**Chapter 3: The Nirvana Spirit-Exchange Art**
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Gu Xiao fell into a long dream.
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In the dream, he stood in a boundless void. No sky above, no earth below. He couldn’t remember who he was or where he came from. He only felt a hollow ache in his chest, as if something vital had been carved out.
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Then, a single strand of hair appeared in the void.
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Black as ink, slender, carrying a faint, cool fragrance. It drifted toward him and settled gently in his palm. Instinctively, he tried to close his fingers around it. The moment his fingertips brushed the strand, the entire void shattered.
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Countless points of light surged from the fractured emptiness and drilled into the center of his brow. These lights held no memories, no images, no complete stories—only words. Densely packed cultivation mantras, every character sharp as if carved into bone. Yet he couldn’t recall where they came from, who left them, or why they now resided in the depths of his consciousness.
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*The Nirvana Spirit-Exchange Art.*
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He knew only the title. The rest was a blank slate.
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The manual opened with a single line: *“To replace the spiritual root, first shatter it. Shatter and rebuild, break and be reborn.”*
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Then came the cultivation method. He didn’t understand the origins of the text, but he understood every word—as if the manual hadn’t been “learned” by him, but had always grown within his body, only now surfacing. He saw the classification of spiritual roots: Yellow, Profound, Earth, Heaven, Immortal, Divine. The “useless root” was not among the six tiers. It was a defective root, failing to even reach the lowest Yellow grade. The root he had in this life was exactly that—a useless root.
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The manual detailed the method to break through from a useless root to a Yellow root: while fully conscious, circulate spiritual energy along specific meridian pathways to completely crush the defective root, then recondense it from the shattered fragments. The entire process required absolute wakefulness. If one lost consciousness, the root fragments would dissipate entirely, and all cultivation would be ruined.
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The pain of shattering the spiritual root was described in the manual with only eight characters: *“Beyond mortal endurance; survive it, and you shall live.”*
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Every subsequent breakthrough—Yellow to Profound, Profound to Earth, Earth to Heaven, Heaven to Immortal, Immortal to Divine—required specific Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures. A list was appended at the end of the manual. The “Earth Vein Essence” needed for Profound to Earth could be purchased at standard cultivation markets. Expensive, but not rare. The “Heavenly Dew Flower” required for Earth to Heaven could only be found at major auctions or in secret realms. The “Immortal Root Filaments” needed for Heaven to Immortal simply did not exist in the Mortal Realm; they could only be found in the Immortal Realm. As for the material required for Immortal to Divine, the manual listed only three characters: *“Unspoken.”*
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He finished reading. The words sank into his dantian, like a seed, quietly waiting for him to awaken.
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He didn’t know how long he had slept.
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In the gaps of his consciousness, he occasionally felt someone feeding him water. It was warm, carrying a faint herbal scent. Sometimes, an old woman’s voice would drift in: “This child’s fate is tough. Burned for three days and still won’t die.” Other times, an old man’s voice: “The whole village is gone. He’s the only one left. We can’t just leave him.”
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He wanted to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt weighted with lead. A faint power seeping from that fissure inside him was slowly repairing his body—broken bones knitted back together, ruptured organs healed, thorn-lacerated wounds scabbed over. He didn’t know where the power came from, only sensed it was profoundly important. Too important to let anyone discover.
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Then, one day, he woke.
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His eyes met an unfamiliar room. Earth walls, thatched roof, windows pasted with yellowed paper. Sunlight filtered through the paper windows, falling on his face, warm and gentle. He lay on a wooden plank bed, covered by a coarse, patched quilt. Beside the bed sat a chipped clay bowl, still holding half a bowl of medicinal broth at the bottom.
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Gu Xiao tried moving his fingers. They moved. He tried taking a deep breath. A dull ache lingered at his ribs, but it no longer hindered his breathing. Slowly, he sat up. The coarse quilt slid off, revealing an upper body so emaciated it was little more than bone. His skin was sallow, ribs starkly visible, arms as thin as dead branches.
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The door curtain lifted. An old woman with a head of white hair walked in, carrying a bowl. Seeing Gu Xiao sitting up, she froze for a moment, nearly dropping the bowl.
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“Child, you’re awake!”
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The woman’s surname was Wang. It was her husband, Old Man Wang, who had saved him. A year ago, while returning to Qingmu City after selling his hunt, Old Man Wang found the unconscious Gu Xiao beside the hunter’s trail. At that time, Gu Xiao was covered in blood, his breathing so faint it seemed a gust could snuff it out. Old Man Wang hadn’t thought he’d survive the night. But Gu Xiao didn’t die. He lay in a coma for a full year. Throughout that year, the Wang couple took turns caring for him—feeding him medicine, wiping his body, turning him over, cleaning his waste. They were hunters, not wealthy, but they used every medicinal herb they could spare on him.
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“Qingmu Village…” Gu Xiao spoke, his voice rasping like sandpaper on stone. “Are there any survivors from Qingmu Village?”
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The Wang woman fell silent, then shook her head. “The authorities sent men to check. They said the whole village was burned to the ground. Over three hundred souls. Not a single one found.” She paused. “Old Man Wang found you on the hunter’s trail. We didn’t know which village you were from. But when we heard Qingmu Village was slaughtered by demonic cultivators, we guessed you were probably…”
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She didn’t finish.
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Gu Xiao didn’t cry. His eyes were as dry and hollow as a dead well, incapable of producing tears. He simply sat there, watching the sunlight filter through the paper window, saying nothing for a long time.
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That night, Old Man Wang returned from hunting. Seeing Gu Xiao awake, he was so overjoyed he forgot to process the two hares he’d caught. He tossed them on the ground, strode to the bedside, and patted Gu Xiao’s shoulder with a calloused hand. “Good that you’re awake! Good that you’re awake! This old man thought you’d sleep through your whole life.”
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Gu Xiao looked at the elderly couple. They were no kin to him. They had merely found a dying stranger on a trail, yet cared for him for an entire year.
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He didn’t say thank you. Some debts couldn’t be repaid with two words.
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Three days later, Gu Xiao could get out of bed and walk. His body recovered far faster than Old Man Wang expected—that faint power dormant deep within him had been quietly repairing his injuries. He didn’t know what it was, but he didn’t probe it. He began helping Old Man Wang with tasks within his capacity: splitting firewood, fetching water, skinning rabbits. His hands still trembled. His strength was less than that of an ordinary mortal. His Qi Condensation Stage One cultivation, sustained by a useless root, had nearly dissipated after a year in a coma.
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But he wasn’t in a hurry. Because the seed in his dantian was still there.
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Seven more days passed. Gu Xiao confirmed his body had recovered to the absolute limit it could bear. That night, after the Wang couple fell asleep, he quietly rose and slipped into the woodshed behind the house.
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He sat cross-legged beside a woodpile and closed his eyes. The mantras of *The Nirvana Spirit-Exchange Art* surfaced from his dantian, every character as clear as yesterday. He hesitated not. Following the pathways recorded in the manual, he mobilized the last wisp of spiritual energy remaining in his body.
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The moment spiritual energy flowed into his spiritual root, he felt it.
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His spiritual root sat at the center of his dantian, like a withered tree root, curled into a tight knot, radiating almost no vitality. This was the useless root—a defective root failing to even reach the lowest Yellow grade. Spiritual energy circulating through such a root was like water flowing over a cracked riverbed; most seeped away, only a tiny fraction absorbed by the body.
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Gu Xiao condensed that wisp of spiritual energy into a needle, aimed it at the very center of his root, and struck.
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Pain detonated in an instant.
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It wasn’t the pain of shattered bones or torn flesh. This pain came from the foundation of his very existence—as if someone had reached into the deepest part of his soul, gripped his most vulnerable core, and slowly, methodically twisted it to pieces. His vision instantly turned blood-red. His ears roared like thunder. Every muscle in his body spasmed simultaneously. Sweat soaked through his coarse clothes within a few breaths.
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He did not stop.
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Spiritual energy became needles, strike after strike. Under their piercing, the useless root began to crack. Each crack doubled the agony. He bit down so hard his gums bled, the blood trickling from the corners of his mouth. His nails dug into his palms, carving out eight bloody crescent wounds. His consciousness teetered on the brink of collapse under the excruciating pain. Every breath felt like swallowing broken glass.
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*“Beyond mortal endurance; survive it, and you shall live.”*
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Eight characters. He didn’t know where he’d learned them, but now they became the only anchor in his mind. Not “endure it, and you’ll live,” but “only those who can endure it are truly alive.”
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The moment the useless root completely shattered, Gu Xiao felt his dantian go empty. Not empty of spiritual energy, but empty of the vessel itself. The shattered root dissolved into countless minuscule points of light, drifting aimlessly in his dantian like ashes scattered by the wind.
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Then, he began to recondense.
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Following the manual’s method, he used his own vital blood as a catalyst, drawing the points of light back together one by one. This process was slower and more torturous than shattering the root. Fusing each point required absolute focus, and the agony threatened to shatter his concentration at any moment. His lips were chewed to shreds, his tongue bitten through. The metallic, rust-like taste of blood flooded his mouth.
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Time lost all meaning. Perhaps an incense stick’s length. Perhaps an entire night.
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The final point of light settled into place. His dantian gave a sudden, violent tremor. A completely new, unprecedented warmth surged from his spiritual root. It wasn’t the flow of spiritual energy—qi remained thin, his cultivation still Qi Condensation Stage One. It was the spiritual root’s own “breath.” The useless root was dead. The Yellow root was alive. It autonomously, slowly absorbed ambient spiritual energy from the air, without his deliberate command.
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Gu Xiao opened his eyes.
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Dawn’s faint light seeped through the cracks of the woodshed window. He was drenched in sweat, as if pulled straight from water. The nail-carved wounds on his palms still seeped blood. His lips and chin were caked with dried blood. He looked down at his hands—emaciated, stained with filth and blood, but all five fingers were steadily splayed open, without a single tremor.
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He had done it.
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Useless root. Yellow root. A single character’s difference, yet worlds apart. The Yellow root was still the lowest formal grade. Foundation Establishment remained a distant goal. His cultivation speed would still be far slower than ordinary cultivators. But it was no longer a dead end. The useless root had no future. The Yellow root did. Even if that future was as narrow as a sliver of sky between two cliffs, it was still a path.
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Gu Xiao leaned back against the woodpile and closed his eyes. Morning light filtered through the window cracks, falling on his blood-stained face.
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He didn’t know why he remembered this manual. The strand of hair in his dream, the shattered void, the points of light drilling into his brow—he understood none of it. But he didn’t press for answers. Some truths would surface when the time was right. All he needed to know now was that the manual was real. The spiritual root that had crippled him for fifteen years could truly be changed.
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That was enough.
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His lips moved slightly, silently forming a name.
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“A-Ning.”
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He owed her his life. He owed over three hundred lives from Qingmu Village. He owed the Wang couple a year of care.
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These debts, he would repay them one by one. Starting from the Yellow root. Starting from Qi Condensation Stage One. Lun Hua at Foundation Establishment peak? It didn’t matter. He could wait. He didn’t know why he’d dreamed of that manual, but he knew one thing—from now on, he would never be trash again.
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*(End of Chapter 3)*27Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2oLAohiRFc
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