Chapter 662: Cultivating Heart Secret Technique
Translator: Radiant Translations Editor: Radiant Translations
Xue Ying was teleporting within the Mirage world as he traversed the Black Rain Eden. He soon arrived at a huge maelstrom formed from the black clouds in the sky, and this maelstrom was distorting even space itself. This was a passage leading to the Icy Snow Eden.
‘I only have one challenge from the Three Devil Palaces yet to complete, but it’s the hardest one.’ Xue Ying shot up into the sky and entered the maelstrom.
Icy Snow Eden was marked by a freezing wind blowing all throughout, complete with snow falling from the sky. Goose feather-like snow was piled up all around, forming a pure blanket of white snow.
Xue Ying had only just arrived, but he already noticed the bone-piercing temperature. Whenever one of the snowflakes landed on his body, it was immediately forced away by his luminous sun force.
Taking out the command token for the Three Devil Palaces, he began heading towards the location he was pointed.
…
Once he arrived, just like the first two times, a bubble appeared in the air to envelop him, and he was immediately teleported through the void at the location of the Cultivating Heart Palace.
Xue Ying appreciated the scene in front of him: he was in a region filled to the brim with snow, at the very center of which was a huge palace which was also covered in snow. There were three ancient words imprinted on the surface of the front door of this building—Cultivating, Heart, and Palace.
The interior of the palace hall showed no sign of the same snow found everywhere outside. Instead, many words were written all over the motley walls, making up the third and final fundamental secret technique, the Cultivating Heart Secret Technique.
“The Cultivating Heart Secret Technique,” an aged voice sounded.
Xue Ying turned over to see an old man. He was dressed in white robes, had white hair and a white beard old, and he seemed to have suddenly materialized within the hall. His beard stretched all the way to his chest. “Listen here, Destruction Legion kid: the Cultivating Heart Secret Technique is the hardest of the three fundamental secret techniques. From the time the Ancestor Devil created the Six Heavenly Wheel, leaving behind the Three Devil Palaces, and until now, not many people got the command token for the Three Devil Palaces within each cosmos epoch. The demands for the other two secret techniques might be high, but they can’t be considered exaggerated when compared to this Cultivating Heart Secret Technique. Many have succeeded in cultivating the previous two but remained forever stuck at this final technique.”
“Dissolving Blood and Eroding Bone are fine and all…”
“But the Cultivating Heart focuses on cultivating one’s True Deity Heart, your very soul. It is undoubtedly the hardest of the bunch.”
The old man looked at Xue Ying. “This is the most important trial set by the Ancestor Devil. It is only if you pass it that you can gain the inheritance of the Ancestor Devil.”
Xue Ying laughed. “Many thanks. You are much more polite than the other two.”
“Treasure spirits have their own wisdom, and some might even have feelings,” the white-haired old man concluded with these words, then walked to the side and sat down cross-legged with his eyes closed. He no longer paid Xue Ying any attention.
Xue Ying was startled momentarily as he gazed at the old man, but he quickly turned his attention towards the words written on the wall.
Very soon, he memorized the entire Cultivating Heart Secret Technique.
‘The Cultivating Heart Secret Technique has three boundaries?’ Xue Ying thought.
As long as his True Deity Heart could endure passing these three boundaries, he would have succeeded in cultivating the secret technique.
‘According to the intelligence reports I received from Teacher, the Cultivating Heart Secret Technique is the hardest one.’ Xue Ying did not dare underestimate this technique. If one’s first entry into the Three Devil Palaces were the most critical part of the process and acquiring the command token represented half the work, then successfully cultivating this final secret technique would be the other half! Both the Dissolving Blood and the Eroding Bone secret techniques could be easily completed by most paragons with enough time.
However, the Cultivating Heart Secret Technique was different.
Some paragons would simply never succeed.
“Begin.” Xue Ying sat down cross-legged, closed his eyes, and began his cultivation.
******
The Cultivating Heart Secret Technique was divided into three boundaries.
The first boundary was known as Despondence.
Xue Ying’s True Deity Heart, as seen in his consciousness, was quite large. It had the appearance of a child-sized Xue Ying. The very moment he started his cultivation, shackles began appearing on the surface of his True Deity Heart, locking him within. These chains were like soldering iron, and they left anything they touched in intense pain. “Ah!” It was the sort of pain applied directly to the soul.
As the pain increased, Xue Ying could not help but growl. His body soon began to tremble, and he fell down paralyzed the very next moment.
He had not even once been left paralyzed during his cultivation of the previous two secret techniques, even as he was reaching the final stages. But cultivating the Cultivating Heart Secret Technique left him in such intense pain from the very start that he could not even move. On top of that, this pain would only increase with time.
“Ah!”
Xue Ying gritted his teeth. Blood began dripping from his mouth, and even from his skin. The pain was on such a level that his entire body was trembling without his will.
However, he was doing his best in trying to stay awake and continue cultivating this secret technique.
The pain was gradually rising.
At some point, Xue Ying had begun to feel as if he was in an endless hell, but then the pain suddenly began to recede. The pain had risen quickly, but it also receded just as fast. Xue Ying let out a sigh of relief before moving back into his initial cross-legged stance. The beads of blood which had been forming on his skin disappeared, and his figure regained its usual cleanliness.
And now that he regained clarity of mind, he could continue cultivating the secret technique, starting the cycle of pain from the beginning…
…
The pain rose to a terrifying stage then fell once again. This cycle repeated itself time after time, although the pain he was feeling would reach a new high with every iteration! Before long, a sense of terror had unknowingly begun to creep up in Xue Ying’s mind, for it seemed like there would be no end to the torture. As he cultivated, he felt as if he had fallen into hell, with the agony becoming only stronger and stronger.
There was no end in sight—it was like a nightmare that would only ever become stronger.
Despite all of this, Xue Ying’s goal remained clear though. He wasn’t afraid nor was he worried. Whenever that feeling of creeping terror and despair appeared, he quickly threw them aside.
Yet some amount of fatigue began to gather.
Putting all his effort into completing a task was bound to eventually lead to some fatigue, and every cycle of pain was designed so that he would have to use all of his focus just to endure it. It all seemed endless. Xue Ying’s heart might be firm, but even he was gradually turning wan and swallow as a sense of lethargy appeared in his mind. The so-called ‘spurt of energy’ from the beginning had waned over time to make place for pure exhaustion.
Xue Ying was becoming tired of having to endure the torture, but he had yet to succeed, so he was forced to continue! Every single boundary of the Cultivating Heart was arduous, and if he were to fail this current one, he would have to repeat the entire thing from the start.
He was naturally not willing to accept such an outcome, so he was trying his best to succeed in a single try. Despite the fatigue welling up in his heart, he persisted.
He was enduring.
Time after time…
It felt endless and eternal.
He felt himself fall into an abyss of despair, but there was still a tough bone in him which didn’t accept failure. This was the so-called ‘no confusion, no worries, no fear, empty state of mind, advancing forward with courage, and heart and mind as one’. The current Xue Ying had already reached the state of heart and mind as one. Even though his soul felt like it was crumbling apart, and he was only cultivating as a numb machine, he still held on.
When he was young, he would cultivate his spear techniques every single day to an extreme. Afterward, he was inflicted with hexing poison and had to hold on up until the very end before he could consume a dose of medicine to relieve the pain. After all, consuming the medicine while disregarding the schedule would shorten his lifespan.
But none of that had ever caused Xue Ying to feel such bitterness.
Endless.
It must be stated that the current state of Xue Ying’s soul was so much stronger than it had been in the past, but he was still in despair. And ‘Despondence’ was merely the first boundary of the Cultivating Heart.
He did not know how long a time had passed, but he began to feel that he was on death’s door. There was a single thought which gave him the ability to keep enduring. His heart was already faint, but he was still able to persist.
“Hong~”
Once an incomparably terrifying pain engulfed his soul and receded just as quickly, Xue Ying was left in a stunned state.
After all, he discovered…
That he had completed the cultivation content of the first boundary of the Cultivation Heart, ‘Despondence’.
‘I managed to endure?’ Xue Ying was rather surprised. Even though he was still tired beyond words, a sense of happiness was growing in his heart, for he had finally escaped that terrifying hell. The smile on Xue Ying’s face was exceptionally exuberant. He attempted to deduce how long had passed since he began his cultivation.
‘What!? Only two days?’ Xue Ying was aghast.
He thought he had been experiencing that endless pain for a very long time, perhaps a million years or ten million years. However, upon succeeding, he found that only two days had passed.
Xue Ying completely loosened up and relaxed for half a year until he was fully recovered.
Only then did he finally begin cultivating the second boundary of the Cultivating Heart—the ‘Heart Arousal’.
