Chapter 70: A General Reborn, The Dawn of Suppressing Mara
Jing Yuan asked no more questions. A helpless, knowing curve touched the corner of his lips. He raised his hand, tossing the small pill into his mouth.
It melted the instant it touched his tongue. A rush of clear, sweet warmth—like a pristine mountain spring—slid down his throat. The sensation bloomed outward, flooding his meridians, sinking deep into his very bones.
A violent, almost imperceptible tremor wracked the General's frame.
An overwhelming sense of weightlessness surged from the deepest recesses of his soul. It felt as though invisible, rusted shackles—chains he had dragged behind him for centuries—had suddenly shattered into dust.
The crushing exhaustion that had pooled within his spiritual platform for hundreds of years began to evaporate. The dark, suffocating thoughts bred by endless political maneuvering and the blood-soaked weight of his past dissolved. Even the restless, maddening whispers of the Mara-Struck—a curse that clung to his mind like maggots to rotting bone—were silenced.
The cleansing current washed over it all, gentle yet carrying an absolute, unyielding authority. It smoothed away the jagged edges of his psyche, burying the madness deep beneath a tranquil surface. His spiritual platform felt clearer than it had in lifetimes. His thoughts moved with the lucid, transparent grace of a bright mirror wiped completely free of dust.
Jing Yuan closed his eyes, letting the silence settle over him. When he opened them again, the heavy, sleepy languor that usually clouded his golden gaze was gone, replaced by a razor-sharp brilliance. For a fleeting second, he looked centuries younger.
He probed his own mind, trying to stir the familiar gloom. Nothing. The heavy shadows were truly locked away, unable to breach the surface. A sudden, absurd thought crossed his mind: if he were to march into the Divination Commission right now, toss the General's Seal onto Fu Xuan's desk, and walk away from the Luofu forever, his heart would not waver. He would not lose himself to the sudden emptiness. His mind remained as placid as a mirror lake.
This long-lost, almost luxurious sensation of absolute ease made Jing Yuan feel a deep sense of unreality. It was as if he had crossed over into another life entirely.
He repeatedly checked his internal state, tracing the flow of his energy. Every single sign pointed back to the tiny pill Dan Heng had handed him.
Jing Yuan let out a long, slow breath. When he looked at Dan Heng again, his eyes swirled with complex emotions. He shook his head, a helpless smile breaking across his face—a smile carrying genuine relief and a faint, wistful nostalgia.
"You... oh, you." Jing Yuan chuckled softly. "Spending so much time with Stelle on the Astral Express... it seems her chaotic way of doing things has finally rubbed off on you."
He did not mention the bloodstained past. He did not say the name Imbibitor Lunae. He merely used Stelle as a bridge, subtly expressing his sheer surprise and deep relief at Dan Heng's newfound initiative. For Dan Heng to willingly step forward, involve himself in Xianzhou affairs, and offer such a miraculous artifact... it was a monumental shift in his character.
Dan Heng understood the unspoken weight behind those words. His expression remained placid, though the faintest softening touched his eyes. He gave a slight nod. "Mutual influence between partners is perfectly normal."
He frankly admitted Stelle's impact on his life, drawing a firm, clean line between his present and his past. It was his current family aboard the Express who guided his steps now.
Jing Yuan did not push the topic further. His smile slowly faded, his features settling into the stern, solemn mask befitting an Arbiter-General.
"This pill possesses extraordinary divine efficacy," Jing Yuan said, his voice dropping an octave. "To so effortlessly suppress negative emotions and purify the spiritual platform... its origins must be staggering. Obtaining it could not have been easy. You have my deepest thanks, Dan Heng."
The gratitude was absolute, stemming from the very bottom of his heart—both for the miraculous medicine and for the quiet thoughtfulness behind the gesture.
"The process was not as difficult as you might imagine," Dan Heng replied, his tone entirely factual. "It was merely a stroke of luck."
He offered no further explanation regarding the chat group. Jing Yuan simply assumed the young man was being modest, or perhaps bound by some unspoken restriction, and tactfully let the matter rest.
The General shifted his posture, his demeanor transforming entirely into that of the supreme commander of the Xianzhou Luofu. He knew he was overstepping, but the burden of his office left him no choice.
"Dan Heng, forgive my presumption." Jing Yuan held his gaze, his golden eyes burning with quiet intensity. "Is there any surplus of this divine pill? Its significance to the Xianzhou Alliance cannot be overstated. It is, without exaggeration, a strategic resource of the highest order."
He braced himself, fully prepared for a polite, entirely justified refusal.
Dan Heng did not say a word. He simply reached into his spatial storage and withdrew a small jade bottle. Inside rested the remaining nine Spirit Condensing and Soul Nurturing Pills.
With a casual flick of his wrist, he tossed it over.
Jing Yuan's hand shot out, snatching the bottle from the air with a rare, undisguised eagerness. His fingers curled tightly around the cool jade, feeling the faint, pulsing warmth radiating from within. His heart hammered against his ribs.
A treasure capable of dragging a Xianzhou native back from the abyssal edge of the Mara-Struck! Its value could not be measured in credits or starships. It was priceless.
Holding the bottle seemed to lift the crushing weight of his duties from his shoulders. His posture relaxed, his aura shifting from the imposing General back to the carefree Jing Yuan of old. Even the cadence of his voice felt lighter.
But Dan Heng was not finished. His next actions sent a tidal wave crashing through Jing Yuan's newly calmed mind.
Dan Heng reached into his storage again, pulling out four distinct items and laying them out between them.
First, an ancient, frost-cold manual bound in worn thread. The cover read: Ice Heart Technique.
Second, a heavy packet wrapped in specialized preserving material, thrumming with vibrant, organic energy. Clear Spirit Grass seeds.
Third, a dense, spiritually overflowing brocade pouch. Inside sat nearly eight thousand mid-grade spirit stones, their ambient energy thick enough to taste.
Finally, a heavy, complex tome radiating deep, shifting fluctuations of energy. The deep Pivot Array Compendium.
Dan Heng pointed to each item, his voice steady and methodical as he laid out a complete blueprint.
He explained the Ice Heart Technique, designed for widespread mental cultivation and emergency suppression of erratic energy. He detailed the agricultural plan for the Clear Spirit Grass seeds, meant for large-scale cultivation to provide the raw medicinal base. He indicated the spirit stones, explaining their use as an energy source to rapidly accelerate the growth of the grass. Finally, he tapped the Array Compendium, suggesting the Divination Commission study its spirit-gathering arrays to improve the cultivation environments, and perhaps even adapt the formations to directly suppress Mara-Struck symptoms across the Luofu.
A clear, scalable, and entirely complete industrial blueprint for a universal mental health system slowly unfolded before Jing Yuan's eyes.
The relaxed, youthful ease vanished from Jing Yuan's face. In its place was a look of absolute, unadulterated shock.
As a man who had governed the Luofu for nearly seven centuries, who had watched stars die and empires crumble without batting an eye, his composure was legendary. He was the sleeping lion, the man who would not change color even if a mountain collapsed before him.
But right now, staring at the items Dan Heng had so casually tossed onto the table, Jing Yuan was completely speechless.
The incurable disease that had plagued the Xianzhou Alliance for thousands of years. The Mara-Struck.
Generations of brilliant minds, countless sages, and entire fleets of researchers had exhausted their lifespans traversing the star sea, desperately searching for a cure. They had all failed to find a truly reliable, universal method of suppression. The despair of that inevitable madness was an eternal shadow, suffocating the heart of every long-life species on the Xianzhou.
And now, the dawn had broken. It had arrived in the most absurd, unexpected manner possible, sitting quietly on a table in the form of seeds, stones, and old books.
As the sheer magnitude of this world-shifting possibility crashed over him, a cold tide of deep, instinctive doubt surged up to meet it.
This was too big. It was far too significant to accept purely on blind trust, no matter how much he cared for the young man sitting across from him.
Jing Yuan's gaze sharpened into a blade. He locked eyes with Dan Heng, searching the archivist's calm, unruffled expression for any crack, any hint of deception.
"Dan Heng..." Jing Yuan's voice was low, strained with the sheer gravity of the moment. "These things... where exactly did they come from?"
He needed an answer. He needed an explanation solid enough to anchor this impossible miracle—a miracle that was about to completely rewrite the future of the Xianzhou Alliance.
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