Chapter 93: After More Than a Decade of Waiting, the Great Sage Emerges, Part 5 — Please Vote for Me and Give Me Your First Subscription!

Cao Kong could tell from the Yellow Lion Spirit’s weary sigh that he was already thinking of giving up.

So he put away the talisman in his hand and said with a smile, “It’s nothing.”

Cao Xiang had lived with Cao Kong for many years, and by now he could tell at a glance what Cao Kong wanted him to do.

So he feigned innocence and said, “Brother, isn’t this the talisman you went to such pains to draw? You said it was meant to protect Brother Seven Lions and the others on the road.”

Cao Kong replied, “Yes. Since Brother Seven Lions has ambition, I will naturally do my part. But if their spirit sinks, then there is no need for me to go on.”

At that, the Seven Lions lowered their heads, their faces full of shame.

The atmosphere fell silent for a time.

Seeing this, Cao Kong said no more. In all fairness, the Yellow Lion Spirit’s idea was very good; if used well, it could be exchanged for abundant cultivation resources, and the Seven Lions’ path of cultivation would become much broader in the future.

But if one retreated at the first setback and gave up at the first difficulty, what was there left to speak of in trade and commerce, or in the pursuit of the Dao?

He was close with the Seven Lions and truly did not wish to see that, after the long years had passed, they would turn into a pile of white bones. Thus he and Cao Xiang put on this little show to spur them on.

No one knew how long had passed before the Yellow Lion Spirit finally lifted his head. He walked silently to Cao Kong, took the talisman from his hand, and distributed it one by one to the other six lions.

“Brothers, why are you all looking so downcast? What, do you want Brother Cao to keep laughing at us in his heart?

“In those days, we endured every sort of torment in that bat demon’s hands and still made it through. What are a few trivial hardships now?”

With a grand wave of his hand, the Yellow Lion Spirit spoke with fervor, and the six lions were all deeply moved.

A smile appeared at the corner of Cao Kong’s mouth, and he went on discussing with them the secrets of trade and commerce, such as drawing maps, establishing oneself through sincerity, and the like.

After hearing this, the Seven Lions felt it was of great benefit. After resting and recovering for a while, they resumed their grand plan of traveling and trading.

They even gave their venture a name: the Nine-Spirit Trading House.

According to the Yellow Lion Spirit, first, they could borrow the prestige of their forebear; perhaps some formidable demons, upon hearing the name, would not dare harbor crooked intentions.

Second, the brothers from Cao Kong plus the seven of them made exactly nine demon beings with spiritual roots.

...

The Seven Lions had their own affairs to attend to, and Cao Kong had his own cultivation. He never neglected it for a single day.

In the mountains, days and years were not recorded; when the cold was gone, one did not know what year it was.

Ten long years passed in the blink of an eye.

During those ten years, Cao Kong’s cultivation grew ever deeper, and Hidden Mist Mountain itself became increasingly wondrous. Under the dual workings of the Hidden Wind, Gathered Qi, and Nurture Spirit Art, and the True Spirit of Manifested Qi.

The mist in the mountain had completely transformed into spiritual mist, the springs into spiritual springs, and the earth into spiritual ground.

Moreover, Cao Kong’s mind and spirit grew ever more harmonized with Hidden Mist Mountain. Under his will, he could even control the climate on the mountain, making one place flourish without end, and another remain locked in snow and wind.

Of course, doing so consumed a great deal of spiritual energy.

One day, Cao Kong sat atop the peak of Hidden Mist Mountain. Mist flowed in and out through his nose and mouth, making him seem like an immortal among men.

Suddenly, Cao Kong opened his eyes. Ten years had passed, and after first consuming the Dragon-Tiger Great Elixir, then drinking the Five-Element Spirit Dew Brew, and later borrowing the power of the probing Yellow Lady, he had already nurtured enough golden liquid and elixir brilliance.

When the accumulation of golden liquid and elixir brilliance reached a certain amount, one could refine the golden liquid into form and turn it into a golden core.

Yet Cao Kong remained stuck at this point, unable to carry through the principle of repeatedly tending the three fields to burn them into elixir.

It was not that his accumulation was insufficient; rather, he lacked a single thread of true understanding.

Cao Kong could not help but feel lost, but there was nothing to be done. Since entering the path of cultivation, he had always relied on self-enlightenment and self-cultivation. Even if questions filled his heart, answers were not easily found.

“Master, Master, what am I to do?”

Cao Kong let out a faint sigh, but only for an instant. Soon after, he once again immersed himself in comprehending the Supreme Mystery of the Great Origin of the Boundless Golden Core Scripture in his mind.

Then suddenly his heart trembled, and he could not help turning his gaze eastward, toward the Eastern Continent.

Upon the eastern vault of heaven, two beams of golden light suddenly rose, blazing brilliantly and shooting up into the celestial court.

Seeing such majesty, a flash of insight crossed Cao Kong’s mind. He knew it was Sun Wukong, the heaven-born sage of Mount Flower-Fruit, arriving.

The heaven-born sage, nurtured by the pure essence of heaven and earth, the sun’s vitality and the moon’s radiance, conceived as an immortal embryo, the stone monkey born into the world.

The Daoist’s thoughts turned in a hundred directions, and in an instant he recalled Sun Wukong’s origin. Looking again at the golden light, he could not help but ponder it over and over.

What is a golden core? It is to imitate heaven and earth, to follow the principles of heaven and earth, to gather the energy of heaven and earth and use it as one’s own, forming a self-sustaining cycle and condensing it into a flawless golden core.

And did not Sun Wukong fit this very principle? The stone from which he was born had nine apertures and eight holes, corresponding exactly to the nine palaces and eight trigrams. Since the opening of heaven and earth, it had also undergone all the changes of heaven and earth, gathering their vital qi and storing it all within a single stone.

In unseen ways, this accorded with the principle of the golden core. Thus, with one act of cultivation, he awakened his spiritual nature, obtained his source, and infused his divine body, thereby attaining the status of an immortal of heaven!

The more Cao Kong thought, the clearer it became, and his eyes grew brighter and brighter as he gazed across mountains and seas at those two beams of golden light.

Observing that radiance, he seemed to see an object of adamantine permanence, never breaking and never perishing; he seemed also to see a thing of perfect fullness, pure light, and no lack. Thinking again of Sun Wukong’s origins, and again of his own path of the golden core, he was moved to deep reflection.

Boom!

A sudden thunderclap exploded in his mind, blasting awake every thread of Cao Kong’s thoughts and shattering all the doubts in his heart.

The so-called repeated tending of the three fields to burn them into elixir did not merely mean condensing golden liquid and elixir brilliance into a single golden core.

Rather, one was to regard oneself as a great medicine pill, refining one’s own essence, qi, and spirit, until essence, qi, and spirit fused into one undivided whole. Like gold, forever unbreakable; like elixir, perfectly complete and without flaw, one would refine oneself into a small world of one’s own.

“Hahahaha, so that is it. It was this way all along. My Dao is complete!”

After understanding everything, Cao Kong threw back his head and laughed aloud, filled to the brim with joy.

Then he sat cross-legged and entered a state in which heaven and earth were as one, self and other were obliterated, and all was murky and indistinct.

The golden liquid and elixir brilliance no longer flowed within the three fields, but instead circulated throughout the body, following the fire-tending cycle of the whole heaven circuit. At times it was a gentle fire; at times a fierce fire. It was refining his own body.

He sought to burn this body into perfect completeness, to forge it into something adamantine and everlasting, never to be broken!

After that, another fifteen years passed in a flash. Cao Kong actually remained motionless atop Hidden Mist Mountain, and no one could approach him. Only his breathing remained long and steady.

He endured all the changes of heaven and earth: spring, summer, autumn, winter; the twenty-four solar terms; wind and rain; thunder and lightning; snow and frost. Through all these transformations, he refined himself from within.

For those fifteen years, it was as if he had lived as long as heaven and earth and shone with the same light as the sun and moon.

As a poem says: Heaven and earth were born with me, and all things are one with me.

One day, Cao Kong lifted his gaze and saw golden light rising from his body. His spirit and qi were exquisite and radiant, the holy elixir exuding fragrance, the spiritual liquid suffused with scent.

At that moment, the whole mountain was filled with fragrance.

This was not the fragrance of flowers, fruits, or trees, but immortal fragrance, the scent of a golden core. Whoever breathed it in would find their mind clear and bright, their spiritual root strengthened and stabilized.

“Brother! Brother!”

When Cao Xiang caught that fragrance, he could not care about anything else. Reverting to his true form, he leapt through the air at once.

There stood Cao Kong atop the peak, smiling as he looked at him.

The distance between the two was very small, yet Cao Xiang felt as though a whole world lay between them.

The Daoist before him seemed harmonized with nature itself, sharing in the opening and closing cycle of heaven and earth.

Cao Kong placed a hand on Cao Xiang’s head and said calmly, “My Dao is complete.”

In the celestial palace, within the Pure Majestic Realm of Great Joy, the Heavenly Worthy Who Delivers the Suffering lowered his eyes to look down and smiled. “Excellent.”