Chapter 507: Dao

[The Dao Divine Technique]

"It was not as fierce as the 9 suns, nor as powerful as the 9 moons. It's neither hard nor soft. It's all about the balance"

50 years ago, the Abbot bestowed the secrets of the technique to the two Han swordmasters. Within a few years, the two of them managed to adapt the technique and create the Dao sword art, but originally the technique itself was a way to cultivate one's body and spirit. 

There are 8 Dao stages and 32 movement variations involving the channeling of spirit energy throughout the 12 main meridians in the human body.

The Abbot demonstrated to Emery how to understand the Dao, before leaving him to practice on top of the stone slab.

The initial stage of the technique involved the understanding of the Dao itself. The Dao could be roughly considered as the Flow of the Universe, or in other words, the understanding of the essence and patterns that govern the natural world. This concept plays a vital part in keeping the Universe balanced and ordered, as well as the energy that moves during action and existence.

The Dao is an expression of the void that is inextricably linked between the existences of multiple objects. The natural dynamic balance formed between opposites would lead to zero. It can be thought as, if one object has a positive-aspected energy, while another has an equal amount of negative-aspected energy, it would lead to inaction.

It seemed complicated at first, but the more Emery read the more his understanding of the marking on the walls grew, he felt like his mind was wide opened.

It took him a whole day before he could fully grasp the meaning behind it and, surprisingly, Emery was able to feel the difference. A moment later a notification came to his mind. 

[You have obtained a new understanding of Dao, stage 1]

Emery was glad he was able to understand the principle quickly. He felt his spirit core refreshed and, with it, he now had better control over his spirit core when he cast [Nature Grasp]. It felt as if there was no waste when he absorbed the energy around him.

He also realized the place had a slightly thicker spirit essence. He believed it's the result of cultivating close to the Gaia sacred tree. It's still far to compare with the origin stone rooms or the Khaos Space, but to have such a place was surely beneficial to him and his friend. 

Now that he reached the first stage, it was time to move to the second stage.

The second stage was about recognition, to be able to identify between two opposite forces that lied within him. For him, the two opposites were his dark core and his spirit seed. the darkness element and the nature elements of plant, water and earth.

The principles of Dao taught him to recognize the flow of energy when it was radiated outwards and inwards. He needs to balance the energy emanated by both cores.

Emery used his [Nature Grasp] and tried to feel the energy of nature from within the seed and together with the outside energy he channel his dark core also to follow the flow of the nature energy.

As expected, he felt a massive force pushing him back, as the spirit energy from his dark core was extremely overwhelming. To compare, the energy from his seed was a refreshing breeze, while the energy from his dark core was akin to a massive whirling tornado.

To solve this problem, Emery suppressed the energy from the dark core extensively. On his first attempts, it kept leaking out whenever he tried to suppress it, but after a few hours, he managed to suppress the energy to a very slight trickle that could be connected to the spirit seed.

To balance the opposite, Emery had to learn to restrain the dark power until a friction one of a thousand of its actual power. With it, he could finally balance the two opposite strengths and create a connection. It was still very subtle, but he could only maintain the connection for a few minutes each time, stil, he had managed to connect the two.

The connected energy from the two cores started to flow inwards and upwards, like a stream of circular, never-ending flowing river. He spent a full week to understand it, before he was finally able to create a stable thin string. With it, a new notification came to mind.

[You obtained a new understanding of Dao, stage 2]

Now, it was time to advance to the third stage. The connection has been established, but it still had to be channeled into the 12 meridians spread all around his body. For this stage, Emery stood from his lotus position, warmed up his body and followed the first 8 movement variations. Each movement would stimulate a set of different meridians.

He realized the human organs each have different reactions to the spirit energy and it also follow with the concept of Dao. 

SIx yin meridians that are located in the inner region of the arms, legs, chest, and torso. The six yang meridians are located on the outer region of the arms, legs, head, and torso.

After another week of cultivating while following the 8 variations, he was able to feel the connection strengthen. The balance he tried to attain could now be felt throughout his whole body.

When he checked both his cores, he noticed that the dark core had successfully channel his spirit energy towards the seed. This time, although they were opposites, the two energies didn't fight each other. The massive dark core spirit force started to help nurture the seed but still only in a friction one of a thousand portion of the energy.

Hours turned into days, days into weeks. Emery felt the spirit seed was nurtured by both the nature energy and the flow from his dark core. He felt gradually the dark core could adapt and the channel was able to widen a bit. But unfortunately, there were still no signs of breaking the seed nor growth. One thing was for sure, the things he was doing right now were working much more effectively.

He decided to spice up his training and took out two swords from his [Spatial Storage]. Emery pictured the techniques used by the two Han masters and imitated it to the best of his abilities.

It was as if his body and his spirit all worked together to nurture the spirit seed, and after a few more days another notification came. 

[You have obtained a new understanding of Dao, stage 3]

Emery smiled triumphantly upon reading it.