by A P Gore
A smile as innocent as a five-year-old’s popped on her face. “As you wish, young master. I’ll practice this new cultivation art.”
Putting the sword down, he moved closer to the stove and started eating slowly. Eating roasted meat and enjoying a calm chat with Fei’er. What else could replenish his mental energy faster? Half an hour later, his mental fortitude had recovered, so he started carving the first array on the second sword. He would have liked to wait a bit longer, but the beast blood would lose its potency soon, and he had to finish before it did.
Strength Expanding Array. It was a low-tier Silver Grade array carved using two layers: Qi Absorption Circle Array and Strength Enhancing Array. He could have used a Power Enhancement Array instead of the Strength Enhancing Array to increase his battle powers by a couple layers, but he didn’t. This sword was heavy as a boulder, and it would serve another purpose for him. Generally, qi cultivators liked lightweight swords because they lacked physical strength to handle heavy swords—like Fei’er who couldn’t even swing it properly. But he wasn’t a pure qi cultivator. With his Earth Grade Physical Root, he would have a better path with body cultivation, so he had to choose a heavy sword. Once he could imbue some qi into the sword, it would do wonders, as this array would increase its physical strength by a great margin.
And what qi cultivators despised was a weapon that could hit hard. They could protect their bodies by imbuing them with qi, but in front of absolute strength it was meaningless.
“Young master, why are you smiling like a depraved person? Are you thinking about some maiden?” Fei’er asked while chewing on a meat piece. Contradictory to her thin figure, she was a glutton.
He rolled his eyes. In fact, he had smug thoughts, but not about a girl. “Fei’er, be a good girl and don’t disturb me while I’m carving arrays.”
She giggled and went back to her stitching.
Half an hour later, a bright blue light shone through the room again, and the second sword hummed while red lines spread through its surface. But Wei wasn’t in any condition to check on it. Instead, he closed his eyes and lay on his back, resting his mind to replenish his mental fortitude.
Array carving was a tough job.
Half a day later, he opened his eyes and spotted Fei’er sitting next to him, staring at him with worried eyes.
“Don’t worry, I was just exhausted. Let’s go. We have to get out of here.” Now that the arrays were carved, he had nothing left to do here. It was time to leave. But before that, he had to collect something from the room. Heading toward the back area of the metal room, he searched for a hole inside it. It had been mentioned in the information he’d received from the worms. It had mentioned something about a metal token as a reward for the challenger.
A bright gold and black metal token fell into his hand when he pushed his hand inside that opening. It was a square token with a Qi Transformation Array carved on it. Along with it, a stack of approximately one hundred fruits came out. They were all Yin Yang Fruits, bean-sized with half gold and half black. They exuded a rotten and a sweet smell at the same time. He had seen this fruit in his previous life, and it was quite costly.
Wow! He was super rich now. Even selling ten fruits could bring him riches equal to the Li clan’s yearly profit.
Awesome!
Divine Refinement City was surely a super city. Although Qi Transformation Array wasn’t something top class, it required a lot of special ingredients to carve on an artifact, and that artifact also had to be top class. Until he reached his previous success in array carving, this would definitely help him with lower-level cultivation. While cultivating, it would gather essence energy and convert it into pure qi to help his cultivation. It was a priceless Gold Grade artifact and no one in the Mortal Realm would know anything about it. Even in the Martial Realm, only personal disciples of sect masters would have something extravagant like this.
“What a shiny thing, young master. Can you give it to me? I want to make some ornament out of it.”
Wei wanted to smack that lass’s head. Did she even know what those sect disciples would do to her if they know what she had in mind? It was a Silver Grade artifact, not a shiny fake stone people used for making trinkets.
“Wait until I find something better for you.” Her words reminded him of a stone mine that would be found in a few years. It had a Golden Emerald buried inside it. The gem didn’t have any special properties and only helped one in slowly healing their meridians, but it was stunningly beautiful, and princesses and noble ladies of the Mortal Realm went mad for it. It sold for quite a lot at auction and even attracted attention from female sect disciples as well. After all, what girl didn’t like to own a shiny beautiful stone?
Maybe he should take a trip there and mine that stone before anyone else. It wasn’t a dangerous place either.
“Let me clear these threads for us.” Saying this, he extended his hands and touched the threads.
Zap! Zap! Zap! Threads shot into his fingers.
Chapter 30 Yin Yang Threads
Li Wei felt like thousands of blades pierced his skin when he touched the black and golden threads. They invaded his body from all over, and he couldn’t do anything. Before touching these threads, he was confident he could move them away, but his confidence shattered like a glass falling on a paved surface.
He flopped on the hard surface and grabbed his head.
It was something outside his expectations, and painful. Consider someone putting a thread through your finger and taking it out of your leg, and that was happening in every inch of his body. Those threads were running amok inside him. And the irony, there were no wounds, not a single drop of blood outside of his body.
“Ahhhhhhh.” Crying, he rolled on the ground, ignoring the cold metal tearing his robe. The first golden thread that had entered his body shot into his right hand and vanished. Then the first black thread vanished inside his left hand, and like this every other thread started vanishing inside his hands.
“No!” With every thread shooting for his hands, his insides tore apart, and it felt like someone crushed his body, revived him, and then crushed him again.
It was inhuman, and he couldn’t stop it.
“T-h-” His tongue twisted inside his mouth. He was losing consciousness, and the pain was crushing his soul. Even when his soul had broken into pieces, he didn’t feel this much pain. It was a hundred times worse than when he’d refined his own body in a thousand-degree lit furnace.
“Young master!” Someone dropped next to him and shook his body, but he had no strength to answer.
The pain was overwhelming him, and he knew he was going to die.
However, he couldn’t even die. The pain just kept increasing, and he was going mad. In just few breaths, it became unbearable to the extent that he wanted to cut his hands off rather than endure it another moment.
He slapped his hands on the ground, trying to do something about the pain, but he could do nothing. It kept coming to him, wave after wave.
No, he couldn’t take it anymore, else he would go mad.
Somehow, he raised his wobbling body and steadied his legs firmly on the metal ground.
Fei’er reached forward to help him, but he pushed her away and ran toward the metal wall and slammed his head on it with all his might.
However, it didn’t comfort him. Instead, the pain increased and overwhelmed the pain from his crash. He wanted to bleed and fall unconscious, but the pain didn’t let him. It was tearing him from the inside, but he had no way to stop it.
Why couldn’t someone just cut his hands off instead?
“F-e-r . . .” He wanted to tell her to cut off his hands, but he couldn’t even speak a word.
Minutes passed, maybe hours, but the pain didn’t stop. He rolled on the ground endlessly, and when he couldn’t he just lay there with white pupils, unable to mutter a single word, his chest heaving in an erratic motion.
But he didn’t die.
Then it abruptly stopped
. It finally stopped after the last black thread entered his left hand.
There was no more pain.
As if it was an illusion, he couldn’t sense those threads inside his body at all.
But how could it be?
Heaving heavily, he spread his divine sense down his arms and checked their condition. But there was no change. They were the same as before.
Did they enter his dantian?
Sending his divine sense out again, he checked on his dantian, but he found nothing. Those worm-bodies lay there motionless, and there was no trace of those threads.
Then where the heck did those threads go?
He got up and looked around and found Fei’er curled in a fetus position, crying silently.
“Fei’er.” He touched her head and shook her a little.
“Young master.” Crying loud, she dived into his arms. Her tiny hands wrapped around his back, and she wet his chest with tears.
An indispensable feeling covered his heart. He rubbed the stupid lass’s back lightly, but he had a tear in his eyes.
“Fei’er don’t cry. I’m all right.”
But her sobs deepened, and she cried like someone had died in her close family.
He didn’t know what to do with this emotional lass, so he just patted her back.
After ten minutes, she pulled away and glared at him. “Did you play a prank on me?” Young master had vanished from her greeting, and that meant she was pissed off. Badly. “Why were you shouting like someone was cutting you apart while your body was unharmed?”
What could he say to her? His gaze dropped to his arms, but there was nothing about them. Their internal structure had shredded apart, but everything had healed like nothing had happened at all.
System: Information interface detected.
Downloading Yin Yang Hand Divine Art.
A divine art?
Chapter 31 Yin Yang Hand Divine Art
Yin Yang Hand Divine Art
Li Wei glanced at the words appearing in his mind. What kind of divine art was this?
When he muttered in his mind, a stream of information flew at him, the details of the cultivation method of Yin Yang Hand Divine Art.
For a moment, he didn’t understand where it came from. Then he realized it must have come from the mysterious “system.” When he’d gotten Five Elemental Way Qi Cultivation Art, it had displayed same words about information interface. This should be something related to the cultivation art.
He had to read more on this. “Fei’er. Give me some time to adjust to my condition. Then we will go.”
She nodded.
Closing his eyes, he sat on the metallic floor inside the now empty room and focused on the information. Before he closed his eyes, he spotted Fei’er pulling out her needle and gray robes.
Damn the lass.
Ignoring her, he focused on the information coming to his mind.
Lightning bolts shot across his mind when he read the next few lines.
This was a divine art, and not a martial skill. But why was there a divine art in the Inheritance Chamber of Divine Thunder City? It should give out martial skills.
A divine art was like a martial skill, but there weren’t many in the world. While one could learn hundreds of martial skills, one might only find one or two divine arts in their whole life. It also had impossible thresholds when compared to martial skills. Martial skills had low starting thresholds. Like his One Sword Strike. It could be learned from Refinement Realm, but all the divine arts he had seen required one to reach higher cultivation realms. The minimum he had seen was Houtian Realm. Fortunately, the Blood Essence Body jade slip had its own divine arts mentioned, and they were innate arts that he would learn when he reached a new realm and completed a constellation. That was one of the main reasons he’d practiced this cultivation art in this life.
This divine art was an outer art that he could practice after meeting its requirements.
A thin film of perspiration formed over his neck when he remembered how much he’d had to suffer to obtain a fire type divine art in his previous life. It had high requirements. To initiate the divine art, he’d had to peel his own skin back and stuff his muscles with fire type material. It was another painful period of his life. If it wasn’t for Wang Zia, he wouldn’t have gone through that torture.
Would he suffer something similar if he wanted to practice this?
No way. He would rather choose not to learn this if he had to go through the same torture once again. He had already suffered enough torture when the Soul Stone fused with his soul, and then when the golden and black threads entered his hands.
It was more than enough. Martial skills were easier and powerful.
Yet he glanced at the requirements to cultivate this divine art.
The first requirement was Yin Yang Hands. That was expected. Thinking about it, it had to do something with the yin yang worms in his dantian and the yin yang threads he’d absorbed.
It had to be the reason.
Reading further, he determined he had met this requirement by absorbing the yin yang threads. After absorbing golden threads in his right hand, it had had become a Yang Hand, and after absorbing black threads in his left hand, it had become a Yin Hand.
So, this was it.
There was a second requirement: Houtian Realm. Once he reached Houtian Realm in his body cultivation, he would be able to cultivate the first stage of Yin Yang Divine Hands. Until then, he could only use its power using external sources.
“Shit! What is this thing?” He couldn’t resist shouting when he read its usage.
“Young master, what happened? Are you in pain?” Fei’er dropped her shiny silver needle and bent forward to grab his arm.
He shook his head. “No. I’m just surprised. You continue.” And he closed his eyes once again.
This was epic. No, this was a cheat divine art. How could such a divine art exist in this world?
Ying Yang Hands allowed him to control the vitality of living things. His Yang Hand acted as the giver, and the Yin Hand acted as a taker. The information said the gods of life and death combined their power to create this divine art, and once someone mastered it to the highest stage, stage seven, one could become a life and death god themself.
Damn. God of death and life. Would he become immortal then?
His face fell when he read the next line. It was like getting a plate of heavenly food in a restaurant, but then the waiter came to take it away, saying it was a mistake.
He couldn’t use this power on himself. Even using it on other humans required him to reach a higher stage. The first stage would only allow him to use it on small plants and animals.
This was way long. For current him, Houtian Realm was like a distant dream. Even with his previous life’s knowledge, it would take years to reach that realm.
But there were things that could allow him to use this divine art in a limited capacity, and it required external things to activate it. Something that had both yin and yang in harmony. Something like the hundred Yin Yang Fruits he’d gotten from the secret cache of the worms.
But where should he try it?
“Young master. Are you done? I’m feeling hungry. Let’s go. The passage is open.” Fei’er tugged his gray sleeve, and he came out of his ruminations.
“Yes, let’s head out.” They needed to get out of this ruined city and find food if they wanted to live. Analysis and rumination could wait.
Glancing around, he made sure he’d left nothing behind and then walked forward. Now that the threads were gone, the room looked quite plain. It smelled like nothing, nor had it a speck of dust.
But in passing, he spotted some carvings on the side walls. When he looked carefully, they looked like array diagrams. When he compared them to the array diagrams in the Inheritance of Array Master book, they didn’t match.
Maybe these diagrams were advanced diagrams. Well, the Inheritance of Array Master was supposed to have three volumes, but two were missing. T
hese diagrams might have some similarities to them.
With that thought, he focused on the first diagram.
He went over to the first diagram on the righthand wall, trying to discern its meaning, but even after spending half an hour studying it, he found nothing that resembled his previous knowledge.
Maybe he was wasting his time.
He sighed in his heart. “Let’s go.”
System: Scanning complete. Saving new diagrams in database.
Chapter 32 What!
What!
Wei frowned and stopped, his heart beating erratically. The strange system had popped up again in his vision, and it had said something about the diagram.
Opening his eyes, he traced the strange diagram on the metal wall with a fingertip. The metal felt warm around the diagram, and that meant it had some profound meaning. He was just too low level to understand anything.
But what could be so profound that even he, an Array Master, couldn’t understand?
Goosebumps spread over his arms when he thought of various possibilities.
“Young master, are we going or not? If you are going to stay, I’ll complete the next robe,” she hissed.
Black lines popped on Wei’s forehead. More because of this little lass than the strange system saying it had done something impossible.
Unable to restrain himself, he flicked her small forehead with his middle finger. Suddenly, he realized she looked fairer than before. It must have been because of the cultivation improvement.
“Ouch, young master.” She rubbed her forehead and stepped away from him. “You’re bullying me now.”
“It will take us some time.” He glanced at the diagrams. There were ten, five on each side of the metallic wall. If it took half an hour for each diagram, then they would be here for at least five hours. “Finish your work.”
But before he started with anything, he wanted to look at the diagram the system had stored somewhere. Because it was impossible to copy these diagrams. If one wanted to copy them on paper, one had to first understand and comprehend them. Without comprehension, the diagrams wouldn’t get copied. That’s why the Inheritance of Array Master book was open to all who had basic knowledge of arrays. In fact, many people had tried to copy array diagrams from the book and take them away, but they’d failed to draw a single line on paper. His master used to call it Comprehension Lock. One had to learn and comprehend the essence of the diagram before copying it.
