Chapter 40: If the Four Elements Could Be Intoxicated

After Li Qi struck that mental slash of the blade, his entire being entered an extraordinarily wondrous state. Unlike the "Heavenly Dao" proxy mode brought about by the harmonization with the attribute panel, at this moment, his mind and spiritual world were blurry and illusory, a realm of dreams, non-thinking yet beyond thinking, subtle, profound, and mysterious.

Undoubtedly, this was the supreme fortune born from severing the demonic tribulation.

The greater the tribulation, the greater the fortune, and the intensity of the tribulation Li Qi had just weathered far surpassed anything that should have existed at this realm.

As for the root of it all, it naturally stemmed from the changes brought by the ability "A Dream of Not Knowing the Self Is a Guest."

Tribulation and fortune are of one body, following one another; having reaped the benefits of "A Dream of Not Knowing the Self Is a Guest," he naturally had to bear the tribulations it entailed.

Of course, in Li Qi's understanding, the existence of tribulation was not an inherent flaw of the ability itself. Having neither tribulations nor fortuitous encounters, and finding oneself suffering a tribulation, simply meant the effect was far too powerful.

Things grow old when they reach their prime, and extremes must inevitably decline—this is the natural path of balance in heaven and earth. When something grows strong enough to cross the boundary, it naturally attracts various tribulations. Yet, at the same time, this also serves as a tremendous tempering and an extraordinary encounter.

There are three ways to overcome a tribulation: evading it, enduring it, and severing it!

Without the help of the panel, Li Qi would likely have only been able to evade or endure it: a thirty percent chance of evading it, a ten percent chance of enduring it, and a full sixty percent chance of outright failure, resulting in severe mental damage or even permanent disability.

Among these three methods, "evading" means accepting the inner demons evolved from one's own heart, actively entering into the demonic state, merging with the demon so that tribulation ceases to matter; "enduring" means suppressing the demons born from within, using demonic intent to temper the Dao heart, extinguishing the demon to reveal the Dao—a process destined to be exceedingly long.

As for "severing," that is something beyond mortal capability.

Because the greater the divine power, the greater the tribulation; the stronger one is, the stronger the tribulation naturally becomes. Even for Li Qi, it required washing his six roots and five fortunes until they were utterly pure and unified, followed by triggering the state of enlightenment, before he could barely manage to sever it with a single blade.

Severing the demon to prove the self!

All these manifold changes, though appearing to take a short time, were in reality the fruits of countless causes converging.

One might even say that had Li Qi not followed the guidance of his heart and refused to abandon the martial art of the Eighteen Tiger-Savage Blades, the present miracle would never have occurred.

Even with all his various enhancements remaining unchanged, had he switched to a more powerful martial art and achieved the same minor success in it, he would still have been utterly incapable of swinging this demon-severing blade.

All things were predestined by karmic affinity.

Li Qi felt as though he were thoroughly intoxicated, and as time drifted by, he even forgot who he was.

Yet in this state, although his body was in constant motion, professional equipment testing would reveal that he was actually fast asleep, and his sleep quality far surpassed so-called deep sleep.

If one had to describe it, it would roughly be the innate embryonic breathing, sitting in oblivion with no self, reversing the pre-heaven state, and recreating the universe.

Ancient legends spoke of mighty beings who could recreate the innate state for others; the subject in those accounts would fall into precisely such a state, taking a full thirty-six days to finally achieve completion.

Under this condition, Li Qi's vital potential was pushed to the absolute extreme, and every single life shackle on his body was broken wide open.

Every cell devoured nourishment as if without limit, acting in a frenzy akin to cancer cells.

Under normal circumstances, for a person to fall into this state is no different from systemic cancer—every cell consumes nourishment while completely failing to perform the functions of a normal cell. In such a scenario, the collapse of the human biological system happens in an instant.

In a fraction of a second, that person would likely lose human form and collapse into a bizarre mixture of flesh and blood.

The so-called shackles of life exist not to bind humanity, but to protect it, much like the safety locks on computer or smartphone chips. Once these electronic devices have their restraints removed and enter overclocking, they will burn out at the slightest carelessness.

Applied to the human body, with an ordinary person's mental and spiritual power, blindly meddling in one's own biological system without any understanding would quickly lead to self-destruction.

The miraculous part of Li Qi at this moment was that he was in a state of sitting in oblivion and selflessness. At present, so-called self-awareness did not exist; or rather, self-awareness did exist, yet he had forgotten himself.

The mind dies as the spirit lives, the ego is extinguished and the Dao emerges...

This profound spiritual state plunged his entire body into the extreme threshold of life.

He returned home like a sleepwalker, continuously consuming various nutritional supplements and energy water, with the portion of every single item he ingested calculated to absolute precision—precisely matching what his body required at that exact second.

Every substance was broken down into nutrients within a very short time after consumption and transported to every corner of his body.

In this state, his body temperature approached forty-five degrees Celsius, his entire body turned crimson, and rolling white steam billowed from him as if he were riding the clouds and ascending to immortality as a Daoist master.

Undoubtedly, his body was undergoing violent metabolism, to the extent that even his cells were continuously replacing and renewing themselves.

According to research data in life science, such violent metabolism actually depletes cellular lifespan and shortens human life—which is why many people who exercise with excessive intensity instead fail to live long.

Cells possess a durability limit; whoever exhausts it first leaves first. Conversely, people who love to sleep, prefer lying down, and dislike exercise tend to live longer.

Yet at this moment, if someone were to test Li Qi's physical condition with professional equipment, they would be shocked to discover that his cellular potential was constantly recovering, and the cellular degradation caused by over a decade of time was actually being repaired.

Such a state was no different than an electric meter spinning backward.

This was not life science; this was true cultivation.

The physical conditions and common sense of ordinary people do not apply to cultivators.

A temperature of forty-five degrees would normally be enough to quickly burn a person to death in excruciating agony, but Li Qi's expression remained tranquil, even carrying a hint of a satisfied smile. That satisfaction was an emotion radiating from the deepest recesses of his soul, akin to attaining the ultimate perfection in the mortal world.

This scene startled the elderly grandfather who had followed him back. Li Qi's return journey had been extremely swift, and only the grandfather, after a brief moment of stunned silence, easily kept pace and witnessed this miraculous spectacle of creation.

The grandfather naturally knew that surviving a demonic tribulation brought great fortune, but he never imagined the resulting fortune could be so astonishingly vast.

One must know that the demonic tribulation is a matter of the mental plane, and the greatest harvest upon surviving it should belong to the realm of the spirit.

Since Li Qi's physical changes at this moment were already so immense, just how drastic must the changes on his spiritual plane be?!

Without a single moment of hesitation, the grandfather immediately waved away all the people trailing behind him, forbidding anyone from approaching.

He issued orders to transport massive quantities of nutritional supplements, and even brought out three portions of supreme medicinal elixirs—which constituted his entire stock.

Following that, he stood guard personally, allowing no one to draw near. Naturally, the grandfather understood the extreme preciousness of Li Qi's current state of transformation.

If this were to be interrupted or interfered with, it would be an enmity of blocking one's Dao; to him, it was even more unforgivable than a vendetta of exterminating his clan. Ruining the future of the young generation of the Li family was undoubtedly an attempt to annihilate the Li clan.

At such a time, if anyone dared to ruin this, they would soon experience what it meant for an aged master to unleash unbridled fury. Whoever came would get to taste mutual destruction with heaven and earth, enjoying the privilege of perishing together.