The next morning, Luo Jiang opened his eyes and stretched. After a good night's sleep, he felt completely refreshed and full of energy for the day ahead.
When he opened the door, a wave of bitter cold rushed in, and the temperature in the room plummeted. He quickly shut the door, crawled back onto the still-warm heated brick bed, took his cotton trousers and padded robe out of the cabinet to put on, and slipped his cotton shoes onto his feet. Only then did he begin to feel much warmer.
Winters in the northern region were brutally cold. When the knife-like wind blew past, he felt as if his ears were being sliced off. When he first arrived at Tianyun Taoist Temple, he was not yet accustomed to it and refused to step outside all winter. His senior brothers had urged him to go out and practice martial arts, telling him that as long as he got his body moving, he would not feel cold.
Unaware that his senior brothers possessed inner force to protect them from the harsh elements, he was easily persuaded by their words and went outside. To his surprise, while he did get his body moving, his face, hands, feet, and ears all developed frostbite. It was only later that his master boiled young wheat shoots to make a hot compress and gave him foot baths to cure it.
With the weather outside so cold, he decided to go cultivate in the secret chamber. Located five or six meters underground, it was much warmer than the surface.
First, he went to the outhouse to relieve himself. His backside froze until it was icy cold, and he felt that if he stayed in the outhouse too long, his little bird might freeze right off. Finishing up hastily, he pulled up his cotton trousers and bolted out.
After washing his hands and face with cold water—feeling half-frozen in the process—he hurried to the kitchen, built a fire to heat up some chicken soup, and made a few steamed cornmeal bread rolls. He packed the chicken soup in a wooden bucket and the cornmeal rolls in a cloth bag, then carried the food over and opened the mechanism to the secret chamber, heading down.
In his eagerness to get to the secret chamber to cultivate, and mindful of the cold, he forgot to burn incense for the Three Pure Ones and the past patriarchs enshrined in the Taoist temple. But after all, he was still just a child, so forgetting such things was perfectly normal.
The secret chamber was indeed much warmer than the outside. Sitting cross-legged on a rush mat, he simultaneously circulated his Divine Sense cultivation formula and studied the deduction of array arts.
Whenever he felt hungry, he ate a cornmeal roll and took a sip of chicken soup. If he still felt empty, he would grab a can of beef, fill his stomach, and go right back to studying array arts. Just like that, five days passed quickly in the secret chamber.
Studying the deduction of array arts had been very difficult at first, but fortunately, he had learned the Divine Sense cultivation formula, which greatly expanded the memories stored in his mind. He was often able to draw inferences about other cases from one instance and deduce the array arts. However, it consumed too much of his divine sense, so he could only circulate the Divine Sense cultivation formula to slowly recover.
During these five days, he finally brought his knowledge of array arts to the elementary level. He took the Storage Bag out of the small wooden box, pricked his finger with a short sword, and let a drop of fresh blood fall onto the Storage Bag, watching it quickly soak completely into the fabric.
He immediately circulated his Divine Sense cultivation formula to break the restriction on the Storage Bag. After just a few minutes, he heard a crisp "crack!" and instantly felt a connection form between the Storage Bag and his mind.
Overjoyed, he swept his divine sense through the interior of the Storage Bag. He saw that the space inside was about the size of a single room, containing a small sword about half a foot long, a few talismans, several strips of jade three inches long, over a hundred glittering jade-like stones the size of pigeon eggs, some ancient clothing, and a pile of copper pieces of various shapes.
Trying to envelop the small sword with his divine sense, he dragged it outward, and the weapon immediately emerged from the Storage Bag. Thrilled, he grabbed the small sword and examined it closely.
Before long, he discovered that it also bore a restriction. He squeezed another drop of blood from his finger onto the small sword, which quickly absorbed it, and then used his divine sense to break the restriction on the blade.
"Buzz, buzz..." As the restriction broke, the small sword let out a hum and instantly expanded into a long sword over three feet in length.
"Ah! So that's how it works!" Startled at first, he then cried out with overwhelming joy.
After playing with the long sword for a while, he felt that his divine sense had been overly taxed and a dull pain began to throb in his head. Only then did he withdraw his divine sense, causing the long sword to shrink back to half a foot in length.
Half a day later, once his divine sense returned to normal, he took out the other items from the Storage Bag. Having read the contents of the sheepskin scroll, he knew that the long jade strips were recording jade slips, and the pigeon-egg-sized stones were spirit stones.
He had long known about those talismans; his junior uncle and senior brothers frequently drew them to use for exorcisms during Taoist rituals. As for whether the talismans drawn by his senior brothers were actually useful, he had no idea, seeing as he had never encountered ghosts or any other evil spirits.
He picked up a jade slip and pressed it against his forehead. Instantly, a flood of information poured into his mind. It was a cultivation formula called the Ziyuan Formula, starting from the Qi Refining Stage and progressing through Foundation Establishment, Light Opening, Fusion, Heart Movement, Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Soul Formation, Soul Formation, Body Integration, Void Refinement, Great Vehicle, and Tribulation Transcendence.
At the very end of the jade slip was a note: "(Note: Cultivating the Ziyuan Formula first requires spiritual roots within the body. One must first guide Qi into the body and sense Qi in the Dantian before cultivation can begin; otherwise, this formula cannot be practiced.)"
Luo Jiang had no idea whether he possessed spiritual roots, nor did he understand what spiritual roots were. Nevertheless, he could try practicing the Ziyuan Formula according to the instructions in the jade slip. Holding a spirit stone in his hand, he followed the guide's instructions and began trying to sense Qi.
After just over half an hour, he felt a wisp of Qi form within his Dantian. This wisp of Qi quickly dispersed the inner force he had worked so hard to cultivate in his Dantian. Startled, he hurriedly stopped and tried to practice his inner-force cultivation manual, only to find that the inner force in his Dantian was completely gone.
Filled with regret, he thought about how long it would take to rebuild the inner force he had just lost.
As he was regretting his actions, he noticed that the spirit stone in his hand had turned into powder. It occurred to him that since his inner force was gone, he might as well cultivate the Ziyuan Formula instead; it was bound to be faster than cultivating inner force, even if he didn't know how spiritual power compared to inner force.
He would try it first and see. If spiritual power turned out to be inferior to inner force, he could always go back to cultivating inner force. With that thought, he picked up another spirit stone and began practicing according to the Ziyuan Formula.
Once the wisp of Qi sensation was established in his Dantian, he used it to circulate through his meridians and acupoints. This session took somewhat longer; after about a day or so, he finally used that wisp of Qi to break open the meridians and acupoints of the Qi Refining 1st Layer.
"Crack!" A crisp sound echoed from within his body, and he instantly felt a powerful aura radiate outward. The bookshelves in the secret chamber shook violently, books flew in all directions, and the entire room was left in utter disarray.
"Oh no! This is bad," he cried out, hurriedly standing up to pick up the scattered books and place them back on the shelves.
Suddenly, a rich, sour, and greasy stench hit his nose. He discovered that his hands were covered in a layer of black grease, and when he stripped off his clothes, he found his entire body coated in the same greasy substance.
The air in the secret chamber grew stiflingly foul. He quickly opened the mechanism to the chamber and hurried up the stairs to the outside. A blast of biting cold air hit him squarely in the face. He instinctively tried to summon his inner force to ward off the chill, only to remember that his inner force was long gone. Slapping his forehead, he hurriedly circulated the spiritual power within his body, and warmth instantly flooded his frame.
"So this spiritual power is even stronger than inner force! Thank goodness I managed to cultivate spiritual power, otherwise how on earth would I have survived this freezing winter?"
Muttering to himself, he headed to the kitchen, boiled a large pot of water, and hopped into the big wooden barrel he usually used for bathing to scrub himself down.
"Huh? Why is my skin so white? And a lot of the scars on my body have faded, too. Could this be the benefit of cultivating spiritual power? If it's like this, it's way better than inner force."
Luo Jiang used up every drop of the large pot of hot water before finally washing away the grease oozing from his body. Seeing how drastically his appearance had changed, he couldn't help muttering to himself once again.
After changing into fresh clothes, he no longer needed his cotton trousers, padded robe, or the cotton shoes on his feet. Now that his body was protected by spiritual power, he no longer felt the cold at all.
He went back to the kitchen to stew a pot of chicken and wild rabbit meat, and steamed some cornmeal rolls. Seeing that the grain in the pantry was running low and the last of the salt was gone, he figured that once he finished eating these provisions, he would make a trip into the city to buy grain and salt. By now, the winter roads should be free of checkpoints; after all, what kind of devils would freeze to death setting up checkpoints out in the frozen wilderness in weather like this?
When he returned to the secret chamber, the sour, foul odor had mostly dissipated, leaving only a faint trace that he didn't mind at all.
Having learned the benefits of practicing the Ziyuan Formula, he picked up another jade slip to examine it. This one recorded methods for practicing various magic arts, including the Wind-Riding Technique, Fireball, Invisibility Technique, Wind Blade, Clear Water Technique, and Earth Evasion Technique...
The more he read about the methods for practicing these magic arts, the more pleasantly surprised he became. However, he decided not to practice them inside the secret chamber, lest he accidentally wreck the books on the wooden shelves.
Thinking of the books, he swept his divine sense over the wooden shelves and stored them all inside the Storage Bag, instantly leaving the secret chamber feeling vast and empty.
Catching sight of the small wooden box beside him, he remembered there was also a Storage Ring. Wearing a Storage Ring on his finger would be much more convenient than a Storage Bag, and at the very least, it wouldn't easily be lost.
After another two days of cultivation, feeling that he was finally capable of breaking the restriction on the ring, he reached out and took the Storage Ring from the small wooden box.
Only when he began attempting to break the restriction did he realize that, given his current level of array mastery, he simply couldn't break the ring's restriction at all.
Consequently, he went back to studying and deducing array arts. Fortunately, the original owner of the ring had already perished, and the spiritual imprint left on the ring had been slowly fading over the course of more than two thousand years.
Spending a solid half-month—often forgetting to eat—and raising his array mastery to the level of a Level 2 Array Master, he finally managed to grind away the restriction on the Storage Ring.
A crisp "crack!" echoed from the Storage Ring. Overjoyed, he immediately swept his divine sense inside.
Within the space of the Storage Ring, his divine sense could only reach about twenty meters away; he couldn't see the edges of the ring at all, and had no idea how vast the internal space truly was.
All he could see were piles of spirit stones, dozens of various Spirit Artifacts, and rows of shelves laden with various jade bottles and jade slips. Anything further away remained obscured from his view.