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“I still can’t, it’s not that I don’t have enough mana.”

Lin Feng stopped meditating and stood up. His forehead was twisted into a knot.

He tried consecutively for nearly one month’s time, but he’s just been unable to open his qi ocean and form his dao root.

Lin Feng carefully studied the situation and discovered that it’s not that his mana wasn’t strong enough, but that he still hadn’t fully understood the concepts and principles harboured within the Eight Trigrams Great Daoist Scripture of the Heavens.

This daoist scripture obtained after fusing eight dao techniques may be Lin Feng’s own creation, but Lin Feng still needs to closely study the secrets within.

Sensing that his mind was a bit restless, Lin Feng didn’t dare to forcefully breakthrough. He temporarily stopped cultivating and stood up taking a walk in the surroundings, relaxing his nerves.

In the deep mountains, Lin Feng walked at a leisurely pace by the side of a small pond inside the mountain. Looking at his reflection in the water, he quietly pondered on the problem encountered in his cultivation process.

A small bug flew up from the surface of the water, Lin Feng recognized that it was a mayfly.

A little insect with a lifespan of only a few days.

Lin Feng crouched beside the pond, staring at the mayfly and falling into a trance: “A lifespan of only a few days at-most, what meaning does this kind of life have?”

As a half-normal, half-retarded youth, Lin Feng very rarely thinks about such a philosophical matter. But these few days his head has been filled with the Eight Trigrams Great Daoist Scripture of the Heavens’ dao technique, at every moment he is thinking of the principles of creation and perishment of all life revealed by it.

After a long while, a light of understanding suddenly arose in his mind.

“Humans live for a hundred years, mayflies live for a few days. They all experience living, aging, sickness and death. In the end they all have to die, there is no actual difference. Human life has meaning, a mayfly’s naturally does too, it’s just that the human can’t necessarily understand the mayfly.”

Lin Feng raised his head and stared blankly at the sky above his head. He slowly turned his neck looking at the surrounding mountains, rivers and plants, looking at the pond before him, in the end his gaze fell back onto that ephemeral little bug.

A whole three days passed by, the entire time Lin Feng was crouched beside the little pond unmoving. He fully observed the course of the mayfly from birth to maturity to ultimately aging and dying, observing the process of creation, aging, getting sick and perishment of a living being.

After another mayfly died, Lin Feng sprang up to his feet and closed his eyes: “Mayflies, humans, all life in this world, even this entire world, they all have to experience this course of creation, aging, collapsing and ultimately perishing and returning to a state of nothingness!”

“After perishing they return to nothingness, and then they are once again created from the chaotic void. The universe was created and the world appeared, and then it was the creation of all life. Undergoing the passage of time, growing and aging, in the end decaying until the point where they perish and no longer exist!”

“Living, aging, sickness and death, this is life.” Lin Feng slowly opened his eyes, there were actually countless fragmented images that flashed by in his pupils. Countless scenes, the elements, buildings, nature, civilians, animals, a myriad of objects and beings, constantly being born and dying.

“Establishment, continuity, dissolution and emptiness, this is creation!” (TL: Buddhist cosmology)

Lin Feng’s heart was as peaceful as though a spring breeze blowing by. He wholeheartedly felt the changes to his body and the communication between the world and all life. In the blink of an eye, tens of thousands of years of time seemed to pass by. Lin Feng’s eyes suddenly opened wide and an endless radiance burst forth!

Rumble!

Between the heaven and earth, boundless wills continued up into the sky and reached down to the underworld, undertaking the energy of the world.

Lin Feng felt all of his mana vibrate together, undergoing a drastic change of rebirth.

For cultivators who haven’t opened up the 12 levels, their mana is deposited in their meridian points and are like bodies of dead water; For cultivators who have opened up the 12 levels, all of the mana in their bodies is connected like a river; As for cultivators who have forged their dao roots, their mana bears the world and is as vast as the boundless seas!

At this moment, not only did Lin Feng grasp the heart of the Eight Trigrams Great Daoist Scripture of the Heavens, he also touched a bit upon the concept of the creation of the universe and the operation of the universe elaborated by the Heavenly Scripture of Dao.

Foundation establishment stage, success!

“Congratulations to Host advancing to foundation establishment stage.”

“Congratulations to Host grasping the heart of the 《Heavenly Scripture of Dao》Chapter 1 《Eight Trigrams Great Daoist Scripture of the Heavens》.”

“Conditions have been satisfied, system upgrading, entering into stage 2!”

Hearing the string of system notifications, Lin Feng couldn’t help feeling reinvigorated. His face revealed a smile: “Hope the upgrade this time is awesome enough.”

“System upgrade completed!”

Lin Feng first opened the trading system. After getting a clear look of the items within he instantly opened his eyes wide: “Holy cow, there’s actually a pill that directly increases cultivation level?”

The Trāyastriṃśa Elixir of Creation, an item unique to the system. It does not exist in the Heaven Primal world itself. (TL: Translates basically to Thirty-Third Heaven. There’s a daoism version and a buddhism version. Don’t know which one it’s referring to here, but in both religions the Thirty-Third Heaven is a pretty big deal.)

For cultivators below the primordial spirit stage who take it, it will directly increase their cultivation level by one minor stage and increase the chances of breaking through a major stage. One person can only take it one in their lives, the second time has no effect. (TL: Minor stage, qi disciple 1-12, foundation establishment early stage, mid stage, late stage, etc. Major stage, qi disciple, foundation establishment, etc. )

Lin Feng’s saliva rushed down like a river as he stared, but upon taking a close look at the trading price he instantly retreated in defeat.

Fuck, all of my trading points since the beginning added together aren’t even a fraction of the cost.

But Lin Feng was not discouraged. Based on experience, there is a chance for items existing in the trading system to appear in the lottery system.

Besides the Trāyastriṃśa Elixir of Creation, there’s also the Demon Breaking Pill that restrains inner-demons and helps with cultivation, the Berzerker Pill that greatly increases one’s strength and then you become weak, the Shadow Clone Pill that creates a clone of yourself with half of your strength for a short period of time…

All kinds of goodies that made Lin Feng’s head dizzy.

Action beats wishing, even though he doesn’t have enough trading points, but when Xiao Yan and co completed the Wind & Thunder Sigil sidequest before, the system also rewarded Lin Feng a lottery chance.

Lin Feng immediately entered into the lottery system. After getting a look of the scenery before him he couldn’t help but be stunned.

The system originally had three images; a die that represents the dice lottery system and a wheel that represents the wheel lottery system.

In addition, there was also one more thing that was blocked by a gray mist and unable to be chosen. Presumably the system hadn’t opened it yet.

But after the system upgraded this time, the mist dispersed.

Lin Feng took a close look, it turned out to be a cim bucket. (TL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kau_cim)

Entering in, this was a straw-drawing system.

After carefully reading the rules, Lin Feng was at a loss of what to do.

Red straw, white straw, long white straw and short white straw.

Before drawing straws, he can first choose an item that he wants in the trading system. Then he chooses an item from what he already possesses and hands it over to the system as an ante. Finally he draws a straw.

Drawing a red straw is the special prize, he can directly obtain the item of choice that he chose from the trading system. It’s equivalent to exchanging the item with the ante, even if this item’s regular price is tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of trading points.

Drawing the white straw, he gets nothing. The possessed item provided to the system as an ante will be returned and it’s the same as wasting a lottery chance.

Drawing the long white straw is a random prize. The staked item is not returned and a randomly chosen item will be returned to Lin Feng. But whether this item is good or bad cannot be guaranteed.

The worst is the short white straw. Not only does he get absolutely nothing, the staked item also isn’t returned, losing the bait along with the fish.

30 straws will appear in the cim bucket at one time. Before being drawn, all of the straws look exactly the same, only after drawing can he know if it’s a red straw, white straw, long white straw or short white straw.

Based on the system’s description, the more valuable the staked item is, the higher the chances of red straws and long white straws appearing. The red straw can reach a max number of six, a 20% chance.

On the flip side, the cheaper the staked item is, the higher the chances of white straws and short white straws appearing. And the appearance chance of red straws is also decreased, the lowest as low as one, a 3% probability.

Besides this, any item that comes from the system cannot be used as an ante.

Lin Feng’s thoughts instantly livened up: “An item not from the system, what can I use as an ante?”

The Black Cloud Flag? No, I need this thing to travel, the spatial shifting ability is also very useful.

The Wind & Thunder Sigil? The Flowing Wind Sigil may originate from the system, but the Thunder Element Sigil doesn’t. Although this thing is still pretty useful and can even establish the sect’s foundation. He is also a bit reluctant.

The Universal Mirror? This thing can be used as a radar, intelligence reconnaissance is very important, it’s also not suitable.

Lin Feng pondered for a moment and then his eyes lit up: “This thing should have some weight?”