Vessel of Worlds

After several attempts, the formation disc finally lit at the activation of five mid-grade spirit stones—one of each of the five elements—blooming with five-colored radiance.

The light grew brighter and brighter, at last converging into a five-colored pillar a chi thick, which arced through the air and struck the white jade wall.

The wall suddenly began to ripple like flowing water, gradually forming a five-colored curtain of light a zhang across.

The curtain held steady at that size, but its colors shifted ceaselessly—settling, at last, into purple.

This curtain closely resembled the larger purple one at the entrance.

After a moment's thought, Andy positioned his two shield spirit tools before and behind himself and walked slowly toward the curtain. Once again he passed through without the least resistance, and before him opened a stone chamber several dozen zhang across.

The chamber, too, was finished in white jade, and on the far wall another purple curtain of the same size rippled with faint spiritual light.

Beyond that, the room held a white jade bed, a stone table, a stone chair, and a meditation cushion. This, evidently, was the quiet chamber where the dwelling's master had meditated and rested.

And on the stone table, arranged in perfect order, lay two jade slips, two jade boxes, and three wooden boxes. Plainly, the things on that table were the treasures Andy had dreamed of.

He drew two deep breaths to still his racing heart, walked slowly to the table, confirmed there were no further mechanisms, then picked up one of the jade slips and sank his spiritual sense into it.

"I am Ximen Chui, a rogue cultivator of the meanest spiritual roots, who survived nine deaths for every life on the road of cultivation. By a strange fortune I found my way to the Dao of the core—but was ruined by treacherous men and cast away upon this barren isle. I leave my true technique and treasured things to the one fated to find them..."

It truly is Recluse Ximen's legacy! Andy's pulse quickened despite himself.

The slip explained that the dwelling's restrictions and the rank-five beast had both been deliberately prepared for the "fated one." Only a cultivator below Core Formation possessing all five spiritual root attributes could pass the restrictions untouched; anyone else would have to break them by force—and any forced breach would trigger the entire formation's self-destruction, reducing everything in the quiet chamber to ash.

The rank-five turtle beast was another of Recluse Ximen's careful arrangements. Turtle-type beasts could endure a thousand years and more without food or drink; placed within the dwelling, it served as a test of the fated one's strength. Whoever proved too weak to overcome a rank-five beast was likewise unworthy of the treasures.

Five-rooted, and of exceptional strength besides—had the Demon Gate young master not schemed his way to this place, the impossibly demanding Recluse Ximen might never have found his "fated one" at all.

The slip further noted that the second light curtain in the chamber would admit only one who had cultivated a particular technique and reached Core Formation. What lay beyond it, the slip did not say.

That particular technique was the supreme method practicable only by cultivators bearing all five spiritual roots—the Primal Unity Technique, recorded in the second jade slip on the table.

Could one supreme technique truly carry a five-root cultivator to the great Dao of Core Formation?

With that question burning, Andy snatched up the second slip and read with utmost care.

He read for a full hour.

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His expression moved from puzzlement to blank astonishment, then to overflowing joy—and settled, at the last, into deep solemnity.

The slip did indeed record the Primal Unity Technique, laid out in detail from Qi Condensation through late-stage Core Formation—and it truly was a method only five-root cultivators could practice.

The Primal Unity Technique was a method of vast powers that fused the five elemental energies into one. Once cultivated to accomplishment, it could effortlessly dissolve the greater part of any five-element spell attack.

To practice it, one could cultivate no other elemental technique. Any prior cultivation had to be dispersed entirely—every shred of accumulated power cast away—before beginning the Primal Unity Technique from nothing.

Accordingly, the slip also recorded the method for dispersing one's cultivation.

And the reason Recluse Ximen had been able to form his core revealed itself within the technique. The Primal Unity Technique cultivated all five elemental energies simultaneously—and at the moment of Core Formation, a special method compressed the five energies as one, condensing them into a Primal Unity Golden Core formed of all five elements. Thus did one become a Core Formation cultivator.

Once begun, the conversion of the five energies into the Primal Unity Golden Core could be neither halted nor reversed. If it failed, the cultivator had to disperse all five elemental energies completely—or his body would rupture and he would die.

In other words: fail the attempt at Core Formation, and one was reduced to a "cultivator" without a thread of spiritual power, forced to cultivate the Primal Unity Technique again from the very beginning up to the peak of late-stage Foundation Establishment before attempting the compression again. This, the slip said, was one cycle of the practice.

And every completed cycle of the Primal Unity Technique raised the odds of successful Core Formation by at least twenty percent—presumably because a dantian and true essence compressed over and over grew ever more amenable to condensing into a core.

Twenty percent per cycle—a staggering figure. Andy remembered Xi Feng saying that the treasures peak late-stage cultivators would risk their lives to obtain improved the odds of Core Formation by barely half a percent, a full percent at best.

In theory, given lifespan enough, a cultivator could repeat the Primal Unity Technique again and again until the Primal Unity Golden Core finally condensed.

In practice, five-root cultivators advanced with desperate slowness. Cultivating the technique from nothing to late-stage Foundation Establishment—even without hitting a single bottleneck—would consume a hundred-odd years of bitter work. For Foundation Establishment cultivators whose lifespan ran only two centuries and some, there was plainly not time enough to repeat it.

But with vast quantities of peak-grade pills to assist—that changed everything. The time could be compressed dramatically; within a single lifetime one might complete two or even three full cycles.

And then the odds of Core Formation became very great indeed.

However Andy looked at it, the Primal Unity Technique was his best path to Core Formation—perhaps his only one. Without a moment's hesitation, he resolved to disperse his cultivation and begin again from nothing.

He set the technique slip aside for the moment and turned his attention to the boxes on the stone table.

They varied in size and shape, but every one bore restriction talismans—handled, clearly, with great care.

The wooden boxes the first slip had already explained: several spirit medicines of slight benefit at the moment of Core Formation. Their effects were modest, and only a small dose could be taken per attempt—but better than nothing. Since he had no use for them yet, Andy stored the wooden boxes away unopened.

The two jade boxes, then, held the "treasured things" Recluse Ximen had left his fated one.

And the restriction talismans on them looked far from ordinary—potent, by every sign.

Out of caution, Andy shielded himself with two mid-grade spirit tools, withdrew a dozen zhang, and took the Blazing Heaven Blade in hand.

Then he struck a seal into the talisman on the square jade box. Its surface instantly erupted with countless hair-fine threads of light, electric arcs leaping across it, multiplying and thickening by the moment.

Moments later, amid flash and thunder, the talisman transformed into a lightning dragon several chi long and a cun thick, which lunged straight for Andy's face.

Before it could close, Andy gave the Blazing Heaven Blade a light swing. A crescent arc met the lightning dragon and sheared it in two without much effort; it burst into innumerable fine arcs and vanished.

He repeated the procedure on the long, narrow jade box. This talisman became a wind python thick as a bowl's mouth, spitting Wind Blade Technique after Wind Blade Technique at him.

The wind blades, naturally, could do nothing against the mid-grade shields guarding him.

Two more light swings of the Blazing Heaven Blade, and the wind python was slashed to pieces, dissolving into nothing like a gale blown past.

Gingerly, Andy opened the two boxes. Inside lay, respectively, a green jade ruler several cun long and a miniature golden bell barely a cun tall.

On ruler and bell alike, the spiritual light seemed almost solid, flowing back and forth across their surfaces with an extraordinary depth and weight—a plane no peak-grade artifact could reach.

"So these are dharma treasures?" Andy murmured.