Chapter 414 — The Storm Approaches
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
The Primal Spirit Guide had in fact been deduced by Shen Mu and Ling Yuxiu from the ideas behind the most elementary arts of the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art. The most basic art of the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art is the Yuan-Guiding Art, a method for guiding the vital essence, and the simplest of them all. The Primal Spirit Guide, by contrast, guides the spirit fetus and the hun and po souls: the spirit and soul of each mingle, then fly free of the body, then are exchanged back for one's own spirit and soul, and by this means one's own spirit and soul are made to merge into a primal spirit.
Hence the art must needs bear the word 'guide' in its name. That Shen Mu could bring his own primal spirit into resonance with Si Yunxiang's was on account of his spirit fetus.
His spirit fetus had no attribute at all, unlike spirit bodies such as those of Si Yunxiang and Ling Yuxiu, each of which possessed attributes of its own.
Primal-spirit resonance is the natural frequency born when the intent of two primal spirits merges; because every person's circumstances differ, every person's primal spirit differs more or less as well, and so the resonant frequency of each primal spirit is different. When a pair cultivate the primal spirit in tandem, their resonant frequencies attune to one another and form a frequency that is unique; if either then cultivates the primal spirit in tandem with another, they are no longer on the same frequency, and resonance cannot be attained. Shen Mu's primal spirit and spirit fetus happened to possess no spirit-body attribute whatsoever, blank as a sheet of paper; when that blank sheet cultivated in tandem with Ling Yuxiu, the resonant frequency was Ling Yuxiu's, and when it cultivated in tandem with Si Yunxiang, it was Si Yunxiang's.
It was likewise because Emperor Yanfeng had never met an 'Overlord Body' as bizarre as Shen Mu's that he had paid it no particular heed, and so had never warned Ling Yuxiu of the taboos of primal-spirit resonance; at this moment the emperor's regret was beyond measure. Shen Mu and Ling Yuxiu sorted out the men's and women's sections of the Primal Spirit Guide, setting down in detail the methods of cultivation and the art of substituting spirit and soul, and both were delighted at heart. All at once they seemed to be seized by an inexplicable realization, a realization that came not only in the comprehension of the Dao but in the Dao heart as well.
Through this one joint creation of a cultivation art, their Dao hearts underwent a sudden leap, a leap in kind. Sudden as it was called, it was not truly sudden. Creation is in itself the hardest of things.
To conjure a cultivation art out of nothing, to alter the entire system of cultivation after the Six Harmonies realm, to push the primal spirit forward into the Six Harmonies realm, the change wrought was far greater than the three basic sword forms created by Imperial Preceptor Jingping. It could even be said outright that if Shen Mu and Ling Yuxiu could develop the mysteries of the Six Harmonies primal spirit to their utmost, this change might well bring the Heaven-Man realm forward, merging it with the Seven Stars realm and making of two realms one. And such a change would affect countless divine-power wielders of ages to come.
The spirit fetus realm and the Five Luminaries realm are the realms of martial artists and martial masters; they have not yet stepped through the gate of divine power. Only at the Six Harmonies realm may one be called a divine-power wielder, having formally entered the gate of divine power. Beyond the Six Harmonies realm lie the Seven Stars, the Heaven-Man, the Life-and-Death, and the Spirit Bridge, each one a step by which a divine-power wielder advances toward the legendary realm of the gods.