Chapter 87: Night Sea

The practice of Dao Arts was divided into four major steps: Refining Life Grove, Cultivating Heavenly Palace, Forging Star River, and Building Golden Bridge. The first requirement for a person to practice Dao Arts was to possess a Life Grove within their body.

As a unique organ in this world’s humans, the Life Grove could absorb the spiritual power between heaven and earth. As for what spiritual power was, when he was on the island, Zuo Zhicheng once thought it was radiation. Radiation was a kind of energy that all objects emitted. All energy that spread in the form of electromagnetic waves and particles was radiation.

This indeed closely resembled the description of spiritual power.

However, during the translation of the Daoist Canon, Zuo Zhicheng discovered that the scope of the spiritual power absorbed by the Life Grove was probably even broader than radiation.

But his Life Grove, Night Sea, still absorbed a type of radiation, which was light. Absorbing light energy through the Life Grove in his left eye was the first step in practicing Night Sea: sensing the Life Grove. Next was lighting up the Life Grove, and finally activating the Life Grove, continuing until reaching the Leakless realm. Only then was the Refining Life Grove cultivation considered complete.

After that, the next step of Cultivating Heavenly Palace could begin. However, the first volume of the Daoist Canon only recorded the cultivation methods for all Life Groves; it did not record how to proceed with the Cultivating Heavenly Palace step.

But the Daoist Canon in his hands also contained records of Life Diagrams and Life Grove transplantation. Even if Zuo Zhicheng could not immediately find the method for Cultivating Heavenly Palace, he could still enhance his power in Dao Arts by adding Life Groves and combining Life Diagrams.

Now, Zuo Zhicheng removed the eyepatch from his left eye. The pitch-black eyeball, like a black pearl, was exposed to the firelight.

A candle was lit in front of Zuo Zhicheng. He remembered the position of the candle in his mind, then closed his left eye. Following the method in the Daoist Canon, he began to visualize the burning candle in front of him with his eyes closed.

Feeling the brightness and heat coming through his eyelid, Zuo Zhicheng found this visualization incredibly easy. Wisps of heat directly penetrated his eyelid and flowed into his pupil.

‘Sensing the Life Grove, succeeded?’ Zuo Zhicheng opened his eyes, somewhat stunned. Was the first step of Dao Arts cultivation really this simple?

What he didn’t know was that it wasn’t that sensing the Life Grove was simple. Ordinary people practicing this step often needed several months or even years. Even the most genius of geniuses never took less than ten days.

After all, the Life Grove was an organ hidden within the body. To sense its existence, besides stimulating it with the type of spiritual power the Life Grove could absorb, one could only continuously perform various meditations.

It was like an ordinary person trying to train their ears to flap freely, but much more difficult. After all, ears had been used since birth, while the Life Grove had never been used at all.

The reason Zuo Zhicheng completed the step of sensing the Life Grove so quickly was solely because his eye was not a human eye; it was special. And this specialness wasn’t only manifested in sensing the Life Grove.

Zuo Zhicheng closed his eyes again, meditating as described in the secret manual, striving to imagine wisps of light and heat continuously being absorbed into his left eye, drawn into the Life Grove within his left eye.

It was still… coming naturally. Zuo Zhicheng could clearly feel streams of heat entering his left eye. He could distinctly feel something like a seed inside his left eye slowly sprouting under the stimulation of the heat flow.

This was activating the Life Grove. With repeated absorption and stimulation of light energy, once the seed fully grew and became a true Life Grove, the next step would be lighting up the Life Grove.

Feeling the Life Grove in his left eye gradually growing, tiny tendrils extending from the seed and spreading throughout the entire eyeball, Zuo Zhicheng suddenly felt a strange sense of hunger coming from deep within the Life Grove.

‘Hungry… so hungry…’

‘More… need more…’

Sensing that the Life Grove was absorbing light energy far faster than he had expected, Zuo Zhicheng instinctively opened his eyes. The heat flow pouring into the Life Grove instantly changed from a small stream to a small river. But what surprised Zuo Zhicheng even more was the act of opening his eyes itself.

According to the records in the secret manual, the Life Grove and the eyeball were very fragile during the initial stages of cultivation. At this time, light that was too strong and heat could damage the Life Grove and the eyeball, so initially, relatively weak light was needed, or one even had to cultivate with eyes closed.

But now, Zuo Zhicheng controlled his left eye to stare intently at the candlelight, feeling the heat flow continuously input into Night Sea, yet he felt no discomfort at all. The performance of the Life Grove in this eye was far superior to what he had imagined.

What he also didn’t know was that even when absorbing the same candlelight, the efficiency of his Night Sea had already reached an unprecedented level. Because his eye was different from an ordinary person’s eye.

Ordinary people’s eyes were limited by their mortal flesh and could only perceive visible light. That is, the part of the electromagnetic spectrum perceivable by the human eye. But Zuo Zhicheng’s eye, just from its Infrared Vision, showed that the wavelengths of electromagnetic waves it could perceive had a much broader range than an ordinary human eye.

Therefore, his Life Grove, Night Sea, could absorb far more light energy and heat energy than other identical Night Sea Life Groves.

In the basement, Zuo Zhicheng sat cross-legged on the floor, continuously using Night Sea to absorb the energy from the light in front of him. Centered on his left eye, areas of dimness continuously spread out, as if Zuo Zhicheng was enveloped by a patch of darkness.

Feeling that the light from one candle wasn’t enough to absorb, Zuo Zhicheng took a few more candles out of the cabinet.

Two, five, ten, until he reached twelve, he finally felt the speed at which the Life Grove absorbed light energy was just right.

Flickering lights of varying brightness lit up around Zuo Zhicheng. His left eye was like a Black Hole, madly swallowing and absorbing the light from the surroundings.

Even an ordinary person’s eyes could clearly feel a sense of dimming and brightening around the upper half of Zuo Zhicheng’s body.

After more than an hour, a feeling of fullness came from the Life Grove. Zuo Zhicheng knew the Life Grove had absorbed enough light energy for today. Stopping the absorption, Zuo Zhicheng stood up.

The next step was to persist in daily cultivation until the Life Grove covered the entire left eyeball; that would be lighting up the Life Grove. Although his energy absorption was very fast, the growth of the Life Grove didn’t happen overnight; it couldn’t be fully grown in a short time.

Feeling the sense of fullness coming from his left eye, Zuo Zhicheng’s left eye twitched slightly. The next moment, a trace of white light spread out from his pupil, but it quickly vanished.

A little later, his whole body darkened again, as if sinking into a Shadow, but soon it returned to normal.

Touching his eye socket, Zuo Zhicheng smiled. He felt even more confident about this expedition and obtaining Spiritual Energy Food.