Transmission of the Dharma 31

The people in the training ground dispersed.

The Sanyi Sect had prepared tea and snacks for their guests, but most of them barely touched them, not because they didn't want to eat, but because they were still in a daze. The head of the Huode Sect, holding a teacup, stood by the martial arts arena and said to Feng Ping beside him, "Don't say that the Huode Sect's fire is the best in the world." Feng Ping nodded vigorously. Liu Deshui had come over specifically to say a few words to Lu Jin and Li Muxuan, and before leaving, he glanced back at the center of the arena; Liu Jin was no longer there.

Lu Jin and Li Muxuan sat on the steps beside the martial arts arena. Lu Jin rested her chin on her hands, elbows on her knees, staring blankly at a fallen leaf on the ground. Li Muxuan leaned back against a stone pillar, his eyes closed, lost in thought.

After a long silence, Lu Jin spoke up: "When he fought us before, did he not even use a tenth of his strength?"

"Be more confident," Li Muxuan said without opening his eyes, "half a percent."

Lu Jin was silent for a moment. Then she asked, "So, will we still need him to handle things for us in the future?"

Li Muxuan finally opened his eyes, looking at him with an expression as if he were an idiot: "Of course we should. He's even more deserving of a beating now." He paused, then added, "Although we definitely still can't beat him. But after taking so many beatings, it won't hurt as much when we get beaten up by others."

Lu Jin thought about the logic carefully for a moment, then nodded: "That makes sense."

......

"Lu Jin was beaten to tears by Zhang Zhiwei and shocked by his senior brother. Now he's sitting on the ground questioning his existence. What a pitiful guy."

"But his guess of 'one-tenth of the effort' is a huge underestimation of himself. It's at least one and a half percent."

"Li Muxuan's logic is the highlight: if you get beaten up a lot, you won't feel the pain when you get beaten up by others. What kind of Stockholm Syndrome is this?"

"These two junior brothers have developed feelings for each other after being tortured by Liu Jin."

......

In front of the stone wall on the back mountain, Zuo Ruotong sat cross-legged on the flat bluestone that he used to meditate on when he was young.

The sun had already sunk behind the trees, leaving only a faint crimson glow on the horizon. He closed his eyes, his breathing steady, his moon-white Taoist robe fluttering gently in the evening breeze. Liu Jin walked lightly up the back mountain, but Zuo Ruotong opened her eyes when he was ten steps away.

"Sit down." Zuo Ruotong patted the blue stone beside her.

Liu Jin sat down beside him. The master and disciple faced the same grove of trees and remained silent for a long time. Liu Jin was very familiar with this stone wall. When he first started practicing, he meditated here for three days, he meditated here after chopping wood, he broke through to the second level here, and he practiced the Iron Armor stance here before breaking through to the third level. He remembered the texture of every single stone.

"How are you feeling right now?" Zuo Ruotong asked.

"Relaxed," Liu Jin answered truthfully, "The things that have been piling up for years are finally done."

"It's not just about finishing. What you did in the training ground wasn't just breaking through to the third level." Zuo Ruotong turned her head, her gaze calmly falling on his face. "The thing you brought back isn't from this world."

Liu Jin did not deny it. He opened his palm, and the dark blue flame mark between his brows glowed faintly. A wisp of extremely thin blue flame rose from his palm, dancing quietly at his fingertips. There was no high temperature, no explosion, just a quiet burning, like a lamp that had been forgotten to be extinguished.

"Master, for the past few years, I've been pondering a question," Liu Jin said, looking at the flame at his fingertips. "When you reach the end of the Threefold Reversal of Life, you become Qi, and Qi becomes pure energy. But pure energy, without a container, will eventually dissipate. Just like this flame, without a wick, it won't burn for long. That's why no patriarch throughout history has ever truly reached the perfection of the third level. It's not that they couldn't reach it, but that even if they did, they couldn't retain it."

Zuo Ruotong didn't speak, but listened quietly.

"So I found myself a wick." Liu Jin's fingertip flickered slightly. "That fragment doesn't belong to this world, and it won't be bound by the rules of this world. Using it as a foundation, the Samadhi True Fire has a vessel, and the complete Qi transformation of the Reverse Life Triple Realm also has an anchor point. This is the path I've paved, with fire as the bone and Qi as the flesh and blood. I call it the Fire Swallowing Technique."

He flicked his finger, extinguishing the flame. "But Master cannot walk this path. That fragment cannot be replicated; it is a product from another dimension, and there will never be another one like it in this world."

Zuo Ruotong smiled softly. It wasn't a bitter smile, but a clear and understanding one: "I know. I saw the fragment you mentioned. When you pressed it into your brow on the field, I knew that wasn't a path I could take. But I don't want to take it either. Complete Qi, though not as powerful as divine objects, is the wish of the ancestors of the Sanyi Sect. Everything I've cultivated and learned in this life is against the natural order. If I end up changing my roots, even if I can achieve immortality, I won't be Zuo Ruotong of the Sanyi Sect anymore."

Liu Jin looked at him. The last rays of the sunset fell on Zuo Ruotong's face, turning his eyes a pale gold. Those eyes were as clear as ever, exactly the same as when he first saw him standing at the entrance of Sanyi Gate.

Over the years, his master's tempering of his body with the essence of fire had made his foundation at the peak of the second level even purer. When his Qi was transformed, he was almost transparent, like a piece of crystal that had been repeatedly burned countless times. But Liu Jin also saw something else, hidden beneath the reverse growth: deeper fine lines at the corners of his eyes, and more white hair at his temples.

The Reverse Life Triple Stage can reverse aging, but it is not rejuvenation. Cultivators who have been practicing Reverse Life for a long time will actually age faster than ordinary people because of the repeated reshaping of their physical bodies through Qi transformation over the years. Each Qi transformation is a breaking down and rebuilding process, and the burden on the body accumulates deep in the bone marrow. It is not visible on the outside, but it is silently depleting the body internally.

"It's not about completely changing your foundation," Liu Jin said. "My idea is to use the Samadhi True Fire as a container. I'll plant a seed of Samadhi True Fire within Master's inner vision. The seed itself doesn't change the nature of reversing the cycle of rebirth, but it can serve as an internal anchor. Master continues on the path of complete Qi transformation, but after complete Qi transformation, the Samadhi Fire seed will become the container for your Qi body. It's not about changing your foundation, but about adding a framework to your Qi body. Combined with the foundation from the previous refinement of the body with the essence fire, you won't age after Qi transformation, nor will you lose your anchor point of consciousness due to complete Qi transformation. It simply gives you another support."

Zuo Ruotong remained silent for a long time. The wind in the bamboo forest stopped, and the entire back mountain was so quiet that only the sound of the distant stream could be heard. He knew what this meant. Throughout history, no one had ever truly reached the end of the Reverse Life Triple Stage, not because the technique was ineffective, but because the person was ineffective.

The human body is too fragile to withstand the intensity required for complete Qi transformation. However, if there is a sufficiently stable vessel to rely on at the moment of complete Qi transformation, then this final step can be taken. The cost is that in the future, if any disciple of the Sanyi Sect reaches the peak of the second level, they will have to rely on the help of an outsider to complete the final step.

"Alright." Zuo Ruotong finally spoke, "I accept your spark."