Chapter 87 – The Abyssal Cold Core
Wang Lin suddenly had a wild guess. One day, while a family was having dinner, disaster struck. Without the people having any time to respond, the entire city was laid to waste.
At this point, slivers of cold energy came from the ruins. This energy became denser and denser, until it felt like it had taken a solid form.
“Looking at the size of these ruins, I’m afraid the population of this city was at least 10 million. The graveyard of 10 million people should be one of the best places to cultivate the Underworld Ascension Method.”
Situ Nan explained in great detail about the places with extreme Yin during Wang Lin’s closed door training. There were four types of extreme Yin places. They were heavenly Yin, earth Yin, mystery Yin, and underworld Yin.
Underworld Yin was the simplest to find. The more death there was in a place, the more death Yin there was.
Mystery Yin was a bit hard. It only appeared in extremely cold places.
Earth Yin was even harder and completely relied on luck to find. After all, earth Yin was the Yin emitted from the abyss within the earth.
As for heaven Yin, it was basically impossible to find. In order to find heaven Yin, a place needs to have underworld Yin, mystery Yin, and earth Yin at the same time. If those three come together, they will change into heaven Yin.
The higher quality the Yin, the more benefits it brings to the cultivator.
Wang Lin immediately formed a seal with his right hand and he began to chant. Suddenly, specks of red light gathered before him until they formed a red ball of light.
This was a technique especially made to test the quality of the Yin. Based on the color of the light, one could determine what type of Yin there was. The ball could become purple, black, silver, or red, matching with heaven, earth, mystery, and underworld Yin respectively.
Situ Nan had also explained that even among the same type of extreme Yin, there were four different qualities which were ordinary, good, dense, and extreme Yin.
Each level was divided into 10 ranks as well.
In general, achieving ordinary rank 3 was enough to cultivate the Underworld Ascension Method. Having ordinary rank 8 was enough to speed up the cultivation.
After the red ball of light appeared, it became brighter and brighter. Finally, it shone 5 times.
Wang Lin touched his chin. Shining 5 times meant that this place had ordinary rank 5 underworld Yin.
After pondering for while, he walked toward the center of the ruins without a word. The surrounding Yin energy became even denser as he walked closer to the center. The Yin energy was so dense, it made him feel like he was walking under water. Just a few hundred steps and he already felt like he couldn’t breath.
The ball of light became brighter and bright as it followed Wang Lin. This area was ordinary rank 8.
Wang Lin didn’t stop and continued for a few hundred more meters, until he arrived before the ruin of the giant stone bead. He could no longer continue forward. Slivers of Yin energy entered his body. His blood vessels began to feel painful and he was starting to lose control of his spiritual energy.
At this point, the red ball split into two with a bang. Wang Lin’s eyes lit up. He knew that this meant that this place had reached good quality rank 1.
According to the information Wang Lin had gathered while scouting the ruins during the day, he knew that he was probably not even one 10,000th of the way in.
And the deeper he went, the stronger the Yin energy became.
“This is absolutely the best place to cultivate!” Wang Lin slowly backed up until he was at the ordinary rank 5 location.
This was the location Wang Lin had decided was the most suitable place for his current body. The density of the Yin energy for the Underworld Ascension Method must be increased gradually. This was a point Situ Nan kept stressing before he went to sleep.
Wang Lin pondered a little. He sat down cross legged, closed his eyes, and began to cultivate. In his mind, Situ Nan’s instructions for the Underworld Ascension Method echoed.
This Underworld Ascension Method can be divided into 9 layers. Every three layers, one can form a cold core. Once all 9 levels are complete and the three cores fuse, there is a certain chance to instantly break into the Core Formation stage.
This was the biggest reason Wang Lin became determined to practice the Underworld Ascension Method. Situ Nan also picked this because it was most suitable for Wang Lin and would increase his cultivation level quickest.
Of course there are faster methods, like core stealing, but with Wang Lin’s current cultivation level, to try and capture a Core Formation cultivator was no different than committing suicide.
The cold core from the Underworld Ascension Method relies on meridian awakening. Meridian awakening is a process that anyone who practices the Underworld Ascension Method has to go through. There are three key meridian awakenings in the Underworld Ascension Method. They are the dantian, Qi Sea, and ancestral meridian.
The moment one of those three meridians awaken, a cold core is formed. The moment a cold core is formed, the spiritual energy in one’s body will become cold.
As for the success rate of the meridian awakening, it is heavily related to the quality of the Yin.
Time quickly passed. When he opened his eyes again, light was appearing and the Yin energy was quickly dispersing. The moment the sun appeared, all of the Yin energy disappeared.
Wang Lin stood up. Since he decided to cultivate here, he should find a place to stay. He looked around and locked his sights on a collapsed house nearby.
With the wave of his right hand, all of the debris and rubble flew to the side, clearing out a small area.
After finishing everything, Wang Lin sat down in the middle of the cleared area. He took out a book and started to carefully read it.
This was the book about formations he got at Teng Family City for a mid quality spirit stone two years ago.
Before, he only flipped through the book and found that there was very detailed information about setting up and controlling formations inside.
After memorizing all of the information in the book, Wang Lin began to ponder. His hand constantly moved as he unconsciously drew something in the air.
The day quickly passed and it was now dusk. Wang Lin sighed and opened his eyes. He muttered, “Formations are really deep and complex. Even though the formations in this book are only some simple ones, it still took me an entire day to get some understanding. The illusion formations in the book are especially complex. It relies a lot on predication, and the farther you predict, the harder it gets.”
Feeling helpless, he gave up on trying to figure out how they worked and just tried them out. He activated the attraction technique and moved rocks to a place outside the room.
Following the instructions carefully, Wang Lin managed to make a simple formation called the Minor Confusion Formation.
This formation was too rough and simple. It didn’t even have the minimum amount of formation flags. Wang Lin bitterly smiled as he looked at the rocks, then at the book. He made some adjustments and the formation finally looked like the one in the book.
Wang Lin took a deep breath. His hand formed the instructed seals. Then, a mist suddenly appeared and covered the surrounding area.
Wang Lin stared at the mist and let out a bitter smile. This formation might trick some mortals, but it won’t do anything against cultivators, so it won’t protect him while he cultivates.
After pondering for a while, Wang Lin muttered, “If one isn’t enough, then I’ll lay down two. If anything, I can just lay down all of the formations in the book. It should more or less have some effect.”
With that, Wang Lin used his attraction technique and moved the rocks in the area. After playing with a few more formations, night came again.
Wang Lin sat cross legged on the ground. The moment the Yin energy appeared, he took a deep breath, put his hands on his knees, and began cultivating. His breathing method was one long, five short. One long means he takes a very long breath in and five short means that when he breaths out, the time is only ⅕ of the time he used to breath in. This is the fastest way to absorb Yin energy.
Strictly speaking, this was the first time he had absorbed outside energy to cultivate. In the last two years, he had always been using spiritual liquid inside the heaven defying bead, so it had all been internal absorption.
This Yin energy was basically the same as spiritual energy. Wang Lin had cultivated for many years, so he was very used to this, but he immediately noticed a difference. When he absorbed spiritual energy, there was always a layer blocking that spiritual energy from entering his body. Even when it did enter, a large amount would disappear before he could absorb it.
However, this was not the same. That thin layer was no longer there and the Yin energy entered his body at an overwhelming rate. Also, his body felt different from before. Large portions of the Yin energy that entered his body was absorbed, unlike before.
Wang Lin pondered about this for a while and he came up with three possible answers. One was that the Yin energy was different from spiritual energy and was more suited for him to cultivate. Two: Foundation Establishment cultivators absorbed spiritual energy faster than Qi Condensation cultivators. Three: after absorbing part of Teng Li’s spirit root, his own talent had increased a lot.
As for which answer was correct, Wang Lin didn’t pursue it any longer and instead focused his mind on cultivation.
At the start, Wang Lin felt very uncomfortable due to the cold nature of the Yin energy. When he absorbed the Yin energy, it would immediately enter his body and go into his organs. The cold being emitted from inside his body made him shiver. This was the complete opposite of what it felt like to absorb spiritual energy. One gave you a very warm and comfortable feeling while the other made you feel like you were being frozen.
As Wang Lin absorbed more and more Yin energy, his hands and feet became cold. Then, his blood started to become thicker and even his heartbeat slowed down.
Frost started to appear on his eyebrows, hair, and all of the pores in his body. A surge of cold came from inside his body and perfectly fused with the surroundings.
Time flew by. When the sun rose and the Yin energy dispersed, Wang Lin’s eyelids trembled as he opened his eyes. He exhaled a breath of white gas. After a night of cultivation, a small mass of Yin energy appeared in his dantian. This small mass slowly rotated, releasing Yin energy.
The spiritual energy in his body didn’t reject this mass of Yin energy. They ignored each other and didn’t interact.