Chapter 14: Dog Egg's Fantasy About Eyes

  Mangshan Mountain, Xishan Pass

  Bodies everywhere, a scene of utter devastation.

  The cold wind blew through, making it even more desolate. It was already the ninth day of the extremely cold weather, with very low temperatures. With the addition of the cold wind blowing through, in just a short half-day's work, the blood on the ground had already frozen solid. Those corpses were also frozen stiff, as hard as iron and stone. A little while later, suddenly, an extremely eerie and chilling gust of wind blew through.

  This gust of wind was extremely cold, and after lightly sweeping over the corpses all over the ground, the originally frozen stiff corpses emitted a soft "creaking" sound, as if the branches in the forest were breaking.

  Indeed, it was fractured, and not just one. Nearly a hundred corpses inside Xishan Pass were blown by this sudden cold wind, and they began to fracture like rotten wood that had been left for a long time, revealing fine lines, no longer intact.

  The rest of the corpses were nothing, already dead and couldn't be deader, but only the corpse of the old man who was just thrown away by that mysterious young man had undergone an unexpected change.

  After the cold and eerie wind swept over the corpse of the elder, his body also emitted several "cracking" sounds, and a series of cracks appeared on its surface. When the last sound rang out, the skull of the corpse suddenly split open, and a thin black gas emerged from it. This black gas grew thicker and more intense, as if it was about to condense into something. However, since this place was at the mountain pass, where the wind was extremely strong, the black gas was blown away like smoke and dust. But unlike ordinary smoke and dust, these black gases were not completely blown away by the wind. Instead, they would often be carried by the wind to a distance of several meters before being pulled back together by an invisible force, as if being drawn to a specific location.

  The mountain wind was very strong, one gust of wind weakened, and another came, endless, the black air that was stubbornly lingering, although it was very stubborn, but in the end, it couldn't compare to the natural power of heaven and earth since ancient times. In this continuous cold wind, it gradually dissipated, finally, only a wisp remained, vaguely, following the mountain wind, slowly drifting down the mountain.

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  The first ray of sunlight in the morning slowly passes over the towering mountain ridge and reaches this small village under the vast mountains.

  The weather in the mountains is as changeable as a baby's face, yesterday it was gloomy and cold with snowflakes falling, but today it's sunny and bright.

  The dog got up very early, and somehow now he can't move all day, his whole body aches because of the injury, lying in bed for several days, it's really torturing him to death.

  Today, his fever finally subsided. After waking up from a nap, he felt refreshed and clear-headed, with no lingering discomfort. He quietly got out of bed and went to the empty space under the mountain cliff in his backyard, where he started practicing Tai Chi.

  Unlike before, a simplified Tai Chi routine, he did it twice, both extremely unsmooth. As the saying goes, "heart follows intention, intention follows breath", today his intention and breath just couldn't come together. It wasn't because of too many distracting thoughts, but rather that while practicing, he felt more clearly than ever before the flow of qi and blood in his body's meridians.

  To others, he seemed to have been seriously injured during that period, with a high fever and unconsciousness, but what they didn't know was that for those two days, he hadn't slept for a moment. His entire spirit, soul, and consciousness were all in a strange state, and this state was all caused by his eyes.

  His eyes underwent an extremely mysterious or strange change at the moment when he was about to be killed by a black bear. At that time, he was in a state of emergency and did not notice anything unusual. However, after losing consciousness, it seemed as if he were dreaming, he felt himself floating up and drifting into a vast empty space. This space was like the cosmic scene he had seen in his previous life - dark, void, with nothing at all except for one eye.

  Later he was unique, this eye, probably his eyes.

  In the midst of a vast emptiness, a gigantic eye floated, its iris golden with a few wisps of strange black threads at the bottom, emitting a faint golden glow, which was the only source of light in this empty space.

  At that time, the dog egg felt like a fog-like entity floating in this void. He could control his "body" and move it at will, but only move.

  He had tried to move towards the direction of that huge eye, but no matter how he moved upwards, the eye always hung above his head, unable to shorten the distance. Similarly, he even suspected that he hadn't actually moved in this mysterious void, and it was just his consciousness feeling like he was moving.

  Of course, this somewhat mysterious and inexplicable feeling, he couldn't explain either. In that void, he didn't know how long he had been there, but suddenly felt a shock throughout his body. Then the void disappeared, his eyes disappeared, and he returned to the real world, waking up.

  It seemed like everything was over, but in the next few days, he felt a change in his eyes.

  When he concentrated his consciousness on his eyes, it didn't take long for a series of changes to occur in both eyes. First, they turned pale gold, with a few faintly visible fine black lines at the bottom of the pupils, exactly like the giant and mysterious eyes that floated above his head in that void.

  After his eyes turned into this strange state, he was not only able to see the facts in front of him clearly, but also could see things behind him, that is, after his eyes turned golden, they would form a 360-degree field of vision, and there would be no blind spots in his field of vision.

  Apart from this, his eyesight and insight have also been greatly enhanced. Things that were extremely blurry in the distance can now be seen clearly, and the range of vision has expanded several times over. The sensitivity to things has also increased greatly.

  The above two points are purely eye changes.

  Apart from these two points, more importantly, he can now see inside himself. As long as he switches his eyes to this fiery red color, he can clearly see the situation inside his body, the flow of blood, the structure of bones, the route of internal energy in the meridians, and even his own metabolism. All of these things are not hidden from his own pair of abnormal eyes.

  Apart from introspection, what he values more is that his control over his inner energy has increased exponentially. Now, he has extremely fine control over his inner energy. In the past, he could only rely on feeling and let his inner energy run along its fixed route, not daring to take a step further, fearing that he would go astray. But now, everything is under his control, he can stop his running inner energy at any time, slow down the speed of his inner energy when it acts, and even change direction within his tolerable range. Most importantly, this control has brought him great convenience and benefits in his cultivation of the "Separation Fire Heart Method".

  Although the Fire Separation Heart Method is only slightly more profound than the Great Power Vajra Qigong, it is still a very high-level internal skill entry method. There are also some subtle and mysterious places in between, especially when absorbing the fire-like original energy from the heaven and earth gas into the body, slowly refining it into one's own internal energy, and then expelling other properties of the original energy absorbed into the body. This process is fundamentally different from the Great Power Vajra Qigong, which does not distinguish between good and bad. The control over the internal energy required for this refinement and elimination process is also a major obstacle, and Gou Danzi's inability to grasp it was the reason why he had been hesitant to practice the Fire Separation Heart Method despite having obtained it. However, this difficult problem has now been easily solved.

  Of course, this doesn't mean that Dog Egg just got such a big bargain for nothing. At the same time, he also discovered that maintaining his eyes in this state was a very energy-consuming thing, not only consuming his spirit but also putting an enormous burden on his body. With his current physical condition, he could only maintain this state for about half an hour, or roughly fifteen minutes, before reaching his limit.

  What does extreme mean?

  It means extreme fatigue, weakness throughout the body, falling asleep as soon as one lies down, and sleeping for a whole day. The spirit won't be too good on the second day either. So after experiencing the limit for the first time, Dog Egg didn't maintain such a long time again. At most, he only maintained that state for ten minutes. Taking advantage of these ten minutes every day, he fully understood the situation inside his body and made sufficient preparations for the Lihuo Heart Method he was about to cultivate.

  Previously limited by his own insufficient control, he didn't dare to practice recklessly. However, now, through these few days of adaptation and careful observation, even without maintaining that special state of his eyes, he has the confidence to safely practice the Fire Heart Method. In this situation, he naturally couldn't wait any longer and didn't want to wait either.

  "Hoo—!" A set of extremely ugly Tai Chi moves came to an end, Dog Egg let out a breath and his face showed a look of helplessness.

  "No wonder people often say that ignorance is fearless. I used to think my Tai Chi skills had reached a certain level, but now I realize that what I practiced before was all nonsense. Now I have a deeper understanding of the flow of internal energy and blood circulation. Originally, I thought I could take my Tai Chi to the next level, but unexpectedly, it's become uncoordinated with my movements. This isn't a problem with Tai Chi itself, but rather mine. I've only just begun to understand the flow of internal energy and blood circulation, but I haven't truly grasped it yet. To fully control it and merge it with Tai Chi intent, there's still a long way to go. By the way, those Tai Chi rhymes I memorized before? I used to think they were useless, but after that last round of practice, my body seemed to resonate with some of the lines. Better write them down while I still remember - good memory is no match for a bad pen! If I forget one day, it'll be a huge loss!"

  The dog stood still, eyes narrowed, slowly thinking about the many things that had happened in the past few days. Lying in bed a few days ago, he was always exploring the function of his own eyes, but hadn't carefully thought about other things.

  "My eyes, however, seem to resemble those of the Uchiha clan. Could it be that I've crossed over into the world of Naruto? No, that can't be right - the Naruto world doesn't have Chinese characters, and this world doesn't have ninjas either. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but I wonder if these eyes have the ability to copy other people's martial arts skills!" As he thought about this, Dog Egg couldn't help but lick his somewhat dry lips, suddenly becoming very interested in this idea, even wanting to try it out.

  But soon he began to lose heart again. In this remote mountain village, where would there be anyone who could test whether his eyes could replicate martial arts?

  The strongest here is his brother-in-law, Wang Tianlei. As for the martial arts that Wang Tianlei knows, he has basically mastered them all. In some places, he is even more skilled than Wang Tianlei. As for others, their martial arts were all learned from Wang Tianlei and are not as good as his own.

  "Right!"

  Suddenly, Dog Egg's eyes lit up, and he thought of someone.

  "Wu Qinglong, this guy is the best archer in the village, not just him, I heard that his old man was also the best archer in the village back then. It's said that they practice a traditional shooting technique passed down from their ancestors, don't know if it's true or false. I heard that when the Wu family practices archery, they never let outsiders watch, to see them shoot arrows can only follow during hunting trips, unfortunately my age is too young, haven't had the chance to follow the hunting team into the mountains, otherwise would have had the opportunity to observe!" Dog Egg thought to himself.