317: Chapter 317 Dragon Elephant Marrow Cleansing Pill and Heaven Burning Technique

The Dharma Transmission Pavilion was the place where the Danding Sect specialized in the collection of classic books and the teaching of cultivation methods. The seven-story pavilion was built along the mountain's slope, with flying eaves and bucket arches, and its glazed tile roof emitted a warm, gentle luster under the sunlight, possessing an inherent sense of quiet and profound atmosphere.

The space within the pavilion had been expanded by Formations, making it far more spacious than it appeared from the outside. Various classic books, Jade Slips, bamboo slips, and silk books were categorized and stored within.

Su Cheng landed after riding his sword in front of the stone steps at the foot of the mountain, retracted his escape light, and walked up the steps.

Upon entering the pavilion, Su Cheng did not head toward the lecture hall; he was not here to attend a class today.

He made a turn in the middle of the corridor and walked toward a narrow gallery on the side.

At the end of the narrow gallery was a heavy iron door. There was no one guarding the entrance, only a dark copper token slot embedded in the door frame.

Su Cheng took out his Disciple token and inserted it.

The token slot lit up for a moment, and the iron door slid open silently, revealing a set of stone steps leading downward.

This level was the storage area for the Dharma Transmission Pavilion's classic books. It did not offer public lectures nor was it used for practicing Spells; it was purely a place to store various Cultivation Techniques, Pill Formulas, Spell techniques, and miscellaneous academic books.

Disciples could enter to read on their own using their tokens, with contribution points deducted based on time.

The stone steps were very long, and it took about twenty zhang to reach the bottom.

At the bottom was a circular hall. Dozens of night-luminescent pearls were embedded in the dome, illuminating the entire space brightly.

Four doors were opened around the hall, with the characters Jia, Yi, Bing, and Ding engraved on the lintels respectively.

Su Cheng entered the Jia-designated area. This area stored all Cultivation Techniques, Pill Formulas, and miscellaneous theories related to Body Refining.

The bookshelves extended from the floor to the dome, which was over three zhang high, arranged in dozens of dense rows.

Su Cheng scanned through them roughly and discovered that the books here were more heterogeneous than those in the lecture hall area above. Many were handwritten copies and private notes with sloppy handwriting and uneven formats. Obviously, they were not official books compiled uniformly by the Sect, but private records left behind casually by Disciples and Elders throughout the generations.

He took a copper plate from the index wooden rack at the entrance and pressed it against his forehead to read it through. (Except for the miscellaneous theories, they were all basic introductions. If one wanted to take them out, they had to be exchanged using contribution points.)

The copper plate was engraved with a categorized index of all the books in the entire Jia-designated area, subdivided into three major categories: Medicinal Pills, Cultivation Techniques, and miscellaneous theories, with the corresponding bookshelf number marked after each index entry.

He quickly scanned the Medicinal Pills category.

There were many types of bone forging pills, body tempering pills, and Marrow Cleansing Pills commonly used by Body Cultivators, but most were common pills of the second rank or below. Su Cheng had seen them before in the pharmacopoeia at Qingmu Peak, so there was nothing new.

The Cultivation Techniques category was much richer. The introductions to dozens of Body Refining Cultivation Techniques each had their own focus; some focused on the skin, flesh, bones, and muscles, some specialized in training the internal organs, and there was even one that specialized in tempering the Meridians.

The miscellaneous theory section was the most diverse; it had everything.

There were records of the painful lessons of a Law Enforcement Hall Elder who failed at Body Refining when he was young, leading to ruptured Meridians, and experimental data discussing the impact of different Physiques on the absorption efficiency of Body Refining Medicinal Pills.

There was also a handwritten note left by an unknown Senior, specifically discussing the "positive correlation between Meridian width and Spiritual Qi throughput."

Su Cheng picked up the Jade Slip from the shelf, and the label read "Broadening Meridians · Miscellaneous Discussion."

This was an incomplete set of reading notes, with a messy format and sloppy handwriting, but one paragraph caught Su Cheng's attention:

"Meridians are the channels through which Spiritual Qi enters the body. The width of the channels determines the volume of Spiritual Qi throughput. For those with narrow Meridians, even with the assistance of High Grade Spirit Pills, the medicinal power is limited by the channel capacity after being dissolved, and the excess medicinal power can only dissipate in vain, which is called 'passing the door without entering.' The opposite is true for those with wide Meridians; one portion of the Medicinal Pill can be fully absorbed, and the cultivation efficiency naturally doubles."

Su Cheng stopped after reading this. Meridian width? He had never thought in this direction before. (It is an Innate problem, and trying to change it afterwards would come at a great cost. Such things cannot be done easily, or else there would be too many Geniuses.)

Now, looking back and pondering carefully, the problem was more complex than he had initially thought.

To be precise, the problem lay in the disconnection between two links.

The first step is for external Spiritual Qi to enter the body and flow into the Dantian through the Meridians. The rate of this step depends on the Meridian width and the concentration of external Spiritual Qi. His current Meridians belong to the upper level among his peers, but they are far from reaching the limit.

The second step is the conversion of Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi in the Dantian into the Qi of Creation by the Qiankun Creation Art. This step is "ten turns into two," with huge losses.

The third step is the consumption of the Qi of Creation for cultivation, Alchemy, Spells, and other purposes.

Su Cheng discovered that the core of the problem was not in the second step, but in a hidden constraint between the first and third steps.

His body has an upper limit for carrying the Qi of Creation, and this limit is jointly determined by the capacity of the Spirit Sea, the endurance of the Meridians, and the Foundation of the Physical Body.

When the concentration of the Qi of Creation in the body accumulates to a certain level, pouring in more ordinary Spiritual Qi is of no avail. It is not that the Cultivation Technique cannot convert it, but that the body cannot contain it.

To give an analogy: the Meridians are an ordinary water pipe. The water pipe is only that thick, so there is a limit to the water that can be poured in, but the water pipe leads to a pond.

But what if the ordinary water pipe is replaced with a culvert pipe?

If the Meridians are widened, and the same ten parts of Spiritual Qi are poured in, originally only two parts could enter and turn into the Qi of Creation (because the water pipe is only that thick), but if it were a culvert pipe, all ten parts of Spiritual Qi could enter at the same time, then this absorption speed would be too exaggerated.

Therefore, the key is not the "ten turns into two" ratio; that ratio is determined by the Cultivation Technique, which he cannot change, but increasing the base number of "ten parts."

The wider the Meridians, the more Spiritual Qi can be poured in per unit of time. Under the same "ten turns into two" ratio, the more that is poured in, the more the Qi of Creation is produced.

If the Meridians are widened to five times the width of his peers, his cultivation speed can be increased fivefold. (Is the speed of Spiritual Qi entering the body also faster? The experts should know; I can't calculate it well, but anyway, the cultivation speed will definitely be very fast. I don't know if what I said above is clear; if there are any problems, please correct me!)

Su Cheng read this Jade Slip three times repeatedly. The second half of the notes recorded two methods for widening Meridians.

The first is the Medicinal Pill method. The Jade Slip mentioned a third-rank ancient formula called the "dragon-elephant marrow cleansing pill." After taking it, one can use the strength of a dragon and elephant to scour the inner walls of the Meridians, causing the Meridian wall membranes to expand on their own after becoming flexible. The side effect is that the process is extremely painful, and one needs to use Spiritual power to protect the heart Meridians and Sea of Consciousness, otherwise there is a risk of Qi Deviation and the body exploding.

At the end of the Jade Slip, a small line of text was noted: "This formula is in doubt, perhaps it is a remnant formula, suspected to be in the Giant Spirit Sect."

The Giant Spirit Sect is one of the four major Nascent Soul Sects in Tianlan Province, specializing in Physical Body cultivation, and its accumulation in Body Refining is the best in Tianlan.

The second is the Cultivation Technique method. The Jade Slip mentioned that there are several ancient Body Refining Cultivation Techniques that can regard the cultivator as a 'human mine,' using Spiritual power to repeatedly temper the entire body's Meridians, which requires the accumulation of time. If supplemented by Heaven And Earth Treasure, the time limit can be shortened.

Among them, a Cultivation Technique called the "Burning Heaven Art" was mentioned separately, with high praise: "Using fire to refine the body, refining Meridians like refining iron, quenching a hundred times to become fine steel. The Sect-suppressing Cultivation Technique of the Fentian Sect, hard for outsiders to see."

The Fentian Sect, another major Nascent Soul Sect in Tianlan Province, specializes in fire-type Cultivation Techniques, and the Sect is built on a living fire Spiritual Vein.

Su Cheng put down the Jade Slip and closed his eyes to sort out his thoughts.

The dragon-elephant marrow cleansing pill ancient formula of the Giant Spirit Sect and the Burning Heaven Art of the Fentian Sect—neither of these things could be easily obtained. He had better check if there were any other methods first.

Afterwards, he spent another day flipping through all the relevant classic books, confirming that the records in the Jade Slip were not an isolated case.

Similar descriptions existed in multiple classic books, but none provided a specific path to obtain them.

Three days later, when Su Cheng left the Dharma Transmission Pavilion, the contribution points on his token had decreased by a large chunk.