Battling Records of the Chosen One Chapter 20

Chapter 20: The Mystique of Spirit Refining

Lin Xun intended to practice the Meditating Magic; however, before he took action, his stomach growled loudly.
Meanwhile, an ineffable feeling of hunger flew over his body. Lin Xun could not bear it anymore and rushed to the kitchen.
Not until then did he realize it was already dark outside. No one could endure one day without any food.
There were pots and pans, as well as many pieces of preserved beast meat from villagers in the repaired kitchen.
Lin Xun cooked a pot of spiritual grain rice, cut a pan of beast meat, and then wolfed down all squatting at the kitchen.
The mild spiritual energy in the spiritual grain was indispensable for cultivation. However, for people in Feiyun Village who could not cultivate, the spiritual grain would be exchanged for goods and materials as money. So valuable that they would not feed on it.
As for the beast meat made with the wild animals hunted from the mountain, it could only satisfy people’s hunger, and could not possibly be compared with the precious spiritual grains that contained spiritual energy.
However, Lin Xun was a little surprised to find the hungry feeling didn’t clear away after he ate three pans of beast meat and ten bowls of spiritual rice.
Meanwhile, Lin Xun was also delighted to find his appetite increased, which meant his body was different from what it used to be and needed to be supplied with extra nutrition.
The more one ate, the stronger one’s body, Qi, blood and spirit would become. It was said that there would be spiritual vegetables, fruits, and refined elixirs, besides plenty of spiritual grains in each meal for the practitioners in Ziyao Empire.
As a practitioner, Lin Xun understood it clearly.
However, after being replete, he realized it would be a problem with only half bag of spiritual grain and six pieces of beast meat left.
Based on his appetite, Lin Xun would consume 2500g spiritual grains and ten pieces of 1500-gram beast meat for three meals.
However, he relied on Feiyun villagers for food and living materials at the moment. It was acceptable for a few days, but for a long time, it would not be appropriate.
“It would be hard without food.”
Lin Xun pondered and sighed. An old saying, “The poor goes for civil and the rich seeks martial virtues”, was reasonable. The poor could not get enough resources to cultivate; they could not even afford the goods for cultivation at all.
Another old saying, “Cultivation requires four things including wealth, partner, manual, and land”, which put the wealth in the first place, emphasized the importance of money if one wanted to cultivate.
Moreover, elixirs, manuals, fighting treasures, weapons and others practitioners needed would require large wealth.
Now being poor and blank without a penny, Lin Xun had no more belongings except for some spiritual materials.
So he needed to earn money in the first place, not only to solve the problem at present, but also to prepare for the cultivation in the future.
In Feiyun Village, spiritual grains and beast meat meant money. However, growing spiritual grains cost too much time, which Lin Xun could not spare. So getting beast meat would be his best choice.
He knew the robust villagers would get together and hunt in the mountains outside the village during slack seasons. The beasts they captured would be partly left for life necessaries; as for the fur and leather, membranes and bones, as well as blood and meat would be sent to the Green-sun Tribe to be traded for goods.
“Go hunting? I can give this a try.”
Making a resolution in the heart, Lin Xun thought it should be easy for him to hunt common beasts at his cultivation level, although hunting fierce beasts would be hard.
Actually, Lin Xun thought more than that – he needed much more money if he planned to move to other towns in Ziyao Empire.
…
Lin Xun sat and meditated in his room in the dark night. Obscure and mysterious words were shining and streaming like flowing light.
Meditating Magic, a manual to refine spirit, included three realms named Star Circulation, Moon Turn and Sun Glory.
The Meditating in the name meant meditation. It required one to observe the mystique of spiritual refining with his own consciousness, to strengthen one’s spirit and soul.
This was a real incomparable and rare manual.
It was well-known that the amount and kinds of cultivation manuals were as vast as a mighty ocean and there were too many to enumerate. However, 99 percent of them were for spiritual energy cultivation or martial fighting.
Manuals to refine soul and mind were hard to find and most of them were preserved by ancient clans and families. You could not find one in the market.
This kind of manual was also called Soul Mystique, a rare treasure which every practitioner would yearn for.
Why? After one broke through Martial, Gang Spirit and Sea Spirit Realms, and reached Tao Insight Realm, he needed to refine the soul to cultivate Innate Will.
After he got Innate Will successfully and mastered the power of soul, he could be qualified as a real strong practitioner in Tao Insight Realm.
At that level, inferior practitioners would be terrified and could not help but kneel down in front of him.
However, it was so difficult to reach Tao Insight Realm that perhaps you wouldn’t be able to find one achiever among 10,000 practitioners.
One who owned the power of Tao Insight Realm would win a place among the mightiest practitioners In Ziyao Empire.
It was not hard to conclude that how important it was to master a Soul Mystique for reaching the Tao Insight Realm.
The Meditating Magic Lin Xun got was such a kind of Soul Mystique, which could be regarded as an incomparable manual.
It was no exaggeration to say there was only one in a million who could have the chance to learn and practice a Soul Mystique at the Martial Realm.
Having learnt with Master Lu since childhood, Lin Xun knew clearly about the worth of a Soul Mystique because Lin Xun was also a spiritual apprentice.
To inscribe spiritual tattoos required the support of a strong soul, or else the cooperation of spiritual energy, spiritual ink, inscribing pen, and the carrier could not be controlled accurately.
As far as Lin Xun knew, it was undoubted that the stronger a spiritual tattooist was, the greater his soul power would be.
Without excessive excitement and thoughts, Lin Xun calmed down to perceive the first level Star Circulation of Meditating Magic through meditation.
Just as its name implied, Star Circulation referred to the circulation of stars.
In one’s sea of consciousness, a practitioner meditated and understood the fantastic image of stars’ circulation among the boundless space, and then guided the starlight down to refine his mind and soul along the star trail.
When the cultivation was complete, with a mere thought, the sea of consciousness could turn into a vast sky with shining stars, where the mind and soul could ramble without evil or distracting thoughts, and at last one could possess the soul root!
But for Lin Xun, he was just at the beginning of understanding and learning, so there was still a long way to reach that level.
Although there were only three realms named Star Circulation, Moon Turn, Sun Glory in Meditating Magic, when talking about its power to refine soul and mind, each realm was full of profound mysteries that were hard to learn and master completely.
As Lin Xun began to meditate and learn Star Circulation, a vast night sky appeared in his sea of consciousness. However, it was deep, quite, unreachable, and the stars in it were dim and vague.
This was the image of Star Circulation. Lin Xun needed to meditate on the image with self-consciousness before understanding and exploring more.
The process was known as meditating and thinking.
It was like a mirror to reflect oneself, which was the only way to refine one’s mind and soul. Only the specific skills of meditating and thinking were different.
For instance, what Lin Xun meditated and thought in his sea of consciousness was the image of Star Circulation. If all the stars in his sea of consciousness were illumed by the power of his soul and then sparkled bright, the Star Circulation was complete.
In the serene night, the moon hung high outside the window, mountains far away bathed in clear starlight, and nearby, locusts and cicadas were signing and chirping. What a tranquil night!
Inside the room, Lin Xun was meditating and thinking in cross-legged position intently, wearing peaceful and unworldly expressions on his delicate but pale face.
Time flied and one night passed. The morning sun dispersed the darkness and scattered brightness to the village.
Birds sang outside and it was a new day. Lin Xun awakened from meditation. He jumped out of the bed, feeling full of energy and totally fresh.
With one night’s cultivation, although he had not brightened one star in his sea of consciousness, Lin Xun felt he was much more refreshed than before and could see and hear better. For example, he could even hear the dew slip down the grass and then fall on the ground outside.
It indicated his consciousness became stronger. Lin Xun had never thought that with only one night’s cultivation, things would change so immensely. How marvelous the Meditating Magic was!
Opening the door and walking into the yard, Lin Xun stretched his body and began to practice Marching Boxing until his Qi and blood were boiling and his sweats could not be stopped. Then he stopped and washed himself with clear well water. Now he was vigorous and powerful both physically and mentally, feeling like there was endless power inside.
However, Lin Xun was struck by a tidal wave of hunger. With a bitter smile, he sighed there was no such thing as perfection – although it was a pleasure to see his body and mind become stronger, it would also be a trouble since his appetite was doubled.
So now Lin Xun’s resolution to hunt in the deep mountain grew, or else he could not get properly fed by what the villagers provided.
After meal, Lin Xun went straight to Zhou Zhong’s cottage. He planned to help eliminate the pest in Zhou Zhong’s spiritual lands today.
When he arrived, he found Zhou Zhong coming out with a longbow and broadsword on his back.
“Brother Zhou, what are you going to do?”
Lin Xun asked.
“I’m going to the mountain to pick some herbs that’ll enrich the blood and Qi, as well as hunting.” Zhou Zhong answered thoughtlessly.
He patted on his forehead when he found it was Lin Xun who asked, and shouted, “I nearly forget we will go to eliminate the pest in my spiritual lands today.”
Go hunting?
What a coincident! A touch of smile appeared at the corners of Lin Xun’s mouth.