Chapter 27: Seven Steps to Heaven

  The things that Feng Xi Xi knew had all been revealed, and he returned to the You Wang Jie boundary to rest. Qu Liu and the others also left, bidding farewell to everyone before leaving the mountain.

  About two months later, Liu Yi returned to the Monkey Valley. They did not disappoint him and brought Liang Xing's ugly daughter out of the criminal household. Along the way, Liu Yi was also happy and surprised, and Liang felt like he was in a dream when he saw his son again in the mountain valley. This joy was really beyond words.

  The imperial court, Zhu Lidaochang, Donghai Qian and many other forces all came to interrogate after Qu Qingshi and Liu Yishan went out, but the two had already fabricated a lie without any flaws. Moreover, outsiders didn't know that there was another tribe of ferocious apes in Kunai Mountain, so they naturally believed their account and pointed their fingers at the evil cultivators of the Zhū Wǔ lineage.

  A huge stone in Liang Xin's heart finally fell to the ground, and he began to focus on his cultivation. Although Master Hu Lu was illiterate, he was good at carpentry, and according to Yang Shou Xie's hardness, he made a longbow that was almost identical.

  Liang Xin was busy every day, practicing archery, wrestling with monkeys, and accompanying his master to drop book bags.

  Especially with the monkey, wrestling and fighting, the first is strength, Liang Xin purely gave in; if strength doesn't work, then compare skills, not to mention; skills don't work, there's still adaptability……Liang Xin huffed and started fighting from the little monkey.

  Under Qingmo's guidance, Liang Xin mastered the way of refining spiritual yuan in 'Tuhang Heart Method' more and more skillfully, and the true yuan in his body was also refined faster and faster.

  One day, the Demon King Hulu smiled with great pleasure after checking Liang Xin's progress with his spiritual energy: "At this rate, in ten years, he will be able to transform all of Yu Pei's spiritual energy into his own use. Then, using the evil bow, he can extract Shi Mai's primordial spirit and refine it for another seven or eight years, and it will be almost done."

  Refining the Jade Disc took ten years, refining the Stone Veins took eight years. It's not that the Jade Disc left behind more power than the Stone Veins, but rather that the thicker Liang Xin's true yuan is, the faster the refinement will be.

  Liang Xin thought for a moment and calculated that by then, he would be thirty years old, which was still considered young. He asked excitedly, "By then, how high will my cultivation be?"

  The gourd thought for a moment and replied: "I'm definitely going to beat you!"

  The little girl next to him, Qingmo, burst out laughing and explained to Liang Xin: "In our world of cultivators, we divide the cultivation into seven stages, which is called 'Seven Steps to Heaven'!"

  Liáng Xīn Ráo raised an eyebrow with interest and smiled: "Tell me."

  "Seven Steps to Heaven", representing the seven realms of a monk's practice, which are: scraping bones, sweeping heart, sound and color, sea and sky, mysterious machine, carefree, and offering tea.

  Qingmo counted on his fingers, item by item, and explained to Liang Xin: "The first step of Guagua is to adjust and transform the body to adapt to the state of cultivation. In addition to practicing qigong and nourishing qi, it also requires the use of medicinal stones and acupuncture. Some sects even have elders personally perform a marrow-washing ritual for their disciples, which is an extremely painful process, hence the name 'Guagua'. A first-step cultivator is only at the initial level, and compared to ordinary people, they are just slightly stronger physically."

  Liáng Xīn stuck out his tongue and felt happy for someone else's misfortune.

  "After scraping the bone, the body can already feel the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, and then start the second step, which is to sweep the heart. As the name suggests, sweeping the heart means to sweep away the accumulated dust on one's mind, that is, to cut off worldly emotions. Only with a heart of Tao can one further perceive the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and guide it into the body. By the second step, one can already refine their true yuan for themselves and use simple magic."

  Qu Qing's innate talent was extremely good, and at the age of eight, she entered Qian Shan Dao. It took her two years to complete "Gu Gu", but during the period of Shu Xin, she stopped making progress. Nan Yang Zhen Ren then stepped in to help her "Duan Mi Fan Qing". In the end, she died on Ku Nai Mountain.

  Qing Mo pointed at his own nose and laughed heartlessly: "I am now a second-step cultivator!"

  "The third step 'sound and color', refers to the feeling, with the Tao heart, one can fully perceive the spiritual changes between heaven and earth, and thus come into contact with a realm that was previously invisible and inaudible. The surroundings also become colorful and vibrant. Only when reaching this step can it be said that one has truly entered the path of cultivation and has obtained true and formidable skills."

  Fourth step, the cultivator at this stage begins to gradually try to dissolve himself into nature, understanding the momentum of heaven and earth, making the sea and sky one color, blending and assisting each other. At this stage, the cultivator can ride the wind and clouds, and Zhū Wǔ, who was killed by the combined efforts of the three brothers in front of the door of Sī Suǒ Mén, is a fourth-step cultivator. Generally speaking, a fourth-step cultivator can already become the leader of a small sect.

  The fifth step of the mysterious machine dissolves in the universe, and only then can one understand the mysteries of the universe. At this stage, the practitioner has already qualified to peek at the heavenly machine. Qingmo's master, Nanyang Zhenren, is a five-step practitioner who has reached this level, even among famous sects and large clans, he is an important figure at the level of elder and protector.

  The sixth step is to freely and thoroughly understand the mysteries of heaven and earth, flying high in the sky or hiding deep within the earth, with no place that cannot be reached. This is the realm of a great master. According to Qingmo's memory, Donghai Qian's sect leader was only one line away from reaching this step, and at this moment he was closed off in seclusion, cultivating with all his might to make a breakthrough.

  "As for the seventh step, serve tea..." Qingmo suddenly shut his mouth and smiled at Liangxin.

  Liang Xin followed Master Shi to the book bag, and this insight was still there. He immediately picked up the conversation and asked: "Duan Cha? This name is quite strange, what kind of realm is it?"

  Qu Qingmo shook his little head and laughed: "It's time to serve tea and send off guests, after the seventh step, you'll be a living immortal, it's time to ascend!"

  Liáng Xīn burst out laughing, actually the name of the seventh step is called 'Chang'e', meaning that after cultivating to the seventh realm, one can already fly up to the moon and chat with Chang'e. Originally, there was some playful intention, but Xiao Yatou still felt it wasn't concise enough, so she directly changed it to 'Serve Tea'.

  Scrape bone, sweep heart, voice color, sea sky, mysterious machine, carefree, serve tea (Chang'e), seven steps to ascend to heaven, the seven realms of cultivation, and human cultivators are also divided into seven levels. Each level is a transformation, a qualitative leap.

  Even among practitioners at the same level, there can be a huge difference due to varying degrees of enlightenment.

  Xiao Yatou Qingmo has already explained it in simple terms during the lecture, but Liang Xin still feels dizzy and confused. The description of "Seven Steps to Heaven" is not from the perspective of power, but rather from feeling and intuition, and it's strange that Liang Xin can understand it with his comprehension ability.

  Unless someone can break down the seven steps to heaven into: stepping on ants, grabbing rabbits, kicking leopards, hitting dog bears... and so on, Liang Xin would not be able to understand.

  Qu Qingmo looked at him with a confused face and smiled: "I said my brother, if he didn't have the help of the evil bow, his skills should be about the same as those of a three-step cultivator who has just entered the voice-color period; As for Liu Yi," Little girl showed disdain on her face, and three or four vertical lines appeared on the bridge of her nose: "A two-step cultivator can beat him ten times."

  The Demon King Hulü looked unimpressed, but didn't interrupt Qingmo either. He waited until she finished speaking before snorting disdainfully: "These Seven Steps to Heaven are just a classification by mortal cultivators and have no practical use whatsoever. By this logic, when two people fight, they might as well directly declare their realm. Whoever has the lower one can surrender immediately and let the other party beat them up."

  Liang Xin didn't understand this set of seven-step boundary, and naturally spoke to his master: "That's right, we three brothers are ordinary people, aren't we? We killed the fourth step bamboo five! That... Qing Mo, wait until I've refined all the power of the Jade Stone Double Destruction, how many steps will I be?"

  "With the true yuan in your body, after ten years, you will have refined the jade pendant's power and become a stable three-step cultivator, reaching the Voice and Color Realm. After refining the Stone Pulse... if luck is on your side, perhaps you can barely reach four steps, the Sea Sky Realm."

  Liang Xin listened and thought that by the time he was thirty years old, he might have Zhu Wu's skills, and immediately showed joy on his face.

  Qingmo asked the gourd: "Senior, how many steps are you now?"

  The gourd curled up its mouth: "We don't care about the classification of human cultivators, if we talk about fighting, a fifth-step cultivator is not worth mentioning in front of me, as for sixth-step, it depends on the specific cultivation, only after fighting can we know."

  At this time, Liang Xin suddenly remembered something and hastily asked the gourd: "Master, your nine older brothers joined the Jiulongsi Ban Shan Yuan, their cultivation..."

  The gourd knew what he wanted to ask, and before Liang Xin finished speaking, he replied: "My nine brothers, in terms of cultivation, should be slightly inferior to me now. As for that Jade Token Spirit, when it was at its peak, heh heh, I estimate that it should have been a Six-Step Grand Completion."

  In the following days, Liang Xin devoted himself to practicing the three great 'absolute skills' of Tu Xing Xin Fa, Rou Shuai techniques and She Shu every day, sometimes even vigorously practicing a set of Tai Zu Chang Quan as warm-up.

  Liang Xin now has his own true yuan and is also a cultivator, so he is very curious about the things of Xiuzhen Tao, and he specially ran to ask Qu Qingmo.

  As soon as he heard there was a story to be told, the gourd immediately rushed over...

  Xiao Yatou Qingmo was born lively, usually no one pays attention to her, she still finds excuses to chat with Liang Xin, now even more so, with a fake cough, she starts 'lecturing'.

  The Xiu Zhen Dao and the Jiang Hu are not much different, according to their understanding of the Heavenly Way and their cultivation methods, the Xiu Shi Men Zong is divided into two camps: the Orthodox and the Evil. For thousands of years, both sides have been constantly at war.

  The righteous path produced many talents, and the disciples were numerous. In the intense battle, they gradually gained the upper hand, defeating four or five major evil sects in a row. Unexpectedly, the evil path condensed from scattered sand into an iron plate due to this. One of the old devils who specialized in studying the four great mysteries of "birth, aging, sickness, and death" merged the four mysterious skills into a ruthless divine ability with the help of many top evil sect experts.

  These things were also told by Qingmo to Donghai Qian, but Xiao Yatou took them as stories and laughed: "This door god is said to be extremely powerful and ruthless, but it has a good name, called 'Tian Xia Ren Jian'!"

  The gourd also knew some of the ancient legends of the Xiuzhen world, but not as detailed as Qingmo's. He listened with great interest and didn't forget about his book bag: "Ah, the four gates of life, death, illness and old age, transformed into divine powers 'Heaven and Earth', it's indeed a well-deserved reputation!"