Breaking the Day

Chapter 161 The Dao

Li Chengfeng had no idea that within a prison cell deep beneath Spiritual Mountain, his beloved Uncle Kun was enduring the worst torture known to mankind. Even if he did, he would not be able to do anything.

Right now, the most important thing to him was to become stronger as soon as possible!

But the path of cultivation was long. Was it really something he could achieve that quickly?

Most importantly, he had not even learned what cultivation was. He did not know how to use magical items or wield powerful arrays.

After bidding Su You and the rest farewell, he returned to his quarters, had his dinner, then focused on studying ‘Notes for Cultivation’ by the fire. To him, the procedures were not as important because his body came with its own unique cultivation methods. That was why ‘Psychology of Foundation Solidification’ and ‘Cultivating Qi’ were not books he needed to read urgently either.

However, Chengfeng knew that while cultivation methods varied, the philosophies were generally the same. While ‘Notes for Cultivation’ did not teach cultivation methods or gave a tutorial on taming one’s inner demons, it talked about the major philosophies of cultivation and the most basic concepts. These were what Chengfeng lacked.

Chengfeng had questions like, what is magic? How does it change? How does one control it?

The book explained it in detail using concepts that were convincing enough to this stranger to cultivation.

‘Notes for Cultivation’ depicted the history of magic: all magic in this world came from five types of energy: the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire and earth. Usually, a cultivator would choose to cultivate in down one path. If a person naturally had metal attributes, they would be more successful in cultivating metal element spells.

A person with wood attributes would find wood spells the easiest.

Most people only had one attribute, it was very rare for anyone to have two. A long time ago, in the first millennium that magical abilities surfaced, cultivators only specialised in one type of spell casting that caused severe imbalances of power chains. A could defeat B easily, yet B could beat C to the ends of the world, and in turn C could beat A.

This peculiar phenomenon left the world’s cultivators dissatisfied. They did not only yearn for transcension beyond the mortal reincarnation cycle, they yearn more the ability to conquer the world!

Sometimes, the cultivators realised, there were extremely rare cultivators who had double attributes. They searched far and wide for these double attribute holders and studied how they got these abilities.

After long research, they realised that it was naturally passed down bloodlines. This ability could be inherited through marriage and bearing children.

This bloodline was something everyone dreamt off. After generations of marriage between cultivators, the ability was also passed down descendants.

After a long time, the characteristic of having double attributes became common. Soon, everyone realised that one person could not have two elemental attributes that were detrimental to each other, for example fire and water.

At this point, magical cultivation had entered its second millennium.

During this second millennium, a genius realised that cultivators were not restricted to the two attributes they had. Using the concept of the five elemental wheel, they could create more spells and energy casting.

This revelation was the most important discovery of the spell-casting world. With this, they discovered the two most powerful forces in the world: Yin and Yang!

Chengfeng’s eyes shone as he read this paragraph. The explanations were so concise that even a time-traveller like him could understand it.

The concept was simple: when the five-elemental wheel rotated clockwise, this was Yang; when the five-element wheel rotated anti-clockwise, this was Yin!

[TL Note: clockwise means to nourish (wood nourishes fire, etc); source: wikipedia]

Li Chengfeng clapped at the ingenuity of it!

One line of wisdom was better than ten thousand books of false knowledge!

If this book tried to explain in detail what Yin and Yang was and their sources, Chengfeng would have been very bored.

Yet just this simple explanation was enough to shake him to his core!

If clockwise was Yang and anti-clockwise was Yin, then when two random elements were combined, would they result in different reactions?

“Young Master, what do you think of this?” Zhao Xiaobao was engrossed in the book ‘Cultivating Qi’ but was pulled aside by Chengfeng to talk about their learnings from ‘Notes for Cultivation’.

Su Yuehan was currently reading ‘Book of Arrays’. While she looked like she was concentrating hard, she had actually mastered everything in it. While they chatted, she strained her ears to listen and prepared to find an opportunity to give them a few ‘casual pointers’.

Chengfeng pulled Xiaobao aside. “Think about it, there are seven types of energy in this world- metal, wood, water, fire, earth, Yin and Yang. But what does wind come from? What about those people with Wind attributes?”

Zhao Xiaobao thought for a moment and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Chengfeng grinned. “Simply put, the difference in air temperatures create wind! Warm air rises while cold air sinks. This creates wind!”

Xiaobao was confused. “So?”

“So, if we master fire attribute spells and use it to heat air, then learn water attribute spells to cool air, we’ll create a temperature difference and it’ll result in a wind attribute spell!”

Zhao Xiaobao was stunned. “Did you just think of this?”

Cehngfeng looked delighted with himself. “It makes sense, right?”

Xiaobao nodded. “You’re so smart, Young Master. But I still don’t understand.”

“What is it?”

“If that is the case, what about ice attribute spells?”

Chengfeng laughed. “Simple, you can reverse a fire attribute spell to turn it into ice!”

Xiaobao widened his eyes. “It works that way too?”

Chengfeng glared. “There is only one thing your brain is good for!”

Zhao Xiaobao looked at him cautiously, feeling like Chengfeng was about to insult him again. “What is it?”

“For cooking! Pig brain tastes delicious!”

Su Yuehan, who was watching the show, snickered while Xiaobao said indignantly, “But I still don’t understand.”

He sighed. “Are you dumb? A fire spell is meant to increase the heat in the air till a certain temperature so flames appear. If you reverse it, you’re decreasing the heat in the air until a certain temperature so ice crystals appear! Do you understand?”

Xiaobao did. “Oh, I see.”

Chengfeng paused. He recalled that Grand Senior Sister had been able to cast both fire and ice spells at the same time. This meant she could both inject and siphon heat from the air, she was literally casting two opposite spells.

She had already broken a universal cultivation rule: no one was supposed to be able to wield two opposite powers at the same time!

But the Grand Senior Sister did it. Chengfeng, a newcomer to this cultivation world, shuddered as he imagined how powerful she must be!

Ignorance was bliss. If one did not understand the peculiarities of her spells, they would not know how powerful she was!

Su Yuehan stared at Chengfeng in shock. Initially, she thought that he was powerful only because he was the reincarnated immortal and contained Immortal Qi within his body. She did not expect him to be intelligent enough to connect all the dots and understand the presence of Immortal Qi within him. The Young Master of the Li family will surely be a successful cultivator in the future!

There was a saying that while there were countless cultivation methods, there was only one Dao!

Everyone strove to study countless spells and cultivation methods, yet they often forgot about the intangible philosophy of cultivation that should be comprehended first!

The simplest thing in the world was the Dao. The most complex thing in the world was also the Dao!

Chengfeng, a newcomer, had already understood part of the Dao!

Although he had just read the book containing knowledge passed down from ancient times, his ability to connect the dots was impressive.

He was extremely talented!

Su Yuehan regarded him with slightly more respect than before.