'My inner world is inextricably linked to my meridians. I keep worrying about what my meridians can handle, when in reality I have a nearly unbreakable tank to deal with all of this.'
What Dyon didn't know was that his inner world acted exactly like the legendary dantian would. It was only natural that he didn't fully understand this considering that the dantian was something only unlocked by those who transcended to the immortal plane.
Mortals had a limited amount of energy they can handle at once. In fact, a large part of cultivation was increasing this upper limit by tempering the body and the meridians. This was why the first two realms of cultivation existed.
The normal limits of the mortal could only handle the energy provided by 108 meridians. By limiting the flow of this energy with narrow or clogged blood vessels, the universe was actually saving humans and beasts alike from themselves.
Those with "poor" talent simply did not have the constitution necessary to withstand large amounts of energy, while those with "good" talent did.
What most mortal plane cultivators didn't know was that this limiter was even fiercer than they thought.
Located just above the belly button was a separate inner world very similar to the Mind's Eye. Except, instead of being linked to the soul path, this separate world is linked to the energy path and is known as the dantian.
When an immortal awakens this world, they gain access to a pool of energy far beyond their imaginations. Someone as powerful as Dyon's Grand Teacher would have a dantian spanning a near infinite and unreachable limit. It is only at that point that one could call themselves a true cultivator.
But… Just what would happen if an absolute genius found a way to circ.u.mvent this problem? What would happen if this same genius found a way to gain access to a pool of energy at this level, but was also have it skip over the step requiring their body to be able to withstand it?
This was exactly why Dyon's grand teacher had called [Inner World: Sanctuary] the greatest energy cultivation technique ever created.
While the dantian and mind's eye are described as separate worlds, they were inextricably linked to the person who birthed them. For example, when the Holy Princess entered Dyon's Mind's Eye, she knew that she could damage Dyon by doing so.
Simply put, despite being called separate worlds, they weren't separate at all. Whatever occurred within them could have a direct impact on the real world. Meaning, if the dantian was awakened too early, its wielder would die if they weren't prepared.
However, the inner world sanctuary technique was completely different. It wasn't inextricably linked to Dyon, and the damage that occurred within it was separate from himself. It was like gaining a dantian without the drawbacks…
Of course, Dyon still had to be careful. If he gave his inner world a task too much for it to handle, there was a possibility that it could be destroyed. Should that happen, he would have to once more reseal his cultivation in order to build it again.
Still, such a matter was trivial in the face of the benefits. This was because while it took time for Dyon to pull energy from the outside world into his meridians, the energy transfer between his inner world and meridians should be instantaneous!
'I don't have to choose between these energies…' Dyon's eyes sharpened. 'I'll take them all!'
And so Dyon began to cultivate, slowly learning his own limits as he went along.
Currently, his inner world was only 10m by 10m, so there was definitely a limit to the amount of energy it could house. However, Dyon had something other wielders of this technique didn't. In fact, he had two things.
The first point was that his world was far more robust. Normally, with a world his size, he'd be able to fill his meridians an additional two times. Meaning, that if his meridians ran dry, he'd be able to call upon his inner world twice more. However, his world was far more robust than others due to how solid the Primordial Energy made it. Dyon believed that his upper limit was actually five times, a number that would increase as he expanded his world.
The second point was maybe the most important: He had the Energy Core. Never mind five times, even five million times wouldn't be enough.
Unsurprisingly, the energy within the beast dung was too much for Dyon's inner world to handle.
So, the first thing Dyon did was extract energy from his spiritual vein, filling his meridians with the energy he was most familiar with: essence energy.
That said, it acted completely different from normal. Normally it would only take ten profound stones for Dyon to fill his meridians to the brim, but it actually took him almost two thousand before he felt that he was approaching his limit. Such a difference really shook him, causing his mind to go off on tangents for another few hours before he finally refocused himself.
Finally, he began to work on the beast dung. Something was telling him that finding such a ready supply of energy in this world was like finding an oasis in the middle of the Sahara, he had to take advantage.
Because he could be less careful with his inner world in comparison to his meridians, this process was faster despite needing five times the energy.
Dyon slowly parsed the energy, separating them into categories and using his innate Godship over his inner world to keep them separate.
Still, this accounted for less than a fraction of a single percent of the energy within the beast dung. However, Dyon was unwilling to leave anything behind so he began to funnel the rest into the Energy Core. Although he couldn't control it, as he had expected, the Energy Core was like a sponge. It didn't need to be prompted to absorb energy.
It wasn't until almost all the energy within the beast dung was gone that the bull-bird's head snapped upward, finally sensing that something was off.