That night, the moon hung pristine and bright.
Li Chijing sat cross-legged in the courtyard, gathering his qi and focusing his mind, preparing to condense the third wheel — the Orbital Wheel.
The human body holds boundless mysteries: twelve meridians, three dantians — upper, middle, and lower. The *Lunar Nourishing Wheel Scripture* describes them thus: "The lower dantian is the storehouse of essence. The middle dantian is the storehouse of qi. The upper dantian is the storehouse of spirit."
Among the six wheels of Embryonic Breathing, three — the Profound Vision Wheel, the Orbital Wheel, and the Jade Capital Wheel — are called the Three Gates of Embryonic Breathing. They are exceptionally difficult because each must be condensed from nothing in a different dantian. The remaining three wheels are relatively easier. Once the Profound Vision Wheel forms in the lower dantian's Qi Sea, one need only breathe attentively, and the Luminous Understanding Wheel arises naturally from the same point.
The Orbital Wheel resides in the Great Palace Gate — the middle dantian, the storehouse of qi. Once condensed, spiritual power flows ceaselessly through the entire body. Power channeled to the eyes grants vision across a thousand li; power channeled to the feet grants fleetness — running across rooftops and scaling walls becomes trivial.
Li Chijing rested for a quarter hour, feeling his Qi Sea brim full. The two existing spiritual wheels circled and intertwined within him. He formed his seal and guided the breath through the Stone Gate, Origin Pass, Spirit Gate, and Life Door meridians, gathering it in the Great Palace Gate, attempting to condense the third wheel.
Lu Jiangxian watched Li Chijing's progress, casting a calming incantation to steady his mind. Together with Li Tongya and Li Xiangping, he stood guard over the process.
Just as Li Chijing's seals took shape and the breakthrough began, Lu Jiangxian felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. From far away, a vast and powerful aura was sweeping toward Greater Li Mountain.
Measuring the disparity between them, Lu Jiangxian made an instant decision. His divine sense retreated like a receding tide, flooding back into the mirror. He stopped absorbing the moonlight streaming through the skylight and lay inert in the ancestral hall's dark chamber — indistinguishable from an ordinary bronze mirror.
In the space of a few breaths, a streak of azure light arced across the sky above the Li compound. Lu Jiangxian was about to exhale in relief when the light turned and drifted back, hanging suspended over the compound like a hovering hawk.
Si Yuanbai had emerged from seclusion on Azure Ear Peak, his cultivation advanced once more. He intended to seek out a boar demon in Greater Li Mountain and set out on his flying shuttle, following the Ancient Li Road southward.
"That great battle severed all spiritual vitality from the northern slopes of Greater Li Mountain and left the earth veins in chaos," he mused. "Three centuries have passed. The veins have slowly recovered, and quite a few demons have taken shape."
Nearing Greater Li Mountain, Si Yuanbai noticed numerous villages at the mountain's foot — particularly along both banks of an unnamed river, where settlements dotted the landscape, brimming with life.
"The battle scoured the earth clean, slaughtered every demon on the northern slopes, and cut off the spiritual vitality — and in doing so, made it a fine home for mortals."
Then his eye caught a flicker of spiritual power in a village below. Curious, he activated his dharma eye. In the moonlit courtyard sat a handsome youth, and flanking him were two young men of similar appearance who also carried traces of cultivation.
"How curious. This boy is breaking through a bottleneck, and there's no elder watching over him?"
Si Yuanbai swept the village with his spiritual sense and found no other fluctuations of power. He chuckled and clapped his hands. "Some fellow cultivator's illegitimate child, most likely."
Down below, Li Chijing remained utterly oblivious. In fact, he was experiencing a moment of extraordinary clarity. As he persisted in his attempts to condense the wheel, every major and minor doubt in his technique resolved itself. Threads of spiritual power surged into the Great Palace Gate, and a crystalline, translucent wheel began to form with startling speed — as though he had practiced it a thousand times.
"What a youth!" Si Yuanbai stroked his beard and nodded in admiration.
The path of cultivation was long and perilous. A spiritual aperture was merely the threshold of entry. One also needed fortune, comprehension, and willpower — not to mention family, sect, and technique. This youth's comprehension and talent were both excellent, and his technique was clearly profound. But in a mortal village deep in the mountains, how many cultivation resources could he access? How many secret manuals could he obtain? In the end, he would achieve Qi Refining at most, and crumble to dust in two hundred years.
The immortal road was long. How many heroes had fallen along its length? How many geniuses had died, their lineages extinguished?
Si Yuanbai lowered his flying shuttle, cast an invisibility technique, and perched on a decorative rockery in the courtyard, watching the family with idle amusement.
A mortal old man walked into the courtyard. One of the guardian youths spoke: "Father."
Si Yuanbai's expression turned strange. One in a thousand mortals possessed a spiritual aperture — and here were three brothers, all with apertures. Could these truly be the children of a mortal farmer?
Observing the purity and richness of their spiritual power, they clearly practiced a profound method. This had to be the illegitimate offspring of some fellow cultivator — a man who had sired children but could not bring them home, and so had left them in this village to begin their training.
"And all three children possess spiritual apertures. Their father's cultivation must be at Foundation Establishment or higher." The higher a cultivator's realm, the harder it was to sire children — but the probability of the child having a spiritual aperture increased dramatically. Qi Refining cultivators had perhaps a one-in-ten chance. At Foundation Establishment, it rose to five in ten. Three children with apertures pointed to a Foundation Establishment father.
As for Purple Mansion? Excluding the old patriarchs of the great immortal sects, the entire State of Yue could not muster two handfuls of Purple Mansion experts. Such an exalted figure would have no reason to dally in a farming village — and even if he sired a bastard, he could bring the child home without anyone daring to whisper.
Below, the youth completed his technique and looked up, face radiant. "Father, I've broken through!"
The Li family erupted in joy. Above, on the rockery, Si Yuanbai's mind was already turning.
"The Ancient Li Road from here to Greater Li Mountain has a dense mortal population, yet no cultivator has guarded it in three centuries since that battle. Now the earth veins are restoring and spiritual vitality is recovering. This territory should return to the sect's governance."
"Using these people as sect affiliates to guard the area — backed by that Foundation Establishment senior's influence — they could keep the demons in check."
The Qingchi Sect controlled the southern five prefectures of the State of Yue through a well-established system. The sect dispatched disciples to govern at the city level; below that, it relied on the tangled web of marriage alliances among cultivation families to control the grassroots. Spirit pills and artifacts were used to compel these families to grow raw materials and supply low-realm manpower, and each year the sect harvested the families' most talented children to replenish its ranks. This had been the accepted practice in the cultivation world for centuries, and the Qingchi Sect had employed it for over five hundred years.
"And I can forge a good relationship with that Foundation Establishment senior along the way."
With this in mind, Si Yuanbai released his invisibility and drifted lightly into the courtyard.
Li Chijing was still savoring the sensation of the Orbital Wheel's boundless flow when a figure in azure robes materialized out of thin air before him. The man appeared thirty or forty years of age, handsome and composed, with a gentle smile. A sword at his waist gleamed with a faint, luminous aura. He looked ethereal, otherworldly.
The Li brothers snapped to attention, shoving Li Mutian behind them. Li Tongya barked: "Who are you?"