Chapter 117: Recovering and Lullaby
Before dawn, Jiang Yue, Yu Nianzhen, Wang Xue’er, and Xuan Ke met outside their tents.
After ensuring everything was ready, they left the area and walked tens of metres to a remote part of the base.
"This place is fine." Xuan Ke stopped at a flat area near the array boundary.
"Use these bowls to collect blood. In the meantime, I will draw the ritual circle."
Xuan Ke gave each of them a golden bowl, and they began to bleed into the bowls.
After making sure they were doing it right, he went on his way to draw the ritual circle and arrange the gathered materials in the appropriate places.
He then placed the five female corpses at the circle’s centre and waited for the right time.
When dawn arrived, Xuan Ke promptly started the ritual, and a shichen later, all five female corpses were purified.
Afterwards, the group buried the bodies and returned to the tent area.
"I will go inside to recover." Xuan Ke said when they arrived in front of his tent.
"There are three qi replenishing pills in this bottle." Yu Nianzhen handed a bottle to the monk.
"Brother Yu is conscientious."
The monk took the bottle and laughed before he entered his tent.
"Fellow Daoist..."
"There is no need. I have enough blood replenishing pills." Wang Xue’er interrupted Jiang Yue.
"If it’s all the same, I will recover in the next short while. Let’s meet again later."
Wang Xue’er cupped her hands and also went into her tent.
"Let’s also go."
"En."
After the two entered their tent, they released a defence array plate and activated it.
The released formation wasn’t too powerful, but it could fully enclose the small tent, which made the two young men relieved.
When that was done, Yu Nianzhen pulled Jiang Yue for a kiss, and they indulged for a moment before they pulled apart.
"Take care of yourself." Yu Nianzhen said.
"Same to you."
After that, they retreated to opposite corners of the tent.
Although the distance between them was only three metres, it was long enough to prevent them from interfering with each other’s cultivation while allowing them to keep an eye on each other.
A moment later, both were sitting cross-legged and had their eyes closed.
As soon as he entered the meditative state, Jiang Yue sunk his consciousness into his dantian.
He saw his qi ocean and the cloudy moon pearl floating above it.
Everything looked as usual, and he moved his mind to remove a bottle from his storage ring.
This bottle contained mid-grade blood replenishing pills, and he quickly swallowed one.
When the pill fell into his stomach, it immediately began to break apart, and red liquid entered his veins and mixed with his blood.
However, this liquid was not blood but an elixir formed by the broken-down pill.
Jiang Yue divided a few strands of qi to capture the liquid and began to refine the medicine.
An hour later, one-quarter of his blood was recovered.
Without delay, he took another pill and continued to refine.
This process was repeated a few times, and three shichen later, all the blood used in the ritual was recovered.
Jiang Yue opened his eyes but didn’t stand up.
’It’s great to recover the blood.’ He thought.
Although he was a cultivator, blood loss was still a severe matter.
It not only made him dizzy but also weakened his body significantly.
If he had to fight in that state, Jiang Yue would be unable to exert half his strength, which was a disadvantage in the fight.
After taking a few deep breaths and observing the blood flowing in his veins, he closed his eyes.
Once again, he sunk his consciousness into the dantian and allowed it to linger there.
At this time, the qi in his qi ocean was a clear colour with a higher viscosity than water.
However, its enhanced viscosity didn’t affect its circulation.
Instead, it not only allowed more qi to be packed into his qi ocean but also increased his usage efficiency.
A drop of qi now was several times more powerful than when he first reached the peak of the ninth level of the origin forging realm.
’I should continue to purify my qi. The higher the quality of qi, the higher the number of illusion qi drops I will transform when I break through to the qi transformation realm.’
Without hesitation, Jiang Yue began to refine his qi.
However, he had been doing this since he reached the peak of the origin forging realm and his qi was very pure.
His efforts now did not produce too much change, but Jiang Yue did not give up.
He believed every small change would bring a big change in the future.
’It’s a butterfly effect.’ He thought and continued to grind.
In this way, Jiang Yue spent the next day refining his qi.
When he could no longer enhance the qi quality, he opened his eyes and exhaled a turbid breath.
’What I need now is an opportunity to transform my qi ahead of time.’
He looked at Yu Nianzhen who sat across from him and slightly envied him.
Yu Nianzhen had refined the mysterious black sword, and his cultivation trajectory was significantly altered.
At the origin forging realm, Yu Nianzhen had already transformed part of his origin qi into sword qi.
Jiang Yue wished this for himself.
However, his envy was only because he wanted to become stronger and walk alongside Yu Nianzhen.
More than envy, he was happy for the other.
When he thought of this, Jiang Yue smiled and removed a piece of jade from his storage ring.
This jade contained the musical score of lullaby, and Jiang Yue immediately sunk his consciousness into it.
The score was one page long with nine sets of ledger lines.
Since he found the score, Jiang Yue had only learned the first ledger line.
Even then, he had yet to master the line.
Because of this, he needed a buffer time for lullaby to take effect and once it did, it could only last a few breaths before the effect dissipated.
’How should I go about this?’ He wondered as he looked at the score.
His first plan was to continue perfecting the first ledger line of lullaby.
If he was diligent enough, he believed he would master it to a point where lullaby would take effect as soon as he struck the first note.
However, mastering this first line was easier said than done.
Although Jiang Yue had wasted a lot of time mastering the whip, he had made sure to spend a little time on lullaby.
From that, he knew lullaby was incredibly complex, and stubbornly practising the first line would not help him master it.
’Should I learn the second ledger line and then use the experience to relearn the first line?’
After this thought came to him, Jiang Yue already knew what he would do.
Without delay, he began to learn the second line.
Compared to the first line, the second line was at least three times more complex.
Even with his music experience from his previous life, Jiang Yue still found it difficult to learn.
This was not because he could not understand the notes or other musical notations.
It was because he had to understand the intent of the music before he could use it.
This intent was, however, different from sword intent.
In swordsmanship, a swordsman could learn and use a sword art without comprehending its intent.
The lack of intent would make the sword art weaker, but the art could still be powerful.
However, this was different for illusion arts.
Knowing the intent of an illusion art was the key to using the illusion art.
Because of this, the intent of an illusion art was part of the art rather than an evolution or enhancement of the art.
’Playing the first line causes an opponent to enter a pleasant dream state for a few breaths.’ Jiang Yue pondered.
Considering the score was called ’lullaby’, Jiang Yue guessed all the lines of the score were about pleasant dreams.
What differed was the depth of immersion and stimulus.
At this thought, Jiang Yue emptied his mind and allowed his thoughts to form naturally.
Once in a while, he would grab onto a single thought and ponder it before letting it go.
After nine hours, Jiang Yue finally had a vague understanding of the first note on the second line.
However, he did not rush to release his pipa to practice it.
Instead, he imagined the note in his mind and formed a vague idea of how the music would sound and the effect it would bring.
When this was done, he felt like a layer of dust was removed from his mind.
He turned his mind to the first line of the score and began to relearn it.
This time, he felt like he was seeing the notes for the first time.
In addition to his previous understanding of the first line, new understanding came to him.
The familiar notes became a little more complex, and as he studied them, Jiang Yue imagined himself in a concert hall.
The hall was similar to the first hall he played at in his previous life.
It was fifty metres long and twenty metres wide.
The stage was at the front, and it was two metres above the ground.
Although there was no one in the hall now, Jiang Yue remembered the feeling of performing there.
When he thought about it, his entire being relaxed and understanding the first line of lullaby became a little easier.
