Unconventional [Rebirth] - Chapter 8

A waterfall cascaded down, its roar echoing like distant thunder between the cliffs and shifting rocks.

Jiang Rui sat motionless above the spiritual pool, his white Taoist robe fluttering with the surging spiritual energy around him. His already handsome face now carried an otherworldly, ethereal quality.

However, this picturesque scene of an immortal in an immortal realm didn’t last long, as a constant gathering of storm clouds in the sky obstructed the view.

The thunderclouds, as if by fate, converged directly over Jiang Rui’s head. Inside, flashes of lightning, like long blue-and-purple snakes, rolled and roared, appearing and disappearing.

Jiang Rui, sitting serenely beneath the thunderclouds, seemed oblivious to the strange phenomenon in the sky. He remained as stable as a heavy boulder, but the spiritual energy rushing into his body became even more frantic and rapid.

Jiang Rui’s body was like a bottomless pit, constantly absorbing the spiritual energy. Despite this, his dantian still felt an emptiness…

The thunderclouds in the sky seemed to sense this, and a swift and powerful bolt of purple lightning struck down. Jiang Rui, who was sitting calmly below, moved his hands in a flurry of intricate gestures, forming a dazzling series of hand seals in an instant. With his movements, a transparent shield immediately appeared from above and completely enveloped him.

The power of the tribulation lightning was immeasurable. The barrier shattered and disappeared in less than a second, but in the instant it vanished, a second barrier reappeared…

This continued for an unknown amount of time. Finally, Jiang Rui heard a clear chime, as if from the very beginning of the universe. It was a sound of summoning, and also of guidance. At the same time, his entire body felt as if it was about to be burned to ashes, scorching intensely…

Jiang Rui slowly opened his eyes. If his eyes had previously carried obvious mortal emotions, now they were a bottomless abyss. In his pupils, two swirling flames, one black and one white, seemed to be hidden, but upon closer inspection, they appeared to be empty. No, or rather, they contained all things in heaven and on earth.

“Congratulations, Master, on successfully establishing your foundation. You can now take the Jade Tree Marrow Liquid,” Myriad Profound’s hoarse voice said.

Jiang Rui replied softly, “The same to you. You’ve also changed a lot.”

Myriad Profound immediately said, “It is also because of Master’s extraordinary talent that I am recovering.”

Jiang Rui smiled. “I have now mastered a few Foundation Establishment-level techniques. I can try them out on the Jade Tree. I saw in The Classic of Plants that the Spiritual Marrow Jade Tree is incredibly rare, a supreme spiritual treasure of the world. A hundred-year-old Jade Tree can only produce one drop of marrow liquid per day, a thousand-year-old can produce ten drops, and the number of drops a ten-thousand-year-old one produces has never been recorded because it has never appeared. It only says that its effects are boundless. I wonder how old ours is?”

Myriad Profound replied, “To answer you, Master, it is already eight thousand years old.”

Jiang Rui was astonished. “That’s truly extraordinary!” In other realms, even a single leaf from a Jade Tree was a treasure, not to mention his entire eight-thousand-year-old Spiritual Marrow Jade Tree.

This Myriad Profound Secret Realm was truly something special.

Before, he knew too little about cultivation. But these days, he had been either cultivating or spending time in the Scripture Library, working harder than he did for the college entrance exam. His knowledge had naturally grown immensely.

His memory was now far superior to what it was before, and his comprehension was high. He could read the jade slips very quickly. This Scripture Library contained countless scriptures, and he could keep reading without a problem. He probably wouldn’t be able to finish them all even after a thousand years.

Since he didn’t have a flying artifact, Jiang Rui could only rely on his feet to climb to the peak. He had thought about using the Qi Control Technique to move faster, but then he changed his mind, not wanting to miss this opportunity to temper his body. During the Foundation Establishment process, his body had been refined. His cultivation method also included the body-tempering technique Pulse-Breath Tempering. Now was the perfect time to strike while the iron was hot. He knew that you couldn’t chew more than you could bite and didn’t plan on becoming a master of body-tempering. He just hoped his physical body would become stronger, so he wouldn’t be so vulnerable if he ever got into a dangerous situation.

As he circulated the cultivation method, he felt his body become lighter and his feet nimbler. Unconsciously, he reached the summit. Jiang Rui gazed into the distance. The mountains were surrounded by mist, looking both real and illusory, as if in a dream.

Mortals were often entangled with the fire of their worldly desires, falling into all kinds of obsessions and unable to escape. In the end, they were just like the clouds and mist in the mountains—they looked real from afar, but up close, they were impossible to grasp. The fire of desire, the fire of the mortal world, the fire of the heart, the mundane fire… Everything in the world has fire, and everything is like fire… like fire…

Jiang Rui closed his eyes. It seemed he had grasped something in his mind, but that mystical feeling vanished in a flash. He quickly snapped out of that state and felt a great sense of regret.

Myriad Profound also sensed Jiang Rui’s change just now and was secretly amazed. He truly lives up to having spiritual bones. He can achieve enlightenment just from establishing his foundation. If those cultivators from the major realms knew this, they would find their geniuses and reincarnated masters to be a joke.

The Spiritual Marrow Jade Tree was the most spiritual thing in the world. Its body was pure white and as translucent as jade. The leaves and branches were so clear that you could faintly see the marrow liquid flowing inside.

Myriad Profound had previously warned him that the marrow liquid could only be taken by someone at the Foundation Establishment stage. The reasons were twofold: first, the tree’s bark was incredibly tough, and second, it was a spiritual-absorbing object. This meant that any kind of spiritual energy that touched the bark would be absorbed.

Jiang Rui now had a Foundation Establishment cultivation. His physical body was many times stronger than it was during the Qi Refining stage, but he didn’t dare to underestimate the eight-thousand-year-old bark.

The marrow liquid closer to the roots had a better effect. However, Myriad Profound had said that a mortal body could only handle so much spiritual energy. If he were to give the jadeite to his mother to wear, taking the marrow from the lower two-thirds of the trunk would be sufficient. Otherwise, too much of a good thing could harm his mother.

Mortal weapons couldn’t harm the bark at all; they would just break. He could only use his own body to break through it. Jiang Rui didn’t find this troublesome. He saw it as an excellent opportunity to temper his body. While circulating his body-tempering technique, he used his palm as a blade to cut the Jade Tree.

After five or six days in the Secret Realm, when Jiang Rui was exhausted and had severely depleted his vitality, and was about to give up, the Jade Tree’s bark finally revealed a tiny opening and let out a single drop of translucent marrow liquid. Almost at the same instant the liquid fell, the opening on the bark quickly healed at a speed visible to the naked eye, as if there had never been a crack there.

Jiang Rui quickly placed a jade Buddha underneath, allowing the liquid to drop directly onto it. The Jade Tree Marrow Liquid would melt any material it touched. It could only be stored in a container made of Ironwood Heart. Ironwood Heart was not a common commodity. It was even more difficult to find and extract than the Spiritual Marrow Jade Tree. Ironwood Heart grew in places where filth and foul energy gathered. It was also the hardest material in the world and was born with a tyrannical and fierce wood energy. An ordinary cultivator couldn’t get within ten feet of it.

Not only could the Secret Realm’s environment not grow Ironwood Heart, but even if it could, Jiang Rui, who had just established his foundation, would have the wood energy enter his body if he got within ten feet, and his soul would be scattered, saving him the trouble of reincarnation.

So for now, he could only get one drop of marrow liquid at a time.

Jiang Rui looked at the jade Buddha in his hand, which had been nourished and permeated by the marrow liquid. A faint flush of excitement appeared on his pale face.

His mother’s health was finally secured.

However, getting just one drop of marrow liquid almost killed him. If he had to do it a few more times, he would surely die. It seemed that improving his cultivation was a must. If his cultivation wasn’t high enough, he would be limited everywhere.