C2 Grand Upper Essence Returning Divine One Qi

Hanjing City is one of the rare places in the world where one can find a moment of tranquility and peace.

Though nominally a refuge, it is a challenging place for ordinary people to survive. The social hierarchy has become more pronounced, distinguishing between people more than ever before.

On the western edge of Hanjing City lies a noisy, abandoned wasteland. Evolvers typically avoid this area because it has become the dumping ground for the city's refuse.

All manner of garbage, from everyday waste to discarded cultivation materials, accumulates here, largely ignored and unmanaged.

With the Earth engulfed in unprecedented panic, who would spare a thought for a landfill?

Yet, unbeknownst to many, there is a vast, makeshift room hidden amidst the mountains of trash. This sturdy structure, with exceptional load-bearing capacity, is constructed from the shattered husks of numerous Mechas.

Mecha represents the pinnacle of armed forces in this world. Given that the outer shell is the Mecha's Defense Power, one can only imagine the durability of the materials used.

Within this makeshift room lies a sprawling laboratory, spanning several thousand square meters, devoid of windows and doors.

This is Yang Huang's secret creation, a project several years in the making. Due to his family's insights, he knew a cataclysmic change was imminent three years ago. Outwardly, he seemed to be merely drifting through life, but in reality, he had been preparing meticulously for this moment.

The lab is cluttered with a variety of instruments and over a hundred unassuming square transparent containers filled with a pale blue liquid.

These containers may appear ordinary, but their contents are anything but. Each one houses a fresh-looking human brain, connected by a transparent tube to a massive machine, two meters in height and ten meters in length.

At this moment, Yang Huang sits on the floor, holding a palm-sized Eight Trigrams. The artifact, with its black and white hues and unknown composition, emits a soft, glowing fluorescence.

Yang Huang has always known the Eight Trigrams to be extraordinary. As a child, he frequently observed it in the glass cabinet of his family's hall. Three years prior, an accident led to the glass shattering, his finger slicing open, and a drop of his blood falling upon the Eight Trigrams, triggering its transformation.

On that day, the Eight Trigrams emitted a powerful black light before vanishing. Since then, Yang Huang bore an Eight Trigram tattoo over his heart. Whenever he focused his thoughts, the Eight Trigrams would materialize in his hand, causing the tattoo on his chest to disappear. When he wished to retract the Eight Trigrams, they would vanish, and the tattoo would reappear.

Furthermore, Yang Huang's mind was graced with two sets of mystical text, gleaming with golden brilliance as though etched into his very thoughts. Upon scrutinizing the text, he was so exhilarated that he trembled with excitement.

These were two scriptures, or more precisely, two Secret Manuals for cultivation. One was the "Grand Upper Essence Returning Divine One Qi," and the other, the "Undying Imperishable Indestructible Body."

Yang Huang set aside the "Undying Imperishable Indestructible Body" after familiarizing himself with it, postponing the decision to cultivate it for a later time. However, he had immediately begun cultivating the "Grand Upper Essence Returning Divine One Qi" upon acquiring it three years prior.

"Another month has passed, and I have finally nurtured this breath of Innate Qi. With the previous accumulations, I have stored a total of eighty breaths of Innate Qi in my body over these three years," Yang Huang reflected, gazing at the Eight Trigrams with a sigh.

As detailed in the "Grand Upper Essence Returning Divine One Qi," the initial step in this cultivation method is to recite the scriptures incessantly, allowing the power within them to transform the body. Over time, Innate Qi is born within, which must then be nourished by the flesh, organs, and blood until it fully integrates into the physical form, marking the completion of a cultivation cycle.

This process must be repeated, cycling through eighty-one times. Only after the blood, flesh, and organs have been tempered eighty-one times is the first stage of cultivation deemed complete.

These eighty-one bodily refinements, brought about by the scripture's power, are not the end goal. The essence lies in the Innate Qi; the body merely serves as its sole vessel, incidentally transformed in the process.

"After all 81 streams of Innate Qi have been fully nurtured, I'll need to create a courtyard within my mind. That's the rightful place for the Innate Qi," Yang Huang mused, increasingly aware of the extraordinary nature of the Grand Upper Essence Returning Divine One Qi. Such a cultivation technique was unheard of in the mortal realm. The Eight Trigrams that housed this technique must be even more valuable.

"The Eight Trigrams must possess remarkable properties. It's just that my current strength is too limited to fully explore them," Yang Huang murmured, as he gently stroked the surface of the Eight Trigrams.

So far, the Eight Trigrams had granted him two scriptures and a capability for divination. However, perhaps due to Yang Huang's insufficient strength, the divinatory signs were inconsistent, sometimes clear and at other times elusive.

"By my calculations, it should have taken 18 years to nurture these 81 streams of Innate Qi to completion. Yet, here I am, ahead of schedule." Yang Huang glanced at the array of square transparent containers nearby, feeling somewhat contemplative.

He had learned three years prior that Earth was on the brink of a monumental transformation. But by then, he had already begun cultivating the Grand Upper Essence Returning Divine One Qi, using his body as a vessel to nurture the Innate Qi, making it impossible for him to absorb any other form of Yuan Qi.

This was why he hadn't undergone mutation with the Earth or been able to absorb the Ancient Fruit.

In truth, Innate Qi is a more advanced Energy Body than most powers in this world.

It is an energy bestowed by the cosmos upon birth. If left undeveloped, it remains concealed within the body.

Naturally, not everyone can harbor Innate Qi—the odds are one in ten million.

Yang Huang was one of the rare few who could.

He was aware that the Eight Trigrams and the two scriptures had brought him an immense stroke of fortune. However, with only three years left until Earth's mutation, the conventional, step-by-step cultivation of the 81 cycles of Jiujiu was impractical. He might not even survive the first step of his cultivation before meeting his end in the wilderness.

Thus, he resorted to the most radical solution.

At twenty, Yang Huang was an undeniable prodigy in biological sciences, with a passion for various experiments and research.

His pursuit of knowledge was unbounded by moral constraints, for he believed that knowledge itself was invaluable.

Yang Huang, through his experiments, discovered that the brain cells and heart's blood of Mutated Men could stimulate the transformation of flesh. In essence, he required numerous Mutated Men's brains to extract the necessary cells, which, when combined with the heart's blood, allowed him to concoct a substance that could hasten the formation of Innate Qi.

Consequently, Yang Huang began secretly hunting humans destined to mutate in the future, three years prior. At that time, these individuals were merely ordinary people.

The complication, however, was the fact that society was governed by the rule of law. Such acts were not within the capabilities of an average person.

Utilizing his predictive abilities, Yang Huang clandestinely eliminated 178 individuals who were fated to mutate, all the while expertly concealing his tracks. His foresight had astonishingly kept him out of the police's grasp for three years.

His case became an enigma, a headless mystery that prompted the nation to deploy significant resources to apprehend him. The vanishing of 178 people, young and old, was no trivial matter. But just as the authorities were closing in on him, the Earth underwent a cataclysmic transformation, and everything changed.

In the present disordered world, where the rule of law has collapsed and human lives are lost daily, no one is concerned with the number of people he killed during more peaceful times.

Had his predictive powers been more reliable, Yang Huang would have eliminated even more future Mutated Men. Faced with an inevitable global change and powerless to alter destiny, one must fight back. Clinging to even the faintest glimmer of hope, one must exert every effort, even if it means becoming a demon that feasts on blood.

To simplify, nothing trumps the importance of securing the power to survive in the post-apocalyptic world.

Yet, Yang Huang fell short of his goal despite his utmost efforts. The final piece he needed would have to be sought through perilous ventures.

Before the Brain Sea Courtyard was established, he was nothing more than an ordinary person, incapable of harnessing Innate Qi for his own purposes.

In such a world, where strength is the only assurance of safety, life feels perpetually on the brink of death.

Yang Huang was on the cusp of achieving what he had been fervently pursuing for years. The final piece of the puzzle was now within his grasp.

That piece was the white-haired youth who had been with his sister, Yang Xiaoyan. Now, however, the youth was nothing more than an empty husk, devoid of both head and heart.

"Over the past three years, I've collected 178 sets of resources, each carefully paired. For instance, combining a strength-type Mutated Man with a nature-type Mutated Man, or a physical-type with a thinking-type, yields different outcomes. I've conducted thousands of experiments to perfect the ultimate formula. It's only through the precise combination of these Mutated Men's resources that I can accelerate the cultivation of my Innate Qi."

"The previous 80 formulas worked flawlessly, allowing me to accomplish in just three years what would have normally taken a decade or even longer. Now, all that's left is the final step. The last component I need is a Mutated Man who has consumed the Ancient Fruit and embarked on the Evolution Path." Yang Huang tucked away the Eight Trigrams and approached the operating table, his gaze fixating on the array of materials before him.

"When I used my thoughts to connect with the Eight Trigrams, it indicated that my sister would traverse the Desolate Land, but it wasn't explicit. It turns out she wasn't alone; any one of the three individuals with her, all of whom had eaten the Ancient Fruit, would meet my criteria."

"Otherwise, I might have ended up killing my own sister."

Yang Huang reflected on his earlier scheme to have Yang Duoduo consume the Ancient Fruit and to slay her at the moment she transformed into an Evolver. He shook his head with a wistful sigh.

At times, the rigidity of one's thinking can lead to a topsy-turvy situation, where the importance of matters becomes obscured.