Chapter 93: The Core of the Three-Talent Formation

Keeping the matter of the seeds in mind, Chen Yu first prepared a fragrant bowl of rice porridge for himself, stirring in a couple of tender wild greens and a pinch of coarse salt. It tasted rather delightful; after all, it was yellow-skinned millet nourished by spiritual liquid.

Logically speaking, the variety and amount of food consumed during the summer months should increase rather than decrease. However, not much was planted in the Daoist temple's vegetable garden, and recently he had devoted his entire focus to array patterns, causing him to become somewhat slack regarding his meals, making do with whatever was quick.

Given the current state of his digestive system, even chewing grass like a little deer would likely sustain him for quite a long time. The only thing that might require some worry was that without spiritual liquid as a supplement in the future, his progress in practicing martial arts and absorbing Qi might slow down.

Both endeavors required a massive amount of energy as a foundation; the former consumed it to nourish Qi and blood and temper physical strength, while the latter relied on it to derive embryonic breathing and recover the Qi lost due to various factors.

Returning to the room, Chen Yu carefully counted. There were about twenty Qi pearls left in the Daoist temple, sealed within the withered primordial spirit roots.

The dozens of roots harvested earlier now numbered only two, which converted to just over ten pouches of spiritual liquid, or about twenty tubes if stored in bamboo tubes.

The quantity was truly not large.

So much so that recently he had slightly slowed down the process of using spiritual liquid for forced ripening, instead concentrating the spiritual Qi to nourish his mind and his Qi. The latter two were the priorities.

It was foreseeable that for a very long period, he would have to rely solely on these twenty-odd Qi pearls for his cultivation. Thus, Chen Yu began to ponder an idea he had harbored for a long time.

When he first began practicing and cultivating Qi, he had considered how spiritual Qi nourishes Qi and makes it powerful. However, this strengthening was limited and could not make newly generated Qi as inherently reinforced from the moment of its creation as if it had been enhanced. In other words, considering daily consumption and loss, the amount of spiritual energy required to completely reinforce all the Qi within his body would be an astronomical figure.

Since no new source of spiritual Qi had been discovered yet, the batch in his hands would be the only supply for the foreseeable future. He began to consider whether he should pause his consumption of Qi and instead dedicate himself entirely to ingesting spiritual Qi for reinforcement to fill his body.

It was hard for Chen Yu to form a definitive guess as to what would happen after all the Qi was reinforced once, but trying it out once wouldn't hurt.

Everything was a process of exploration, and if results came of it, it would be considered an unexpected harvest.

He calculated in his mind: based on the current rate of ingestion and consumption, assuming he did not use a single shred of Qi for a period in the future, completely reinforcing the Qi filling his entire body would still require twelve or thirteen Qi pearls.

This was not a small number, accounting for nearly two-thirds of his remaining stash.

Using his spiritual power to introspect his body, he could visibly see that the strands of Qi nourished by spiritual Qi were a full circle "fatter" than the others.

As for any additional extraordinary manifestations, they had yet to appear, but Chen Yu still wanted to give it a try, partly to satisfy his own curiosity.

Qi had a nourishing effect on the physical body. Although this effect was not very obvious on his own physique, one could see from the array patterns deeply imprinted in various places that Qi had a massive impact on many things.

On the other hand, the Qi born entirely within his own body showed no urge to twist or alter his flesh and blood, nor was there any need to worry excessively about this. Chen Yu had verified this long ago: only the acupoints would produce primordial blood, flesh polyps, and fetal membranes, while the rest of the body experienced no such drastic changes.

Through repeated ingestion of spiritual Qi, his Qi was growing stronger, and he naturally wouldn't let those strengthened portions go to waste. From the very beginning, he had separated a fraction of it, locking it away in a corner of his body using his spiritual power.

First, he sealed it within his acupoints. Later, finding that it only increased the thickness of the fetal membranes, he shifted the storage to his internal organs.

It could be said that the internal viscera were where Chen Yu had experimented the most.

After all, whether in his past life or the present, this area held far too many legends and peculiarities, with countless symbols appearing in various classical texts.

He hoped to replicate these seemingly mythical phenomena.

However, aside from making his internal organs slightly tougher once again, the strengthened Qi seemed to have no other uses.

Finally, he was struck by a sudden inspiration: to disperse these Qi strands into his flesh and blood—not to react or stimulate, but to fill and supplement, burying them in every corner of his body.

Compared to guiding Qi into the acupoints, this project was somewhat inferior in terms of precision; it didn't require every single thread to be guided, nor did it require the condensation of individual Qi seeds.

The flesh and blood were minute, but precisely because of this, as long as it cooperated with the surging and churning of the transformed primordial blood, the Qi could continuously permeate inward, requiring only a stable supply of Qi.

"Burying the strengthened Qi into all parts of the body is equivalent to building a dense and intricate Qi-nurturing meridian network for the physical body,"

Chen Yu thought. In this way, it might prove far more convenient than the previous meridian network that used acupoints as connecting transit points.

Moreover, every inch of flesh and blood being nourished by Qi would undoubtedly be more beneficial for strengthening the physique.

Yet... what came after that?

He frowned in deep thought, unable for a moment to figure out how to proceed after infusing the flesh with Qi.

So be it; he would take one step at a time and see. At the very least, achieving a massive reinforcement of the physical body was enough.

...

The array patterns had to be set aside for the time being, though this could only happen after he concluded his current research. He had already poured too much energy and spiritual Qi into it, and it was difficult to cut it off midway.

Besides, some of his ideas had already taken shape; he just needed to repeat the verification twice more, which wouldn't consume much Qi.

Being financially strapped, Chen Yu sighed. He felt as though he now had to meticulously budget not just his money, but even his Qi.

Click!

Three crescent-shaped wooden talismans pieced together into a single unit. His gaze was fixed intently upon them as, under his spiritual illumination, lines intertwined and connected, resembling a tulip that was difficult to discern with the naked eye. Once activated, this palm-sized flower slowly bloomed, emitting a hazy halo.

Gather Water.

With a single thought, this most simplified Three Talents Array operated at full power, and wisps of moisture slowly manifested.

They lingered from all directions, as if a magnet were fastened right in the center of the wooden talisman, drawing and converging them in a continuous stream.

Simultaneously, more than half of Chen Yu's spiritual power poured out beyond his body, blanketing a radius of two丈 (approx. six meters), granting him insight into both the internal and external realms.

Hum—

All things fell silent; the blazing sun overhead shed its color, the weeds turned dry and yellow, the pebble path lost its smoothness, and the unripe pears hanging on the pear tree transformed into amber at this very moment.

Everything grew still, resembling an old photograph, with only a warm glow emanating from the edge of his field of vision—that was where his physical body resided.

From the spiritual perspective, looking a bit deeper revealed the spiral textures on the pebbles, a dense layer of tiny, tentacle-like objects on the pear tree's bark, as well as the weak mayflies and dust scattered everywhere beneath the canopy of heaven, alongside the occasional gusts of wind and scorching heat.

He had witnessed this scene countless times. At this moment, he looked directly at the spotless wooden talisman in his hand, and indeed, in the air a short distance from its front face, there were wisps of water traces, shaped like a web of climbing vines, drifting extremely slowly.

They gathered together, instantly transforming into an extremely minuscule droplet of water.

Crack! Like shattering glass, Chen Yu actively withdrew from that spiritual realm. In reality, the wooden talisman remained entirely bare, though with his eyesight, he could barely make out some tiny objects converging.

Soon, a clearly visible droplet of water appeared on the wooden talisman, slowly expanding, and half a quarter of an hour later, it finally grew to about the size of half a fist.

The entire process unfolded very slowly, but that was because he had suppressed the efficacy of the Three Talents Array. If he wanted it fast, he could certainly achieve it, but doing so would hold little meaning.

Chen Yu ignored the quietly suspended water droplet and cast his gaze toward the array patterns.

At the exact moment when the water traces had filled and converged just then, his spiritual power had discovered something interesting within the wooden talisman.

This was the core focus of this experiment, and the verification of his ongoing speculations and explorations over this period.

"As expected, the reason the Three Talents Array can magnify the effects of the array patterns is not due to a three-in-one combination, but rather because of this unique line..."

Entering the spiritual realm once more, every single array pattern on the wooden talisman was clearly visible beneath the grayish-hazy perspective.

And in a certain inconspicuous corner, a texture identical in appearance to the other array patterns suddenly caught Chen Yu's attention.