Begin your practice with the crane-shaped stance.

Spring goes and autumn comes, and the seasons change.

Inside the secret chamber of Tiger Hill Cave, another year has quietly passed.

During that year, he swallowed a large number of Qi Gathering Pills like roasted beans.

Xia Dong's profound Yin energy within his dantian became increasingly deep and solid, and he naturally broke through to the third level of Qi Refining.

What excited him even more was that the basic chapter of the "Changchun Xingqi Jue" which points directly to the origin of life, under the daily cleansing of the innate "qi", finally touched the "perfection" barrier that was just one step away.

Xia Dong knew that taking this step would be a heaven-defying act of transforming mortal roots into spiritual roots, and there was no room for carelessness.

He did not rush to achieve quick results, but stopped all his cultivation and spent three whole days bathing, changing clothes, and purifying his mind and body to bring his energy and blood to their best state.

However, when he actually began to strive for the perfection of the basic chapter of "Changchun Xingqi Jue", he found that this hurdle was far more difficult than he had imagined.

This is not a barrier that can be forcibly broken through by swallowing pills or frantically absorbing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. The cultivation method jade slip clearly states that in order to reshape one's root potential, one must thoroughly refine and sublimate the three treasures of the human body: "essence," "qi," and "spirit."

Xia Dong sat cross-legged with his eyes closed, his consciousness guiding the three forces to converge within his body countless times.

However, no matter how he tried, there was always a barrier between his essence, energy, and spirit, and he could never achieve true harmony and integration.

"Where exactly did things go wrong?"

Xia Dong's brows furrowed deeper and deeper, countless cultivation techniques and incantations clashing chaotically in his mind. As time passed, an extremely intense sense of irritability grew uncontrollably from the depths of his heart.

Gradually, the blood and qi in his body began to flow in reverse, and the originally docile Xuan Yin magic power surged and raged in his meridians like a startled venomous snake. His sea of ​​consciousness was also filled with waves of sharp pain.

"not good!"

Xia Dong suddenly opened his eyes, his face turning deathly pale, and a mouthful of blood almost rose to his throat.

He broke out in a cold sweat and immediately forced the cessation of the cultivation technique.

"I was too impatient... This kind of transformation, which involves the very essence of the Great Dao, cannot be forced." Xia Dong breathed heavily.

He stood up, deciding to take a break from the ordeal. He swam out of the secret chamber through the underground passage, intending to go to the secluded valley outside Tiger Hill to get some fresh air and calm his extremely chaotic state of mind.

Splash!

As Xia Dong emerged from the water, she had just stood by the pool in the secluded valley and hadn't even had a chance to breathe in the fresh air when her keen senses detected an extremely violent sound of air being torn apart.

Boo!

A piercing, earth-shattering cry of an eagle echoed through the sky.

Xia Dong's heart stirred, and he immediately gathered all his qi and blood, using the Crane Shadow Step to silently leap onto the canopy of a towering ancient tree. He carefully spread out his fifth-level Qi Refining Divine Sense like ripples on water, looking in the direction of the sound.

Below the cliff, a fierce and brutal life-or-death struggle was unfolding.

The two sides in the battle were a large, dark blue snake outside the cave, and a huge black eagle with a wingspan of more than two zhang and feathers that gleamed with a cold, steely light.

Birds are the natural nemesis of snakes, and this black eagle is clearly no ordinary bird. Not only are its iron claws as sharp as knives, but its speed in swooping down is like a black lightning bolt.

clang!

The black eagle swooped down from the sky, its iron claws slamming into the scales on the snake's back, producing a piercing sound like metal clashing against stone. It tore off several bluish-black scales, and blood splattered out immediately.

The giant snake, in pain, hissed and roared. Its massive body sprang forward, and it opened its blood-red maw to bite the black eagle, but the black eagle nimbly flapped its wings to dodge.

In the initial exchange, the giant snake was completely at a disadvantage, and its body was quickly torn in multiple places by the black eagle's terrifying speed and iron claws.

Xia Dong observed from his vantage point, initially believing the giant snake guarding the gate was doomed to die that day. But gradually, he noticed something extremely strange.

Although the giant snake appeared to be taking a beating, its movements showed no sign of panic. In its repeated dodging and coiling, its massive body subtly displayed a peculiar rhythm.

That wasn't just the brute force of a wild beast fighting, but an extremely smooth and continuous trajectory! The serpent's body was sometimes as taut as a fully drawn bow, and sometimes as soft and yielding as flowing water. Every twist of its body was skillfully neutralizing the black eagle's most fatal impact.

"This rhythm..." Xia Dong's pupils contracted slightly, and his heart suddenly trembled.

He suddenly realized that the snake's evasive and coiling behavior on the verge of life and death actually coincided with the profound enlightenment he had gained from cultivating the "Mysterious Yin Scripture" on the principle of "extreme yin giving rise to yang, seeking life in death".

Even the undulating curves of his body subtly conformed to the natural order of the universe.

Just then, the situation on the battlefield suddenly changed.

The black eagle seemed to have lost patience, letting out a sharp cry and pushing its speed to the limit, like a black meteorite, heading straight for the snake's most fatal "seven-inch" vital spot, determined to kill it with one blow.

Faced with this seemingly fatal blow, the giant snake did not dodge.

puff!

The black eagle's iron claws pierced deep into the snake's vital spot, causing blood to gush out. But at this critical moment, the snake's originally limp body suddenly erupted with unimaginable power. Enduring the fatal pain, it suddenly coiled its body like a bluish-black iron chain, tightly binding the black eagle's body.

The black eagle was terrified and frantically pecked at the snake's head, its iron wings flapping wildly.

However, the giant snake's strangulation had already taken place.

Its muscle contractions were not rigid exertions, but rather, following the rhythm of the black eagle's struggles, they tightened inwards wave after wave.

The more the black eagle struggled, the tighter the serpent coiled around it, the strangulation, imbued with the laws of nature, gradually squeezing out the black eagle's life force.

Click... Click...

The sickening sound of bones cracking echoed through the valley. The black eagle's struggles grew weaker and weaker, until finally, with a mournful cry, its wings drooped limply, and it fell silent forever.

The giant serpent miraculously turned the tables and killed its natural enemy.

Xia Dong watched from the treetop, holding his breath. The sheer brutality of the battle left him utterly shocked.

The giant serpent released the black eagle's mangled corpse, already at its last gasp. Dragging its blood-soaked body, it bit down on the eagle's head, its jaws opening at an incredible angle, and with immense difficulty, it swallowed its massive predator bit by bit.

After finishing its meal, the giant snake was too weak to even climb back into its cave, so it simply coiled up into a ball at the foot of the cliff.

Xia Dong gazed intently, and with the keen perception of his fifth-level Qi Refining Divine Sense, the giant snake's coiled-up body, head to tail, faintly revealed the rudimentary form of the ancient and profound character "Dao" when viewed from above.

breathe……

The giant serpent swallowed the enormous black eagle, and its body began to rise and fall rhythmically with its extremely slow breathing.

At that moment, it felt as if a bolt of lightning had struck Xia Dong's mind.

He stared intently at the serpent's rising and falling body. The scene before him gradually blurred, and in its place was a microcosm of the workings of the Great Dao.

"Life-or-death struggle is the ultimate expression of 'essence'; the seamless connection between beginning and end, coiled and unified, is the perfect harmony of 'spirit'; and the continuous, subtle fluctuations that digest external things to replenish oneself are the circulation of 'qi'..."

Xia Dong muttered to himself.

When faced with a life-or-death situation, the giant serpent did not divide its power into three parts to fight its natural enemy. Instead, it completely twisted its will to survive (spirit), its physical instincts (essence), and the rhythm of heaven and earth (qi) into one rope. Only in this way could it turn the tide and kill the black eagle and devour its powerful enemy in a desperate situation.

The so-called fusion of the three treasures does not mean forcibly kneading them together, but rather allowing them to form a perfect closed loop, like this great snake, in the natural alternation of "life and death" and "movement and stillness," with the head and tail connected and endlessly regenerating.

Click.

As this sudden realization dawned on Xia Dong, he clearly heard the bottleneck that had plagued him for so long suddenly burst open.

My previously chaotic and agitated state of mind became as clear as a mirror at this moment.

Xia Dong smiled. He tossed some rare medicinal herbs with healing properties to the downwind spot from last time, then with a flourish, like a white crane returning to its nest, he unhesitatingly dived back into the underground passage along the pool.

Back in the secret room.

Closed-door training, striving for perfection.