Chapter 70: Emerged From Closed-Door Cultivation
After saying some strange things, Fairy Jiang left the mountain to complete her mission.
During the next few days, Chu Liang continued to study and practice the Talisman Sword Seal, as well as some other things.
Whoosh—
A crescent-shaped green light whizzed through the forests of the mountain, leaving deep gorge-like cuts in all the trees it passed by. In the blink of an eye, this green light had already made its way across all of Silver Sword Peak.
Thud!
Just before the green light flew out of Silver Sword Peak, it finally came to a stop, cutting into the mountain wall with a muffled thud. Chu Liang swiftly leaped down from the leaf, avoiding colliding with the mountain too.
"This is too exciting..."
Chu Liang stood upright and wiped off the sweat from his forehead. He felt that he'd just experienced a truly thrilling flight.
The green leaf, which was embedded in the mountain, was still buzzing away with a shimmering radiance. Chu Liang raised his hand, summoned it back to him, and brushed his fingers against the sharp edges of the leaf.
Even ordinary flying swords aren't this sharp.
Chu Liang had to admit that Wen Yulong was indeed a genius at making enchanted tools. However, the thought process of this genius was quite different from that of ordinary people. The things he made were a little odd, but he had reasons to justify the need for every unusual aspect he'd implemented.
Wen Yulong had pointed out that the issue wasn't with the enchanted tool he'd made. Rather, it was because Chu Liang and cultivators in general often lacked dexterous control over their divine sense.
After putting some serious thought into that, Chu Liang realized that there was indeed a lot that he could learn from this.
The present generation of cultivators was focused on advancing their cultivation level and expanding the coverage of divine sense, so they weren't particularly concerned with improving the dexterity of their control over their divine sense.
For example, two people using a sword to travel might fly at the same speed in the open sky. However, if they had to fly through an area with complicated terrain, the more dexterous person would win.
Similarly, one of two people using the Sword Manipulation Technique might only be able to manipulate their sword to move back and forth in the same direction without any variation in its trajectory. Meanwhile, the other person was able to manipulate their sword dexterously with an unpredictable trajectory. If these two people were to fight, the person who was able to manipulate their sword more dexterously would certainly emerge as the victor.
Chu Liang understood this concept as exercising fine control.
A cultivator exercising fine control in their sword manipulation might not see much impact if they were using only one sword. Yet, they would see a drastic increase in their offensive ability when using the Hundred Swords Seal, in which a hundred swords were used to form a battle array.
Nevertheless, the current mainstream way of thinking might be, "I just need to work hard to advance my cultivation level. If you use the Hundred Swords Seal, I'll just use the Thousand Swords Seal. If my cultivation level is higher than yours, I'll naturally be able to crush you with my strength."
There was nothing wrong with this way of thinking, but Chu Liang felt that widening the scope and advancing one's cultivation should not be mutually exclusive. If a cultivator had enough vitality to focus on both simultaneously, it would be better for them to do that.
Moreover, exercising fine control was not just about controlling flying swords; it played a crucial role in the utilization of divine techniques.
So, today, Chu Liang wanted to make use of the green leaf to improve the dexterity of his divine sense and try exercising some fine control.
After working hard to improve his control of his divine sense, he managed to have a much better flight than the first time he tried using the green leaf. This time, he managed to get the green leaf to fly through the entirety of Silver Sword Peak before he lost control of it.
Looking at the deep groove in the mountain wall, Chu Liang thought that he'd found a new method of attack.
If he supplied the green leaf with enough foundational qi and used it to attack an opponent, the offensive power of the green leaf might be even more formidable than a typical Sword Manipulation Technique.
Of course, it would be no match at all for his sword qi when it was boosted by the Talisman Sword Seal.
Chu Liang had now become proficient in the combined talismanic script characters for wind and fire, allowing him to utilize the Dual Talismanic Sword of Wind and Fire. It was several times more powerful than a Talismanic Sword of Fire.
After spending some time deep in thought, Chu Liang saw a swordlight in the distance. It flew over and landed beside his cabin.
It seems I've got a guest.
Chu Liang put away the green leaf and went to greet his guest.
...
Upon returning to his cabin, Chu Liang found Lin Bei, whom he hadn't seen for many days, standing in front of his cabin door with a radiant smile.
"Heheheh!" Lin Bei laughed in greeting.
Chu Liang showed a small smile and asked, "Why do you have so much free time today?"
"Huh?" Lin Bei uttered when he heard that. He asked in return, "How did you know I've broken through to the middle stage of the Spiritual Awareness Realm?"
"..." Chu Liang fell silent for a moment. Then he said, "Congratulations."
"Recently, I've been putting myself through extremely arduous training and suppressing my desires. On average, I abstained for sixteen hours each day. Now, I've finally broken through to the next stage." Lin Bei's expression was filled with self-pity as he mentioned the hardships he'd experienced of late. "Just thinking about it makes me sad."
"You've worked hard," Chu Liang replied with a nod.
"But fortunately, I've finally succeeded. Now, I, your bro, am also an expert at the middle stage of the Spiritual Awareness Realm. We're finally in the same stage again!" Lin Bei exclaimed excitedly.
"Well..." Chu Liang smiled awkwardly. "Actually, we're not."
"What?" Lin Bei uttered, feeling startled.
"It's rather coincidental. I found out that I'd made a breakthrough when I woke up this morning," Chu Liang said nonchalantly. "I'm in the later stage of the Spiritual Awareness Realm now."
Lin Bei's smile suddenly stiffened. Then it turned into an expression of utter disbelief.
What the heck? He had a breakthrough again?
It hadn't been that long since they had returned to Mount Shu after completing their mission in Yanjiao City, and Lin Bei had only just managed to break through to the middle stage of the Spiritual Awareness Realm and bridge the small gap between the stages after such great difficulty.
You... Was there no bottleneck in your cultivation?
I've been bragging everywhere about how I've reached the middle stage, yet you just quietly advanced to the later stage? Doesn't that make me look really silly?
Moreover... if you keep advancing at this rate of a stage every two weeks, won't you reach the Golden Core Realm in a few days? Isn't that ridiculously absurd?
And what's that about waking up in the morning and finding out that you had a breakthrough? Don't you need to be actively working on your cultivation to advance?
No matter how Lin Bei thought about it, what Chu Liang had said seemed very fake.
Yet, Lin Bei could feel the flow of qi that Chu Liang was releasing. The power it contained was clearly of one level higher than his own. This meant what Chu Liang had said was undeniably true.
After experiencing a complex rollercoaster of emotions, Lin Bei crossed his arms with his lips pursed in a straight line, forming an aggrieved expression.
"Why?" Lin Bei grumbled. "Bro, I've worked so hard for so many days, yet why is the gap between us still getting wider?"
The further a cultivator advanced in their cultivation stage, the more difficult it would get. This meant that the gap between the beginning and middle stages of the Spiritual Awareness Realm was smaller than the gap between the middle and later stages.
"Maybe you didn't abstain enough from your indulgences," Chu Liang said casually like clouds drifting in a light breeze, without much change in emotion.
The Large-Headed Doll worked tirelessly day and night. It would be stranger if his cultivation speed were slow.
"Ah, forget it." Lin Bei felt aggrieved for just a moment and was grinning at him again soon after. "It's a good thing anyway. Now, we're even more powerful together."
"Did you come to find me just to let me know you had a breakthrough?" Chu Liang asked.
"Heheheh..." Lin Bei laughed and then said, "Of course not. I came to find you because of something important."
"Oh?"
Chu Liang shot Lin Bei a septical glance, doubting that the matter was something serious.
"Did you know that our eldest senior brother at Jade Sword Peak emerged from closed-door cultivation yesterday?" Lin Bei asked.
"Xu Ziyang?"
The terms that the disciples in the Mount Shu Sect used to address their fellow disciples were based on seniority. If there was no significant age difference, seniority was based on cultivation level. The disciple with the higher level of cultivation was considered the senior.
As a result, the eldest senior disciple of a peak did not necessarily refer to the disciple who had joined the peak earliest. Only those with exceptional talent and a very high level of cultivation could be publicly acknowledged as the eldest senior disciple of a peak.
Among the thirty-six peaks of Mount Shu, there weren't many disciples who had the title of eldest senior disciple. For instance, at Jade Sword Peak, the eldest senior disciple was Xu Ziyang, and at Azure Falling Peak, it was Jiang Yuebai. Meanwhile, at Silver Sword Peak, it was Chu Liang...
Only the disciples who were held in high esteem by the majority of their peers would have the right to be addressed as Eldest Senior Brother or Eldest Senior Sister.
"That's right." Lin Bei nodded. "He might cause some trouble for you."
"Why?" Chu Liang asked, his gaze turning prudent.
Xu Ziyang is Wang Xuanling's ace disciple. But if he wants to cause trouble for me, won't he have to wait until the Mount Shu Summit before he can do anything?
Chu Liang was thinking about the bet between his and Xu Ziyang's teachers.
"It's because of Junior Sister Ziqing," Lin Bei said.
"Huh?" Chu Liang uttered confusedly.
"Junior Sister Ziqing is Eldest Senior Brother Ziyang's biological younger sister. They've been dependent on each other since childhood, so Eldest Senior Brother dotes on her a lot," Lin Bei explained. "Junior Sister Ziqing has been moody and melancholic ever since we got back after completing the mission at the Southern Bastion Mountain. Once Senior Brother sees her in such a state, he'll definitely want to find out why she's so unhappy."
Lin Bei stroked his chin and analyzed the situation calmly, "I think Junior Sister Ziqing's current state is most likely due to matters of the heart. As the saying goes, which young lady doesn't think about love?
"There were only a few of us when we did our mission at the Southern Bastion Mountain. Senior Brother Fang Ting is too old, and Senior Brother Lu Ren doesn't need to be mentioned. That leaves the two of us, so I feel like the person who Junior Sister Ziqing secretly likes has to be either me or you!"
"..." Chu Liang was speechless.
"Eldest Senior Brother cares greatly for his sister, so he won't be happy when he finds out she's sad because of matters of the heart. Based on my understanding of him, he's very likely to cause trouble for the person his sister likes," Lin Bei continued. "So, I think we should leave the mountain and lie low in the meantime."
"Leave to... do missions?" Chu Liang asked.
He'd figured out Lin Bei's intentions.
Chu Liang considered Lin Bei's suggestion seriously, seeing as it had been a while since he had taken on any missions after returning from Yanjiao City...
One reason for this was that he'd been busy working on his cultivation. Another reason was that it simply wasn't necessary for him to take on missions. The profit he gained from selling fruit tea for a day was equivalent to what he'd gain from going on two missions. As such, he didn't have any desire to do missions anymore.
Nevertheless, Chu Liang's circumstances had changed. Jiang Yuebai was currently away from Mount Shu, and Chu Liang didn't need to rush as much to master the Talisman Sword Seal. Moreover, since he hadn't done any missions for a while, he hadn't had the chance to fight any big monsters. It was indeed rather lackluster to just cut down small venomous bees every day.
Additionally, he was pretty much exclusively using the White Pagoda, such an amazing treasure, like a juicer. It was truly a waste.
Consequently, he had been considering during the last couple of days whether he should take on a mission.
"Yes." Lin Bei nodded. "Bro, I just managed to snatch a mission located in the South Gate City. It's a fantastic opportunity."
"South Gate City?" Chu Liang asked. "Why do you want to go there?"
"Heheh..." Lin Bei smiled mysteriously. "It's because there's something good there, of course."
New novel 𝓬hapters are published on (f)reeweb(n)ovel.com