Chapter 696: Controlling the Black Gourd
Translator: Radiant Translations Editor: Radiant Translations
He would reflect upon every failure before trying once again. After comprehending a variation which he was confident of, he would attempt to control the Black Gourd. In the end, the Black Gourd remained unmoving. The terrifying flames within the gourd had burned the energy he sent through. He failed time after time–and it had been a few thousand failures already. Even Xue Ying with his heart realm was starting to feel frustrated.
He attempted all kinds of different ways and had even summarized his experiences while trying them out. He used a random strategy–whatever laws he comprehended would be taken as the base. He would ponder over it madly before attempting to ‘deceive’ the gourd. Who knew if he might be right? He spent three months comprehending more than 2,000 variations of cultivation techniques, yet no matter how random the permutation was, they all failed in the end.
“Hu.”
Xue Ying let out a long breath. A strong gale blew out and destroyed the mountain opposite him. Hurricanes formed around him. It was fortunate that he had prevented others from interrupting him, and that there were no humans 50,000 kilometers around him. There were some who lived around here in the past, though they had been teleported away by Xue Ying using his Mirage World.
After he calmed himself down slightly, Xue Ying turned around and went back to his bamboo house.
He sat cross-legged and poured an expensive fruit wine for himself before taking a sniff. Only then did his heart realm regain its usual calm.
‘I can’t go on like this.’ Xue Ying thought, ‘I’ve already failed a few thousand times. Even if I continued randomly for the next two years, it’d only end up in more failures.’
‘Maybe I’ve been thinking wrong all the while.’
Xue Ying closed his eyes.
Countless characters were flashing in his consciousness just like before. Those characters constituted the entire technique.
‘Every single character is filled with limitless profoundness. If I were to comprehend a single character thoroughly, I might have to spend a long time doing so. Comprehending those characters once might take me more than five years.’ Xue Ying reflected, ‘Thus, I thought that it was certain that this is not the way. I have always been worried that there isn’t enough time–five years is too short. That is why decided to dabble and stop in comprehending each character before trying to understanding the technique as a whole.’ Xue Ying extended his senses into those characters, ‘Maybe I should be taking it slow and try to understand character by character instead.’
‘The first character.’
Xue Ying focused his consciousness on this first character.
The character was glimmering. It was fluctuating and felt genuinely profound.
Xue Ying meticulously pondered the profound mysteries behind the fluctuation. Slowly, he had a deeper understanding of it before it finally became a cultivation technique.
‘Thoroughly comprehending a single character conceives a cultivation technique?’ Xue Ying was slightly startled as he opened his eyes. Still, it took a long time to comprehend a single character–a full three months! Judging by this speed, coupled with less than two years left, he could grasp seven characters at most.
‘Let’s see if I can control the Black Gourd.’ Xue Ying waved his hand. The Black Gourd appeared on the bamboo table once again.
He extended his thoughts.
At that moment, the luminous sun force produced a white character that flew over. But it was different from the past–instead of a large number of characters, it was just a single character, yet this character was much more profound.
Once this character entered the Black Gourd, it was burned silently by the terrifying flames within.
‘Failed?’ Xue Ying was stunned.
‘No other ways. Continue.’ Xue Ying closed his eyes. He had failed a few thousand times previously and was able to persevere on after keeping the Black Gourd.
The second character was flashing. It, too, emitted a mysterious fluctuation.
He meticulously pondered over it.
When he fully understood the character, he realized there were many similarities with the first character since they were of the same type. Thus, the time taken to comprehend it was much faster–he took just a month to understand it fully.
‘It seems there are some mistakes with my understanding of the first character?’ After Xue Ying thoroughly understood the two characters, he had some suspicions over the first character he comprehended, and immediately amended the original inaccurate cultivation technique to reflect his new understanding.
“Weng.”
Displaying this technique, it formed a single white character and entered the Black Gourd to no avail.
…
The first path Xue Ying embarked on was a dead-end. And now, the second path he had decided to walk would be one where he had to walk until the end since he had no other strategies anymore.
The third character took 20 days. He discovered the mistakes he had in what he comprehended previously before amending them. But it was still a failure.
The fourth character took 15 days.
The fifth took 12 days.
The sixth took 11 days.
The seventh took ten days.
The eighth took ten days.
…
Xue Ying would always amend what he had previously comprehended first before forming a white character and attempted at controlling the gourd. Even though they were all failures, he had some sort of weird feeling that it seemed this was the right path; it felt like he was moving closer to success every single time he amended the cultivation technique.
One had to know that during the first three years he started on this journey, he would comprehend a new cultivation technique every single time–he comprehended several thousands of it, and they were all wrong.
However, he was currently studying every single character in detail, and all of them led to the same cultivation technique, albeit there would be some holes here and there which he had to amend.
******
Thick snow had covered the chain of mountains. It had also covered the mountain peak Xue Ying was currently cultivating on.
Xue Ying pushed opened the bamboo door, causing large amounts of accumulated snow to be pushed apart.
Stepping on the thick snow, he left behind many deep footprints. He walked to the edge of the cliff and sat cross-legged down on the soft snow, closing his eyes before continuing his cultivation once again. He was used to pondering over this cultivation technique left behind by the Voidwalker, just that he would change spots frequently. Sometimes, he would go to the lake by the foot of the mountain. Some days he would sit on top of a thick and old tree branch. But most of his time was spent either in front of the bamboo house or by the cliff of the mountain peak.
‘The 51st character…’
Many golden characters appeared in the consciousness of Xue Ying. He was comprehending the 51st character currently.
This time, he spent a shorter period–completing it in eight days. He amended the original cultivation technique slightly.
‘This is finally correct.’
Xue Ying waved his hand, causing the Black Gourd to appear on the pile of snow. Following which, he condensed the luminous sun force according to the cultivation technique, forming a single character. This character was white, yet under the fluctuations of the character, it changed color rapidly. It first transformed to dull gold before finally turning into genuine gold.
A golden character was floating beside him.
Xue Ying was surprised. He felt his heartbeat racing. It was the first time such a strange scene appeared. It gave him a massive feeling of expectation that things were different this time.
“Hu.”
The golden character permeated into the Black Gourd. “Weng~” It felt like a key entering the keyhole. The array within the Black Gourd was being activated, causing immense energy to form. It wrapped around that immensely hot ‘fireball’ within the Black Gourd. The actual body of this ‘fireball’ was tremendously huge–the size of the Sun Star. Its power was unparalleled too. The flame it was emitting gave off a feeling that it could annihilate all existences. Nonetheless, the array within the Black Gourd formed an ’empty strength’ that completely gobbled up this ‘fireball’, disallowing it from burning regardless of how strong it was.
‘So heavy.’ Xue Ying could feel how heavy this fireball was. An unseen pressure had even permeated into his true deity heart, causing it to tremble slightly.
It felt like a weak little child lifting a rock–too heavy.
The gap between them was too huge.
Controlling the Black Gourd was very taxing!
Still, Xue Ying had a feeling that if he were to use all his strength to control the ‘fireball’, he could activate a strand of it–this was already the limits of what his true deity heart could withstand. Even if it was a strand, it might just burn him to death.
“Congratulations, congratulations for comprehending the cultivation technique to control this protective treasure. I was already feeling quite worried since I would have to wait for many more epochs if you failed before another one with great potential comes.” That red-undergarment child appeared on the Black Gourd. It seemed he was genuinely excited at this moment.
