Bamboo Mound

Looking around, the river ahead was still winding and surrounded by countless hills, making it impossible to see any direction.

As he walked along the riverbank, he still couldn't see the scenery beyond the hill.

At this moment, the little hedgehog fell asleep, and Ning Chang no longer walked slowly, but instead ran forward intermittently using the Azure Cloud Step.

In this way, there is no need to use spirit stones for supply; it can maintain operation simply by absorbing the spiritual energy between heaven and earth!

After using the Azure Cloud Step for an extended period after entering the secret realm, he had become quite adept at it, and not only had the distance he covered with each step increased considerably.

And it no longer needs to operate actively; it only needs to perform the stepping motion.

As they moved forward, they probed their spiritual energy into the little hedgehog's body, guiding the spiritual energy within it to be refined.

In his view, since the hedgehog possessed spiritual energy, it meant that it could also embark on the path of cultivation.

Since I had nothing else to do, I decided to teach this little hedgehog a lesson to pass the time.

As for the cultivation techniques he would use, he didn't pay much attention to them.

After all, the body structure and meridians of a hedgehog are very different from those of a human, and directly using the Qingyun Technique might lead to some mistakes.

But he didn't care, since he had already thoroughly explored the meridians inside the hedgehog's body at the beginning.

Next, all you need to do is ensure that the spiritual energy is within the meridians and can be refined. As for the route, it just needs to flow smoothly through all the meridians in your body.

After initially opening up all its meridians, Ning Chang faced only two problems.

That is the direction of the flow of spiritual energy, whether it is clockwise or counterclockwise.

He hasn't studied this aspect yet. The general path of the Azure Cloud Technique is a counter-clockwise cycle. If it is reversed, it can easily lead to unstable cultivation and spiritual energy overwhelming the mind!

Actually, Ning Chang had another guess about this.

The consequences of reversing the spiritual energy path may include losing control due to rashly changing the path or obstructing the flow of spiritual energy.

It's not that spiritual energy can't be circulated clockwise from the beginning.

With this thought in mind, he decided to use this opportunity to conduct an experiment before the spiritual energy within the little hedgehog had a specific pathway.

Anyway... he probably won't die, and if he does die... well, there's nothing he can do about it. He had no intention of raising a spirit pet anyway; it would only add to his worries.

The first thing to try was the general path of the Azure Cloud Technique.

The little hedgehog's undeveloped meridians were very narrow, which meant that he could only arrange a portion of his spiritual energy in a row before controlling the whole system to circulate it.

As the spiritual energy flowed, the little hedgehog's meridians began to slowly expand. Surprisingly, the pain from the expansion of the meridians did not wake it up directly; it merely made it whimper in its sleep!

However, he couldn't figure out where the hedgehog's dantian was, so he simply abandoned the idea of ​​a dantian based on his own situation.

Half an hour later, when the little hedgehog's meridians had expanded enough to accommodate all the spiritual energy in its body, Ning Chang stopped what he was doing.

And all that spiritual energy had been imbued with the hedgehog's aura.

"It seems there's no distinction between human and demon cultivation techniques here; the compatibility is quite high."

He stroked his chin, deep in thought.

"Then the next step is to switch to the experiment of rotating in the opposite direction."

As he thought this, he immediately stopped the spiritual energy that had begun to circulate autonomously within the little hedgehog's body, causing it to flow backward.

But at the very moment the spiritual energy stopped, a force far greater than that the spiritual energy itself could exert was generated, and it began to spread outward from the meridians!

If this force were to spread, this hedgehog would probably die instantly!

However, with Ning Chang here, how could he possibly cause trouble with such a small amount of spiritual energy?

As soon as it began to sprout, Ning Chang used his spiritual power to envelop it and compress it into a thin line.

Ning Chang only withdrew his spiritual power after the violent energy dissipated. By then, the spiritual energy had stopped moving and remained still.

Seeing this, he began to guide the spiritual energy in the opposite direction.

As soon as the spiritual energy began to move, it showed signs of instability, as if it wanted to continue in its original direction.

But it soon calmed down and successfully reversed its direction of travel.

After observing for a while, it was discovered that after reversing the direction, the absorption and circulation of spiritual energy was actually faster than before!

Some of the fully refined spiritual energy even spontaneously merged into the surrounding flesh and organs, making those parts even stronger!

However, he believes this is most likely due to the demonic beasts.

After all, when he thinks of demonic beasts in the cultivation world, he subconsciously associates them with strong physical bodies and various racial talents.

But then I thought, could humans also passively or actively strengthen their physical bodies by using a clockwise path?

However, he planned to study this question again when he had the chance. After all, although he could control the chaotic spiritual energy in the little hedgehog's body caused by the reversal, that was only when the total amount was small and the strength was only at the fifth level of the Spirit Gathering Realm.

However, if he were to conduct his own research rashly, given his current spiritual energy reserves, which are probably more than those of an eighth or ninth-level Spirit Fusion cultivator, the resulting spiritual energy storm would be too much for even three of him to handle!

As I was pondering, I heard a soft moan. I turned around and saw that the little hedgehog had woken up.

It barked at Ning Chang several times, and when Ning Chang didn't understand, it stood up again.

He then noticed that the skin not covered by thorns was already covered with black mud!

So he stopped, put the little hedgehog by the river, and gestured for it to wash itself. Then he threw the few leaves covered in mud aside.

The little hedgehog immediately found a shallow spot and began splashing around in the water.

Before long, he had cleaned the black mud off his entire body, including the roots of the thorns.

After this activity, it felt its body was stronger than before, and immediately knew it was thanks to the person in front of it.

He ran a few steps to Ning Chang, straightened up, put his hands together and bowed to Ning Chang.

"Holy crap...that's sharp?"

The little hedgehog's unexpected action caused Ning Chang to pause for a moment.

But on second thought, he decided to leave the little hedgehog there.

After all, taking it with us now means we can't go full speed ahead, it's too much of a waste of time, and even if we take it out, we'll have to take good care of it.

Thinking of this, he shook his head and squatted down. "I have already taught you the cultivation method. I can't keep you with me forever, so let's part ways here."

Then, I moved the little hedgehog aside, found a patch of three bushes growing together, and used the center of the bush as the entrance to press out a burrow according to the hedgehog's size.

Then he put all the collected berries into it.

Seeing Ning Chang's actions, the little hedgehog seemed to understand his meaning and began to whine anxiously, grabbing Ning Chang's trouser leg to climb up.

"Alright, I only experimented on you, so you should hate me."

As Ning Chang spoke, he took out five spirit stones and the remaining few bottles of low-grade spirit-gathering pills, which were basically useless to him, and put them into the cave.

"If you really want to find me, then work hard to cultivate. Maybe we'll meet again in the future."

Ignoring the little hedgehog's struggles, he picked it up and threw it into the burrow, then took a few steps and disappeared behind the hills.