129: Chapter 128: All Puzzles 129: Chapter 128: All Puzzles Xiaoqian Fortress, among the many fortresses in the Yinling Wilderness, is famous for its abundance of widows.
Of course, the entire Yinling area in Tianfeng Plain is also renowned for its high number of lonely and widowed inhabitants.
There’s no way around it, being a man in Yinling is a severe challenge, with the possibility of battle at any time and place.
The reason why Xiaoqian Fortress has so many widows is critical: it’s too far from any water source.
Many people were attacked on their way to fetch water, and since water is an indispensable basic necessity for survival, the male population in the fortress has been dwindling over time despite the lack of major battles, as if bled dry continually.
Of course, nowadays, women have started to take part in water fetching; otherwise, this place might eventually turn into a Daughter Country.
A few days ago, a visitor arrived here, a man, which is quite rare in Xiaoqian Fortress.
Judging by his attire, he was undoubtedly a cultivator, and only cultivators dare travel freely in the Yinling Wilderness.
For the locals, these wandering cultivators are sometimes encountered.
Among the few hundred households in the fortress, women significantly outnumber men.
One such household bears the Jiang surname, epitomizing Xiaoqian Fortress; with no elderly above and only young below, a family of three brothers who died outside the fortress one after the other for various reasons, leaving behind their three wives to hold up the family through difficult days.
The children are still very young, the eldest not yet of age to tie his hair into a crown, the youngest just beginning to babble.
Life is tough, but they have to go on living, and fortunately, children represent hope.
One can only wonder how many of the three sisters-in-law will remain when the children have grown up?
A distinctive feature of the Jiang family is their large house, a rarity in the fortress where space is highly valuable.
Once, the three brothers were sturdy and robust men, but in the Yinling Wilderness, no matter how strong, one can never be stronger than the demon beasts outside.
With plenty of rooms and quietness, their large house was chosen by the wandering guest, who paid a hefty sum for a temporary stay.
The three landladies were delighted, and the guest was happy…
Gradually, the women noticed that the visiting guest was indeed a big eater—it was baffling how such a robust body could consume more than twice the amount of food their entire family did!
Not only did he eat a lot, but he also barely moved, spending most of his days cloistered in his own room, rarely even coming out to empty the chamber pot!
Could he eat so much and not excrete?
Was everything digested?
It was incomprehensible!
However, if he was a cultivator, that might explain it.
It’s said they possess Treasure Gourds that can hold myriad things; perhaps he just disposed of his waste inside it?
The three sisters-in-law were responsible for the guest’s meals, a heavy task, but at least the pay was generous, and it was a rare opportunity.
In the Yinling Wilderness, to leave for other towns in Tianfeng Plain requires a substantial crossing fee, a burden too heavy for the people of Yinling to bear.
Accumulating wealth over generations, just to escape from this life of hardship one day, is essentially the greatest dream for these inhabitants.
Of course, there is another path, albeit narrower: if a family member steps into cultivation.
However, this path also depends on the favors of the heavens.
In the largest room of the Jiang residence, a Daoist awoke from his meditation, quite pleased with the rapid progress he had made during this period.
Xiaoqian Fortress wasn’t within his patrol range.
His choice to cultivate here wasn’t because of the abundance of widows at Xiaqian Fortress, but because it was the closest human fortress to Suqiu and adjacent to his patrol area, making it convenient to come and go without drawing attention.
He had to keep an eye on Suqiu to some extent, avoid detection by the Giant Rat Clan, and preferably not attract the notice of the local natives.
In this sense, Xiaoqian Fortress was an excellent choice.
This stage was quite special, not suitable for outdoor practice; cultivators must adapt flexibly, if you need to temper yourself outside, don’t always huddle within your cave mansion, and if you should find a place for quiet cultivation, don’t mess around outside; seclusion is not a cure-all, likewise, constantly braving the elements is not necessarily the best choice either.
It’s about making timely decisions, being flexible and free, that’s the correct answer.
Over the past several days, the progress of bursting the fields was smooth, the two dantians had gone from seventy percent full a few days before to eighty percent full now, and they were still climbing, with each upward surge strong and forceful, filled with a powerful follow-through that made him full of expectations for the subsequent results.
Bursting the fields was an extremely special way of operating the dantian, which was detailedly taught in cultivation techniques; the general process was not the regular gentle infusion of spiritual mechanism but a system of flipping, rolling, and bursting.
Flipping referred to flipping out the existing spiritual power in the dantian like airing out a quilt, exposing it to the Heaven and Earth Spirit Mechanism.
Rolling, using the spiritual mechanism within one’s own dantian to wrap up the free spiritual mechanism between heaven and earth, then bringing it back to one’s own dantian; like the tides, each ebb would bring back far more spiritual mechanism than was stirred up during the flood tide, leaving not a drop of spiritual power within the dantian during this process, truly giving it one’s all.
Bursting, using every batch of spiritual power brought back to hit the dantian container, as this container was not a rigidly fixed one; it existed vaguely within consciousness, and its boundaries were somewhat expandable.
Just as an old cultivator’s dantian would contract with declining vigor, a young and strong cultivator with a determination to progress could also expand it ever wider.
That was bursting the fields, just like how a mortal stuffing themselves could stretch their stomach, except a cultivator’s dantian could be expanded without end.
According to the description in the cultivation techniques, once a cultivator began bursting the fields at seventy percent full, they could generally get a sense of their own limits after several days.
From this, they would plan the entire strategy for bursting the fields, including scheduling, preparation of elixirs, and conditions for seclusion, etc.
That is to say, Qi’s puzzle now had a vague boundary.
More or less, what’s left was the final step of fixing the fields and solving the puzzle.
His progress was smooth, the only problem being that he still hadn’t figured out the future boundaries of his dantian, still mired in confusion, still a hazy blur.
The truth was, Qi’s puzzle had turned into the Eighth Puzzle for him!
He could probably guess that this was likely a side effect of the Purple Mansion Vortex; the mechanism was unclear, but right now the strange combination of his two dantians and a Purple Mansion Vortex within his body was the source of all the oddities, of that he was certain.
In the Cultivation World, most cultivators had one dantian, and while there were a few with two, adding a Purple Mansion Vortex to the mix was probably unprecedented.
Therefore, his cultivation journey could only be charted by groping blindly forward, no Daoist Record could provide him any assistance.
What was most critical was that such troubles would probably continue, after getting through the Eighth Puzzle, it was very likely that the Ninth Puzzle would come, then the Tenth Puzzle, an endless series of puzzles, with no end!
This might be a good thing, as his Dantian Spiritual Power would become so vast it would astound people!
But it could also be a bad thing, this life might just be about solving puzzles, because you could never count them all…
thus fasting was an ever-distant goal, wasting a lifetime for it, dying still in puzzlement, the Hundred puzzles?
The Thousand puzzles!