Lanke Chess Edge
Chapter 205: Desiring True Fire

From Ji Yuan’s perspective, the Old Turtle’s cultivation path had indeed been rather rough. Of course, some of his misfortunes had been self-inflicted; after all, he had helped others with a clear purpose in mind from the beginning. If he were more like the big black carp, he would have had fewer problems.

However, the Old Turtle’s sincerity in seeking the Tao was genuine, and the hardships of his life had made him extremely wise and knowledgeable in cherishing his fortune, which was a rare and precious characteristic.

These past two days had indeed been a change of good fortune for the Old Turtle.

As his body moved like a flying dragon, Ji Yuan took leisurely steps forward, as if he were shrinking the earth beneath his feet. His clothes fluttered in the night wind. If someone could have seen him, it would truly look as though he were floating in mid-air.

Even though he was carrying a large green fishing rod, it was difficult to say whether that destroyed the atmosphere, or instead added a touch of color to this immortal scene.

Although Ji Yuan had gone very far away, echoes of the Old Turtle’s last statement could still be vaguely heard. He couldn’t help but ponder it in his mind at this moment.

It seemed that he had come into contact with many different people and beings, meeting commoners and kings alike. Although he had also played a role in fanning the flames and making some moves behind the scenes, he often felt more like a bystander in his heart, because he knew that, in the prosperous human world, everyone had their own way of living, their own industries, and their own fortunes. Perhaps, in the depths of his heart, he also understood that there were many people who could also make their own moves.

If he thought about it carefully, monsters had significantly fewer choices than humans: they often only had one path, that of cultivation, but some were crooked paths, while others were righteous. It was very rare to meet individuals who he thought had the potential to be successful chess pieces, so it was not excessive to help them in their path if he thought it was appropriate.

With a busy mind, Ji Yuan walked lightly up the city wall with his footwork technique and leapt back into Chunhui Prefecture’s capital. He was still deep in thought as he walked towards Huiyuan Academy.

Sometimes, the word “fate” was truly not just a casual remark. Opportunity and destiny were two sides of the same coin¹ — both good timing and fate were indispensable.

In Ji Yuan’s current perspective, the simplest example of this concept was with the tiger spirit Lu Shan Jun.

When he had first arrived in this world, he encountered this ferocious tiger spirit, which was an extremely dangerous event. He had racked his brains to flatter it, and said some obscure words to trick it and escape. For a period of time, Ji Yuan was both afraid and repulsed by this ferocious tiger spirit.

Later, when he received the Sword Intent Inscription from him, the repulsion suddenly faded significantly.

In the following years, Ji Yuan’s skills grew. He slowly sensed the positive side of this Tiger Spirit in keeping his promises, his sincerity in seeking the Tao, and his respect for his “master.” Moreover, Lu Shan Jun, as a black piece and a monster cultivator, had a strong connection to his chess abilities, and as such his perception continued to improve. He became more confident that the tiger could make up for his previous bad karma.

However, if one considered a different first meeting, and had it been the current Ji Yuan who had encountered the man-eating tiger in front of the mountain temple for the first time, although not for certain, it was very likely that the tiger would have been killed with one strike of his sword.

From his perspective, fate was indeed a mysterious thing. The Old Turtle was able to meet Ji Yuan at this time, and gain this opportunity. As such, was difficult to conclude whether his hardships in the past couple hundred years were a loss or a blessing.

Just as Ji Yuan arrived outside Huiyuan Academy, Hu Yun jumped out from behind the academy wall.

Ji Yuan originally thought that Hu Yun would be reluctant to come out, and that he would have to go over and call him. Now it seemed that the red fox had gained a stronger sense of propriety, which was also reflected in such trivial matters.

Ji Yuan said nothing, nor did he plan to go inside and talk to Yin Qing. He took Hu Yun and left Chunhui Prefecture on a cloud. After bowing with cupped hands in the direction of the City God Temple from afar, he flew back to Ning’an County.

After returning to Ning’an County, Ji Yuan didn’t change much of his routine. He continued to study and carefully comprehend the wonderful techniques at hand while following his original schedule. However, Hu Yun no longer constantly stayed in Ning’an County, but instead spent most of his time back in Niu Kui Mountain.

Lu Shan Jun might have factored into this decision, but Ji Yuan didn’t particularly care. Lu Shan Jun was much more knowledgeable than he was about the details of monster cultivation. It was a blessing that the tiger spirit was willing to take time out of his cultivation to “guide” Hu Yun.

. . .

For humans or monsters engaged in cultivation, time always passed quickly, and winter arrived before they knew it.

On this day in Ju’an Pavilion, Ji Yuan had just finished reading one of his bamboo slips, the “Qi Guiding Art,” one of the two books on cultivating immortality that he had obtained in that first year.

Ji Yuan had no idea how many times he had reread this book during this period of time. Sometimes, he would think carefully about a passage, and other times he would just read it over and over again.

Ji Yuan did not do this because he had nothing better to do, but rather because eh wanted to construct a practical and feasible supernatural technique.

There were many kinds of Qi Guiding arts, but none of them had any fancy names, because they all consisted of two basic steps: stimulating and sensing the Qi, and absorbing spiritual energy. Besides, naming in the cultivation world was simple — no matter the context, everyone called their methods “Qi Guiding Arts.”

However, if one were to truly study it in detail and give each Qi Guiding Art an accurate name, the one in Ji Yuan’s hand should be titled “Transformation of Heaven and Earth Technique.”

It definitely sounded like some kind of hoax, but when he fully understood it, he could tell that this was just another Qi Guiding Art, same as the so-called “Hanging Light in the Solitary Cave Technique” or the “From Trees To Light Technique”.

Although Ji Yuan couldn’t determine how powerful he was now, the time when he had needed to deliberately practice the Qi Guiding Arts to guide spiritual energy into his body had long since passed. However, this Transformation of Heaven and Earth Technique had taken on new meaning thanks to his inner world within his body.

The principle of the Transformation of Heaven and Earth was to imagine that the outer world was in harmony with the inner world, to manifest the inner world outside of the body and thus absorb spiritual energy. Now, Ji Yuan was contemplating the reverse technique that he was studying, which was to imagine that the inner world was in harmony with the other world, and then manifest that outside of the body. ²

Being able to achieve the reversal technique was extremely rare; for ordinary cultivators, even if their inner and outer realms were manifested, it would only be a small room, enough to accommodate their inner world furnace. Other people would not be able to feel it, and it would be too small to affect the outer world.

From Ji Yuan’s perspective, although his inner world was currently quite extraordinarily grand, it really was only useful in giving lectures, as well as to occasionally to influence the tone of his voice.³

In the end, who was Ji Yuan? His thinking was far more profound than that of ordinary people in this world, and even beyond that of immortals, demons, gods, and monsters. It was not a crushing difference in wisdom, but purely a difference of perspective.

This vision was something immortals and monsters needed to slowly realize themselves through long-term practice. Ji Yuan, on the other hand, could see something and come up with a conclusion with just a single thought.

The same was true on this day.

With the possibility of a manifestation beyond the realm of the mind, in addition to his skill in manifesting the essence of his Tao, the first thing that came to Ji Yuan’s mind was the True Fire of Samadhi.

He had demonstrated his power only once before, and Ji Yuan had been thinking about it ever since.

To be precise, at that time, there was actually no true display of power. Madam Red had just been burned by the edge of the vast, raging sea of the True Fire of Samadhi, and didn’t even touch the fire itself. Had it not been for Yin Zhaoxian’s special status as a chess piece, not even the heat from the True Fire of Samadhi would have been able to go through.

Ji Yuan didn’t dare use the same method as before again. However, now that he had thoroughly researched the reversal technique of the Transformation of Heaven and Earth, he might be able to draw out the True Fire of Samadhi from the alchemy furnace.

“Tsk tsk… First of all, the inner world’s alchemy furnace is unmoving and difficult to manifest. Second, the True Fire of Samadhi is too dangerous…”

Strictly speaking, the furnace in his inner world was also a means of controlling the True Fire. The alchemy furnace was extremely heavy in his mental conception, and the True Fire in the furnace shared this characteristic. Often times, the furnace would not move again after it had completed an action.

The reversed flow technique that he had developed could at most take a part of the True Fire out of the alchemy furnace, but it could not make it manifest in the outer world — it would be extremely exhausting.

Fine snowflakes began to float down from the sky. The jujube tree in the courtyard swayed in the wind, and ice crystals fell from the gaps in the canopy onto Ji Yuan’s hair and forehead.

This slight chill seemed to penetrate Ji Yuan’s heart, guiding him to a key realization.

‘The Red Star Golden Bridge! ’⁴

However, Ji Yuan’s brows furrowed again.

The Golden Bridge was the only connection between the alchemy furnace and the alchemy room.⁵ It was also the key point at which the red Qi transformed into spiritual energy. It was the bridge between the mental and the real, the mysterious foundation of cultivators. It would indeed be sufficient to work with Ji Yuan’s method of manifesting True Fire.

The problem was that after leaving the Golden Bridge and arriving in the alchemy room, the True Fire of Samadhi would go directly to Ji Yuan’s body.

‘Wouldn’t I just burn myself to death? ’

It was no wonder that Ji Yuan was pondering it so much. Even if the True Fire of Samadhi was indeed contained inside himself, everything was in his inner world. The chess pieces had also been manifested in his enlightenment, but had nearly been burnt to pieces after passing through the fire. It was difficult to determine whether Ji Yuan himself would be burned to death.

“I have drunk quite a bit of the Old Dragon’s wine. Ambergris is brewed by a True Dragon of the Water. It is very nourishing and can also suppress the elemental power of fire. If won’t suddenly die…”

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T/n: JY, creating quite possibly one of the most broken cultivation abilities in the world: “yeah this is kinda useless…” Buddy, you can literally manifest things from your imagination. What are you talking about??

JY: This could, quite possibly, kill me.

JY: One one hand, crispy death. On the other, cool fire powers.

JY: …

JY: … F*** it, we ball

1. The literal phrase here is 机缘机缘 (jīyuán jīyuán). Not only does jīyuán mean chance/opportunity/destiny, it’s also a homophone & play on words with Ji Yuan’s name. Fate, destiny, opportunity, and JY himself are all indispensable in this equation
2. In short: the first is to copy the outer world to the inner, then manifest that harmony. The second is to literally imagine whatever the heck you want and manifest your mental world outside of yourself, imposing your harmony on the world.
3. T/n: Sir please, every single supernatural being is losing their flipping mind
4. 丹 (dān): red/cinnabar/Dan (like Dantian), 室 (shì): room/scabbard/family/a constellation, 金 (jīn): gold, 桥 (qiáo): bridge
5. Think of it as a more metaphorical “room of transformation.” As mentioned in the next sentence, it transforms the “elixir” or red Qi into useable spiritual energy, hence “alchemy” for transforming fundamental forces