It was totally silent inside the Sky Clinic. Good and evil energy were swirling inside the good-evil tripod. The amount of evil energy was still far more abundant than good energy, so much that black and white couldn’t be clearly set apart.

The “consultation” at Diecui Villa had earned him about 4000 points of sin of evil intention and only a few merits of good intention from that girl. Even though the significant treatment fee was a good thing for paying rent, it wasn’t any good for his cultivation.

A round of cultivation was completed and Ning Tao was in great pain.

A huge amount of sin of evil intention had been accumulated in the good-evil tripod. With every breath he took, he would draw in a huge amount of evil energy. Once those evil energy had surpassed a certain amount, it would bring decay to his body and spirit, causing him great pain.

“Ah!” Ning Tao yelled in frustration. The turbulent spiritual power inside him was like a ferocious ancient beast struggling to escape his body, wanting to destroy everything along the way.

How could he go on like this?

“I rest within the womb, listening to the sound of the Way.”

Dong!

The holy bell was struck, a loud chime attacked Ning Tao. All the fear, helplessness, anger and all other negative feelings were gone. It was like a wave washing onto the shores and not a grain of sand was left after it passed.

“When I was born, my parents left me.”

Ning Tao continued reciting the second line of Your Text, and in that instant, the feelings for his parents overwhelmed him. However he had already overcome that obstacle and was only left with sentiments and gratitude for them. There was no more sadness and misery.

“There is no end in this sea of karma, I drift alone in its midst.”

Ning Tao continued reciting the third line of Your Text. The whole world was shrouded in dark clouds the moment he finished; an intense storm was brewing. Thunder and lightning struck. A great flood swallowed the land and he was trapped in a vast ocean, as if the world had fallen into an apocalypse. He had lost everything he cherished and was the only person left in the world. He was extremely lonely and afraid.

The third line of Your Text was an obstacle he was currently facing and could not overcome no matter what. However, having recited the three lines together, the magic of the first two lines had some impact on the third; even though it was painful to recite it the first time, there was a sense of clarity maintained in his heart, allowing him to analyze issues clearly.

After enduring the pain for a while, Ning Tao thought to himself, “The first line of the text is for me to be determined against the temptations of evil and not fear evil spirits. The second line is for me to understand who I am; I practice the way of Heaven so I have the will to sacrifice for the greater good, but what does the third line intend to teach me? And how should I overcome this obstacle? Every time I recite the third line, It feels as if the world were coming to an end and I’m all alone…”

While being in deep thought, Ning Tao suddenly recalled something which had happened. It was when he first recited the third line of the text; he was feeling quite miserable and Jiang Hao was by his side, hugging him and giving him love and warmth with her embrace. It had reduced his feeling of loneliness, allowing him to gradually feel better.

After that, he recalled a story Chen Pingdao had told him in his abode behind Congo’s Pointe-Noire. He asked Chen Pingdao how he had managed to suddenly break through his inner core stage and attain the Nascent Soul stage… Chen Pingdao had said that he was hugging his pet dog while sleeping when he suddenly attained his breakthrough. Given that Ning Tao’s inner core was so massive, when would he ever attain his breakthrough? Was it related to these three lines of the text?

He had so many questions.

“Could it be that I have to be in Jiang Hao or Qing Zhui’s arms while I recite these three lines and cultivate with the help of their love and warmth? But it’s not just the barrier of the third line of Your Text. What about my inner core cultivation?” Ning Tao had abrupt flashes of inspiration. However, he then smiled wryly. Who in the world would need to recite texts in the arms of women? Which practitioner in this world needed to lie in the arms of women in order to surpass their inner core stage?

If there were, it would probably only happen in a novel, right? But this was real life.

After a short rest, Ning Tao suppressed the urge to immediately look for Jiang Hao or Qing Zhui to try it out. He entered a state of desolation after readjusting himself again. Devoting all his senses, he had forgotten the existence of his body and entered his inner world in the state of an inborn spiritual sense.

The Niwan acupoint was even larger than before. The inner core suspending above was no longer a volleyball. It had been some time since he last saw it. It had actually grown a bit larger; it was as big as a basketball!

A volleyball-sized inner core had already scared Chen Pingdao out of his wits. If he saw this basketball-sized inner core, would he scream and pass out?

Ning Tao stared at the inner core suspended above the pool of mud. Even though it was still in the shape of the Taiji symbol, the yin part was clearly bigger than the yang part!

A fuzzy thing was at the heart of the yin and yang intersection, but he couldn’t make out what it was. It was like a tadpole but it also looked like a fuzzy yarn ball. The longer he looked at it, the more it made him think that it looked like the sonogram of a fetus.

“Could it be… my Nascent Soul?” Ning Tao thought to himself, in shock.

Crack, crack, crack…

A string of odd noises came and Ning Tao was pulled out of his thoughts. It had always been very quiet inside his inner world; there had been no sounds at all. Why was there such an odd noise this time? He followed the sound to check and was left stunned by what he saw.

A crack was forming, traveling towards him this very moment inside his inner world!

The ground was cracking apart. Was this a sign of his inner world collapsing?

Before Ning Tao could inspect closer, let alone figure out the issue, he was ejected from his inner world. The creepiest thing was that he didn’t feel a bit of pain. The crack on the ground he had seen in his inner world just then was like a hallucination; it wasn’t real at all.

But Ning Tao knew it was definitely no hallucination. He really couldn’t focus on just earning sin of evil intention any longer. What was the most important at the moment was to earn a large amount of merit of good intention, to maintain the balance between good and evil. Otherwise, he would drive himself to death before he broke down from the pressure of the Sky Clinic’s rent.

“I’ll go prepare and cultivate a few elixirs for curing illnesses. Then I’ll think of a way to earn merit of good intention. But most people nowadays work for money. Most people aren’t bad but they aren’t particularly good either. There is no merit of good intention I can earn from them. It’s even harder to meet patients with huge merits. What should I do?” Ning Tao was vexed. The more he thought about it, the more his head ached.

It was easy to deal with evil people. Surrounding the enemies and releasing the hound was an effective method. Howling Celestial Dog would bite people to the brink of death and he would appear to act as a benevolent figure to treat them; treatment fees were earned quite easily this way. But the same could not be done to good people. Otherwise, it would go against the basic principle of punishing the evil and commending the good. What kind of go-between of good and evil would he be? If he really did that, he would no longer be fit to be the owner of the Sky Clinic.

Ning Tao went to the spiritual field inside the Scriptures & Scrolls Store.

Spiritual energy filled the Scriptures & Scrolls Store. About thirty square meters of spiritual land was colored in lush green, emanating spiritual energy. Each and every spiritual material was growing at a healthy pace, especially that corpse onion which had been pulled out earlier on. It had already grown to about the length of a finger and would become a mature corpse onion soon. Also, some of the spiritual materials taken from Shennongjia had also sprouted, and their growth looked promising.

Ning Tao instantly felt much better when he saw the spiritual materials in the spiritual field.

“I wonder if the spiritual material planting methods I learned from Professor Jade would be of any use. Perhaps I should give it a try,” Ning Tao thought to himself.

To devote his thoughts and efforts into something was a very good way to distract himself.

Ning Tao squatted beside a spiritual material which had just sprouted. He used his finger to write a few runes on that plant then he imbued a bit of spiritual power into the spiritual soil.

There was no reaction.

Ning Tao furrowed his brows slightly then added more spiritual power to the soil.

There was still no response.

Ning Tao was dejected. “Could it be that I’ve misinterpreted the method? Impossible…”

A rune was suddenly lit up while he was contemplating. A bluish glow came from the rune, projecting into mid-air with clarity. Then another rune was “lit up”. The scene looked as if there were a group of LED lights which had been buried in the soil and were suddenly being turned on.

All the runes were lit up. The bluish glow had cast an entire image. Even though it was just a small area, it had created an atmosphere akin to a fairyland.

Then something weird happened. That spiritual material seed which had just sprouted suddenly shook under the blanket of energy glow and turned its “head” upwards. Its vitality and spirit had become significantly stronger than before.

“Success!” Ning Tao was overwhelmed with excitement.

However, he had only learned this much from the documents left behind by Professor Jade for the moment. He could only improve a small area of the spiritual soil. He was still unable to do a complete makeover for this 30 meters square spiritual field.

It was a similar logic to the way practitioners and demons drew formations. It wouldn’t be as simple as becoming capable to conjure a powerful formation by simply drawing a few runes repeatedly. It was the opposite in reality. With the same group of runes pieced together, their energy field would be in conflict with each other. Not only would the entire formation be unable to work, but it might even consume the user in return! Similarly for the spiritual field, if he did the same, the similar force fields might reject each other, and there would be a chance the spiritual field would become a bomb, instantly exploding!

“I’ll come again another day.” Ning Tao turned to leave.

As he was leaving the Scriptures & Scrolls Store, the Elixirs & Equipment Store inevitably came into view. He could not help but pause in his tracks for a while. He could actually afford the 5000 points of treatment fees worth of “door opening fee” and open it right then.

“Forget it, I’ll have to bear with it. I should fix the problem at hand first before opening the door.” Ning Tao suppressed the urge to open the first door of the Elixirs & Equipment Store. He carried his small medicine chest and opened the door of Sky Clinic.

Golden rays of dawn showered over him. A woman was walking towards him in the sunlight. Her outfit was white as snow and her hair long and smooth; her silhouette was graceful and elegant, like a fairy descended upon earth.

Beyond his control, Ning Tao’s feet paused in its tracks after walking down the stairs.