Merin stands frozen on a tree branch, far from the lake, unmoving as a deep sense of danger floods his heart.
Just a few steps ahead, he senses the natural energy is no longer wild—it is under someone's control.
Before his eyes, the sky is split into five colours: red, blue, yellow, green, and dark blue, with red being the faintest and smallest.
He cannot see the ones fighting, as the battle unfolds high above the cloud layer, and another beneath, on the lake itself.
Tall trees block his view of the lake's centre, but he knows they won't last long.
His thought proves true as a massive tree suddenly topples, though he sees no cause, only senses the sharpness of wind that likely felled it.
Despite the growing danger, Merin doesn't retreat, even as elemental attacks rain from the sky and shatter the forest around him.
What roots him in place is what he perceives—a powerful convergence of wood and wind elemental rules.
If not for his mastery of the Life Qi technique, he would be tempted to comprehend the wind element from the profound truths now laid bare.
But the moment he touched the essence of Life Qi, he also began to understand the artistic conception behind the vitality of the wood element.
This realisation doesn't tempt him toward that path—it reveals why he must not choose wind over wood.
Because when he stepped into the threshold of the vitality concept, it resonated with the wood rules he already comprehended in the main world.
And as his true body is a tree, it is clear that the rule of wood from this world would bring him far greater benefit than wind ever could.
So, he decides to fully comprehend the wood rule of this world before attempting to understand the rules of wind or any others.
Merin closes his eyes, focusing on the artistic conception of vitality emanating from the wood rule displayed before him.
He is now only one step away from entering the Great Samurai realm—he has already completed the first step.
With his mental energy, he has opened all 72 acupoints required—but these are not the same 72 found in the Nine Yang Life Meridian Technique; they are ones he discovered on his own.
As he comprehends the vitality of wood, he notices that parts of the rule's information overlap with the wood energy rule from the main world.
This confirms his decision to continue cultivating the Life Qi technique, though he knows it is a middle-rank technique that cannot guide him into the Great Samurai realm.
Moreover, he cannot imitate the 72 acupoints and 27 spiritual acupoints used in the Nine Yang Life Meridian Technique.
That technique derives its inner energy from the fusion of yang and wood energies, its formations drawing on acupoints to generate a Fierce Yang and Healing Wood attribute inner energy.
In contrast, the Life Qi technique produces only Healing Wood attribute inner energy.
But it doesn't take him even an hour to find the rest of what he needs, as he already has the base formation of Healing Wood energy formed by nine acupoints, and his deepening comprehension of the artistic conception of wood's vitality helps him locate the remaining 72 physical acupoints.
With his 27 spiritual acupoints already open, he combines them with the 81 physical ones to form an array diagram within his body—its lines are his meridians, the acupoints its cornerstones, with the one at the center of his forehead serving as the base.
His inner energy flows through this array, nourishing his already strong mental energy.
Now only one step remains: to comprehend the spiritual mechanism within natural energy.
He understands now that this mechanism is a complete magnetic field of an element—one that contains a portion, or in rare cases the entirety, of that element's artistic conception.
As he deepens his understanding of the vitality of wood, he feels his grasp of the magnetic field concept increase by leaps and bounds.
He also detects three other magnetic fields, each containing either fragments or the full artistic conception of wood's vitality.
Without hesitation, he chooses the one that he is able to perceive holds the complete artistic conception.
While Merin comprehends the artistic conception, people who escaped from the lake's bank gather at a distance behind him—they look at him curiously.
But nobody goes to disturb him, as many who follow the rules of wood, blood, wind, thunder, and water stand still, focused on comprehending the rules now displayed before them.
At other times, the rules of the world remain hidden and are difficult to grasp—but now, these five rules are directly visible to the naked eye.
Others who follow different elemental paths watch in frustration as those around them absorb the five displayed rules.
Many waver, torn between staying on their original path or switching to study one of the five revealed rules, knowing this rare opportunity may never come again.
Some choose to comprehend one of the five to change their future direction or deepen their foundation, as many cultivators study more than one rule.
Some, feeling stuck at a bottleneck with their current element, decide to shift to a new rule to increase their strength.
The fight continues, but due to the spreading fluctuations, more people arrive and gather, intent on comprehending the exposed rules.
Some even come from the Yao region, bringing surprising news: on the far side of the Yao mountain range, a battle has erupted between the Earth Ancestor and the Dark Ancestor.
Time passes, the sun sets, but the battle doesn't stop, and the number of people gathered around keeps increasing.
Yet, everyone maintains an unspoken order, careful not to disturb others as they comprehend the rules.
As night deepens, the fluctuations from the lake's centre continue to rise—then suddenly, the hissing of snakes spreads out, and the rule of blood begins to tremble as if it might vanish at any moment.
A thick blood mist bursts from the centre of the lake, followed by a scream, "You want me dead? Good. I'll take all of you with me!"
Merin, hearing the scream and sensing the danger rushing toward him, opens his eyes and sees the blood mist speeding in his direction.
He hesitates—should he run?
But judging its speed and uncertain reach, he feels escape may not be possible.
Merin opens his palm, senses the magnetic field, and mobilises the artistic conception of the vitality of wood.
Tree shoots erupt from the ground, growing rapidly into a wedge-shaped formation with him shielded behind it.
He feels the blood mist crash against his wooden wall, then watches it spread above and beside him.
Agonised screams echo from every direction, but he cannot see what the blood fog does, unable to perceive anything within it.
Merin has to stop worrying about others' safety and focus on his own, as he feels the tree wall, formed with natural energy and shaped by the artistic conception of wood, beginning to collapse back into raw natural energy.
"I have to do something," he mutters, trying to mobilise the natural energy around him to reinforce the tree wall and strengthen its defences.
But he fails.
He discovers the natural energy nearby is affected by the blood mist and slips beyond his control.
Forced to find another way to protect himself, he focuses inward, deeply sensing his tree wall and carefully observing how the blood mist is breaking it down.
The blood mist targets the structure of the natural energy arranged in formation—the very structure that shapes the solid wall into various tree-like forms.
To stop the formation from collapsing, he delves deeper into understanding it and soon notices how the magnetic fields of natural energy particles intersect to create the formation.
He begins altering the structure of these energy particles.
Each change reveals a result—some quicken the wall's breakdown, others slow it—and he follows the path that lessens the destruction.
With each adjustment, his understanding of the artistic conception of the vitality of wood deepens, and his inner energy begins circulating on its own, growing denser with each pass.
As he continues, he starts sensing a fluctuation in the natural energy—and as more time passes, that fluctuation becomes clearer.
"It must be the so-called spiritual machine."
In his soul vision, he sees himself on the verge of comprehending a magnetic field and observes a vague wisp of light forming within it.
Focused, he wholeheartedly adjusts the structure of the tree wall while simultaneously comprehending the magnetic field.
As he modifies the particle structure of the tree wall, he perceives many magnetic fields—some shaped by the artistic conception of the wooden rule alone, others blended with one or more different elemental rules.
He ignores them, intent on reaching the Great Samurai realm as quickly as possible.
Though not yet advanced, his strength already surpasses that realm, confirmed by his soul vision, which spots the life fluctuations of Great Samurai around him.
He identifies them as Great Samurai by their vitality, which ranks at level 3 in the grading system of the Dream Mirror.
His own vitality was rank 2 when he was a middle-ranking samurai, and though he is now a peak high-ranking samurai, he can sense his vitality edging toward the next rank.
This shift aligns with how he steadily draws closer to advancing into the Great Samurai realm.
The Great Samurai he observes are losing vitality as they struggle against the blood mist, while his continues to rise.
At last, he senses the light within the magnetic field fully formed—and without needing to summon it, the light enters his body and merges with his inner energy.
It settles in his dantian, and with each circulation of inner energy, the light refines it—transforming from gas to something denser.
Gradually, a droplet of energy water forms in his dantian, and over time, all his inner energy converts into liquid form—true energy.
He finally becomes a Great Samurai, though advancing to the Second Turn of the Great Samurai realm will require combat tempering, which he lacks for now.
Still, he doesn't stop his comprehension of the wood rule; instead, he begins studying other intersecting electromagnetic circles linked to the one he already fully grasped.
At the same time, he alters the structure of the wooden wall's energy particles to render it impervious to the blood mist.
It doesn't take long before he realises the blood mist can no longer break down his tree wall.
Using his true energy, since he cannot control the corrupted natural energy around him, he forms the wall into a dome that now fully secures his safety.
He halts his comprehension for a moment and uses his soul vision to peer toward the lake, where four figures are engaged in battle—three against one.
He observes at least eleven more life fluctuations near the lake, though their vitality is dangerously low, suggesting they may perish at any moment.
Among the four battling, the one fighting alone radiates a chaotic and decaying vitality, as if their life should have ended already but has been unnaturally prolonged.
Two of the three fighting in the sky display a similar kind of distorted vitality.
Curious about their identities and the reason behind the conflict, he finds his body too weak to proceed, so his soul detaches and moves forward, swiftly arriving above the lake.
There, he sees three figures locked in combat against what had been an eight-headed snake, now reduced to two heads.
All three attackers are seriously injured, and their silence reveals nothing of the reason behind their battle.
Then, he feels a mental energy reaching out to him.
Focusing, he identifies it coming from a middle-aged man—though the vitality betrays over a century of life.
He connects to the message and hears,
"You are of the human race! Help us kill the Blood Ancestor. This is the only chance to kill an ancestor—and for the first time, allow the birth of an ancestor from our human race."
Merin, hearing this, decides to help, knowing that the human race in this world has no cultivator in the Ancestor Realm.
The Ancestor Realm cannot be cultivated directly; only when one ancestor dies can a peak Dharma cultivator ascend and take that place.
He doesn't know why this law exists, but until yesterday, he was only a high-ranking samurai.
Now, with a chance to stand at the edge of the truth behind this world, he cannot ignore it.
The question becomes—how to help?
He cannot mobilise natural energy, and his soul has come without his physical body, meaning he cannot use his true energy either.
As the fight shifts—now two against the Blood Ancestor—he remembers the strongest soul spell he ever created: the sleep spell.
With his mental energy, he casts it, not knowing whether it will work or not.
He watches in anticipation, and then the movements of the eight-headed serpent grow slower and slower.
The two figures seize the opening, severing another head.
And moments later, they cut off one more.
Then the world freezes for an instant—the rule of blood and the blood mist suddenly dissipate.
One of the figures who was fighting just moments ago sits on the lake, and above his head, the world displays his comprehension of the rule of blood.
A small blood cloud forms above him, drifting gently until a golden light begins to shine within it, turning it into a golden blood cloud.
At that moment, Merin senses a fluctuation from the corpse of the eight-headed serpent, and a blood crystal emerges.
The crystal rises and enters the golden blood cloud, devouring it completely, then descends into the figure's body.
A surge of power erupts from him as he becomes the embodiment of the world's blood rule.
And in the very next moment, a blood cocoon forms around him, sealing him inside.