behind.

"Not bad, this time you know how to use surprise, but the method is still a bit crude. If you had used a fireball spell to attract attention in front, the effect would have been better."

Hearing Chen Xuanzhou's nonchalant tone, which sounded like he was giving orders, the men who had made the move were frustrated, but they knew it wasn't the time to fight head-on, so they decisively chose to retreat.

"Leaving so soon? Show me a few more tricks and let me see how much you've improved."

As he spoke, he pointed to three spots behind him, and immediately, thick wooden vines, as thick as bowls, began to bind the three of them.

After a few clicking sounds...

"Brother Xuanzhou, why are you tying me up like this? This...it's so embarrassing...Does Brother Xuanzhou like this?!"

"Who's your brother? I prefer it this way!"

With a loud bang, the world became quiet.

The others nearby, looking at the ground flattened by the stone tablet, secretly swallowed hard, never having used the Wind Control Technique so smoothly before.

"Pah! What a fine man, practicing charm magic. He'll have to clean up the Prison Suppression Stele when he gets back."

Chen Xuanzhou put the Prison Suppression Stele back into his storage bag without even glancing at the thin boy who had been knocked unconscious on the ground.

Several old men in the distance watched the commotion, sipping their tea with contented smiles on their faces.

"With Xuanzhou here, the entire ancestral land has become lively. Looking at this atmosphere, I feel like my old bones can last for a few more years."

"Yes, but these good days won't last long. The Ascension Conference will be held in about a year. Without Xuanzhou, no one will be able to keep these little brats in check."

Other people wouldn't have the same effect.

"Just watch, with Xuanzhou's quick wit, he might come up with some new ideas..."

Before the sun had even reached the horizon, Chen Xuanzhou had already easily dealt with the twenty-eight people in the mountains.

These newly arrived troublemakers had not yet experienced the darkness of the cultivation world, especially the young masters of the first four branches, who had some respect for Chen Xuanzhou.

As the one destined to lead these brats, he naturally didn't indulge them.

The previous few times, these kids were also unlucky. When the clan elder asked about it, he was feeling anxious because of the problem with the cultivation technique.

It's a rainy day, so I might as well discipline the child since I have nothing else to do.

After several beatings, the children's magical cultivation improved, but he didn't care. Perhaps because he was in a good mood, he even had new ideas for innovating his techniques.

At this moment, in Chen Xuanzhou's dantian, a black and gold iron rod stood at the very center like a stabilizing needle, though this needle appeared somewhat unstable.

At this moment, it is constantly rotating in the same spot, in the same frequency as the surrounding spiritual energy vortex, but in the opposite direction.

At the very bottom of this divine needle, within the originally pure fire-attribute magic power, the most core point is undergoing a transformation, sometimes illusory, sometimes concentrated.

This is his greatest achievement over the past two years: he used the Foot Taiyin Spleen Meridian to activate the Earth element.

This is combined with the purification method of the four major acupoints of the Golden Yuan Sword Technique: Zhongfu, Tanzhong, Tianshu, and Zhongji.

The divine needle, which draws in the metal energy and merges with the earth energy to form a black-gold color, rotates in the same frequency as the spiritual energy vortex in the dantian, but unfortunately, the control over these two elements is still slightly insufficient.

Otherwise, turning it into a large millstone would undoubtedly improve its effectiveness.

Chen Xuanzhou was thinking about how he was getting more than he could handle.

In the beginning, in order to quickly cultivate to the peak of Qi Refining and thus successfully establish his foundation, he naturally did not make large-scale changes to the Blazing Sun Technique. Instead, he tried to force other cultivation techniques into the Blazing Sun Technique system.

This caused him to be stuck in a deadlock for a long time, and also kept the innovation of kung fu stuck in place.

After a few moments of relaxation and venting, his mind cleared, and he began to target Lieyang Jue.

It wasn't that he wanted to drastically change the Blazing Sun Technique, as that would be similar to rebuilding it from scratch, which would be too time-consuming. He simply deleted some minor details from the Blazing Sun Technique.

This reduced the entire cultivation process by one-fifth, resulting in his magical power being only quantitative and lacking in quality, but he remained completely unperturbed.

If you've mastered the secret technique, why would you be afraid of this?

As for not being able to repair it, how could that be? Who is he?!

We can always change it back.

After that, it's not as simple as just integrating them. In fact, what he's doing now is just to prevent the two from being too drastically mutually exclusive.

While the Blazing Sun Technique has lost its purity, it has also gained a greater capacity for inclusion, allowing the dantian to hold the power of metal and earth.

However, this put a certain burden on Chen Xuanzhou's dantian, so even though he had used the initiation technique a lot over the past two years, his cultivation level was still only at the tenth level of Qi Refining.

A large part of this is because Chen Xuanzhou used the initiation method to cultivate the Zhen character technique, because his control over the Zhen character technique had reached a very subtle level.

Furthermore, by using spirit crystals to activate the lotus-shaped magic artifact, the gathered spiritual energy is not only pure but also terrifyingly strong.

Now that I've become more skilled at it, I can use thirty-six spirit crystals. Although this lotus crossing only has twelve holes, the spirit crystals are tiny.

It can still be squeezed in if you try.

Therefore, it not only strengthens the physical body and meridians, but also significantly enhances the effect on the dantian.

However, the cost is that the amount of condensed beads inside the incense burner has neither decreased nor increased over the years. This lotus-shaped ritual implement is indeed a consumable item; although it can be restored to its original state with condensed beads, it will still naturally deteriorate with prolonged use.

Fortunately, it is quite durable when intact. With a frequency of using it at full strength five times a month, the maintenance cost is only about two orange beads, which is acceptable to him.

Although to outsiders, advancing three levels in just two years seems a bit too impressive, especially considering he has only just broken through to the late stage of Qi Refining.

But with more than twenty Blood Marrow Pills in hand, all the speculations were naturally overshadowed.

However, Chen Xuanzhou felt that the improvements made after two years were only barely satisfactory. But there were very few techniques available for reference in the Condensation Pearl cultivation method, so this was the best they could do.

However, it only works on oneself; this secret technique has no universal applicability. For the entire Chen family, it's like those third-level or higher secret techniques—they can only look on in awe.

This strengthened his resolve to join the Hidden Moon Sect. Perhaps for the Chen family, or for him, promoting the dual cultivation technique first would be more feasible.