Chapter 39: Innate Nature and Talent

“Ah?” Meng Chong was dumbfounded.

Fei Si narrowed his eyes into slits. “You’re speaking in riddles. What do you mean? Are you saying those three demonic cultivators were summoned by you?”

“Nonsense!” Sun Lie cursed outright. “You’re overthinking it, you know?”

He shifted his gaze to Meng Chong. “Don’t you find it strange?”

Meng Chong paused, then slapped his forehead. “Oh, right! Elder Sun, you once told me that I mustn’t leave the Ziyang Furnace at will. Otherwise, with the external pressure reduced and lacking the supply of medicinal materials, my vitality would leak out uncontrollably, and I’d end up a ruined man.”

“But now, I’ve clearly escaped, interrupted the alchemy, and yet nothing is leaking out.”

Sun Lie laughed. “Of course, that was just a lie.”

Meng Chong: “Ah?”

Sun Lie said, “The art of human pill is a demonic cultivation method. How could I, a man of the righteous path, possibly know it?”

Meng Chong: “Ah?”

Sun Lie revealed, “The real method for dispersing your cultivation must start with yourself. You possess extraordinary talent within the cultivation world—that’s the key.”

Meng Chong: “Are you talking about my Thunderbolt Rush?”

Sun Lie nodded. “Precisely.”

“Thunderbolt Rush is an exceptional immortal talent, one in a million among cultivators, truly outstanding!”

“However, I’ve found that you haven’t truly mastered this gift. What a shame—like a precious herb with hidden properties left unused, simply wasted!”

“As long as you bring out this talent, you can disperse your cultivation quickly. Half a day might not suffice, but a full day certainly will.”

“That’s why I arranged this situation—to place you in dire straits.”

“In desperation, if you can act wholeheartedly, with no distracting thoughts, abandoning everything and charging forward fearlessly, you’ll awaken your unique talent!”

Meng Chong: “Ah?”

The gifted youth blinked repeatedly, then suddenly realized something. “So, Elder Sun, making me smear honey and cumin was just a joke?”

Sun Lie slapped his leg and laughed heartily. “Of course, I wasn’t deceiving you!”

Fei Si frowned. “Young Master Meng Chong possesses exceptional immortal talent and is the City Lord’s beloved grandson. Yet you treated him as food, roasting him and setting up this ploy? How are you so sure this would awaken his talent?”

Sun Lie cast a glance at Fei Si, dismissing him. “Are you a master alchemist? What do you know?”

“All things under heaven can be considered medicinal materials.”

“Humans are no exception. Within a person, human nature is akin to medicinal properties. Fully stimulating human nature is to awaken medicinal properties.”

“In the demonic path, before refining someone into a pill, they torment the victim, filling their heart with pain, hatred, anger, sorrow, and so forth. That’s to awaken the medicinal properties.”

After explaining, Sun Lie turned to Meng Chong. “Have you ever wondered why your immortal talent isn’t something else, but specifically Thunderbolt Rush?”

Meng Chong: “Ah?”

Sun Lie shook his head. “You just chalk it up to luck. In truth, it’s not! Immortal talent isn’t just heaven’s favor—it’s closely tied to the cultivator himself.”

“It’s your innate courage, disdain for complexity, love of simplicity, and straightforwardness that gave you this talent.”

“Talent and character are reflections of each other, two sides of the same coin.”

“So, as long as your nature is fully stimulated, aided by some alchemical means, your talent will be awakened.”

“The herbs in the furnace were meticulously prepared—they weren’t useless.”

Fei Si’s eyes narrowed, a flash of understanding passing through his gaze. Hearing this, he understood and guessed Sun Lie’s plan.

Sun Lie looked at Meng Chong. “Letting you enter the Ziyang Furnace, using the human pill method, smearing honey and cumin—these were all red herrings.”

“My plan was to feign drunken sleep during the process, roasting you for an extended period. I wanted you to misjudge the situation, to feel yourself trapped in a desperate predicament.”

“This would force you, and awaken your deepest nature.”

“Once you escaped the furnace, disregarding my earlier threats and overturning the pressure I imposed, your nature would burst forth.”

“With your nature unleashed, your talent—Thunderbolt Rush—would emerge!”

Sun Lie sighed deeply at this point.

“In adversity, true character is revealed; life and death expose one’s essence.”

“If you wish to see a person’s true nature, look at their choices and actions in moments of life and death.”

Meng Chong: “So that’s how it is.”

He was suddenly enlightened.

Thunderbolt Rush had always been inconsistent for him before.

“Just now, all I wanted was to kill that demonic cultivator! At the critical moment, Thunderbolt Rush exploded forth, surprising me and making me feel incredibly lucky.”

“Who would have thought it was all thanks to you, Elder Sun!”

Sun Lie smiled. “I never expected that, at such a crucial moment, demonic cultivators would attack Ziyang Manor.”

“At that time, my life hung by a thread, and you, disregarding your own survival, burst from the furnace to rescue me.”

“That favor, I’ve remembered, boy!”

Sun Lie gave Meng Chong a thumbs-up.

After this incident, he found Meng Chong extremely pleasing to the eye.

Meng Chong straightened his back and lifted his chin. “My surname is Meng, and the Meng family is among the top clans of the Southern Bean Immortal Kingdom. How could I cower in battle? How could I stand by and watch a comrade be killed?”

“To be honest, I didn’t think much at all. Elder Sun, your previous warnings were completely forgotten.”

“At that moment, anger filled my heart, I wished to crush that demonic cultivator to dust with a punch, so I simply charged out.”

Sun Lie praised, “That’s the awakening of your nature!”

“In my opinion, Meng Chong, with such exceptional immortal talent, there’s no need for you to compete for any mechanism inheritance. Cultivation encompasses countless arts—mechanisms are simply not for you.”

“What suits you is a method that allows you to charge forward, to roam free.”

Fei Si coughed and hurriedly interrupted Sun Lie’s words.

Sun Lie had disparaged the City Lord’s decisions, and as a subordinate, Fei Si naturally had to defend them.

Fei Si said, “The Three Sects Sage is a great power of the Void Refinement level—his palaces are not limited to one. However, the Lava Immortal Palace is a city of mechanisms, and thus contains a legacy of mechanical arts.”

“In fact, according to the intelligence gathered and calculated by the City Lord, the inheritance within Lava Immortal Palace is primarily focused on mechanisms, but it’s not limited to them.”

“The Three Sects Sage, through his unique experiences, cultivated three paths simultaneously—a rarity in the world. It’s said that in his later years, he created a method for concurrent cultivation of all three, and the Lava Immortal Palace was arranged by him in that period.”

“The Five Elements Qi Law passed down by the Transmission Bell is just the beginning; though it’s a Daoist technique, it carries the flavor of both Buddhist and demonic teachings. After studying the method, the City Lord suspects there are two other accompanying arts to correspond to the other two dantian.”

“If you were to cultivate using the Three Sects Sage’s method, establishing your foundation, what depth of cultivation could you achieve? Tell me, how many foundational arts out there cultivate all three dantian together?”