By the time he returned to the front of his courtyard, two young men were already standing there. It turned out they were the handymen who had arrived a step ahead. They respectfully bowed to Li Yan, and then, after Li Yan opened the courtyard gate, they quickly moved a set of stone table and benches into the courtyard. They didn't have storage pouches or flying spirit tools, so they could only carry them from the foot of the mountain. However, for two cultivators at around the fifth layer of Qi Condensation, this was nothing at all.
After the two of them deftly placed the stone table and benches, they looked at Li Yan with an inquiring gaze. One of the yellow-robed handyman disciples asked cautiously, "Little Martial Uncle, do you need us to clean up the other places?"
Li Yan waved his hand, smiled, and sent them away. The two of them bowed respectfully again, then turned and left.
Li Yan was in no mood to have them clean up here now. All he wanted was to solve this headache of a cultivation problem as soon as possible.
With a flick of his sleeve, the courtyard gate closed again. Li Yan walked quickly to the practice room. After closing the practice room door again, Li Yan sat cross-legged. The next moment, his divine sense had arrived in his sea of consciousness. There, three purple light spots were floating. They were the contents of the jade slips that recorded the summaries and insights of the Fragmented Poison Body cultivation.
The Fragmented Poison Body did not have a cultivation method incantation, only the recorded insights and experiences after it was cultivated, for the reference of future generations. These three jade slips were placed in Little Bamboo Peak, Lord Lao Peak, and Spirit Insect Peak, which were also the peaks from which the three senior ancestors came. This kind of purple jade slip could not be exchanged for with spirit stones. It could only be seen by a person who met the conditions and with the approval of the sect's higher-ups. Originally, with Wei Zhongran's status, he could only get one purple jade slip from Little Bamboo Peak. But last time, the Sect Master had already spoken to each peak about the opening of resources related to the cultivation of the Fragmented Poison Body, so he was naturally able to get them smoothly.
The reason the sect did not give these to Li Yan in the first place was because of the special nature of the Fragmented Poison Body. The three seniors had said that before successfully cultivating this poison body, taking it for reference might lead to finding a way to successfully cultivate this poison body. If one had already successfully cultivated it, it was best not to give it for reference unless the other person encountered a problem, because even the same Fragmented Poison Body had different directions, which might lead to a wrong path. The result might be counterproductive and might even ruin things.
But who would have known that they would meet a cultivation novice like Li Yan? He had no cultivation foundation at all. Whenever he encountered some problems, he was unable to make a judgment himself. Thinking that those cultivators basically started cultivating from a young age and had heard and seen a lot of knowledge in all aspects, they would always have some experience to draw on when they encountered problems. But Li Yan happened to lack this accumulation of knowledge. So after Wei Zhongran considered it, instead of letting him accumulate knowledge slowly through indirect means, it was better to let him directly learn from the experience of his predecessors. At least it could save him some detours. As for the possibility of leading Li Yan in the wrong direction, he had a different idea. Who could guarantee that after reading these insights and summaries, Li Yan's direction would be wrong? These were all unverifiable. It had to be said that all this was in line with Wei Zhongran's character. He advocated for going with the flow, using what was available, and thinking when there was nothing.
Li Yan slowly opened a purple light spot, and his divine sense immersed into it and began to read slowly. This meditation lasted for two days and one night. When Li Yan opened his eyes, there was a trace of understanding in them.
The amount of information in these few jade slips was very large, from the bits and pieces of feelings in daily cultivation to his own various insights into the cultivation process. Li Yan could not digest them one by one and only chose what he could understand at the moment for analysis and understanding. The rest could only be forcibly memorized and digested later. Even so, with his current status as a cultivator, his head was spinning from all the memorization.
Li Yan did not directly get what he wanted to know from this information, but in the end, he judged his current physical condition through some other aspects. In this information, the senior from Spirit Insect Peak had such a passage: "Qi Condensation fragmentation, the body breaks into ten; Foundation Establishment fragmentation, ten break into a hundred; Golden Core fragmentation, a hundred become a thousand; Nascent Soul fragmentation, a thousand transform into ten thousand. With one breath, shattered to pieces." Here, Li Yan could roughly guess that it was explaining the state of the Fragmented Poison Body, but he was more concerned with the last sentence. The last sentence was related to breathing, so in his view, this was not referring to simple breathing, but should be breathing exercises. As for the other two jade slips, they did not mention similar content. It was unknown whether it was not recorded or if the situation was different.
Li Yan thought for a long time. After a long while, he closed his eyes again and silently circulated the True Scripture of the Nether Water to breathe. But this time, the breathing was not really cultivation, but to confirm whether the result was as he thought.
Li Yan was as motionless as an old monk in meditation. After half an hour like this, Li Yan's body swayed. At this time, Li Yan's face was half-happy and half-worried. Just now, he had circulated the spiritual power in his body to walk slowly through his meridians, and then his divine sense followed the spiritual power closely to observe carefully. At the beginning, when the spiritual power came out of his dantian, everything was normal. But after walking for a while, some abnormalities appeared. The spiritual power was actually slowly decreasing. But this decrease was very slight. If you didn't look deliberately, it was very difficult to find. This was also because Li Yan's cultivation was too low, and his control over himself was not that strong. If it were a master, their control over the spiritual power in their body could reach the level of being as fine as silk. Normally, even if there was a slight change in the spiritual power in their body, they would immediately know the situation.
After this stream of spiritual power had circulated for a full cycle, it did not become purer or a little stronger as it would after normal cultivation. It was basically the same as before it came out, and even a little lost and reduced. This made Li Yan extremely horrified. He didn't know why there was that weak reduction process.
Next, he observed again. The spiritual power circulated for another heavenly cycle. This time, the spiritual power was even slower, like a snail walking slowly. He increased his divine sense and did not let go of every inch of the spiritual power's progress. He wanted to find out how the spiritual power was decreasing. Finally, under his careful detection, he discovered the process of the spiritual power decreasing. That is, when the spiritual power passed through certain meridian nodes, it would disappear a little, as if there were loopholes in these places.
So Li Yan carefully looked at those meridian nodes again. Finally, he found something wrong. There were a total of twelve problematic meridian nodes, all of which were nodes of the main large meridians in the body. At first glance, these twelve nodes had no problems. But after careful inspection with his divine sense over and over again, he could find a micro-invisible crack on them. This crack was invisible with the elastic stretching of the muscles and meridians. But when the spiritual power circulated through, due to the filling and expanding of the spiritual power, these cracks would be revealed a little. Just this little bit would cause a lot of spiritual power to leak out and merge into the flesh and blood when it passed through.
Li Yan had thus found the reason for his loss of spiritual power. So today, when he saw "Qi Condensation fragmentation, the body breaks into ten; Foundation Establishment fragmentation, ten break into a hundred; Golden Core fragmentation, a hundred become a thousand; Nascent Soul fragmentation, a thousand transform into ten thousand. With one breath, shattered to pieces," he thought that it should be that his body had been divided, causing the leakage of spiritual energy. When he finally confirmed this idea after his own observation, his body was divided into twelve pieces according to the meridian nodes.
Now that the reason was found, how to solve it? So Li Yan once again checked the records of the three seniors. This sitting was another half a day, but this time Li Yan was disappointed. There was no mention of the cultivation method of the Fragmented Poison Body, because this cultivation method had no fixed form in the first place. It was just a special constitution that could be driven by any cultivation method one was good at, so it was not recorded.
Time passed for another two days as Li Yan continued to explore. Li Yan had begun to feel frustrated. He couldn't find any solution at all. Over and over again, he rejected one answer after another. Now he basically thought that his path of cultivation had been cut off. This was a joke that heaven had played on him, sending him two great fortunes, which formed the final joke.
But he was still unwilling. Originally, he was a mortal who didn't want to cultivate and only wanted to live a peaceful life with his relatives. After experiencing thousands of difficulties, when he really decided to step on the path of cultivation, it was cut short at the very beginning. He was unwilling.
He tried again to start with the True Scripture of the Nether Water, hoping to find a solution. But no matter how he adjusted his spiritual power, no matter how hard he analyzed every sentence and every word of the incantation of the True Scripture of the Nether Water, the result was still that when he drove his spiritual power, it would leak and disappear as soon as it reached those twelve nodes.
Li Yan searched and read through the True Scripture of the Nether Water and the information from the three flat slips, paragraph by paragraph, hoping to find a solution. But he was still very disappointed. There was not a single word about his phenomenon.
At this time, Li Yan was extremely haggard, his eyes full of bloodshot, like a helpless lone wolf on the grassland. He let out a long breath, knowing that he couldn't go on like this. He simply fell asleep in the practice room. If he couldn't find an answer after waking up and studying for a few more days, then he could only go directly to his master. At that time, he hoped that he would see their master-disciple relationship and send him back to the mortal world. As for the matter of the True Scripture of the Nether Water, he decided that he couldn't say it. He had cut off his own path of cultivation, but he couldn't cut off Dong Fuyi's life-saving grace. At most, he would burn a few more incense sticks in the future and pray that Dong Fuyi could find a more suitable successor in that unknown and dangerous place.
Just like that, Li Yan fell into a drowsy sleep in his confused thoughts. But in his mind, the True Scripture of the Nether Water and the information from the three jade slips were still constantly attacking him in confusion.
Just like that, after sleeping for an unknown amount of time, Li Yan in his sleep suddenly sat up, still looking sleepy, with a hint of pleasant surprise on his face. This sleep was actually not sweet. As the saying goes, "what you think about during the day, you dream about at night." He had been dreaming about this Fragmented Poison Body. In his dream, such a passage of insights made him suddenly sit up.
"During the Qi Condensation stage of the Fragmented Poison Body, the ten or so separated bodies in the body are constantly nourished in their own operation. In the nourishment, they grow into different toxins. These toxins are harmless to the main body of cultivation. At first, they are very difficult to master and require the cultivator to slowly explore and master them until they are proficient. At the same time, as the cultivation level increases, these separated bodies will also gradually separate into more and smaller independent toxin bodies. When they reach a certain level, the cultivator can even combine two or more separated bodies in the body to form a new, unknown toxin. After mastering these, it will make the attack power mysterious and unpredictable."
This passage was originally a summary of a senior's insights into the attack and application methods of the Fragmented Poison Body. It also explained why Li Yan had two different results when he used the "Cloud and Rain Art" at the beginning. That was because the spiritual power he released at the end was no longer pure spiritual power, but contained the toxic spiritual power generated by the Fragmented Poison Body. And when he released it for the second time, it should be the result of the release of spiritual power being dominated by two of the twelve separated bodies in his body.
Li Yan had also seen these words at the beginning, and he also understood why he had such a result when he released the "Cloud and Rain Art." But at that time, he was looking for the root cause of his inability to cultivate, so he only saw it and didn't think deeply about it.
When this passage appeared in his dream along with other confusing information, Li Yan suddenly felt like a flash of lightning in the darkness, illuminating his entire dream. He suddenly woke up from the dream.
"During the Qi Condensation stage, the dozen or so separated bodies are constantly nourished... the separated bodies are constantly running... the separated bodies are constantly running... the cultivator combines two or more separated bodies to form a new, unknown toxin..." Li Yan muttered to himself.
"These twelve pieces in my body are not separated bodies, just some cracks. These cracks may have been smaller a few days ago, but because I have cultivated the second layer of the heart method recently, the strength of the spiritual energy circulation has increased a lot. At first, it was nothing, but later the cracks may have slowly become a little bigger."
"A cultivator can recombine two or more separated bodies, which means that each separated piece is independent. Fragmented, fragmented, hehe, fragmented... I understand. Only by breaking can it be fragmented. Otherwise, how can we talk about fragmentation? The Fragmented Poison Body in my body is fundamentally unfinished. What my Eldest Senior Brother said about 'the separation is very painful,' I didn't feel it. It wasn't because of fainting, but because there was no real separation at all." Li Yan sat on the ground like that, talking to himself half-crazily, but his eyes were getting brighter and brighter.