Chapter 180: Refined Mind! The Only Way to Live
Chen Rui was anxious and asked, “Paglio! What should I do?”
“Soul power can affect the will. In turn, the soul is also controlled by the will. Even if it’s a Demon Overlord-level soul, as long as you possess an extraordinary will, it overrides the instinctual desires and completely controls the soul. Then, these digested powers will truly be yours and really improve by leaps. It is not impossible to achieve this, but the test you face is too risky. The chance of success is almost zero.”
“Quickly tell me what to do…” Chen Rui asked quickly when he heard that there was hope.
“There is only one way, that is, the training of the mind. You have good qualifications. If you have enough time, you may be able to create miracles, but you have only a hundred days…” The poison dragon sighed and did not continue.
Training of the mind? Chen Rui suddenly thought of the essence of Alioth state, which was <Refined Mind>… His eyes brightened, but how could he train his mind?
Paglio told him that there were generally only two methods, one was to train the mind from “quiet”; the other was to use pressure to cultivate the mind. Each person’s mind was different, so the difficulties encountered in training were also different. It couldn’t be described specifically in words.
In any case, he had to pass this <Refined Mind> challenge. Thinking of Athena who was still asleep, Chen Rui’s conviction had become stronger.
After seeing Chen Rui’s determination, Paglio stopped talking nonsense. He pointed out that his <Fire of Nirvana> had a great effect on the soul aspect, and he should take advantage of it. In addition, if he could truly control the “God-Eating Mask” on his face, he could also greatly increase the success rate of passing the test.
Chen Rui pondered. The Star Eater mode initially prompted an overflow warning, so using Star Conversion mode was a last resort. Although the consequences of using Star Conversion mode in this situation were serious, regretting now was useless. The key was to see if he could pass this challenge. This test was more risky than in the past. According to Paglio’s analysis, the only method was only two steps. First, using <Deep Analysis> to decode the “God-Eating Mask” as much as possible. If he could truly control the artifact, Paglio believed that it would help him overcome this difficulty. Second, start the training of the mind. One hundred days was a very short period of time. The training ground could extend this period many times. It was just that he lost a million auras after activating the Star Conversion mode, and he only had more than 300,000 auras left. Although the storage warehouse still had a lot of aura fruit, if he really wanted to activate training grounds frequently, then these auras were not enough.
Unfortunately, after Glorfin’s death, the crystals covering the minerals had disappeared. They could no longer be used as aura transformation material; there were no more waste ores.
Auras became the most important issue once again.
Chen Rui remembered that Joseph had promised to “use all resources”. He had an idea. It was Royce who was responsible for this. In Joseph’s view, Royce was completely loyal to him, and Vasasha was “Aguile’s” possession. Royce would never let go of his resources easily, but he would never have thought that Royce’s true allegiance was with “Aguile”.
Since Chen Rui could not use any skills because of the <Scorching Dragon Kill>. Dark Moon City was now fully hunting him. It was the safest to stay here until the twenty-four hour recovery period passed.
Chen Rui took out his tent and said, “Paglio, I will rest here first. I will be asleep all day, so protect me.”
Poison dragon didn’t make a joke this time. “Relax. Just in case, I will put Dragon Inscriptions around to cover up the traces of our battle.” Chen Rui nodded and entered the tent. He didn’t sleep, but entered the Super System. On the progress bar on the light screen, the progress of Star Conversion was 1% and <Deep Analysis> was still at 0%. If it was before he came to Blue Lake, he would be proud to see this 1%. Now, this progress bar seemed to be signaling the number of days he could live. According to the Star Conversion’s prompt, the later it was, the more it absorbed, and the “side effects” would become stronger. If he didn’t train his will enough, his soul would be destroyed sooner or later.
Although he could not use any skills at present, the training ground could still be used. At present, he had 320 thousand auras.Chen Rui did not hesitate and spent 100,000 auras. He directly chose the 100 fold time rule. Because his body was in fatigue, he did not select any other environment rules. He intended to try training his mind in the most common environment.
The “Alioth” state he was at currently was <Refined Mind>, but this was only a general direction. There was no specific training method such as the internal martial arts technique. He could not just become stronger by just thinking “I want to get stronger; I want to get stronger”.
In the past, he saw many training methods on the internet. There were a bunch of nouns such as Dantian, Niwan, and Qihai, but even if his memory was far better than before, he couldn’t think of a specific <Refined Mind>> method. Moreover, it was difficult to say whether these mind training methods were real of fake. It would be bad if he went crazy due to the wrong method.
However, according to Paglio, “quiet” was the most basic mind training method. The “movement” method that applied pressure to the external world was actually using external forces to further cultivate mind. Initially, the rumors of Qigong and cultivation from that world generally were based on meditation, so his first step should be to calm down.
He remembered some methods such as five minds facing the sky [1] and eyes looking at the nose, nose looking at the heart, which should not be difficult.
It was the first time Chen Rui tried a pure retreat. He soon found out that he couldn’t “calm down” at all. He previously held onto some kind of faith and goal, fighting against pressure such as gravity or waves. Now it was the opposite; there was no external pressure. Now he was at a loss, he couldn’t “calm down” even if he wanted to.
Chen Rui only knew that the words “having no distractions” were easy to say, but too difficult to accomplish. Both the palms of his hands and feet, the center of his head and the top of his head facing the sky was not just a ridiculous sitting position, but the most awkward position was eyes looking at the nose, nose looking at the heart. He stared at the tip of his nose with his eyes for a long time until he became dizzy, but still couldn’t “see” his “heart”.
I just don’t believe it! Chen Rui tried again and again, but failed again and again. He couldn’t fall asleep in the training ground. Chen Rui simply gave up on the five minds to the sky and lay on the floor, looking at the vast space above his head. He felt powerless and weak. Be “quiet” here for more than three months in this place? I rather go to the N-fold gravity room!
Of course, as the master, Chen Rui could leave the training grounds and waste one day and 100,000 auras at most, but he was unwilling to give up like this. Not to mention, for him, when one day passed, he had one day less.
Counting the start time in the morning, after today, he only had 99 days left. This time was even more terrifying than the previous War Contract. If he couldn’t fulfill the War Contract, he could still seek asylum from Paglio. However, now he could only rely on himself. Besides, he had power, but it was useless in mind cultivation. Chen Rui sighed. Past scenes emerged in his mind. He was just an insignificant otaku from Earth. After being reborn in this world, he changed a lot. Not only his power, but even though he was initially bad at speaking, he had now become a fluent speaker. It was the survival of the fittest; this was life.
The biggest gain was meeting Athena. Chen Rui remembered all his memories with Athena. His face was happy and sad, then he finally regained calmness.
At that moment, in the human body on the status bar, the star chart began to faintly emit light. Chen Rui immediately sensed something. He thought of something, then the light disappeared again.
Chen Rui tried to think about missing Athena again, but this time there was no response. It seemed that Athena was not the cause, but the peaceful state of mind at the end of missing her.
State of mind, mind; this is the true reason for quiet. No wonder it is called “<Refined Mind>.”
Chen Rui seemed to realize that he did not need to intentionally follow some pose or to think about the state he had to reach in a hundred days. He only slowly felt his breathing and relaxed his body. Gradually, he did not even try to feel his breathing. He felt as if he entered a state of tranquility.
Sure enough, the star chart really started to shine, but Chen Rui already stopped paying attention to it. He was just immersed in this kind of watertight tranquility.
He didn’t know how many days had passed. Chen Rui was already able to better grasp this meditation method. This state was not pure silence. In this state of meditation, he meditated about battle training. Then, when he directly carried it out at the training grounds, it felt like it was twice as effective with half the effort. Slowly, he grew accustomed to this quiet state. He would plan time to sit with his eyes closed every day.
Initially, his cultivation was more focused on “training”, but from now on, he actually had the true feeling of “cultivating.”
Of course, calming down was just the beginning of realizing his “mind”.”. He could only slowly explore how to “cultivate”.
After truly meditating, 100 days passed in a blink of an eye. Chen Rui opened his eyes. At this time, it was the night of the next day. He felt that his strength got a little stronger. He looked at the progress of the Star Conversion, it was already at 2%. Getting stronger also meant the “side effects” was getting stronger. If it was Chen Rui before he understood “quiet”, he would surely be very anxious, but now he just frowned slightly. He ate some food from the storage space and fell asleep.
At dawn, Chen Rui woke up and said goodbye to Paglio. He secretly went back to Dark Moon City and arrived at the Arena.
Soon, Royce, Arux, and Vasasha gathered in the room below the arena. “Royce, I urgently need some high-quality magic materials. Does the magic store still have some stocks?”.”
Royce replied respectfully, “Actually, the magic store only contains a small part of Joseph’s resources at hand. Due to the exclusion and struggle in the Red Spirit Estate, Joseph transferred most of his resources to Dark Moon except for a few secret storages. When I was pledging my loyalty to him the night before, he gave me a part of his resources in the magic store. I will get the materials Master needs as soon as possible.”
“You did a good job. Get me some samples first, then I will give you a specific list. However, in order to gain Joseph’s trust, you can report to him by magic messaging and appropriately exaggerate my forceful attitude. Before obtaining the devil fruit, I believe that Joseph will not be stingy…”
Royce nodded. He hesitated a little and stuttered, “There is one more thing I have to report to Master. I have gotten the secret clue that was sealed by my father using a secret bloodline technique inside Vasasha’s body…”
“Oh…” Chen Rui froze, and then showed a teasing smile. He looked at Vasasha. Vasasha, who had always been cold, looked uncharacteristically embarrassed and lowered her head.
[1] It was a meditation pose for cultivating internal martial arts. 心 represents heart, mind and center. Therefore, the five minds here are two palms, two feet (sitting with leg crossed) and forehead facing the sky.
A secret in Vashasha’s body? Could it be the most sacred place of woman?