This forced Zhou Changqing back into deep thought.
Why isn't it working?
It works perfectly when I'm forging weapons, but there's no reaction at all when I try it on my body.
Could it be because of the heavenly thunder?
That's it.
When refining a weapon, even without heavenly thunder, my two types of Dou Qi are foreign invaders to the weapon itself, so naturally, a change occurs.
But to me, my Dou Qi has been refined and marked with my own spiritual imprint. It's a part of me, an extension of my body. Therefore, without an external stimulus, it's impossible for a reaction to occur.
When the arc of heavenly thunder invaded my body earlier, it acted as that foreign entity. After combining with my lightning-attribute Dou Qi, it became something different, something that could stimulate my metal-attribute Dou Qi.
The principles are the same. Both require an external factor to trigger the reaction.
At this moment, Zhou Changqing had a flash of insight, finally guessing the reason why his two types of Dou Qi couldn't temper his body on their own.
And the truth was just as he suspected.
If a cultivator's own Dou Qi could be used for body tempering, what would be the point of body tempering techniques?
Although Dou Qi nourishes the physical body during cultivation, causing it to gradually grow stronger, this strengthening is a slow, steady process that advances with one's cultivation level.
It was nothing like the significant, rapid improvement he had experienced when refining the thunder arc!
If simply circulating Dou Qi was enough for powerful body tempering, then every cultivator on the Dou Qi Continent would be a muscle-bound behemoth.
Having figured this out, Zhou Changqing felt a sense of loss. He had, after all, lost a shortcut to rapidly increasing both his Dou Qi cultivation and his physical strength.
If he wanted to experience that kind of improvement again, he would have to actively court death by drawing lightning to strike him during a thunderstorm.
If he did that, forget about getting stronger—he would undoubtedly be killed!
Besides, Zhou Changqing was already quite terrified of being struck by lightning and didn't dare to even consider such an attempt.
However, it must be said that when a person is looking for a shortcut, their intellect sharpens, and their thoughts race at peak speed.
In just a few moments, Zhou Changqing's eyes lit up. Drawing on his experience with the thunder arc, he thought of a potentially viable method.
But this method would require further experimentation, so he set it aside for now.
After getting up and putting his clothes back on, Zhou Changqing started a fire in the cave and placed some dry rations beside it to heat up.
Taking advantage of this time, Zhou Changqing began to study his new cultivation technique.
The birth of this new technique was a complete coincidence. If not for the day's events, it was unlikely Zhou Changqing would have ever been able to create it.
Even if his cultivation advanced in the future and he genuinely created his own technique, it would be different from this one.
After all, this new technique was merely a fusion of the Stinging Thunder Method and the Steel Condensation Vigor, created using some Yellow Rank techniques as a foundation.
Its foundation was certainly much weaker than the high-rank techniques of the continent.
If it were to be graded, this new technique would be a Xuan Rank Low Tier at best, and no higher.
But Zhou Changqing was content.
It was important to know that cultivators born with two attributes were extremely rare on the Dou Qi Continent.
Dual-attribute cultivation techniques were even rarer.
Although there seemed to be many alchemists on the continent, their numbers were pitifully small when compared to the total population.
Even then, the fire and wood attributes possessed by alchemists couldn't be considered a true dual-attribute pairing.
This was because an alchemist's fire and wood attributes were always imbalanced—one strong, one weak; one primary, one secondary.
Thus, the vast majority of alchemists focused on cultivating fire-attribute techniques, with almost none practicing or even supplementing with wood-attribute techniques.
The trace amount of wood attribute within their souls was simply not worth cultivating; it was so slow that even supplementing with it was a waste of time.
Those with truly balanced dual attributes were even rarer than alchemists.
Although the Wind Lightning Pavilion in the original story seemed to practice dual-attribute techniques, that was only because its founder possessed both wind and thunder attributes.
In the current Wind Lightning Pavilion, most of the disciples and upper echelons were single-attribute cultivators, practicing either wind or thunder techniques exclusively.
Within the Wind Lightning Pavilion, the only one explicitly stated to have both wind and thunder attributes was Feng Qing'er of the Heavenly Demon Phoenix Tribe.
Therefore, finding a metal-thunder dual-attribute cultivation technique was exceedingly difficult.
The fact that he had asked Ya Fei for help over half a year ago and still hadn't found even a single Yellow Rank Low Tier metal-thunder technique by the time he left was proof of this.
In truth, dual-attribute techniques were generally not of the Yellow Rank. The lowest they could be was Xuan Rank Middle Tier, and that was the absolute minimum.
This was because the creator of a dual-attribute technique must, at the very least, be a dual-attribute cultivator themselves. While others might be able to create one, such cases were virtually nonexistent.
And for a dual-attribute cultivator to reach the point of creating their own technique, their strength would be formidable; they would be a powerful figure in their own right.
Coupled with the fact that dual-attribute techniques are more complex than their single-attribute counterparts, their starting point was naturally higher.
For Zhou Changqing, a mere Dou Shi, to create a Xuan Rank Low Tier metal-thunder dual-attribute technique under such accidental circumstances could be considered a stroke of miraculous fortune.
Even though a large portion of the technique's circulation pathways were borrowed from other techniques, it was still an extraordinary achievement.
"Since I'm the one who created it, it deserves a new name."
"You were born of heavenly thunder and allowed me to discover the path of using my body as a crucible, catalyzing my metal-attribute Dou Qi to temper myself and strengthen my physique."
"In that case… I'll call you the Celestial Steel Tempering Art."
Having come up with a fitting name for his new technique, Zhou Changqing felt a surge of pride.
It didn't last long, however, before he pulled himself out of his self-satisfaction.
He had refined a great deal of the thunder arc, which might have caused his lightning-attribute Dou Qi to overpower his metal-attribute Dou Qi, disrupting the balance of his Dou Qi Vortex.
He needed to address this matter and restore the balance between the two.
However, when he looked inside his Dantian at the Dou Qi Vortex again, he was stunned to find that there seemed to be no need.
When he had glanced at it earlier, he had only seen its expanded size and had been so shocked that he immediately turned his attention to researching body tempering methods, paying it no further mind.
But looking at it now…
The Dou Qi Vortex in his Dantian, spinning like a miniature galaxy, showed no signs of imbalance whatsoever.
In fact, the two types of Dou Qi were more intimately connected than before, blending into one another like a taiji symbol, with each element containing a part of the other.
"Was I overthinking it? That's impossible. Although the thunder arc was refined, it was still lightning. How could my technique convert it into metal-attribute Dou Qi?"
This situation left Zhou Changqing completely bewildered.
To uncover the root of the issue, he submerged his consciousness, unleashing his Spiritual Perception to envelop the entire Dou Qi Vortex, meticulously sensing every detail.
"Wait… my lightning attribute has changed?"
As Zhou Changqing probed deeper, his mind jolted. He had discovered something different about his lightning-attribute Dou Qi.
This change didn't originate from the vortex in his Qi sea, but from the depths of his soul!
It was common knowledge on the Dou Qi Continent that a person's attributes were determined by their soul. Therefore, the very essence of an attribute originated from the soul.
Zhou Changqing had sensed the essence of his lightning attribute deep within his soul before.
But now, that source had undergone a subtle transformation.
The change wasn't obvious, but it imbued the lightning-attribute Dou Qi within his silver-gold vortex with a profound and mysterious quality it had never possessed before.
If he had to describe this quality, only one phrase came to mind.
A mystery within a mystery, infinite in its potential