Chapter 64: Ten Thousand Source Technique
The gray-robed old man looked toward Li Yan.
“All techniques and arts in the pavilion marked in green are free to take. Those marked in other colors require spirit stones to exchange.”
Li Yan only half-understood, his gaze turning toward Li Wuyi in confusion. With a smile, Li Wuyi answered on his behalf.
“Martial Uncle Gu, I’ll explain the details to him in a bit.”
“Very well, go on in then.”
The gray-robed elder lazily waved his hand, and instantly, a swirling black vortex opened behind him, hovering silently in midair, slowly rotating. It radiated a sense of mystery and danger.
Li Yan stared, dumbfounded. He could vaguely guess its purpose, but looking at it now, it was like a giant beast’s gaping maw, and he couldn’t help but feel a chill run through him.
Li Wuyi took a step forward, grabbed Li Yan, and without giving him a chance to react, lifted him off the ground and flew directly into the vortex.
The abruptness of the movent made Li Yan cry out in alarm. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and when he opened his eyes again, he found himself already standing inside a pavilion.
The interior stretched about seven or eight zhang across. Li Yan couldn’t help but look around.
He and Li Wuyi were now standing at the center of this pavilion floor. Behind them, the black vortex was still gently rotating, while ahead stood three staircases leading upward.
Just as he had suspected, this place must exist in another spatial realm, much like a storage pouch. Perhaps that vortex was a teleportation array, transporting them to another location near Little Bamboo Peak.
Li Yan speculated inwardly based on his ager experience.
“Junior Brother,” Li Wuyi spoke, “this is the Treasure Repository. The three staircases ahead, left leads to the Library Pavilion, center to the Armory Pavilion, and right to the Herb Pavilion. The nas alone should be enough for you to guess their purpose.”
Li Yan turned his gaze toward the staircases. The left one glowed faintly white, the middle shimred yellow, and the right one pulsed with a pale blue hue.
“Let’s go.”
With that, Li Wuyi lifted his foot and walked toward the rightmost staircase. Li Yan, feeling a surge of excitent, quickly followed. This marked his true first step into the world of cultivation.
When they reached the staircase, a flash of white light enveloped Li Wuyi’s body, and he vanished. But when Li Yan tried to step onto the stairs, he suddenly felt as if he’d slamd into an invisible barrier and was imdiately bounced back.
Caught completely off guard, he nearly landed flat on his rear. Stunned, he looked up at the stairs. He’d just seen Li Wuyi pass through effortlessly, why was he being blocked?
“Could this be protected by a formation array?”
He cautiously stepped forward again and reached out a finger toward the pale white glow. The mont his fingertip touched it, he felt the surface of sothing like an invisible mbrane.
It had elasticity. Li Yan pressed harder several tis, but it wouldn’t give way.
He withdrew his finger and thought for a mont, ruling out the idea that entry required a command dallion, Li Wuyi hadn’t used one, nor had any light flared on his body.
After a mont’s thought, he infused his finger with spiritual energy and pressed it against the barrier again. This ti, after a slight resistance, his finger pierced through. The next instant, it vanished from view.
There was no pain. Slowly withdrawing his finger, he watched it reappear bit by bit from the base outward.
Now he understood. Gathering his strength, his body flickered with black light as he took another step forward and the mont he passed through the barrier, the world dimd for a breath.
He was now standing on another level of the pavilion.
Ahead, Li Wuyi stood with his hands clasped behind his back, back turned. Li Yan couldn’t help but feel a bit ashad.
He had needed to summon all his strength just to get in, while Li Wuyi had walked through effortlessly, as if it were nothing.
Li Wuyi didn’t turn around. He had been waiting, quietly testing his junior’s cultivation. Entry here required at least Qi Condensation third level. Below that, one would need assistance to pass through.
Yesterday, he had heard that Li Yan’s divine sense could leave his body even at Qi Condensation second level. So he had been curious to see whether this junior brother’s spiritual power matched his extraordinary soul.
Though his own cultivation in late Foundation Establishnt allowed him to sense that Li Yan wasn’t weak, he still couldn’t assess him as clearly as their master or Martial Uncle Gu, those could asure Li Yan’s spiritual energy depth with one glance.
Now, seeing that Li Yan had entered by his own strength, Li Wuyi was inwardly amazed.
“My little junior brother’s spiritual power is quite impressive indeed. So the 'Fractured Poison Body' truly is terrifying... and to think he’s only a mixed spiritual root!”
Li Yan steadied himself and looked around. The room held ten shelves filled with jade slips and ancient scrolls.
“This level holds only Qi Condensation techniques. Green denotes ordinary, yellow indicates high-grade.”
Li Wuyi’s gentle voice rang beside him.
Looking more closely, Li Yan saw that each jade slip and book emitted either a green or yellow glow.
“Green ones can be taken freely. Yellow ones require spirit stones. The yellow slips mostly contain high-tier immortal techniques, only a few are cultivation thods. No matter the realm, high-grade cultivation thods are always rare.”
“You can choose a yellow thod if you’d like. As for the spirit stones, I can lend you so. Just repay whenever you’re able.”
“As for immortal techniques, it's best to start with the lower-level green ones. These must be cultivated from the basics, unlike cultivation techniques, which rely more on their grade. Take your ti and have a look.”
With a warm smile, Li Wuyi finished his explanation and fell silent.
Li Yan gave a word of thanks and walked to one of the shelves, his eyes gleaming with curiosity. He picked up a green jade slip and sent his divine sense into it.
“Cloud-Locked Azurewood Technique. Low-grade wood-elent cultivation thod. Cultivating this thod grants vast and enduring spiritual power. In combat, it imbues attacks with the elusive power of mist and fog, baffling even spirits and ghosts. While cultivating, bathing in decoctions of Hairleaf Grass, Congju, and Caiyu Leaf will gradually strengthen the body until it becos as resilient as tal or stone…”
After reading the brief summary, Li Yan put the jade slip back and turned to a nearby yellow one, sending his divine sense inside.
“Magnetism Technique. Entry-level mid-grade immortal technique. Price: seven low-grade spirit stones. Effect: Generates a localized gravitational field within ten zhang of the user, ranging from one to ten tis normal gravity. Creatures within this field will be slowed, or even crushed to death by the pressure.”
He continued browsing, picking up a few ancient scrolls. They appeared to be made of so unknown beast hide, and one in particular flickered with a soft green glow as he opened it…
“This one is The History of the Barren Moon Continent…” It was a book introducing the history of the cultivation world across this land since ancient tis.
He flipped open another ancient book glowing with a yellow hue.
“Comprehensions on Aerial Step, price: seven low-grade spirit stones…” This appeared to be cultivation insights left behind by a predecessor.
Li Wuyi had been quietly observing Li Yan. Watching him stroll, stop intermittently, and release his divine sense from ti to ti, he was finally convinced that Li Yan did indeed possess this ability despite being only at the second level of Qi Condensation. After a while, he also stepped forward and occasionally offered so explanations.
An hour later, Li Yan returned to the swirling black vortex on the first floor of the pavilion with five green jade slips and seven or eight green-glowing ancient books in hand.
Li Wuyi could only shake his head in mild resignation. Earlier, he had tried to recomnd a water-elent technique from the yellow jade slips called Heavenly Flow, but after so thought, Li Yan declined.
In the end, he selected a cultivation thod titled Ten Thousand Source Technique, a technique without any elental attribute. In other words, it could be cultivated by anyone regardless of their spiritual root. As Li Yan explained:
“Being of mixed spiritual roots, focusing solely on a water-based technique might actually slow my progress compared to this.”
The greatest feature of this technique was its rapid advancent, it was particularly effective in breaking through bottlenecks between realms. In short, it could be sumd up in one word:
“Fast!”
However, its shortcomings were equally pronounced. Its offensive power was abysmal. Compared to others of the sa level, practitioners of this technique were sorely lacking in combat ability. All in all, this thod was created for those who pursued longevity above all else.
After thinking it over, Li Wuyi no longer insisted. He knew that for a mixed-root cultivator, progressing past the seventh or eighth level of Qi Condensation was incredibly difficult. Even with the aid of large quantities of pills, the odds of forming a foundation were far worse than for cultivators with more pure spiritual roots.
Rather than force another path, better to gift this junior brother with a stroke of fortune. At the very least, he could advance quickly and extend his lifespan.
The sect had originally hoped to invest heavy resources to cultivate Li Yan into a powerful Foundation Establishnt cultivator, but Wei Chongran ultimately preferred that Li Yan follow his own path.
After all, Foundation Establishnt only granted around two hundred years of life. If Li Yan possessed so unique, grand destiny, perhaps he could reach even greater heights.
So, Wei Chongran had given no specific instructions on what cultivation thod to assign Li Yan, but Li Wuyi was no fool. Though his master hadn’t said it outright, he could vaguely guess that the sect had accepted this mixed-root disciple to harness the potential of his poison body.
Li Yan, in truth, only wanted to casually select a cultivation thod, he had no intention of actually using it. However, he still needed sothing that could plausibly conceal the Guishui True Scripture. The mont he saw Ten Thousand Source Technique, his eyes lit up.
This technique was practically tailor-made for him: non-elental, with a knack for breaking through bottlenecks. In the future, if he advanced realms or used any type of elental spiritual power, others when learning his cultivation thod wouldn’t find it odd.
Thus, Li Yan decisively chose this thod. If Li Wuyi had continued to press the matter, he would have found countless reasons to refuse.
The other four green jade slips were the basic elental spells he had long yearned for.
He chose: Wind Blade Technique, Fireball Technique, Flowing Sand Technique, and Raincloud Technique. There were quite a few more, but Li Yan understood well that trying to master too many would only slow his progress.
As for the seven or eight glowing green ancient books, they were primarily historical records and introductory manuals on cultivation, books such as The History of the Barren Moon Continent and A Comprehensive Guide to Cultivation Paths.
Li Yan understood his own shallow foundation and the need to amass knowledge. Among these selected books were also basic texts on formations, alchemy, and the like.
He had no intention of cultivating those disciplines in-depth, but a broad understanding was necessary.
According to Li Wuyi, once he brought the jade slips and books out of the pavilion, the gray-robed elder would inspect them and then seal their contents into his sea of consciousness using an immortal art. When Li Yan needed them, he could gradually unseal and absorb the information into his mory until the seals fully dissolved.
As he glanced toward the remaining two staircases and was about to leave, Li Yan asked curiously:
“Eldest Senior Brother, do those two places also require a certain level of spiritual power to enter, like the Library Pavilion?”
Li Wuyi didn’t respond directly. With a faint smile, he said:
“The Library Pavilion contains many restrictions. The level we just visited only houses techniques suitable for Qi Condensation cultivators.
Actually, in one of the corners of that floor, there’s a staircase, did you notice? That staircase leads to the upper floors with techniques for Foundation Establishnt cultivators.”
Li Yan paused, trying to recall. It did seem like there was a white-glowing area in one corner, but at the ti he had been too focused on the jade slips and texts to pay it much attention.
Li Wuyi continued:
“Each level of the Library Pavilion has a staircase leading higher, all the way up to the Nascent Soul stage. But only those with sufficient strength can ascend. Otherwise, they won’t just be blocked, they may trigger the restrictions and be killed on the spot.
"As for the other two staircases you ntioned, they’re not entered based on cultivation level. Instead, one must be personally escorted by Martial Uncle Gu. Those chambers hold spirit pills and precious weapons, very valuable resources for cultivation.”
As he spoke, Li Wuyi patted the storage pouch at his waist. A flash of five-colored light later, several items floated into the air.
“Speaking of resources, I may as well give you so things here. Aside from the standard entry supplies you received at the Duty Hall on Old Lord Peak, each month Little Bamboo Peak also distributes cultivation resources to its disciples.
"You’ll receive three low-grade spirit stones and three Fasting Pills every month, the sa allotnt given to Qi Condensation disciples on the other four peaks. At the start of each month, during the early hours, just visit the main hall to collect them.
"Once you reach Foundation Establishnt, your monthly resources will increase severalfold.”
Gazing at the floating porcelain vial and three shimring spirit stones, Li Yan bead with joy. He hadn’t expected to receive even more spirit stones. He quickly thanked his senior brother and stored the items away into his own pouch.
(Chapter End)
Reviews
All reviews (0)