Chapter 53: When Water Overflows, the Possibility of Dual Paths
Chen Ming was carried back to the manor by Zhang Peng and lay there for 3 days before finally opening his eyes in a daze.
After summoning his Martial Soul and eating a large meal, he gradually recovered to a nearly normal state.
It was only after experiencing this condition, one that had come close to deviation yet ultimately did not cross the line, that Chen Ming finally understood why people in the Douluo Continent knew so little about the Eight Extraordinary Meridians.
Facing Zhang Peng, Chen Ming voiced his conclusion.
"Opening the hidden meridians requires the principle of water overflowing once it is full. One must first push their own state to the absolute limit and accumulate excess energy until it reaches the greatest capacity possible. Only then, through the circulation of that energy, can one locate and open those meridians."
"But the cultivation path of Spirit Masters is different. The moment they reach a bottleneck, everyone focuses on obtaining a Spirit Ring as quickly as possible so they can break through."
"The human body is a precise vessel. Under normal circumstances, what we can observe are only the 12 primary meridians. But hidden within the body are countless tiny channels."
"These tiny channels cannot be seen, yet they actually occupy a considerable portion of the container's capacity."
"If the limit of the container is directly raised, if it expands the moment the water becomes full, then those hidden meridians will never be discovered."
"Only by continuously compressing and probing within a limited space can one discover those hidden paths."
"Water overflows when full..." Zhang Peng tapped the table lightly with one finger, his brows tinged with an indescribable emotion as he looked at the dark yellow ancient book in his hand, its corner still stained crimson with blood.
"It sounds simple, but how is that even possible?"
"When a Spirit Master reaches a bottleneck, their Spirit Power stops increasing further. Instead, it is stored within the body at a certain ratio, waiting to erupt only after a Spirit Ring is obtained."
"Even at the bottleneck between every 10 Ranks, Spirit Masters either cannot, or find it extremely difficult to, accumulate enough energy to compress it within their own bodies as a vessel."
"In my view, to achieve that, one would have to consume a Heaven and Earth Treasure capable of providing an enormous amount of energy at the bottleneck. That would temporarily swell the energy inside the body. Then, while protecting the heart meridian and stabilizing the state like I did for you, that energy could be allowed to diffuse outward and probe for the existence of the hidden meridians."
Zhang Peng had never expected that an accidental action on his part would lead to such a drastic conclusion.
At the same time, he finally understood why information about hidden meridians on the continent was so vague.
Even many Titled Douluo did not know these meridians existed.
The process of opening meridians was inherently one that danced on the edge of death, and the method of finding them was even more precious.
Even if someone just so happened to be at a bottleneck and, instead of immediately absorbing a Spirit Ring, accumulated a huge amount of energy by devouring a Heaven and Earth Treasure, that person still might not survive.
Even if they survived, they still might not discover the hidden meridians.
Even if they discovered them, they still might not be able to open them.
Even if they could open them, they still might not be able to control their state and the flow of Spirit Power.
And even if they could do that, survival was still not guaranteed.
Violent energy would burst a person apart, yet mild energy would not provide enough stimulation.
This chain of conditions was enough to drive anyone mad.
"Teacher, have you ever thought about this?" Chen Ming asked.
"When Spirit Masters reach a bottleneck and do not obtain a Spirit Ring immediately, instead continuing to meditate and accumulate energy, then releasing it all at once after absorption, what exactly happens then?"
"A Spirit Master who remains at Rank 20 for 1 day and a Spirit Master who remains at Rank 20 for 1 year are both still Rank 20. But that 1 year of difference cannot simply disappear."
"Even if the ratio is low, a portion of extra Spirit Power is still accumulated inside the Spirit Master's body."
"So the Spirit Master cannot sense where that portion of Spirit Power is. They cannot use it. Their own Rank has not broken through."
"And yet that portion of Spirit Power still remains inside the body..."
By the time Chen Ming finished speaking, Zhang Peng's eyes had already lit up.
"You mean that hidden Spirit Power is not actually submerged in flesh and blood the way we usually assume, but instead, under pressure, it slowly seeps into those hidden meridians?"
"Because ordinary Spirit Masters cannot sense the existence of those meridians, that portion of Spirit Power is ignored as it flows outward?"
"And once the Spirit Master obtains a Spirit Ring, the limit of the vessel is raised. So after obtaining the ring, the Spirit Power compressed inside those hidden meridians is forced back out and merges into the Spirit Power the Spirit Master can control?"
"That should be the case," Chen Ming nodded.
But there were still deeper things he did not say aloud.
The natives of the Douluo Continent could not see it, but Chen Ming, as an outsider from another world who understood parts of several Douluo settings, could see more by stepping outside the perspective of this world's people.
Compared to normal cultivation systems, the Douluo world was fundamentally skewed at its root.
Its source of power was not cultivation itself, but something one was born with.
Breaking through a bottleneck was not true self advancement, but the interception of external power through Spirit Rings, a method that would be considered unorthodox in many other worlds.
In essence, Spirit Power and Martial Souls were black boxes to the Spirit Masters of this world.
He had not understood it before, but after going through this life and death ordeal, Chen Ming now roughly grasped why the people of the Douluo world had failed to uncover the Eight Extraordinary Meridians even after tens of thousands of years.
A normal cultivation system begins with understanding. Then energy is accumulated. At certain stages, one pauses, continues accumulating bit by bit, and opens meridians one after another, gradually increasing the limit of the vessel with each opening.
But the Douluo world is different. Here, one is born with Innate Spirit Power, and cultivation is built entirely around Innate Spirit Power and the Martial Soul.
Knowledge of cultivation is not the foundation. It is merely something recorded gradually during the process.
In a conventional cultivation system, one constantly tempers oneself, opens meridians, and expands the upper limit of the body's capacity step by step.
In the Douluo world, one simply hunts Spirit Beasts and uses Spirit Rings to violently raise the limit of that vessel.
The former inevitably requires opening meridians and understanding one's own body as the foundation for becoming stronger.
The latter allows such things, but it can also function perfectly well without them.
To put it simply, the former is like an execution based player. One needs sufficient technique to display power while raising stats step by step.
The latter is more like a pure stat monster, complete with one click casting and powerful built in buffs. Even if execution is poor, it does not stop them from crushing opponents head on.
And for those who play as stat monsters, it cannot be said that they have no technique at all, but their technique certainly is not as refined.
The common Taizu Chang Quan of a wuxia world would already count as a self created Spirit Ability or combat skill in the Douluo world.
And the basic cultivation method of a second rate sect like the Tang Sect could leave the meditation methods of the Douluo world hopelessly behind.
Tang San in the Douluo world was equivalent to an expert reincarnated into the body of a top tier stat monster, possessing both the overwhelming stats of a top tier powerhouse and the refined control of an expert.
That was why he could constantly slaughter enemies and challenge those above his Rank.
The reason Mysterious Heaven Skill could open the Eight Extraordinary Meridians might not be because the technique itself was overwhelmingly strong, but because it followed the route of a normal cultivation system.
As a Daoist cultivation method, Mysterious Heaven Skill followed the path of first understanding, then accumulating energy, opening meridians to raise the limit, and advancing upward step by step.
The fact that Tang San could help Tang Hao, a Titled Douluo, open the Eight Extraordinary Meridians even while being several major Ranks lower proved that the physical difficulty of opening those meridians was not actually as outrageous as people imagined.
But the change in thinking and logic required to reach that point was something the people of the Douluo world could hardly develop on their own.
Furthermore, the excessive convenience brought by the Spirit Core likely caused problems related to the meridians.
A Spirit Core refines Spirit Power and compresses it to an extreme, stuffing more energy into a limited vessel.
But opening the Eight Extraordinary Meridians requires maximizing the use of the vessel itself.
The Spirit Core was definitely a good thing, but the temperament of Spirit Masters in the Douluo world caused them to know only how to use it, not why it worked, which led them to misuse even something beneficial.
In ancient times, the reason Titled Douluo were so rare was likely because those people needed to keep expanding their vessel rather than merely compressing more and more into an already limited space.
And that was precisely why Spirit Masters in Douluo 2 needed enlightenment at the Super Douluo Realm, whereas that concept was almost nonexistent in Douluo 1.
Strictly speaking, advancing along both paths at the same time would be the best option.
But after the Spirit Core provided a far higher lower limit, Spirit Masters instead began to abandon the development of their true upper limit.
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