To him, cultivating the Way of the Armored Elephant was nothing but a nightmare.
With regards to Han Li’s cultivation of the nameless oracular chant, Zhang Tie could not help but feel envy in his heart.
He felt that Han Li only needed to spend his time peacefully in meditation like a monk. Hearing Zhang Tie’s emotions, Han Li had nothing to say in his defense. He was also aware that his cultivation was much easier when compared to Zhang Tie’s arduous labor.
Han Li could somewhat understand Zhang Tie’s fear towards the Way of the Armored Elephant. As he progressed through the nine layers of the Way of the Armored Elephant, he would have to bear unimaginable pain.
Despite the difficulty, Zhang Tie persisted, refusing to give up. Han Li could not help but admire and respect Zhang Tie for his unyielding personality.
If Han Li were in Zhang Tie’s shoes, he would never have chosen to practice such a domineering skill. Even if the skill could turn him into a world-shaking expert overnight, he would still reject it.
The two of them had almost finished dinner as they were talking excitedly about martial arts. Once the meal was over, Zhang Tie cleared the bowls and bid his farewell. Before leaving, he still reminded Han Li to take care of his injured foot and to go to sleep early.
Standing at the door, Han Li watched as Zhang Tie left and quickly returned back to his house, closing all the windows except for a slight opening in the skylight to allow some air to flow through before taking out the mysterious bottle from his leather pouch.
Han Li was only a ten year-old child with a short attention span, and after studying the bottle for a short period of time, he quickly got bored. With his foot injury, Han Li also felt somewhat tired out by today’s turn of events. Unknowingly, he fell asleep on his bed with his hand holding onto the bottle.
Time passed by, and just when Han Li was sleeping soundly, he suddenly felt an icy cool feeling flowing from his hand.
Han Li involuntarily shivered, and he forcefully opened his heavy eyelids, gazing at his hand in a daze.
“Oh!” He immediately sat up with his mouth open from shock, to such an extent that saliva dripped down from his gaping mouth. He no longer felt sleepy; instead, his attention was fixed on the strange sight in front of him.
Rays of white light could be seen beaming through the gap from the skylight. The beams concentrated around the bottle Han Li held in his hand, forming many rice-sized white dots of light on it's surface, and enveloping the bottle in a layer of rays of white light.
The rays of light looked extremely gentle, not menacing at all, and that icy cool feeling originated precisely from the rays of light!
Han Li swallowed a big gulp of saliva and finally turned his eyes away from the bottle. As if it burned his hand, he quickly threw the bottle to one side before scrambling to the other side of the room.
After a moment of vigilance, he realized that nothing was wrong and slowly inched towards the mysterious bottle.
The mysterious bottle enveloped by the white light, and other than looking beautiful, it seemed to possess an aura that was not of this world.
Han Li hesitated for awhile before using his finger to poke the bottle a few times. Seeing there was no reaction, he cautiously picked up the bottle again. Putting the bottle on the table, he laid on the nearby bed and closely examined this never-before-seen phenomenon.
Han Li focused his full attention on the mysterious bottle for about an hour and a half without even blinking before he finally realized some of the secrets that the mysterious bottle was hiding.
The mysterious bottle was incessantly absorbing the rice-sized beads of white light surrounding it. No, not simply absorbing; it was as if the beads of white light had a will of their own and were fighting with each other in order to be the first to enter the bottle.
Han Li viewed this extremely bizarre event and used his fingertip to touch a bead of white light.
It felt icy cold! Other than this, there was nothing special about it.
Han Li inclined his head and looked upward. The rays of white light were still beaming through the gap in the skylight as if they had no intention of stopping.
Han Li surveyed the interior of his room to make sure the doors and windows were all closed before inclining his head to look at the skylight once more. Suddenly, a thought struck him, and he lightly pushed open the door, popping his head out to peek at his surroundings.
Luckily, it was the middle of the night; other than insects, there was no one else around.
Han Li returned back to his room, grabbing the bottle and putting it back inside the pouch before hurrying outside again, running to a remote location before stopping.
Surveying all four directions and ensuring there was no one nearby, Han Li cautiously removed the bottle from his pouch and placed it gently on the ground.
While the mysterious bottle had been sealed in his pouch, the white rays of light had disappeared.
However, Han Li wasn't worried by this.
As he expected, after waiting a while, rays of white light began congregating around the bottle from all four directions. This time round, the rays were much denser than the rays produced in his house. They tightly enveloped the mysterious bottle in a shroud of white light, forming a ball of light the size of a washbasin.
Chapter 14: Mysterious Liquid
“Ah!” Han Li cried out with excitement and pumped his fist into the air.
By doing so, he revealed that he was indeed still a child.
His assumption seemed to be correct; when the bottle was in the dark room, the amount of light attracted to it was quite small. But when in a wide and open area, the amount of light attracted to it was far greater in quantity.
But what caused the light to gather? What use did it serve? Although he didn’t know the answer, Han Li felt he was close to solving the riddle behind the mysterious bottle.
Han Li knew that he would soon unravel the secret of the mysterious bottle, which made him tremendously excited.
At dawn, the light that had gathered around the bottle slowly faded away.
After making sure that there was no one nearby observing his actions, Han Li returned his attention to the bottle’s status. He bent down to pick the bottle up and inspected it, however, there seemed to be no difference since it was still impossible to open!
Han Li felt disappointed, but seeing how morning was arriving, he unwillingly put the bottle away and prepared to leave.
After all, he still wanted to return to the stone chamber to practice his cultivation.
For the next following nights at fixed intervals, the bottle would undergo the same experience. Countless specks of light would fly towards the bottle like moths to a flame. No matter how big or small the specks of light were, they were greedily devoured by the bottle.
Initially, Han Li thought that the bottle would continue to undergo the same process for an unknown amount of time, but on the 8th day, something unexpected happened.
When Han Li went back to the remote place in the mountains and placed the bottle in its regular spot, the absorbance of the specks of light continued only for half an hour when it suddenly stopped. The dark green designs on the bottle then began to emit a green radiance as golden words manifested on the surface of the bottle. The strange words on the bottle were imposing and firm, but the written strokes were unusual. The words seemed to belong to an ancient era, the characters flickering incessantly.
But this weird occurrence had ended as suddenly as it began. Aside from the golden words that were now imprinted onto the bottle, everything else remained the same.
After seeing so many strange things happening with the bottle in the past few days, Han Li was no longer as surprised as he had been in the past. Even the appearance of the golden words did not surprise him very much.
Casually grasping the bottle in his hand, he tried to open the bottle on a whim, and much to his extreme surprise, the lid popped off with barely any effort.
'No way!' Han Li stared at the bottle in shock.
With next to no effort or thought, Han Li’s problem regarding how to open the bottle had been suddenly resolved. How could it be so easy to open?!
Repeatedly looking down at the bottle to confirm that what he was looking at was not fake, he tried to calm his agitated heart before looking straight into the bottle.
Inside the bottle was a jade green drop of liquid no bigger than a soybean. As it flowed around inside the bottle, the entire inside of the bottle reflected a green luster.
What was this drop of liquid?
Han Li was disappointed; he had put in so much effort only to be rewarded with some seemingly mundane liquid.
Disappointed, Han Li put the bottle back into his pouch before turning around and dejectedly returning to his room. His previous excitement had been thrown to the farthest corners of the earth in a sudden rollercoaster of emotions.
Although he had finally opened the bottle, he was absolutely disappointed with the result.
Still, Han Li was prepared to take his time to discover what secrets that drop of jade green liquid held. Perhaps in the future, it would be able to give him an unexpected surprise!
Right now, what he wanted to do most was to go back and sleep. For the past few days, he had not been able to sleep properly, which even cut into his daytime cultivation, making his progress so inefficient to the point where even Doctor Mo had inquired him about it.
Ever since Han Li had become Doctor Mo’s disciple after breaking through the first layer of the chant, he felt that there was no longer a need to practice the chant. Disappointed by the chant’s effects on his body, or lack thereof, he was unwilling to continue relying on it to cultivate.
For that, Doctor Mo fiercely reprimanded him.
However, whenever it came time to cultivate, he was still always drowsy and unmotivated, completely devoid of vigor. This made Doctor Mo furious, and he couldn't help but wonder if he had accepted the wrong disciple.
Thinking about his situation, Han Li couldn’t help but feel wronged. However, he just wasn't in the mood for cultivation.
But what Han Li couldn’t imagine was that after waking up on the second day, he would once again motivated and throw his entire body into cultivating like a madman.
The reason he was cultivating in such a manner was simply because of a single, simple statement Doctor Mo had made.
“For every single layer you improve with this chant, I will increase the amount of silver issued to you by another twofold.” Doctor Mo had seen the thirst Han Li had for money and figured out a way for Han Li to be enticed. This way, Han Li would have enough motivation to cultivate.
For the next few days, Han Li dedicated himself to cultivation, hoping to break through to the second layer.
Every day from morning to noon and from noon to night, he would enter the stone cultivation chamber and cultivate. Any thoughts about how repetitious, mundane, or boring this lifestyle was immediately got thrown out of Han Li’s head.
For the sake of Han Li’s cultivation, Doctor Mo had even temporarily sealed off the God Hand Valley. Even when he treated patients, he would treat them outside the valley for fear of disrupting Han Li.
Han Li was now so focused on breaking through that he even forgot about analyzing the effects of the bottle’s jade green liquid.
Autumn went by as winter came, then spring rolled in before summer arrived.
In a flash, four years had gone by, and Han Li was now 14 years old.
He grew up to be a taciturn, determined and tan-skinned rustic youngster. Based on his external appearance alone, he looked no different than any other common peasant farmer. His looks did not warrant any attention; he was not extraordinarily handsome, and neither did he have a noble’s elegance.
This was the result of living in the stone cultivation chamber every day. He would travel back and from there to his home. Occasionally, he would go to Doctor Mo’s residence to learn about medicine and to read from Doctor Mo’s collection of books. The entire valley was his world to live in, and thanks to his hard work, he had finally broken through to the third layer!
Chapter 15: Four Years Later
Doctor Mo was extremely satisfied with the amount of effort Han Li had dedicated to his cultivation.
However, he still felt that Han Li’s rate of progress at breaking through to the next layer in the oracular chant was too slow.
These past few years, the illness Doctor Mo was suffering from had been getting more serious. He would cough countless times a day, with the bouts of coughing getting more and more frequent while lasting longer and longer.
As the condition of his body worsened, Doctor Mo started to pay more attention to Han Li’s cultivation. From his relentless urging, one could see the anxiety in his heart.
For some reason, Doctor Mo attached an enormous amount of importance to Han Li. Not only did he increase payment in terms of silver, Doctor Mo’s gaze was even filled with a tender and caring emotion as if he were examining a rare treasure.
Despite this, Han Li, who had reached the third layer in the oracular chant, noticed an underlying truth with his extremely acute senses. Han Li inadvertently discovered that behind Doctor Mo’s warm and friendly gaze was a trace of coldness and extreme greed, which made Han Li feel extremely uncomfortable
That gaze that Doctor Mo threw at him actually caused Han Li to be frightened from the tips of his hair all the way to the marrow in his bones. He felt that Doctor Mo saw him more as an object instead of as a living being.
This made Han Li felt puzzled. What could he possibly have that Doctor Mo desired?
“Of course, there's nothing I have that he would be interested in,” Han Li assured himself after thinking deeply.
There were even times when Han Li thought that he was overly tired from cultivating the nameless chant, and he would shake his head in shame. He could not help but blame himself; after all, berating Doctor Mo behind his back was an ungrateful act.
However, he did know the exact reason why, in the deepest recesses of his heart, he still held a feeling of caution whenever he interacted with Doctor Mo. As time passed, this feeling of caution got stronger and stronger.
Currently, Han Li was facing a huge problem. He had already reached the bottleneck of the third layer, but Doctor Mo’s stock of precious herbs had already run dry.
Obviously, Han Li was not a genius by any means. If it wasn't for the assistance of the medicinal herbs, his cultivation progress would have long since stagnated.
Every time he met Doctor Mo, Han Li could not help but to feel a sense of shame.
Doctor Mo had practically spent all of his fortunes to painstakingly aid Han Li in his cultivation, creating favorable conditions for Han Li, and yet… Han Li was unable to satisfy his request.
This made Han Li extremely unwilling to meet Doctor Mo’s gaze whenever there was an inquiry by Doctor Mo regarding his state of progress.
Strangely enough, for who knows what reason, the highly skilled Doctor Mo was unable to know Han Li’s progress without being told by Han Li. Thus, he was kept in the dark regarding the problem of Han Li’s bottleneck.
However, not long ago, the guilt in Han Li’s heart caused him to seek out Doctor Mo and confess about the bottleneck he faced in his cultivation.
After Doctor Mo heard that in the past year, there had not been the slightest progress in Han Li’s cultivation, his normally expressionless face became extremely unsightly.
To Han Li’s surprise, Doctor Mo did not rebuke him. Instead, he told Han Li that he would be gone from the valley for a period of time to gather the necessary herbs and reminded Han Li to continue devoting his efforts into cultivating the oracular chant.
Two days later, Doctor Mo brought along a case filled with tools needed to extract herbs and left the Seven Mysteries Sect.
After he left, Han Li was all alone in the God Hand Valley.
As for his good friend, Zhang Tie, he had already cultiv
ated to the third layer of the “Way of the Armored Elephant” two years ago and had disappeared without a trace. Zhang Tie only left a letter of farewell, stating that he wanted to explore Jiang Hu. This incident caused a great disturbance in the sect. After that, there were rumors that Zhang Tie’s family was spared from punishment after Doctor Mo pleaded on their behalf.
Han Li felt that the entire matter was extremely bizarre, and after thinking about it, he was sure that there was more that met the eye regarding this matter. Regardless, Han Li held no position of importance in the sect; thus his words were ignored, and this matter had long since been swept under the rug. After contemplating, Han Li thought, 'Could it be that Zhang Tie was so afraid of the backlash caused by the fourth layer of his martial skill that he ran away?'
Putting his thoughts of Zhang Tie aside, Han Li cultivated for a few days inside the valley but was still unable to make the slightest bit of progress. Since he was a hot-blooded male, he decided to explore the Celestial Rainbow Mountains instead of staying cooped up in the God Hand Valley.
As he walked along the mountain paths, the paths that he knew so well actually held a tinge of unfamiliarity; he could not help but feel slight traces of sadness in his heart.
These past few years, because of his cultivation, it was as if Han Li was staying in a prison, unable to take a single step outside the valley.
The disciples of the Seven Mysteries Sect should have already long forgotten his existence.
On the roads, Han Li met a few disciples that were under patrol duty. From their perspective, this stranger wearing the robes of an Inner Disciple filled them with suspicion. It was only after much explanation that Han Li managed to convince them that he was indeed a disciple of the Seven Mysteries Sect.
To avoid any more situations like that, Han Li decided to traverse along the small trails that were separated from the main road.
As expected, he met no other disciples, and this enabled him to travel faster with no interruptions.
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