Chapter 1052: Chapter 259: Chen Jiusi: What, Wu Mu’s Legacy?
[Kunlun Snow Lotus]
Chen Jie needs it very much because it is the main medicine in the Rainbow Pill. Only with this Kunlun Snow Lotus can Chen Jie refine the Rainbow Pill.
In this world, Martial Arts is actually very distorted, mostly relying on elixirs for upgrades.
Rarely do you see Martial Artists slowly training themselves to upgrade through their own skill.
The reason is simple, because there’s a problem with the spiritual energy of this world.
Martial Arts can actually be enhanced through diligent cultivation, but that requires seclusion, endless effort, and supreme talent in Martial Arts.
And even with these, time is also needed.
Indeed, without the aid of elixirs, you need to endure time, but how many people can withstand it?
Zhang Sanfeng is impressive, but in his youth, he experienced continuous adventures. Later, he trained in the Molten Furnace Realm for sixty years, meaning sixty years of Demon Cleansing, finally reaching the invincible state of Heavenly Human Communication.
And before the Molten Furnace Realm, the method of elixirs was indeed the fastest.
As for why Martial Artists all need to consume elixirs to rapidly climb the Martial Arts Realm,
it can only be said that it is a regression in Martial Arts.
Integrating elixirs into Martial Arts was initially a very niche Taoist small sect practice.
Only they did it this way; during Pre-Qin times, Martial Artists were able to advance in Martial Arts through cultivation because the spiritual energy of nature was particularly abundant, giving rise to many extraordinary figures using all sorts of methods.
They formed the various prominent schools of Pre-Qin.
There were Confucian sages whose words carried law, Taoist ancestors reversing Yin and Yang, Mo Family masters crystallizing spiritual energy to control mechanical beasts, and Military Family marshals forming army formations that were invincible across the land…
It can be said that it was a colorful world, and that world played with spiritual energy brilliantly.
But later, for some unknown reason, the spiritual energy of nature leaked, causing the spiritual energy in this world to become increasingly weak, weaker and weaker.
Until the early years of the Northern Song, the spiritual energy of nature was so thin that it was insufficient to support Martial Artists in upgrading through their own bodily functions, comprehension, talent, and other similar methods.
And the once-prosperous Pre-Qin magic gradually failed.
This brought devastating disasters to many major sects.
At this time, the Taoist sect that was least noticeable with its Alchemy Dao integration discovered the secret of this world, but they also found that, although spiritual energy was rapidly leaking, some plants could still absorb spiritual power from the earth, forming all kinds of advanced herbs.
So they researched various elixirs, using the power of elixirs to break through the shackles of Martial Arts.
Otherwise, relying only on personal talent to practice Martial Arts might result in only holding a core, even at the age of seventy or eighty.
And by taking this shortcut, this small sect of Alchemy Dao integration rapidly flourished and produced the first Earthly Immortal level figure.
That’s right, this person was later known as the ancestral master of the Pill Furnace Sect, Lu Dongbin, the Pure Yang Ancestor!
After his ascension, he left behind a large number of elixir recipes, which were later passed to his disciples, and through their dissemination, these recipes slowly flowed into the Jianghu, becoming the mainstream Martial Arts practice today.
Actually, by the standards of Pre-Qin’s various prominent schools, relying on elixirs to break through is considered a minor path, prone to unstable foundations, and inconsequential.
A true Martial Artist should stay grounded, relying on their own comprehension and talent to steadily advance step by step, so as to stabilize their realm.
But the conditions don’t allow it?
The spiritual energy of nature leaked so much that people’s Martial Arts can hardly self-improve based on spiritual energy; currently, only the Alchemy Dao is useful, so why not use it?
Others are using it—you might spend decades on diligent cultivation, barely surpassing others taking a few Breakthrough Pills, and soon your mindset will change.
Alchemy Dao is actually a helpless self-rescue in this era of severe spiritual energy leakage.
And this spiritual energy continues to leak, as Master Zhang of Wudang once said, given the current rate of spiritual energy leakage, in another six to seven hundred years, perhaps Martial Arts will no longer exist in this world.
By then, all kinds of herbs needed to refine Martial Arts elixirs will be extinct.
People will only rely purely on physical strength to fight—at that time, people might think Martial Arts is all fake, right?
…
Because of this, the Martial Arts world looks more like a transitional state, the previous Martial Arts world with abundant spiritual energy, where a good Inner Strength manual for rapidly introducing energy into the body was enough for people with great talent to break through realms.
And future generations won’t need to consume elixirs; spiritual energy is lacking, good herbs won’t grow, and refining Breakthrough Pills will be even more challenging.
Therefore, only people of this middle era need elixirs to enhance Martial Arts.
It’s an unavoidable situation; even minor paths are still paths!
When everyone is consuming elixirs to improve Martial Arts realms, the Pre-Qin concepts about unstable foundation from consuming elixirs become irrelevant.
Because if you don’t consume elixirs and spend ten years, reaching the Willow Tendon Realm with a solid foundation,
while the elixir user has already held a core or reached even higher realms—when you two fight, whose realm is unstable?
Isn’t the outcome obvious?
When everyone relies on elixirs for advancement, the concept of unstable realms no longer exists because everyone’s realm is unstable.
This is why the Martial Artists of this era rely so much on elixirs.
And it’s also because of this reason that Martial Artists are no longer as free as in Pre-Qin, where they were free to wander with swords and were not bound by royal affairs.