Legend of the Great Sage (Chapter 201-Chapter 300)

Suddenly, there was a rumble in the distant sky.

Li Qingshan said, “It’s springtime thunder!”

Spring had already arrived. The earth was returning to life.

The bug pouch twitched constantly as Milliped awoke from his lengthy sleep. He was wriggling his body.

Xiao An said, “It’s the stirring of insects!”

TL: The stirring of insects, also known as hibernating insects awaken, is a name of one of the 24 solar terms used in ancient China, which essentially breaks a year into 24 time periods, each with a different name describing the period. You can read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingzhe

Insects stirred, thunder rumbled, bugs awakened.



Li Qingshan opened the bug pouch and Milliped emerged. He seemed to have grown slightly bigger as he waved his feelers. “Food! Food!”

“You glutton!” Li Qingshan teased him before taking out the food so that Milliped could bury himself in it.

Two months had already passed now. There was less than a month until the Academy of the Hundred Schools began to take in new students.

Li Qingshan wanted to use this month to break through to the sixth layer.

The fifth layer and sixth layer of Qi Practitioner were two completely different concepts. Whether it be in terms of strength or status, they both represented completely different things. As long as he reached the sixth layer, he believed that he would not have to worry about being smothered out even in the Academy of the Hundred Schools, a place teeming with talented people.

He was not going to the Academy of the Hundred Schools to seek refuge. He was not planning on following the principle of remaining discreet and keeping himself safe. No matter the environment, there would always be the survival of the fittest, the laws of the jungle. Only the fittest would receive better resources and be able to enjoy better environments to cultivate in.

This was the path he wanted to walk.

Through this period of waiting, the true qi in his four yin and yang meridians was already full. This was nothing difficult to him, as he could absorb the spiritual qi of the world. Moreover, he had become extremely familiar with the tricks for controlling Gui Water true qi.

Am I ready? Even he did not know, but it was time to go!

Li Qingshan’s gaze became determined.

……

Below the mountain, the Parlour of Clouds and Rain.

It was pitch-black within the parlour. After the few incidents, the Parlour of the Clouds and Rain was heavily weakened, and due to pressure from various sides, it struggled to recover its former prosperity.

The hollow centre of the building had once carried and linked the prosperity and liveliness throughout the entire place, but now, it seemed particularly quiet. Only the paintings of flying and dancing women continued to smile.

In the underground palace, a middle-aged man with pepper hair asked, “Is that little bastard really on the mountain?”

The current master of the Parlour of Clouds and Rain replied carefully, “Sect master, we’re absolutely certain. Many people have seen him. L- Li Qingshan is in secluded cultivation in a cave on the mountain.”

“As soon as he emerges, contact me. I refuse to believe that he won’t leave the mountain.” Surprisingly, the middle-aged man was the vice sect master of the Sect of Clouds and Rain, Wei Zhongyuan. He no longer wore his fancy violet robes, but a set of old, grey robes. Clearly, he was here in secret. He ground his teeth the moment Li Qingshan’s name was mentioned.

Ever since Li Qingshan splattered the Parlour of Clouds and Rain with blood and killed the procuress, he had developed grievances with the Sect of Clouds and Rain. Until now, even Wei Zhongyuan’s son and the two grannies of the sect had died under mysterious circumstances.

Wei Zhongyuan refused to believe that Li Qingshan possessed the strength to kill the two grannies, but he was thoroughly convinced that he had something to do with their deaths.

He was hiding below the mountain with great determination. As soon as Li Qingshan appeared, he would capture him and torture him savagely to force out a confession. Only then would he be satisfied. As long as the Hawkwolf Guard did not possess direct evidence, there was nothing that they could do about him.

Of course, he also lacked the courage to charge up the mountain and directly kill Li Qingshan right now.

“Don’t worry at all, sect master. Everything that happens on the mountain and below the mountain is within the range of my perception. As soon as he emerges, the sect master will know immediately.”

……

As Li Qingshan tried to open the Girdle meridian, he finally realised that the latter four meridians of the eight extraordinary meridians were different from the former four.

Right now, just opening and connecting all the acupoints was not sufficient. During that process, he needed to constantly balance the flow of true qi through the four yin and yang meridians, but the difficulty did not just increase by four times. The difficulty was compounded for each meridian.



In the beginning, he tried to have true qi circulating all four meridians, but he soon realised that this was an impossible mission for him right now.

He could only slow down and urge on the true qi in the Yin and Yang Heel meridians first, but even with his foundation built from using techniques, he often still lost focus over one of the meridians.

Fortunately, Li Qingshan had bought the Gui Water Method of Condensing Qi that was complete with comprehensions. The experiences of the past people were extremely detailed, but when Li Qingshan tried replicating them, it would always end in failure.

At a time like this, Li Qingshan obviously went to Xiao An for guidance. Just how was he supposed to balance the true qi?

“Can’t you just split your focus a little?”

“Split my focus? How am I supposed to split my focus?”

Xiao An’s eyes widened. For the first time ever, she was unable to help Li Qingshan, as she completely failed to understand where the difficulty lied.

“I know my talent for comprehension is only so-so, so you don’t need to verbally strike me like that.” Li Qingshan patted Xiao An’s shoulder and said to the upright Milliped, “Yeah, Milliped? How can we grasp something like that so easily?”

Milliped spat out a clump of daemon qi. It was a very small amount, but it was divided into over a dozen thin strands that wove and overlapped with one another, forming an oscillating image.

He might have lost his daemon core and a tremendous part of his cultivation, but he was still once a Daemon General, having reached levels that Li Qingshan had never even experienced before. He seemed slow-witted when dealing with people, but how could something as simple as controlling daemon qi stump him? Li Qingshan had found the wrong daemon if he wanted sympathy.

Xiao An shrugged. “It’s very easy, right?”

Li Qingshan fell silent. He returned to cultivation. In the blink of an eye, half a month had passed, and only then did Li Qingshan learn how to split his focus into two, allowing true qi to flow through his Yin and Yang Heel meridians as he wished.

Another day later, he managed to achieve the balance required to condense the sea of qi in the Yin and Yang Linking meridians too. However, doing this with all four meridians still posed extreme difficulty.

He could only single-mindedly try again and again, without eating or drinking, without sleeping or resting. In the eyes of others, he seemed like he had gone crazy.

Xiao An could not help but become slightly worried.