The study of the Dao was very different from other forms of cultivation. First of all, there was no established cultivation method. Human, asura, and deva cultivation systems had all been separated into nine realms, with many similarities between them. As such, it was rather easy to determine where a cultivator was in his journey. However, the Dao couldn't be split up in such a manner.
The closest thing to an actual realm system was the terms used to qualify the state of one's understanding of a Dao. They were Dao Insight, Dao Seed, Dao Bud, Dao Roots, Dao Growth, Dao Tree, Dao Fruit, Dao Abode, and finally Dao Creation. Just like the cultivation realms, they were divided into nine stages. Unfortunately, it was difficult to actually position oneself on those stages. Also, they didn't mean anything in terms of power or strength. One could be extremely knowledgeable and have a deep understanding of the Dao without being able to apply it effectively in battle. For example, Cao Yun's control of Fire Silk wouldn't be very useful in a direct confrontation.
Until now, Cao Yun had mainly focused on improving his control over fire. Now, he wanted to actually get stronger. Although it wasn't the primary goal of his study of the Dao, being unable to use it as a source of strength in battle was frustrating.
After six years in seclusion, Cao Yun had reached true success in Fire Silk and was slowly making his way toward perfection. As such, he decided to go back to 'Red Calm on a Sunny Day'. Red Calm had devised seven training methods. Fire Silk was only the first method. Although the methods had no mandatory order per se, there was a logic to them, and trying to use the last one first was almost impossible without being a genius in the Dao of Fire already anyway. That being said, the second and third methods were explicitly meant to be used in any order. However, it was a good idea not to tackle both of them at the same time.
Tyrannical Flame was about producing extreme heat with one's flame. According to Red Calm, a cultivator could make his fire so powerful that it would consume absolutely everything, even time and space, even the Dao itself if one was powerful enough. The third method was Heatless Flame. Just like Fire Silk, it was about control. The point was to be able to perfectly control the heat within the fire. In other words, Cao Yun would be able to engulf an entire area in flames and only burn what he wanted and nothing more. Honestly, this was enticing, but Cao Yun wanted strength and power after working on control for so long.
Naturally, Cao Yun decided to focus on Tyrannical Flame. The method wasn't really detailed or explained, unfortunately. However, Red Calm had written everything he had felt while working on this method. Following some of his pointers, Cao Yun conducted several tests. In his mind, he focused on various images. He imagined the Sun, a volcano, a forest fire. He tried to imagine the flames licking his flesh. Thankfully, he remembered his time in lava. To be honest, it wasn't his best memory, but it did help him.
Slowly, he increased the heat of his flame. However, he decided not to let go of Fire Silk. In other words, he was producing intense heat in a narrow filament, too small to even be seen. Despite being so small, the heat emanating from the Fire Silk was affecting the air around Cao Yun. As he was making it hotter and hotter, Cao Yun was losing his control over the Fire Silk. Naturally, it began to expand as the fire was moving increasingly erratically. Trying to keep it under control was extremely difficult. Besides, this fire was now hot enough to hurt Cao Yun. It wouldn't actually injure him, but it would definitely hurt.
Through Tyrannical Flame, the young 1st-grade Sage understood why Fire Silk was so important to begin with. If he had lacked control over the flames, it would have been a disaster. Even with his great control, it was still difficult. But the fire had not escaped him, so Cao Yun could extinguish it at any moment. Anyway, he kept on working on both Fire Silk and Tyrannical Flame. As it turned out, pushing Tyrannical Flame further while maintaining Fire Silk was helping him expand his Fire Silk. He would reach perfection much faster than he had initially thought.
Cao Yun could spend several weeks, even months, on the Dao of Fire. But when he tired of it, he shifted his focus, either on cultivation or on the Dao of Death. Although he wasn't fully aware of the time that had passed, he knew that several years had gone by. Now that he was studying the Dao, he realized that cultivators could lose themselves for decades, if not centuries, in their cultivation.
For a moment, Cao Yun wanted to stay in seclusion for an entire century. After all, that was how long he wanted to cultivate before going into the Withering Fusang Domains. However, he also wanted to leave seclusion to be with his family. In ten years, his kids might have kids of their own. Moreover, he wanted to know what had happened around him, both to the Hongchen Kingdom and the demon territories. That being said, he truly wanted to keep cultivating. Each day, he was making progress. Of course, progress was tiny, but there was definitely progress, and he could tell. Each time, he gave himself small goals and wanted to achieve them. But when they were achieved, he wanted even bigger goals. What scared him was that he might actually spend his entire life cultivating like that.
In order to progress through the Sage realm, he couldn't just stay locked in seclusion. Besides, he would obviously miss his martial arts at some point. Studying the Dao was great, but he was also imagining how to use it in combat. As such, he wanted to apply it in real life.
Contrary to his Dao of Fire, his Dao of Death was advancing very slowly. The Bone Child was bigger, but it was nowhere near a Bone Warrior. However, he was convinced that his 'Macabre Dance' was strong enough for him to control a tiny corpse. Honestly, he didn't really want to test it in real life, as it felt disgusting. At the same time, he had a form of morbid curiosity. He wanted to see what it would look like. Since the Bone Child looked like a crow, Cao Yun was thinking about animating the corpse of a small bird. Maybe he could literally use dead birds as sentinels or spies. That was an interesting use of the Dao of Death.
His demon cultivation was going smoothly, his lower abdomen was getting hotter and hotter as his Common People's Fire was filling it. Apparently, the Solar-Orchid Flame within his Lower Dantian was helping a lot. He could feel a powerful heat coming from his bladder, but also from his very essence. This heat was slowly spreading upward. In a decade or two, he would actually be able to break through again. Usually, each stage of the fourth realm of cultivation took around twenty-five years for the average cultivator who succeeded.
What surprised Cao Yun was the fact that there were shortcuts, both in the human and asura systems. A human could build poor floors in his inner pagoda. An asura could produce just enough heat with each grade to advance to the next. Although this would help the cultivator get stronger much faster, this would also limit his future cultivation. Once the inner pagoda was built, it was extremely difficult to tear it down and rebuild it. In fact, it was almost impossible for most cultivators. On the other hand, the True Fire was the fusion of all Three Bodily Fires. Once merged, it was impossible to separate them. Thus, the stage of a cultivator in the fourth realm might not be a good indication of their actual strength. Besides, it also heavily depended on their understanding of the Dao and which Daos they had studied.
Over the years, Cao Yun had also perfected his inner world. Now, he could physically manifest himself in his inner world. In the center of that green inner world, he could see the foundation of his inner pagoda. It was still ethereal and seemed to disappear as soon as he focused on them, but they were becoming more and more concrete over time. It might not take him a decade to become a 2nd-grade Sage. In fact, he might actually be the first 2nd-grade Sage among the humans since the Forsaken Dao Era. Whether he would be first or not, he would definitely be the youngest, no matter what. Indeed, the few Sages who were cultivating right now were all older than Cao Yun, and only a handful of humans had even succeeded in becoming Sages. No demon had become an Exalted Demon yet since Empyrean Asura and Demon God Da Mo had been killed.
While he was walking through the green plain of his inner world, Cao Yun realized something that had completely escaped his notice until then. There were tiny flowers scattered across the plain. Looking at them closely, Cao Yun saw that they were small, closed buds. Cao Yun grabbed one and tried to delicately open it. Try as he might, he simply couldn't open any of them at all. By touching them, he could sense something stir deep within. Those were a physical manifestation of his Solar-Orchid Flame. Indeed, Cao Yun had reached what most people would call the Dao Bud stage. After that was the Dao Roots stage. Thus, Cao Yun tore a small flower from the ground and found out that they had no roots at all. This was very strange, it was just a small stem stuck in the ground.
Now that he had seen a manifestation of his Dao of Fire, Cao Yun looked for something related to his Dao of Death. Apparently, 'Death Verses' was using another set of stages to identify one's progress in the understanding of the Dao of Death. Initially, Cao Yun had cultivated Death Verses. Those Death Verses would turn into Death Glyphs, then into Death Seals. Those Death Seals would be put into Death Steles, forming a Death Scripture. From the Death Scripture, a Death Law would emerge. Within this Death Law would grow a Death Spirit. Finally, this Death Spirit would awaken into a Death Soul that could produce a Death Dao. Honestly, Cao Yun didn't know if it was just another manner of seeing the nine stages of Dao understanding, or if it was something completely different.
As he was thinking about it all, he wondered if the Dao of Fire had appeared as small flowers because the term Dao Bud had created this expectation in his mind. Maybe the Dao of Fire could have been manifested in many other ways. Although Cao Yun didn't worry too much, he decided to be careful about his ideas. He had to allow his mind to be flexible and open to other ideas so as not to restrain his Dao too much. After all, the ultimate goal was to fully understand the Dao, not merely to understand a small part of the Dao. Besides, some even claimed that a powerful cultivator could form his own Dao. In order to reach such an incredible goal, Cao Yun realized that imagination was important as well. He had to keep a flexible and open mind.
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Ten years had passed. Although Cao Yun did not have a perfect sense of the flow of time, he felt something. The door to his secluded room opened. In front of him was Feng Yingyue. As he looked at her, she appeared to be even more beautiful than before. Honestly, it was probably just the time spent in isolation, but she truly looked like a goddess in his eyes. Immediately, he forgot his ten years of hard work and only imagined his fingers caressing his wife's body. Cultivation was good, but dual cultivation was even better.
As he was imagining many things, Cao Yun realized something. Feng Yingyue was very good at hiding her emotions, but something was troubling her. The moment he saw it, she realized he had seen through her. Unfortunately, the news was so recent that even she was still affected by it. She didn't hesitate any longer.
"I'm sorry to announce such bad news after your long seclusion. Fang Shaolong lost his wife five months ago."
Cao Yun wasn't too surprised. The woman was indeed very old. In fact, it was wonderful for her to have lived so long. Unfortunately, she was a mere mortal, and she was too old and frail to cultivate at all. Thankfully, the Fang couple had been able to enjoy their time together to the fullest.
"You didn't warn me?"
"It was very sudden. There was no time for anyone to even visit her. Thankfully, Cao Bei was with her when that happened, so he was able to be there for her and for Fang Shaolong. Our son truly changed, you'll be surprised. Apparently, he had grown very attached to her, so it really upset him. However, he was the one who asked not to disturb you because there was nothing you could do about it. Since you weren't there, he stayed with Fang Shaolong to comfort him. And your uncle agreed with our son. Your cultivation was more important."
Hearing all that, Cao Yun wasn't sure how to take it. Even if he couldn't be there for his uncle's wife, he hoped to be there for Fang Shaolong.
"Your uncle is here to see you, as I told him this was the day you would leave seclusion. He's waiting for you already."
"Thank you. I'll go see him immediately. Is Cao Bei with him?"
"He is. Cao Sheng and Cao Yanmei are late. Some military action kept Cao Sheng busy, but he'll arrive in a matter of weeks. Cao Yanmei had other problems while traveling, but she'll be there in five to six days. She's looking forward to seeing you again. Hopefully, there won't be any bad news for our family reunion this time... How was your seclusion?"
Feng Yingyue tried to have a normal conversation, but Cao Yun was still thinking about Fang Shaolong. So he pushed aside his complex emotions and answered her very factually. They talked as Cao Yun left the seclusion room.