Under One Person: My Inner Realm Connects to All Worlds!

Chapter 42 Game within a game
Han Yun frowned slightly, turned on his flashlight and began searching around, while constantly tapping on the stone wall.

He had a lineage of thieves and knew a little about mechanisms and ingenuity, but after searching, he found nothing suspicious.

"Could it be that the legacy of the ancestor Ge is not here?"

Han Yun calmed down and couldn't help but frown and think hard.

Just then, Han Yun suddenly heard an extremely faint "ding-dong" sound, like the sound of water dripping, but where would the sound of water dripping come from in the dead of winter?
Did I hear it wrong?

Han Yun closed his eyes and listened carefully.

Fortunately, he has amazing hearing, inherits the skills of an archer and a thief, and is also blessed with a lot of life essence, which makes his body different from ordinary people and extremely sensitive to sound.

Any other extraordinary person would have been completely unable to detect this faint sound.

The sound seems to be coming from... underground?

Han Yun squatted down and knocked. He found the sound to be deep and resonant, without any echo in the empty room. However, he was confident that he could not have misheard.

"Or maybe the stone wall is too thick!"

A glint flashed in Han Yun's eyes. He took out the White Calf and Black Horse Twin Blades, planted them in the ground, and circulated his blade energy. The blade energy was like a dragon, instantly shattering the hard ground.

With a loud "boom," a crack was forcefully cleaved open in the several-meter-thick stone wall.

A cold, damp atmosphere swept over him. Han Yun looked down and could vaguely see slippery stone steps leading down into the dark depths beneath the crack.

The tinkling sound could be clearly heard at that moment.

"There's definitely more to it than meets the eye!"

Han Yun sheathed his twin swords, leaped down from the crevice, and landed on the ground. Suddenly, a flash of golden light appeared before his eyes.

"Wow, how come there's so much gold dust?"

At this moment, Han Yun was facing a pool of water, which shimmered with a cold, eerie light under the flashlight.

The pool didn't seem to be naturally formed; instead, it had sharp edges and corners, as if it had been intentionally carved out. He reached out and found the water to be icy cold.

Moreover, the pool water was actually running water, with several fist-sized holes at the left end from which water flowed slowly, making a soft "tinkling" sound.

At the bottom of the pool, there was gold dust deposited by the water flow.

At the right end, there is a hole as thick as a person's waist, through which pool water is slowly flowing, its destination unknown.

Han Yun squatted down, picked up a pinch of gold dust with his fingertips, and gently rubbed it. The gold dust particles were plump and shimmered with an alluring luster under the light, clearly indicating extremely high purity.

"This place actually has natural gold deposits?"

"That's right. According to the Five Elements theory, metal and water generate each other. I'm afraid there's a metal vein next to this water vein. And since Ge Zu is good at alchemy, he'll probably need to use water veins to cleanse his alchemy furnace!"

Han Yun looked around and found that apart from being larger than the upper level, there was nothing else there.

At that moment, Han Yun recalled the two levels of space and thought about the terrain of Qingxu Mountain. In a daze, he seemed to understand something.

"Clay is molded into vessels; it is the emptiness within that makes the vessels useful. Doors and windows are cut out to make rooms; it is the emptiness within that makes the rooms useful. Therefore, what is present is used for advantage, and what is absent is used for function."

“Qingxu Mountain is shaped like a green bamboo shoot and has the form of a tree. Bamboo shoots are hollow inside, empty in the heart and full in the joints, symbolizing the way of humility.”

"The temperature here is higher than outside, so the water in these pools must be melted frost and snow from outside. Assuming this section resembles 'golden water,' then the next section…"

Han Yun looked at the hole on the right and murmured, "I hope I'm not mistaken."

With that, Han Yun entered the pool and crawled into the cave. Holding his breath, he floated downstream, and when he surfaced again, he had reached the third level.

A naturally formed stone chamber appeared before us, with an ancient bronze alchemy furnace placed in the center. The furnace body was engraved with cloud and thunder patterns, stood on three legs, and the lid was in the shape of the Bagua (Eight Trigrams).

The ground around the alchemy furnace is surrounded by flowing water and intricate arrays drawn with cinnabar. Despite being thousands of years old, the colors remain as vibrant as ever.

Han Yun cautiously circled the alchemy furnace, observing the flickering flames at its bottom that never ceased, as if the furnace had truly been used for alchemy for thousands of years.

"Just as I imagined!"

"Qingxu Mountain is composed of rocks and soil, with lush vegetation and the interplay of metal and fire. It is a complete formation of the five elements, with its upper, middle and lower sections symbolizing the three dantian in the human body."

"What's even more wonderful is that here, in the lower dantian, water and fire are in harmony, dragon and tiger are in balance, and Kan is grasped and Li is filled. This place is really hard to find!"

Overwhelmed with excitement, Han Yun opened the furnace lid and discovered that a faint, multicolored light was emanating from inside.

He bent down to examine it and saw a thick layer of ash piled up in the furnace. Within the ash, a golden, glassy pill could be vaguely seen, radiating a lustrous sheen.

"This... could it be the golden elixir left behind by Ge Zu?" Han Yun's heart raced, and he reached out to take it, but stopped just before touching it.

"Something's not right, something's extremely wrong!"

"Isn't this process a little too easy?"

Han Yun sat down cross-legged, gazing at the alchemy furnace in deep thought. He then closed his eyes and concentrated, sensing a faint fluctuation emanating from the furnace, as if something was calling to him.

Then, he tried to sense with his Qi, and suddenly the scene before him changed drastically. In a daze, he found himself in front of a furnace, with a roaring fire and the fragrance of elixirs filling the air.

An elderly man with a sage-like demeanor was holding a whisk and chanting incantations.

The old man turned and glanced at him, then smiled and said, "Young man from a later generation, it is quite an honor for you to enter my Dan Realm."

Han Yun was greatly surprised: "Are you the patriarch Ge Hong?"

The old man nodded: "I am indeed Ge Hong, but now I am just a wisp of remnant spirit. In the past thousand years, you are the only one who has been able to comprehend the Five Elements Formation of Qingxu Mountain and is not misled by the Golden Elixir."

The old man lightly waved his whisk, and the flames in the alchemy furnace suddenly changed, transforming into a series of scenes: the hardships of gathering herbs deep in the mountains, the anxiety of failing to refine the elixir, and the extraordinary phenomena of heaven and earth when the elixir was successfully completed.

Finally, the old man left behind his legacy and departed, his whereabouts unknown.

Han Yun said thoughtfully, "What would happen if I picked up that pill?"

Ge Hong sighed and said, "There aren't that many good things in the world."

Han Yun suddenly remembered the thick layer of ash next to the pill. Could it be...?

Han Yun was sweating profusely. The scheme set up by his ancestor was truly insidious!

The moment one sees the Golden Elixir, an opportunity is right before their eyes. Most people would be overwhelmed with joy and then habitually pick it up.

Little did they know that the moment they encountered the Golden Elixir, they were not far from death.

However, this will actually filter out a large number of people whose character is not compatible, since the Taoist tradition is not so easy to obtain.

Attain utmost emptiness, and hold fast to stillness.

Only by abandoning subjective prejudices and maintaining the openness of our cognitive system like an infant can we avoid the obscuring of truth by empiricism.

Only by grasping the constant law that all things return to their roots, and by not being misled by material desires, fame, or profit, can one see the true Dao and enter this realm of alchemy.

(End of this chapter)