Night fell. Su Yan and Yuan Qi hid inside a ruined temple on a rocky hill. Su Yan lit a fire. Yuan Qi curled close to the flames, warming his scales.
Snake yaos feared the cold. When temperatures dropped, their qi and blood slowed, and they stiffened into hibernation. So Yuan Qi always preferred to stay near the fire at night.
Su Yan gave him the half duck he had brought and made do with dry rations himself.
Mount Wuwang and Qinyan Cave were not far. At their pace, they could reach it in a day. But the journey was plagued by gods and demons and pursued by nuo masters, which delayed them.
Before the light completely faded, Su Yan explored the temple. It was small. The main hall stood at the front, but whatever god had been worshipped here left no statue behind. Not even a shrine remained.
In the rear courtyard, a pavilion housed a massive bronze bell, taller than a man and covered in rust.
Beneath the bell lay a hexagonal well. Peering down, Su Yan saw only darkness. The walls held black iron chains as thick as a calf's leg, trailing down into the depths.
He tugged one chain. It was impossibly heavy. Clanking echoes rose from below.
"The god who was worshipped here probably ran away," Su Yan thought.
He returned to the fire and slowly regulated his breathing. He stirred his qi and blood and demonstrated the Titan-Ox Demon Fist.
"Qi, I will teach you the subtle points of the fist art. Watch closely and compare it to the scripture."
Yuan Qi raised his head, watching Su Yan's every movement while studying the text by firelight.
Wherever Su Yan's qi and blood flowed, light followed, as if a great sun burned within him, illuminating his organs, his skin, his flesh. Light seemed to move beneath his skin.
Yuan Qi grew puzzled. "That is wrong. Did you cultivate incorrectly?"
The way Su Yan channeled his qi and blood into a great sun was not recorded in the scripture at all.
For three generations, Yuan Qi's family of snake yaos had cultivated the Great Sun Daoyin Art and the Titan-Ox Demon Fist. But their version of the fist art and Su Yan's were clearly two different things.
Su Yan continued his demonstration. The great sun of qi and blood within him grew stronger. White mist rose from his head.
The mist carried a faint fishy odor, the impurities of his body being refined by the great sun.
The Grand Unity Daoyin Art already used thunder to purify the body and had long since expelled Su Yan's impurities. Yet the great sun refinement reached places the thunder could not, proving that the Great Sun Daoyin Art had its own unique strengths.
But Yuan Qi turned the scripture upside down and found no mention of great sun refinement.
"Stop searching," Su Yan said. "I comprehended this method during my fight with Ding Quan. It should be a missing technique from the Great Sun Daoyin Art and the Titan-Ox Demon Fist. It is not difficult to figure out."
Yuan Qi was indignant. "You comprehended a missing technique during a fight? Are you lying? Why did none of my family across three generations figure it out? Are you saying my family has been stupid for three generations?"
Su Yan said nothing.
He was a kind boy.
He continued channeling his qi and blood. When it reached its peak, his skin seemed to crack inch by inch. His fist art had advanced beyond what his body could endure.
In martial cultivation, whether the body could withstand the impact of the art was crucial. Forcing cultivation beyond one's limits caused severe internal injuries and left hidden damage.
Su Yan was about to stop when, during the great sun refinement, his five organs suddenly reflected five-colored light.
Unknowingly, the strength of his five organs had increased tremendously. His qi and blood grew even more vigorous.
Pores across his body opened like countless valves, and qi and blood hissed outward.
At the same time, his heart beat like a drum, thudding so powerfully it made the chest ache, endlessly producing fresh qi and blood that kept him at peak condition.
Su Yan's heart stirred. He continued driving his qi and blood.
The excess qi and blood condensed behind him into a killing aura, merging into the elephant-headed god form.
Yuan Qi stared at the aura behind Su Yan, his mind tangled.
Su Yan had received the Titan-Ox Demon Fist that very morning. The fifth level, the Elephant God Manifestation, he had achieved while killing the Green-Robed Deity.
Now, while teaching Yuan Qi the fist art, he had somehow broken through to the sixth level.
"It seems my family's brains truly are not very bright."
Yuan Qi snorted inwardly. "My grandfather, my father, and myself, none of us are particularly clever. But there are clever people. A-Ying is so smart. If I learn from him, I do not need to think for myself. Thinking never did me any good anyway."
Su Yan stopped cultivating, a little embarrassed.
He had come to teach fist arts, yet he had broken through mid-lesson and forgotten to explain the key points.
The fifth level of the Titan-Ox Demon Fist, the Elephant God Manifestation, was only a vague shadow of qi and blood. The boost it gave Su Yan was still limited.
The sixth level, the Blood Aura Body, had form without substance, yet it contained tremendous power, granting Su Yan double his strength. It was on a completely different level from the Elephant God Manifestation.
The Grand Unity Daoyin Art was a top-tier qi refinement method to begin with. Su Yan's mind was pure, free of distracting thoughts, so his progress was naturally swift.
Seven years of cultivation had built a foundation as deep as a god or demon.
As the saying went, deep roots bore rich fruit. With his seven years of accumulation and extraordinary comprehension, his advancement in the Titan-Ox Demon Fist was measured in miles per day.
But once his potential was exhausted, further progress would become extremely difficult.
"Brother Niu, the key to the Titan-Ox Demon Fist lies in qi, blood, and body refinement. Only with sufficiently vigorous qi and blood and a strong enough body can you advance to the next level. The great sun refinement I comprehended suits you perfectly."
Su Yan explained the great sun refinement in detail to Yuan Qi. This body refinement method was indeed better suited for snake yaos.
A snake yao's body was a straight line. Running the great sun refinement through one cycle was simple. It did not need to travel to the branches of limbs.
When Su Yan cultivated, he had to refine not only his five organs but also his four limbs and his head. Even more troublesome, he had to refine his fifth limb, wasting time and qi and blood.
He did not know what refining the fifth limb was for, but if it was not strong enough, getting kicked there would hurt.
Yuan Qi had no such problem. While others cultivated one cycle, he could cultivate three.
Yuan Qi channeled the Titan-Ox Demon Fist beside the fire and ran the great sun refinement. The two methods complemented each other without conflict.
As a snake yao, cultivating a fist art was difficult. He had to twist his body into punching and striking postures.
For a snake yao to persist in cultivating a martial art so unsuited to his nature, this perseverance earned even Su Yan's admiration.
Su Yan sat by the fire and took out the cloth bundle he had lifted from Ding Quan.
Using snake-catching techniques, he had dislocated Ding Quan's joints and simultaneously fished the bundle from the man's robes. He had not yet had time to examine it.
The bundle was small. Unfolded, it contained a few taels of silver and a handwritten booklet.
Su Yan pocketed the silver, delighted. "That will buy many full meals."
It was the largest sum of money he had ever seen in his life.
He opened the booklet and read by firelight. It described a qi refinement method. After a quick scan, he frowned. This method was different from any he had seen.
He had seen fifty or sixty cultivation arts, all yao race Daoyin arts that absorbed the essence of the sun, refining essence into qi, strengthening qi and blood. They took the excess of the sun to compensate for their own deficiencies.
But the method in Ding Quan's booklet drew power from within the human body itself. It took nothing from the outside world.
"Could this be a secret chamber cultivation method?"
Su Yan's heart pounded. He studied it carefully, but it made no sense.
The booklet spoke of a secret chamber within the human brain called the Mud Pill, surrounded by primal chaos, containing immense energy. Mastering the Mud Pill, drawing its power, and refining it into a hidden scenery could forge an immortal body and grant abilities beyond gods and ghosts.
But the booklet never explained how to find the Mud Pill chamber, nor how to open it. Even with the method in his hands, he could not cultivate it.
It only explained how to draw from the Mud Pill and refine the hidden scenery.
From what the booklet revealed, becoming a nuo master required not only finding and locating the secret chambers within the body, but also opening them with the help of a great nuo ritual.
Yet even after opening a chamber, one did not become a nuo master.
A special cultivation method was still needed to draw power from the chamber and refine it into hidden scenery.
Hidden scenery was not the chamber itself. It was something forged after birth by drawing energy from the chamber.
"That clerk Ding Quan must have cultivated the Mud Pill chamber and refined it into the Hidden Scenery Mud Pill Palace. He cultivated it imperfectly, yet his power was already so terrifying. The Zhou family's true hidden scenery methods must be even more formidable."
Su Yan put the booklet away. "Still, my Titan-Ox Demon Fist has reached the sixth level. I am no longer afraid of Ding Quan. If I face him again, even without Qi's help, I can win."
He had that confidence.
Yao race cultivation methods combined with martial skills were absolutely no weaker than a nuo master's arts.
Suddenly, the sound of waves crashing against a shore grew louder and louder. Su Yan turned and stared in disbelief.
Yuan Qi had reached a critical point in his cultivation. Light blazed from within his body.
"Rumble—"
Yuan Qi opened his mouth, but what came out was the resonant bellow of an elephant, deafening.
This was the sign that qi and blood had circulated through his entire body, achieving the fourth level of divine elephant force.
Not only that, but qi and blood overflowed from all over his body, gradually forming the elephant-headed god manifestation behind him.
This was the sign of the fifth level.
"I... I achieved the fifth level of the Titan-Ox Demon Fist! I achieved divine elephant force and the Elephant God Manifestation!"
Yuan Qi was overjoyed. He slithered outside and flicked his tail, lifting a boulder of two or three thousand pounds and launching it into the sky.
He laughed, his long tongue rippling like a wave.
Then he burst into tears.
Three generations, two or three hundred years, not a single snake had achieved the fourth level of the Titan-Ox Demon Fist. Now, with Su Yan's guidance, in mere moments, he had reached the fifth level.
He had never imagined cultivation could be so easy, so simple.
"Before long, I will reach the sixth level and even take human form. Once I can take human form, cultivating fist arts will advance by miles every day." He was ecstatic.
Of course, his hundred and twenty years of bitter cultivation had built his qi and blood to the required level. With the correct method for the fist art, his progress was naturally swift.
Suddenly, Su Yan raised his hand and extinguished the fire. "Your breakthrough just now sent elephant bellows echoing through the mountains. It will alert nearby gods and the officials chasing us. We must leave immediately."
Yuan Qi's heart chilled. He hurried after him and whispered, "Traveling at night is extremely dangerous. The nights in Lingling County are not safe."
Su Yan did not want to travel at night either. Under moonlight, the dense forest made it hard to find direction. It was easy to get lost, and one careless step could send you plunging into an abyss or into the jaws of a beast.
But they had no choice. If pursuers trapped them in the temple, there would be no escape.
The boy and the snake crept through the darkness, carefully descending the mountain. Suddenly, the sound of surging waves grew louder and louder, quickly becoming a deafening roar that shook heaven and earth.
The ground beneath Su Yan's feet trembled violently. He leaped onto a towering tree nearby.
He scaled to the treetop and looked out, stunned.
Under the moonlight, between the vast mountains, a bright white line rose higher and higher. It was a river wider and more violent than the Xiao and Xiang rivers combined, appearing out of nowhere, its waters flooding everything in their path.
"Impossible. There is no such river around Lingling." Su Yan stared, transfixed.
Yuan Qi also climbed onto a branch and looked into the distance. Ghost fires flickered across the river's surface. He suddenly remembered something from an ancient text he had read and cried out, "It is the River of Death!"
His voice turned sharp, piercing the ears. "The River of Death has changed course from the underworld! Up the mountain! We must get up the mountain!"
He scrambled down. Su Yan leaped from the tree. The boy and the snake sprinted back toward the ruined temple at the summit.
The river from the underworld surged forward, and everywhere it passed, flowers withered, trees decayed, and every bird and beast lost its life.
Strangely, the river rose more than a hundred yards above the ground, yet seemed held back by invisible banks. The waters did not spill outward but flowed along that unseen channel.
But the rocky hill where Su Yan and Yuan Qi stood lay directly in the river's path.