Chapter 28: First Step
Elemental affinities in a person could be divided into three basic levels:
Common, Uncommon, and Rare.
Common indicated a basic affinity that everyone had, and Rare referred to a very high affinity that only a few possessed.
It was said that a level higher than Rare existed, but those were just rumors, and nothing confirmed.
The basic elements most people generally had an affinity with were
Fire, Water, Earth, and Wind.
These four were the main ones that all cultivators had, though obviously the level of affinity differed from person to person.
Then there were those a little rarer, like Ice, Wood, or Lightning.
These were much less common, with only about 10% of cultivators being born with one of these in addition to the basic ones.
Most people only had affinities with the basic elements, and depending on which was superior, they’d choose their cultivation path based on that.
Only in some cases would someone decide to cultivate more than one element, and Liang Yuexin was a good example of this.
Not only did she have a Rare grade affinity with Fire, but she also had an Uncommon- rade affinity with Lightning,
which was a very powerful element that few people had from birth.
So instead of focusing on just one of the two, she chose to cultivate both.
Clearly this made her cultivation path more difficult, but the benefits that came with it were anything but small.
At the moment she was at the early fourth stage of the Mortal Realm, but she could comfortably face off against those stronger than her.
And that was because her cultivation was supported not by one, but by two elements, one of which was very rare and naturally powerful.
If she hadn’t obtained a suitable cultivation technique to train both elements, she would’ve ended up falling behind in one of them,
and as a result, her entire cultivation path would’ve been held back by that element.
So, cultivating more than one element could definitely bring benefits, especially if one’s affinity for it was high,
but one also had to be careful of all the problems that could come with it later on.
That was also one of the main reasons why cultivators were very cautious about choosing to cultivate more than one element, especially if they didn’t have a high affinity for it.
Zhu Rong had a Common affinity with all the elements, and only Fire was slightly higher than the others, though still not enough to be considered Uncommon.
So he decided to cultivate that, and only later, when he began practicing the Nine Extremity Dao Scripture, did he start working on more than one element.
And that was because, of the two parts he had in his possession, the one he cultivated was the Art of Elemental Extremities.
This art allowed the body to elevate its elemental affinity and also made it so it could handle cultivating multiple elements better.
He chose it at the time because he could no longer advance in his cultivation, so the only thing he could do was try to increase his strength,
and this technique, which allowed him to cultivate more than one element and increase his affinity for them, was the perfect choice for the him of back then.
He hoped that it would one day even allow him to surpass the barrier separating the Mortal Realm from the next one, but things didn’t turn out that way.
But now, it was different.
He had cut his problem off at the root, and now that he also had the two parts of the technique of the Nine Extremities Dao, he would be able to reach much higher levels.
Time passed, and he kept cultivating.
And without even realizing it, his time inside the training room was almost up.
But just as there was only a little left, a small spark started to shine within his dantian.
As soon as that spark lit up, his dantian seemed to tremble as it sensed an unfamiliar change within.
Zhu Rong had directed spiritual energy through the meridians to his dantian.
Normally it would stop there before focusing on bringing more in, but he didn’t stop.
He directed the spiritual energy into the dantian, and once inside, instead of refining it into spiritual Qi, he gathered the spiritual energy in a single point and began to condense it.
What normally would have turned into a drop of spiritual Qi ended up becoming what looked like a small reddish orange sphere.
Like a sun emerging in empty space, the reddish orange sphere floated within the dantian, releasing faint sparks of light that broke through the darkness.
As if triggered by the creation of the sphere, Zhu Rong, who until that moment hadn’t made a single movement, finally opened his eyes, calm, with a faint reddish orange glow, which lasted only for an instant.
With his posture still straight, he let out a slight sigh, finally relaxing his whole body.
"Fuu, that was easier than I thought," he murmured, as he felt the presence of the sphere in his dantian.
He had cultivated following the instructions of the Art of Elemental Extremity of the Dao, and at that moment, he had laid the foundation for his first element,
the Fire element.
Normally, a person would convert elemental energy into spiritual Qi focused on the element they decided to cultivate, and this Qi would be what filled the inside of the dantian from then on, but he did something completely different.
He didn’t fill his dantian with Fire element spiritual Qi, but instead condensed it and formed another core within the dantian centered solely on the Fire element.
To the eyes of a normal person, this was a useless and problematic effort, something that could compromise the proper functioning of the dantian and the way spiritual energy circulated through the body.
But Zhu Rong knew that wasn’t the case.
Right now, he had transformed his dantian into a space to cultivate elemental cores of different elements.
Essentially, he was cultivating independent dantians for each element.
It was a difficult and dangerous approach, one that without the right technique would end up irreparably damaging the dantian,
bringing a person’s cultivation path to an end in normal cases,
and in extreme ones, directly killing them.
No cultivator, no matter how experienced, would try something like this, because the level of pressure the dantian would have to withstand would be far too high, risking collapse.
No one would expect someone to actually have a way to pull off something like this, because if they knew, a manhunt would start to obtain that technique at any cost.
His past self realized this fact and decided to keep the Art of the Nine Extremities of the Dao to himself.
And he only shared it with two other individuals close to him in his past life, one of whom eventually ascended to the heavens.
His deformity and inability to properly cultivate also hindered his learning and practice of this technique, preventing him from gaining much benefit from it.
But in this life, it was different.
He no longer had that problem and could already imagine the benefits this technique would bring him now that he could cultivate freely.