"Third layer reached! Yeah, baby!!! Wooooo-Hoooooo!!!"
"First layer reached! Yeah, baby!!! Wooooo-Hooooooo!!!"
"Hmph! Frog in a well, what’s there to celebrate about after rely reaching the first layer of a Mystic Art?"
"Why? What’s wrong with celebrating after reaching the first layer? You weren’t even on the first layer two months ago."
"I didn’t celebrate like you, Zhanxian! Reaching the first layer is just a fancy way of saying you’re an inexperienced newbie! You’re not even a real cultivator before you break through to the second layer! Stop making a big deal out of it!"
"Master, you’re celebrating even after being on the lowest layer of the first major realm among the current disciples of your generation. I an, your cultivation used to be lower than that just yesterday, but you’ve not achieved anything to boast about either, have you?"
"...Damned brat! You dare talk back to Daddy?" Han Xuhan clutched his chest, feeling a phantom pain in his heart.
"So what? What are you gonna do? Threaten to lock up in your foundation tower? Hah, go ahead! Nothing will make happier! What else? Death? I’m already dead! Torture? I, Zhanxian, don’t even feel pain!"
"...Those are all excellent points, Zhanxian. But you forgot one thing. Anything that has consciousness can be tortured, you fool! I can lock you up inside the sect’s shit-pits, where you’ll have to deal with being showered with a thousand tonnes of shit every damn day!
"I can also venture into the mouths of the most dangerous places on this planet and throw you in there to enjoy the show. I might even return to the Holy Land of Laws and throw you into the center of a zombie horde. So what do you say?"
"....You would do that to , your precious bone-shield?"
"Not so precious anymore, Zhanxian. I’ve just created my second skeleton soldier, did you forget? Hahahaha!"
Evil laughter emanated from Han Xuhan’s hut for quite so ti, following the argunt. In the end, Zhanxian could only compromise. The man and the skeleton tumbled out of the hut after a mont and started dancing in the yard, pretending that the conversation just then did not happen.
Neither of them looked like those graceful cultivators in the legends and paintings. Han Xuhan’s matted hair stuck out at odd angles while Zhanxian.... was a skeleton, whose dug-up bones were a pretty bizarre sight on their own.
Zhanxian’s body was now full of crisscrossing scars that glowed faint blue whenever he wanted them to. Gas-like qi flowed within the channels on his bones, creating sothing that any cultivator would recognize—a qi cycle.
The technique supplied by Xuanyuan Zhou had three layers only, unlike every other Mystic Arts manual Han Xuhan had seen so far. The first layer would allow the practitioner to mimic a regular cultivation process and run qi cycles. The second layer would improve the quality of the qi and the practitioner’s control, and the third would eliminate so of the side effects.
Han Xuhan had done so research on the background of the technique in the last few days. Unlike his fruitless search earlier for Mystic Arts that didn’t need to rely on ridians, he had found so information since he had a lead.
Senior Brother Lin, the disciple in charge of copying manuals in the archives, had helped him get the information on the origin of Xuanyuan Zhou’s Mystic Art.
One of its main side effects was that constant contact with the barely controlled flow of qi damaged the inner organs and killed most of the practitioners before they even reached the third layer.
He had learned that the creator of the technique had died soon after he discovered the qi poisoning phenonon. He had secretly tortured and mutilated many innocent cultivators while creating the technique.
In the end, ntal demons, vengeful friends of his victims, the pressure of many sects’ enmity with him finally broke his resolve, resulting in his death during a qi deviation. However, the principles used to create the technique were known only to him.
So no one else could change its basics, and few would be desperate enough to mutilate themselves or others to carve permanent artificial channels of qi into their bodies.
So had tried, of course. Those who were mad enough to follow the technique word by word managed to cultivate smoothly till the third layer, where most of them died from poisoning. As for those who did not stick to the basics in fear of such an ending, their modifications hadn’t led them to success either.
All in all, if the righteous sect officially recognized the demonic path, this technique would be voted to be at the forefront of the techniques of the demonic path.
Han Xuhan had felt his heart go cold after he had fished out the manual’s background. If he had blindly trusted Xuanyuan Zhou, his ending could have been the sa as those reckless fellows!
No wonder the system claid that Xuanyuan Zhou was treating him as her experintal subject! She probably wanted to forge the subsequent layers of the technique through the results!
But why the hell did she need to experint with a technique like this? Wasn’t she afraid of being discovered and punished for ssing around with such crazy experints?
Han Xuhan had thought about this issue for a long ti and failed to find an answer. He only had tentative theories.
Perhaps she thought that if he started cultivating it, he’d have to beg for her help. Even if he only cultivated till the peak of the first layer, he’d notice the damage his body was taking under the influence of the qi. He’d have to contact her, beg her for so sort of solution, and agree to her demands....
So insidious! The world of cultivation was so insidious! Even friendly people were not to be trusted. Xuanyuan Zhou probably did not think there was anything wrong with her sche, since she didn’t explicitly hide anything from him. But to Han Xuhan, this mindset was terrifying.
But thinking ahead, this also ant that the source of this technique, Xuanyuan Zhou, might have so sort of a solution to the side effects. How else would she find a leverage to hold on him?
"How do I get my hands on this precious secret?"
While dancing energetically, Xuhan’s head spun with new sches. He needed to co up with another thod if he wanted the info. It would be inconvenient to directly confront her and beg for it.
He didn’t want her to beco so complacent in her dominant role, now that he had the sa status as her in the sect. Up till now, he had allowed himself to be ordered around by her out of necessity. The power dynamic between them would be a little different now.
Of course, he didn’t want to ruin the beneficial relationship he had with her. Be it Xuanyuan Zhou or Mu Ran, he knew he had to maintain a favorable image in front of them.
But those things could be taken care of later. Right now, it was ti for so celebration! One month of nonstop, money-burning sessions of qi cycling had passed.
He had broken through to the third layer of the Skeleton Monarch technique after so long! So of his peers were still stuck on this level. He was no longer the trashiest disciple in his generation!
Elder Kong Ye’s disciple assessnt had co and gone quite so ti ago. The small competition had gotten Han Xuhan kicked out of his ’favored’ group during the lessons; not that the outco was a surprise to anybody.
Han Xuhan hadn’t even tried to compete seriously, knowing that he and Zhanxian combined didn’t stand a chance against anybody in his generation. But for so reason, perhaps out of pity, Elder Kong Ye still made so ti for him at the end of every lecture, guiding him on his path forward.
Today, the dedicated cultivation sessions had finally borne the fruit. Zhanxian was about to get a new playmate!.
This ti, Han Xuhan hadn’t made the mistake of creating a human skeleton. Rather, he had gone for a bird!
In his eyes, for soone cultivating a non-combative Mystic Art, information was the most useful resource. A scout that could fly up ahead and keep an eye on every direction was the best minion he could imagine at the mont. Even if it had a trashy personality like Zhanxian, it would be a great scout!
After a great amount of research, his target bird was fixed—an owl!
Owls were one of the few common species in these mountains that could see during both day and night. Granted, its daylight vision was pretty weak, but Han Xuhan himself wasn’t blind during the day, so it was the most optimal choice.
All he had to do for a skeleton model for reference was to issue a task through the sect’s Task Administration Pavilion, promising a handful of spirit stones for an intact corpse of an owl.
The trip to retrieve a soul through the skeletal monarch technique was uneventful, quite similar to the previous ti, and Han Xuhan had no idea what type of personality the bird would have. But since it was just a bird, he probably didn’t need to worry much.
Now there was an avatar of the bird skeleton inside his foundation tower, slowly getting used to its undead life while Han Xuhan celebrated loudly outside.
And his celebration seed to have attracted a guest. A figure jumped over the fence around his hut, shouting jubilantly.
"Underling, did you break through? That’s excellent news!"
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