"Like I said earlier, body suppression isn't crippling someone's cultivation, it's far from it." Yang Feng had an air of the seriousness of a scholar when he started talking.
"As researchers of body refinement, it is taboo for us to consider crippling someone's cultivation as a route for enhancing the body refinement since in essence crippling not only destroys one's cultivation but even their body's foundation which is in complete opposite of what we are after.
Yang Qing while what you went through and every other Yang member before may have seemed torturous, none of it was done without careful planning, which was built upon the foundation of countless years of research done by the Yang family.
Every experiment was done with the aim of promoting the body and not damaging it, despite how it felt, so never forget that. Our methods may seem cruel but their basis and target are pure and sound," Yang Fen said to his grandson.
Yang Qing on seeing his grandfather's seriousness nodded solemnly.
"Now the idea of body suppression was born from sealing one's cultivation base. Qing'er what if you could go back to body refinement or qi refinement or foundation establishment cultivation but still have the insights of a place realm cultivator? Do you think you could make further improvements in those realms using your current insights? And if you could, how huge would they be?
There are countless cultivators who wished they could go back in time and refine their earlier foundations, especially after meeting roadblocks in the journey ahead.
After years of work, we have finally created a potion that can help with that, though it's still in its early stages and we are not too clear on all the side effects yet. We called it the 'Body rebirth' potion and it can cause a cultivator to regress their realm by a single major realm. The regression is temporary of course and the current potency is just for a week. However, for that week, like let's say your case, for that week you'll have the senses and mind of a palace realm cultivator but the body of a core formation realm expert.
Though the current potion can only work for someone in the foundation establishment realm. We haven't yet found a way to make it work with core formation experts and above, but it's only a matter of time.
Qing'er this potion provides a chance for someone to undo their past regrets or relearn some things," Yang Gen said with shining passionate eyes as he clenched fists along with the other elders behind him.
Yang Qing had to agree that if the potion could do what he said it did, it was truly something, but he had doubts in some areas of it, especially its core function of changing the whole body back. This was essentially reversing time and undoing the work of the tribulation that usually melted one's body and reforged it as one advanced to the next major realm.
"Are the changes to the body a real change, Grandpa?" asked Yang Qing as he voiced his doubts.
"Well, the change is not a complete one since we run the risk of destroying one's cultivation if it was. What the potion does, is it digs out the memory of your previous realms that have been stored in your body and brings them back to the surface for that week.
Which also means that sadly you can't change much to your previous foundation other than examine it with fresher eyes." Yang Feng sighed with regret but he perked up immediately after.
"But it's not all bad because, for those with courage, they could dissipate their cultivation and start from scratch, and with the insights they gain from examining their earlier foundations they can make it sturdier the second time round and with greater speed too since they already have the framework," Yang Fen paused as his gaze turned distant.
"While I wholly do believe in the Yang family's idealogy of exploring the body refinement realm, there are areas that I don't completely agree with and this change in thought started taking root because of your father and later grew because of you and your brother.
At this time, I don't believe it helps us by insisting that we should always maintain our cultivation base in the body refinement realm. Our breadth of knowledge and insight will become limited if we stubbornly stick to the past's framework thus halting our progress, which is why I think the family's research has experienced a long stagnation for the past 180 years.
There are things Qing'er that you can see now as a palace realm cultivator that I can not imagine because I'm not at your level. With each realm, a wider world opens up, and if we confine ourselves to the body refinement or the lower realms our vision will be limited along with how far we can actually dig into the body refinement realm.
The body rebirth potion was something one of our earlier predecessors thought about and who had the same doubts as us, so we took it up.
Qing'er I'll admit I may have made that potion for selfish reasons but I also did it for you," Yang Fen said as he placed his hand over Yang Qing's head and cast a deep gentle gaze on his grandson.
Yang Qing finally had guesses on how his father managed to sneak out of the Yang family home and break through to the foundation establishment realm. If what his grandfather said was true, then it seemed more likely that his grandfather knew of his father's intentions and tacitly agreed to it. He couldn't help but re-evaluate the elder before him who currently exuded the air of a hero treading forward on an unexplored path, the kind of look he had seen on Chief Song Chuanli. It was of someone who had an unwavering belief and clarity of his path in life and was willing to do anything to follow it wherever it may lead.
"Maybe Grandpa with his passion for the body refining realm may one day sublimate his cultivation to the domain realm in one fell swoop."
Yang Qing realized even if he had a higher cultivation base, there were areas he paled in comparison to his grandfather. His thoughts soon got cut off by Yang Fen's next words.
"Qing'er while I have no grounds to base this on since there's so little information about it, I think the peerless jade physique has different levels to it and those levels have certain requirements to unlock them."
