Yang Qing went through a few more training cycles, switching between contemplation, revision, adoption, and repetition. Two hours passed before he finally decided to take a break, stopping when he felt his spiritual qi had reached the halfway point in expenditure.
As enthralling as the process was—improving himself, stabilizing his foundation, synchronizing his current strength with the Brilliant Ray Fist Art, and weaving in various revelations that refined both himself and the art—he remained mindful of the fact that this was not his own backyard, but soone else’s.
He couldn’t afford to drain all his spiritual qi or tire his mind, only to be caught flat-footed by so unseen enemy. After all, Hebei Kingdom, though filled with upright individuals and known across the continent for upholding the highest moral standards, was still a dangerous place because of the enemies it had drawn.
Who knew how many fiendish cultivators road the kingdom, waiting for their chance to strike? There was a reason the Order had chosen to establish a branch here—one manned by a domain expert, no less. For all its cheer and outward peace, Hebei had endured countless wars since its founding, most of them either sponsored or carried out by fiendish organizations that felt threatened by the kingdom or bore grudges against it.
Yang Qing, satisfied with his training, regulated his breathing. With each breath, the hazy inferno-like steam rising from his body slowly receded. By the ti he completed his fourth cycle, the fiery heat had faded, and his ruby skin had returned to its usual white-bronze hue.
With everything stabilized, he sat in a lotus position and began ditating, refining his understanding of his purple-grade art, the Universal Resonant Light.
The Brilliant Ray Fist Art was perfect for testing ideas, adapting to his strength, and stabilizing his realm, but when it ca to deepening his foundation, it fell a little bit short of the purple grade art. As much as it was his own creation—and was a middle-tier blue-grade art at that—it could not compare to the Universal Resonant Light when it ca to providing insights or unraveling the profound truths and mysteries of the Grand Dao.
In fact, the Brilliant Ray Fist Art had been born from the insights he gained through cultivating the Universal Resonant Light. Its frawork carried traces of the purple grade art. It wouldn’t be wrong to say the Brilliant Ray Fist Art was inspired by it, especially in its malleability and the versatility of its spells and techniques.
The Brilliant Ray Fist Art was deceptive in its na. Yes, it contained powerful fist techniques, but it wasn’t predominantly a fist art. Once cultivation arts reached the blue grade, beyond drawing on the powers of the Grand Dao, they gained another quality: cultivators began to see their lives reflected through the art. For creators, such arts often beca mirrors of their nature, intent, and inherent qualities.
Where an art connects with life—that was when it truly crossed the threshold of blue grade and beyond. Powerful cultivation arts didn’t just build strength; they cultivated the heart and mind as well. They were mirrors for the truths of the heart and mind, and those of the world. The better your proficiency, the better your understanding of yourself and of the world was; and the more powerful the art was, the more you saw and understood.
For Yang Qing, the Brilliant Ray Fist Art—being his own creation—naturally adopted his nature and characteristics. It drew most heavily from his peerless Yin-Yang Jade Nature Bones physique. From the accident that deepened his understanding and connection to his body, he ca to realize just how profoundly his physique had influenced every part of his cultivation. Nowhere was this influence more evident than in the Brilliant Ray Fist Art.
The Brilliant Ray Fist Art was an amalgamation of many arts, spells, and techniques drawn from different schools. Each worked together to complent and supplent the others without one overshadowing the rest. It was a harmonic blend that included movent arts, fist arts, palm arts, finger arts, and kicking arts. It also held eye techniques, soul-based arts, body-based ones, defensive techniques and spells, offensive techniques and spells, and even sensory spells and techniques. The Brilliant Ray Fist Art had them all, woven together in balanced harmony. Both his physique and his purple-grade art had deeply shaped this harmony.
His peerless jade physique was centered on absolute balance in everything. Even in extres, it sought to enforce balance within extres. Its purpose was harmonization through balance. That was what allowed him to manipulate different elents with ease. Yet, it was also what prevented him from comprehending intent. His physique rejected anything that might cause disequilibrium in his body or soul. To it, the rule was simple: master everything or nothing at all.
So whether it was saber intent, sword intent, spear intent, fist intent, or the like, those were out of the question for him. But in exchange for losing out on that path, he gained sothing else, and that was a body and soul capable of housing and sustaining absolute balance in everything. His strength, speed, and power were always evened out.
Though balanced, this was only relative to Yang Qing. His so-called "balanced speed" was enough to be considered genius-level in prestigious sects, and the sa held true for his strength and power. To exceed him in any one attribute, you would have to be a monster in that attribute.
Yet even then, it didn’t necessarily make you his equal. Being monstrous in a single area often ca with weaknesses in another. Yang Qing had no such limitations. Everything in him was evened out... well, almost everything.
He had an abnormal body and an equally abnormal soul, both built to sustain that evenness. His body brimd with extraordinary vigor, vitality, and qi to shoulder the toll demanded by such balance. His soul carried a purity and strength capable of eting the ntal demands required to uphold it. In simple words, he was a hardy cockroach with a hardy body and soul.
At the sa cultivation base, or even a minor stage, no one could hold a candle to him in a battle of attrition. Whether it was qi capacity, regeneration, stamina, or endurance, he surpassed them all by a long stretch. If you couldn’t one-shot him, no matter how powerful you were, every second the fight dragged on only tilted the odds further in Yang Qing’s favor.
Sustaining balance ant he could sustain it to the very end, because both his body and soul ensured it. This made him one of the thorniest opponents to face, and at the sa ti, one of the best suited for fighting multiple groups of enemies. He had the stamina, resilience, and versatility for it.
Within the Order, the only person he truly saw himself struggle against was Kang Huilang, and that was because their peerless jade physiques were nearly alike. Kang Huilang possessed the Harmonious Cataclysmic Jade Bones Physique. Where Yang Qing’s physique rejected intent and housed only balance, Huilang’s could accommodate multiple intents—four, to be exact. Such a feat was virtually unheard of in the cultivation world.
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