Chapter 1321: Using Heaven and Earth Rules to Derive the Three Meridians
The spirit lake was not large, only a few dozen miles in length, but the water within it was brimming with spiritual energy. For an ordinary martial artist, drinking the lake water would be enough to strengthen their physique, increase their cultivation speed, and extend their lifespan.
Zhang Ruochen placed the island where the Thousand-Leaf Sacred Heart Grass grew into the lake. Instantly, the shape of the spirit lake became a ring, with the island at its center.
Gu Songzi was indeed cunning and sharp-witted, but he was also a man who kept his promises and did not go back on his word.
Gu Songzi explained carefully to Zhang Ruochen, "Adding the medicinal power of the Thousand-Leaf Sacred Heart Grass to the Meridian-Knitting Pill, combined with my powerful spiritual power to help you reshape the three meridians, can indeed restore your injuries to their original state. However, no matter how strong a Saint Alchemist's spiritual power is, it is impossible to restore the three meridians in your body to their exact original form. There will be some imperfections."
"Those imperfections are insignificant for ordinary cultivators. But for a top-tier genius like you, they will have a certain degree of impact. The higher your realm, the more pronounced that impact will become."
The meridians, sacred meridians, and blood meridians are not simply single lines. Instead, a single line extends into ten lines, a hundred lines... an infinite number of lines, eventually interweaving into a network distributed throughout every minute tissue of the body.
Therefore, using spiritual power to recreate the three meridians exactly as they were before is simply impossible.
Zhang Ruochen's spiritual power has now reached the fifty-third rank, allowing him to condense a blood meridian system with a seventy percent structure within his body.
However, he is well aware that even if his spiritual power reaches the sixtieth rank and he becomes a Great Saint of spiritual power, he could only make the blood meridian system infinitely close to one hundred percent, but never reach it.
The imperfection Gu Songzi spoke of is that one ten-thousandth, or even one hundred-thousandth, of a deficiency.
For an ordinary person, such a deficiency is completely unimportant. For a Saint, it might halve or even multiply their cultivation speed several times over.
For a Great Saint, it could directly halt their cultivation, preventing them from advancing any further.
It can be said that the impact of the imperfect three meridians is enough to destroy Zhang Ruochen's divine destiny, ruin the foundation he laid in the four realms of martial arts, and surpass the adverse effects of swallowing the Buddha Emperor Relic.
For a peerless genius, this is quite fatal.
He would go from being a genius to being mediocre.
Although this result was within Zhang Ruochen's expectations, hearing it from Gu Songzi's mouth still affected his state of mind, leaving him somewhat gloomy.
Qing Mo clenched her ten fingers tightly, bit her lip, and said, "Is there really no other way?"
"There is a way," Gu Songzi said.
Zhang Ruochen's eyes lit up. He hadn't expected Gu Songzi's medical skills to be so profound that he actually had a method to compensate.
Gu Songzi continued, "However, I don't have the ability to do it. There is only one person who might be able to accomplish it."
"Who?" Zhang Ruochen asked.
"You."
Zhang Ruochen was momentarily stunned. "Me?"
Gu Songzi nodded seriously. "Earlier, when I examined your body, I discovered an extremely rich Chaos Qi within you. You must be hiding a considerable secret, right?"
Zhang Ruochen stared into Gu Songzi's eyes and fell silent.
"You don't need to tell me what that secret is, and I don't want to know."
Gu Songzi never liked prying into others' secrets. As an alchemist, the more he knew, the faster he would die.
Gu Songzi continued, "No matter how mysterious the three meridians in the human body are, no matter how many changes they undergo, or how complex the branch meridians become, they are ultimately nurtured postnatally. However, Chaos Qi is a preheavenly qi, capable of nurturing all things. It is even more mysterious and unpredictable."
Zhang Ruochen was quite intelligent and instantly understood Gu Songzi's meaning. "Senior, you mean I should use Chaos Qi to nurture the three meridians myself?"
"Exactly."
Gu Songzi added, "If I am not mistaken, you once cultivated the Five Elements Chaos Body, but it was only a postheavenly Five Elements Chaos Body. If you can use Chaos Qi to nurture the three meridians, you can take a step further and achieve the Preheavenly Five Elements Chaos Body, with even greater potential. Once you reach that point, even I cannot imagine your future achievements."
"The Preheavenly Five Elements Chaos Body," Zhang Ruochen murmured.
Legend has it that only at the beginning of the creation of heaven and earth could a living being with this physique be born, and the probability was extremely low.
Gu Songzi said, "But you also have to take a great risk. It is very difficult for a person's spiritual will to control the power of chaos. Within chaos, you might nurture the Preheavenly Five Elements Chaos Body, or you might destroy your lifelong cultivation and become an ordinary mortal. You don't need to tell me your choice now. You can think it over carefully for three days, and then give me your answer."
This was a major choice!
The former option would immediately restore his cultivation without risk, but Zhang Ruochen's potential would be cut off, his genius halo stripped away, and his future achievements would be very limited.
The latter option involved great risk. Either he would cultivate the Preheavenly Five Elements Chaos Body with limitless potential, or he would become an ordinary mortal, and even his Saint realm cultivation would vanish.
"No need to think it over. I choose the latter. My destiny must be in my own hands. There are still many important things waiting for me to do."
Zhang Ruochen's will was firm, without a trace of hesitation.
A look of approval flashed in Gu Songzi's eyes. He nodded and said, "You still need to wait three days for me. It will take at least three days to refine the Meridian-Nurturing Pill."
Relying solely on Zhang Ruochen's own will and Chaos Qi, it would be impossible to condense the three meridians. He would need the assistance of the Meridian-Nurturing Pill.
For the next three days, Zhang Ruochen sat cross-legged by the shore of the spirit lake. In his mind, he recalled all the martial arts classics he had ever read, including the *Fallen God Scripture* from the six great strange books of the Kunlun Realm, some scrolls from the *Heavenly Demon Stone Inscription*, and, most importantly, the *Nine Heavens Bright Emperor Scripture*.
Without a doubt, every martial arts classic was an exploration of the rules of heaven and earth by the sages of the past, containing the Great Dao.
Especially top-tier techniques like the six great strange books and the *Nine Heavens Bright Emperor Scripture*, which pointed directly to the origin of the Dao. By thoroughly studying them, one could glimpse the mysteries of heaven and earth.
Using Chaos Qi to nurture the three meridians was no different from the process of the birth of the rules of heaven and earth.
Zhang Ruochen could not see the heavenly secrets or comprehend the origin of the Dao. So, he could only organize and summarize the millions of martial arts techniques in the world, hoping to gain some help from them.
Three days passed quickly.
Zhang Ruochen still could not see through the rules of heaven and earth, but his martial realm had taken a big step forward, with many new understandings. Even his attainments in the Sword Dao had reached a new height, as if a transformation was about to occur.
Gu Songzi refined the Meridian-Nurturing Pill and handed it to Zhang Ruochen. "I can only help you this far. The rest depends on your own fortune. From now on, we owe each other nothing."
Gu Songzi instructed Qing Mo to protect Zhang Ruochen and ensure he was not disturbed by external matters. Then, with his hands behind his back, he left the place.
Qing Mo's lips moved, wanting to persuade Zhang Ruochen to think it over again, but in the end, she didn't say anything, afraid of affecting his state of mind.
"Only those who have fought, struggled, and persevered can understand what it means to be a legend and what it means to be ordinary."
Zhang Ruochen appeared very calm. Holding the Meridian-Nurturing Pill, he swallowed it without a trace of hesitation.
The Meridian-Nurturing Pill acted like a catalyst. As it entered his body, it immediately made the Chaos Qi within him extremely active, producing a rustling sound.
Every strand of Chaos Qi was like a river; every particle of light was like a star.
A five-colored, strange radiance emanated from Zhang Ruochen's skin. Countless points of light flickered, growing brighter and brighter, illuminating the nearby spirit lake in five colors of indescribable beauty.
Qing Mo stood to the side, her starry eyes wide open, holding her breath.
In her eyes, Zhang Ruochen's body at that moment seemed to contain a vast, boundless universe, with countless star fields and innumerable stars.
"Is the young master really going to transform from postheavenly to preheavenly? Using his physical body to reflect the universe? Using the rules of heaven and earth to derive the three meridians of his body?"
Qing Mo swallowed lightly, extremely nervous.
In the distance, Gu Songzi stood inside a thatched hut, looking out the window toward the lakeshore. He muttered to himself, "If this child truly succeeds, I'm afraid even the gods in their youth would have to concede three points to him. Can he create a miracle?"
In Zhang Ruochen's perception, his body grew larger and larger, vast and boundless, as if it had turned into an endless starry sky that he could no longer control.
At this moment, Zhang Ruochen simply stopped trying to control it. In his mind, he once again recalled the thousands of techniques he had read, with billions of characters surfacing simultaneously.
Those characters actually formed one image after another. Some were like a graceful, unparalleled fairy, some like a blooming spiritual flower, some like a warrior holding a bow and arrow, some like demon pillars supporting the sky, some like rolling divine rivers...
Countless images eventually merged with the five-colored points of light within his body, making the chaotic world infinitely profound and incomparably magnificent.
"Whoosh——"
At this moment, Zhang Ruochen felt his body rapidly contract, from a vast, boundless universe back into a small human form.
His meridians, sacred meridians, and blood meridians were all restored.
Sacred Qi traveled through the meridians and sacred meridians, blood flowed through the blood meridians. His originally lifeless body became vibrant and full of life.
The number of meridians and sacred meridians remained the same, but all three meridians had turned five-colored. Moreover, Zhang Ruochen felt that the three meridians had undergone very subtle changes, but with his current cultivation, he could not yet perceive those changes.
"I've actually broken through to the Upper Realm Saint realm."
Zhang Ruochen smiled slightly, his mood extremely joyful. He couldn't wait to engage in a great battle to vent the oppression he had felt recently.
At the same time, he was very curious. What level of power had he reached now? Could he contend with figures at the level of a Blood General of the Undying Blood Clan?