PCJ – Chapter 754 The Restriction

Yuan Rui knew that if he failed to guide the spiritual energy into his dantian at this moment, all his previous efforts would instantly be wasted. But by now, he was already at the end of his strength, struggling more and more to maintain control of the spiritual energy.

“No! I can’t give up!” Yuan Rui gritted his teeth, desperately trying to control the energy, inching it closer to his dantian. If he so much as stopped advancing by a fraction, part of the energy would immediately dissipate. Although the loss each time wasn’t much, by now the energy he was holding onto was already extremely limited. As long as he could manage to guide even a thread of it into his dantian, he would have essentially succeeded.

Yuan Suihu watched his son anxiously. Beads of sweat covered Yuan Rui’s forehead, and his clothes were already soaked through.

“Immortal Elder, can my son succeed?” Yuan Suihu couldn’t help but ask.

“Cultivation depends on fate. When the time comes, it will come naturally. If it’s not time, there’s no use forcing it.” Zhang Jiaohua replied lazily. He was actually quite satisfied with Yuan Rui’s perseverance, but Yuan Rui’s natural talent was indeed lacking. Since his lower dantian had been crippled, it would be difficult for him to make much progress in the future.

Yuan Suihu quickly nodded. “Yes, yes.”

In fact, Yuan Suihu had been hoping to beg Zhang Jiaohua to lend a hand and help his son successfully draw the energy into his middle dantian, crossing the first step toward becoming a cultivator. But Zhang Jiaohua’s words made it clear he had no intention of intervening. How would Yuan Suihu dare to insist?

Pfft!

Yuan Rui suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood and collapsed limply to the ground.

“Alas!” Yuan Suihu sighed, quickly rushing over to lift him up. His heart was full of regret—failure, after all.

Zhang Jiaohua came over and handed Yuan Suihu a pill. “Give this to him. He’s just succeeded in drawing in energy, but his body is still very weak. What’s most important now is to stabilize it, and then try to circulate the spiritual energy inside to form a small Zhou Tian cycle.”

“What? Immortal Elder, do you mean my son just succeeded in guiding energy into his dantian?” Yuan Suihu asked in surprise.

“When destiny allows, it will be yours. When it doesn’t, there’s no use forcing it.” Zhang Jiaohua chuckled and walked away.

“Wonderful! My family has birthed a qilin child!” Yuan Suihu exclaimed joyfully.

On their very first attempt, two members of the Yuan family had succeeded in drawing energy into their middle dantian. For the Yuans, this was cause for great celebration. Though this was only the first step into the cultivation path, it meant the Yuan family suddenly had two future cultivators. They had instantly risen to the status of a cultivation family, and their standing within Juxian Village soared overnight.

“Excellent, Patriarch! Our Yuan family’s rise is just around the corner!” Yuan Yusha said excitedly.

Yuan Suihu nodded. “This is all thanks to the Immortal Elder. From now on, our Yuan family must dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly to serving him.”

“Patriarch, could we perhaps ask the Immortal Elder to take Yuan Long and Yuan Rui as disciples? If we can tie ourselves to him, the prosperity of the Yuan family will be virtually guaranteed,” Yuan Jilin suggested.

Yuan Suihu immediately grew solemn. “The Immortal Elder’s kindness to our family is already a great blessing. We must not harbor improper thoughts. If we anger him, it will bring calamity upon us. Although Yuan Long and Yuan Rui have crossed this threshold, no one knows whether the Immortal Elder finds their talents satisfactory. Unless he brings it up himself, we must never make such a request.”

Yuan Long was Yuan Jilin’s son, so naturally he hoped his child could become Zhang Jiaohua’s disciple, thereby soaring to great heights in the future.

But after hearing Yuan Suihu’s words, the Yuan clan members all sighed. With their lower dantian crippled, their talents were ultimately too limited.

“The Patriarch is right. Even the cultivation method we practice was bestowed by the Immortal Elder. If we offend him, he might withdraw his teachings in anger, and we wouldn’t even be able to continue cultivating. So we must never make such a request.” Yuan Yusha quickly agreed.

A few days later, Yuan Long and Yuan Rui finally stabilized their foundations, truly stepping into the early stage of Refining Essence into Qi. But their progress was painfully slow. Even with a steady supply of pills, their cultivation speed was far behind the prodigies of the Meishan Sect. This was precisely why Zhang Jiaohua had little regard for Yuan Long and Yuan Rui—their talents were far too poor to keep up with him in the future.

The other Yuan juniors had also fully recovered and adjusted themselves to their best state, preparing for their second attempt. With the experience from the first try, their second attempts went much smoother, and they were able to endure much longer. Although only a few managed to succeed in the end, the number of successful cultivators was far greater this time. In total, six Yuan youths successfully drew energy into their dantian, including Yuan Yusha’s son, Yuan Dan.

The Yuan family was jubilant, for they could now look forward to even more successes in the future. It was foreseeable that more and more of their young ones would succeed in the coming attempts.

During this round, even Yuan Suihu himself succeeded in drawing in energy. After a short period of stabilization, he too would transform into a cultivator.

Meanwhile, the Yuan family constantly gathered information from outside, bringing back reports that gradually expanded Zhang Jiaohua’s understanding of this world. But the world was far too vast, and relying solely on the Yuan family’s intelligence gathering was simply too slow for him. Fortunately, as more of the younger generation advanced to the early Qi Refinement stage, Zhang Jiaohua could equip them with some artifacts, enabling them to explore much farther afield.

From the gathered intelligence, it became clear that the Immortal Realm was unimaginably vast, and Jiangxian Mountain was located in its most remote region. Compared with other parts of the Immortal Realm, Jiangxian Mountain was poor in spiritual energy and lacking in spirit veins. As such, cultivators of the Immortal Realm had no interest in this place. Many of the families in Juxian Village were once glorious cultivation clans that had been forced to retreat here after losing their foothold in more prosperous lands.

The fact that every child of the Yuan family was born with a crippled lower dantian was not due to heredity, but rather because of a strange restriction placed upon their bloodline. The method was so refined that even Zhang Jiaohua could not detect its nature. After all, he had come from Earth, and compared with the cultivation civilization of this world, Earth’s cultivation world was still far behind. Though his cultivation was high, his theoretical knowledge of cultivation was lacking compared with this planet’s Immortal Realm.

The information gathered left the Yuan family deeply unsettled. They had lived in Jiangxian Mountain for so many generations that even they no longer remembered why. To discover now that such a sinister restriction had been placed upon their bloodline made them wonder—just who had the Yuan clan offended to deserve such a cruel curse?