Chapter 32 - Acupoints Opening (1/2)

The days of rest were over, and the training fatigue of the previous week had subsided. Hei, as he was used to exercising since he was a child, was in full force while Lian was still a little sore due to the recent muscular awakening. But, even though she didn't have a robust body, Bao Bei judged that she could be subjected to the acupoints' opening.

The acupoints, also called pressure points, were a series of points present in all living beings. In them, spirit power flowed following a path similar to the circulatory system. Depending on the pressure with which they were struck, various effects could occur. Normally, martial artists during the cultivation would open the internal connection between the acupoints. But, they would keep the connection between these and the outside closed due to the attached dangers.

The acupoints were delicate body parts, and it was risky to modify them since it was easy to incur internal wounds and disturb the inner spirit power's flow. There were even martial artists specialized in hitting acupoints, according to a fighting style called the touch of death because of the internal damage they quickly caused.

However, spirit beasts differed from humans and demons, in addition to many other features, precisely because they had a connection between the acupoints and the external environment. They assimilated spirit power into the air with the whole body. Then, they circulated it in unison from all sides without a precise pattern, unlike the circuit used by humans and demons. Because of this, spirit beasts were used to have more amounts of spirit power and faster regeneration.

Of course, noticing the difference between them and the spirit beasts, various martial artists tried to open the external connection of their acupoints with the result that they all died from the bursting of their internal organs when they attempted to cultivate using this method. Eventually, it was considered impossible to proceed with that method, and it was discarded from human and demon cultivation methods.

But if humans and demons had failed to find a solution to apply this use of acupoints in a cultivation method, it didn't mean that spirit beasts couldn't do it.

Hei An, Bao Bei's companion, with the help of the divine beast Bai Ze, succeeded in inventing a cultivation method for humans and demons using the spirit beasts' characteristics.

It should be known that the Bai Ze was a very particular type of divine beast. It was similar to a bull and a lion, and it had nine eyes and six horns. They were arranged in sets of three and two on both its flanks and on its face.

At the time of the great war that saw the three races that inhabited the world involved, there was a single existing Bai Ze. He, besides being the only known Law of Energy's user, also possessed an incredible knowledge.

It was he who invented the spirit vein restoration formation, then teaching it to a close circle of divine beasts. But he also developed a set of cultivation methods and techniques by exploiting the spirit beasts' characteristics and adapted them to be used by the other two races.

He did this under Hei An's orders, the then Emperor Beast. After all, fighting alongside them divine beasts, there were also humans and demon beast tamers who had denied everything to stand by their fellow spirit beasts.

The goal was to grow human children and demons within their colonies and train them following these methods. Unfortunately, the project didn't see the light because there wasn't enough time to find valid candidates, and the final battle had already arrived. But, after more than one hundred thousand years, this project would finally see the light thanks to Hei and Lian.

Since she was the Beast Emperor's partner and herself an influential member of the divine beasts' community, the Spider of Nightmare, Bao Bei, was entrusted with the manuals and techniques invented according to the snake and spider style. Furthermore, the queen of plant-type divine beasts, the Lotus of Love, had entrusted to Bao Bei, who was her best friend, a copy of the techniques invented according to the lotus fighting style. She did that just in case Bao Bei found a candidate valid during her travels with Hei An.

And in the end, Bao Bei had managed to find the perfect candidates to whom to entrust the secret project that they, divine beasts, had been unable to implement. Hei would inherit the spider and serpent style while Lian the lotus style. Even though she didn't have a bloodline, she was a girl, and the lotus fighting style was better for her than Hei.

The choice of candidates was made through two criteria: talent and the amount of trust.

Talent was essential to be able to practice this type of cultivation, and only those who had awakened their spirit power before they were thirteen could have it. This was due to the low amount of formation seeds. These were special seeds on which particular formations had been engraved; by inserting them in the candidates' body in specific points, it was possible to induce the acupoint's external connection without lethal consequences.

The amount of trust, however, was the most important; only those who had gained the trust of the divine beast, from which they wanted to learn, could receive such teachings. And this was also mandatory for the beast tamers' children who already had the community trust.

After all, this method was only feasible when one hadn't yet started cultivating, and it wasn't sure that the children would be as loyal as the parents. Therefore, for this series of reasons, the project couldn't have been completed during the war.

*

When Hei and the others woke up and finished digesting breakfast, Bao Bei had Shui and the other buffalos watch over the spiderweb house's perimeter from the outside while they stayed inside. This was because the process she was about to implement was very delicate, and required maximum concentration by Hei and Lian. As a result, she didn't want any strangers to disturb them.

As for this cultivation method's secrecy, if the spirit power's flow during cultivation wasn't carefully examined, it was unthinkable that others would discover that the two of them were using cultivation methods according to spirit beasts' characteristics. Furthermore, it was impossible to do this without being detected. By the time it happened, the people who were cultivating would immediately notice an interference and stop cultivating.