Chapter Nine: Refining Qi and Transforming the Spirit

The Mountaintop Clan’s settlement was steadily progressing along the path that Luo Zu had envisioned. The population now counted one hundred and nine souls; of these, fifty-eight were robust young men and women who formed the hunting parties, while the remaining fifty-one were children aged one to ten. On a typical day, forty would set out into the mountains to hunt, the rest would stay behind to guard the settlement, and a few would be given time to recover from injuries—hunting, after all, was dangerous work, and sometimes it claimed lives.

Additionally, Luo Zu had begun to introduce the practice of domesticating and penning herbivorous beasts. Although the task was assigned to the elderly and the children, the wild animals were only at the earliest stages of taming, and their untamed nature made them perilous. With no elders left in the settlement, the responsibility of tending to these creatures fell to the wide-eyed children, who needed the guidance and assistance of adults to learn how to feed and care for the animals.

Beyond these measures, Luo Zu intended to encourage the clan to shed their lingering savagery and exercise restraint in matters of reproduction. If they continued to mate indiscriminately, the settlement would inevitably face problems. However, the growth of the tribe depended on its numbers, so Luo Zu considered that it would be best for each member to form a stable partnership.

For now, the Mountaintop Clan was largely untouched by moral codes; procreation followed instinct. Upon reaching maturity and feeling the stirrings of desire, they would enter a season of awakening, much like all life in springtime.

Of course, under current conditions, it was nearly impossible to control such things. The people wore only animal hides, sometimes baring their chests with no sense of shame—men and women alike were unselfconscious, almost innocent. As the saying goes, when the granaries are full, one learns propriety; but their lives depended on hunting and gathering wild fruits. The practice of animal husbandry was just beginning, agriculture had yet to take root, and much remained to be done.

“We must establish contact with other tribes,” Luo Zu thought to himself.

It was a necessary step—they needed to connect with the outside world. Of course, he would avoid the nearby demon tribes, or the witch clans for that matter.

In this vast and primeval land, humanity was terribly weak and fragile. They needed time—a great deal of time. The witches and demons measured their development in tens of millions of years, led by their ancestral gods and demon lords. As for the human race… after the Mother Goddess Nuwa created them, she only cared for the first generation, leaving their descendants to fend for themselves.

Still, the Mother Goddess bestowed a blessing: upon reaching adulthood, each human would awaken a unique talent or magical ability.

This greatly improved the survival rate of humankind in the wilds, though how many generations this divine gift would endure was anyone’s guess.

Luo Zu was grateful for the perspective and knowledge carried over from his previous life, which allowed him to use his innate talent in ways others could not. Otherwise, he would have ended up like Fire Boy, who did nothing all day but spit fire.

Foolish child, even innate talents require wit to wield.

Luo Zu had tried to teach Fire Boy several times, but the boy’s mind was dull, and to this day, all he could do was spit flames.

Life in the primordial wilderness was monotonous but fulfilling. Each day was spent striving for survival—much as in his previous life. And every night, the cave would echo with a lullaby of sighs and groans…

Each morning, Luo Zu would check the small plot of land they had cleared at the cave’s entrance, and inspect the penned six-legged cattle and sheep. It was a simple pleasure.

Unable to bear the nightly chorus, he would immerse his mind in the world within his gourd, watching the progress of his miniature human civilization.

Thus, another year passed.

The Mountaintop Clan’s spiritual and cultural life was still in chaos. The penned livestock had produced a second generation. Luo Zu’s fields, however, showed little progress—his agricultural knowledge was too shallow. He relied on the lessons learned from a hundred years of development in the gourd world, but unfortunately, crops cultivated there could not adapt to the primeval world’s environment.

The land here was too fertile, the spiritual energy too abundant. Seeds brought from the gourd world underwent immediate and bizarre mutations, transforming into unrecognizable things.

This vexed Luo Zu greatly, but he had yet to find a solution. He could alter the environment within the gourd, but not the world outside.

In the century that passed within the gourd world, Luo Zu had secluded himself in cultivation, further refining both his own breathing technique and the blood-essence breathing method practiced by his miniature humans.

A hundred years of contemplation could not go to waste. Drawing upon the insights of ancient sages from his previous life, he charted a path for his own cultivation: refining essence into energy, energy into spirit, spirit into the void, and the void into union with the Dao—thus attaining immortality.

He directly borrowed the cultivation stages summarized by the ancients, though the specific practices were somewhat different.

Luo Zu carefully reviewed his breathing techniques, distilled the best elements from both methods, and merged them into what he called the Luo Zu Energy Refining Method.

After having his avatar in the gourd world practice it over a hundred times and confirming the safest and most effective ways to channel energy, he finally applied the method to his own body.

He exhaled and inhaled, absorbing and refining energy—whether it was spiritual energy, mental energy, or the energy infused into his blood, he transformed it all into a single vital force.

This force became his foundation, housed within his organs, refining them and nurturing his spirit and techniques.

Before undergoing this transformation, Luo Zu took a seven-day leave from his duties in the settlement, found a secluded corner deep in the cave, dug himself a pit, crawled inside, and sealed the entrance, leaving only three or four small holes for air.

After seven days of isolation, Luo Zu finally harmonized his blood, spiritual energy, and mental energy, stepping directly into the second stage of his self-devised method: refining energy into spirit.

At the same time, he finally mastered a spell he had “studied” for many years—fire manipulation.

Not merely spitting fire, but a true ability to ignite and control flame.

Moreover, his spirit could now leave his body to a distance of ten meters. Even separated by stone walls, he could perceive almost everything within that range, so long as the target was larger than a grain of rice.

Still, he felt that his current level was below his expectations; deeper study was needed.

He was also eager to test his newfound strength.

Though he could sense that his physical power had increased tenfold, and his capacity to absorb spiritual energy was more than twenty times what it had been, he wanted concrete proof.

So, after a month of recuperation, Luo Zu sought out several fearsome beasts in the area as test subjects.

Years of hunting and the wisdom of his predecessors had allowed him to lead the Mountaintop Clan in classifying all the wild and ferocious beasts within a hundred li, creating a system of ranks to facilitate hunting and minimize casualties caused by misjudging their prey.