Chapter 132: root (5)
132 – root (5)
Looking at this fish’s state of utter despair, with lifeless eyes, it’s probably already about thirty percent cooked. It’s time to sprinkle on some cumin and chili for flavor, then flip it over and continue roasting evenly.
Lin Xun walked over and sat cross-legged beside the fish, reaching out to touch his hand—his hand had already dried out. In the past, these hands were delicate, fair, and tender.
The moment their skin made contact, Lin Xun saw Qi Yun’s dead-fish-like eyes finally shift, looking toward his location with some surprise.
He was in an invisible state. The Concealment Talisman not only hid one’s form but also concealed spiritual awareness to prevent detection by enemies. Therefore, they couldn’t communicate through spiritual transmission. Fortunately, they still had physical presence. He pressed down on Qi Yun’s wrist and slowly wrote in his palm, “Are you okay?”
To ensure Qi Yun could understand, he wrote very slowly.
Sure enough, Qi Yun’s index finger twitched. Lin Xun brought his own left palm closer.
Qi Yun wrote, “I’m not okay.”
Then he added, “Who are you?”
Lin Xun wrote, “Guess.”
Qi Yun wrote, “Is it the monk?”
Lin Xun wrote mercilessly, “No.”
Then, he saw Qi Yun’s look of utter despair deepen even further. His entire face seemed to spell out a big “Oh,” with disappointment overflowing.
Alright then.
Qi Yun: “Then you’re Lin…”
He didn’t finish writing the last character because he started incorrectly, mistakenly writing the bamboo radical for “suan” as the grass radical, and then didn’t know how to continue. In the end, he just scribbled a few strokes to get it over with.
Lin Xun: “…”
Although Qi Yun’s actions were improper—he couldn’t even write his name correctly—Lin Xun still had a conscience.
He wrote, “But the monk is here too.”
Qi Yun blinked.
Qi Yun wrote, “Get me out of here quickly. I’m almost dried out.”
Lin Xun wrote, “No.”
Qi Yun: “?”
Qi Yun: “Let the monk talk to me.”
Lin Xun: “Not allowed.”
Chang Ji had a bit of a nurturing affection for Qi Yun and would likely indulge this fish to some extent. But Lin Xun was different—he was an emotionless keyboard cultivator.
He wrote, “Tell me a few things, and I’ll take you away.”
Qi Yun seemed too eager to leave and nodded, but at the same time wrote in his palm, “It mustn’t harm my master.”
Lin Xun thought for a moment and replied, “I’ll try my best.”
Lin Xun: “How did you end up here?”
Qi Yun: “My master was doing something that required a Dharma protector. My junior brothers’ cultivation levels weren’t sufficient.”
Lin Xun: “Then what happened to you now?”
Qi Yun: “Halfway through protecting the Dharma, my Spiritual Power was depleted, and I turned back into a fish.”
Lin Xun had come to understand the term “Dharma protection” over the past few days. For Cultivation practitioners, whether to advance their realms or achieve other goals, they sometimes needed to enter a meditative state, letting their spirits wander the vast emptiness and contemplate the universe. This posed a danger: when the mind roamed in such a profound state, there was a risk of losing the way back—or being influenced by other forces, leading to mutations, loss of mental control, or deviation.
If the person in meditation was compared to a kite, the Dharma protector was the kite’s string. When they sensed instability in the meditator’s mind, they would immediately pull their consciousness back to reality to avoid accidents. Therefore, when elders entered meditation, they often needed two or three juniors to protect the Dharma by their side, with no room for negligence.
Yan Yangzi’s plan was thorough. The cultivation levels and status of other disciples were unreliable; only the eldest disciple could be used—yet he never expected that his eldest disciple had turned into a sickly beauty.
Lin Xun: “Haha.”
Qi Yun: “?”
Lin Xun: “Doesn’t your master care about you?”
Qi Yun: “He currently has no perception of the outside world and doesn’t know I can no longer continue guarding him.”
As he spoke, his eyes suddenly widened slightly, and he quickly wrote in Lin Xun’s palm: “Without anyone guarding him, he will suffer a Qi deviation. Save my master.”
—This shows that people’s ways of thinking differ greatly. Some can multitask, while others operate on a single thread, like Qi Yun. Just moments ago, he was only thinking about leaving this place due to extreme discomfort, but now he suddenly realized his master’s peril. His fish brain seems incapable of handling two things at once.
“No rush.” Unlike him, Lin Xun was a multitasker. He maintained the calm of an emotionless keyboard cultivator: “What is he doing?”
Qi Yun: “Resonating with the Chixiao Longque Sword. Hurry and save him, or he’ll be devoured by the sword.”
Lin Xun looked at Qi Yun and continued writing: “Once the resonance is complete, he becomes the master of the Chixiao Longque Sword?”
Qi Yun: “Probably.”
Lin Xun: “Tell me everything you know about the Chixiao Longque Sword.”
Qi Yun’s eyes flickered, as if weighing the pros and cons.
Finally, he looked at Lin Xun and nodded.
Lin Xun took a bottle of water from his backpack, unscrewed the cap, and poured it over Qi Yun’s fish tail from top to bottom, then splashed some on his cheeks and elbows where scales were present. Qi Yun’s condition finally improved slightly, and his writing speed quickened.
“The Chixiao Longque Sword is the Sword Sect’s treasure. But it was secretly hoarded by the Qingcheng thieves.”
“Master has a method to communicate with the divine sword. Once he merges with the Chixiao Longque Sword, he can become the emperor of the cultivation world.”
Lin Xun: “Merge with the sword?”
Qi Yun: “Yes.”
Lin Xun: “How does one merge?”
Qi Yun: “I’m not the Sword Sect leader, so I don’t know. Probably by comprehending the sword’s intent.”
Lin Xun: “Alright.”
Lin Xun continued: “Why does obtaining the sword make one the emperor of the cultivation world?”
Qi Yun: “How would I know?”
Qi Yun: “I’ve said everything. Hurry and guard my master.”
Lin Xun: “Alright.”
He stared at Yan Yangzi for a full minute.
Heat waves surged around Yan Yangzi, and strange fluctuations seemed to ripple through the air, creating an oppressive atmosphere. Just then, he heard Chang Ji whisper beside him: “Look at the sky.”
Lin Xun looked up and saw a strand of blood-red light rising like a slanted sunset from the tip of the Chixiao Longque Sword. Above their heads, dark clouds gathered densely, faintly forming a massive, terrifying vortex. Yet, at the center of the vortex, a shimmering strand of rosy clouds quietly seeped through the gaps in the dark clouds, as if echoing the divine sword on the ground.
The silent city held its breath. The crowd, like walking corpses, the divine artifact high above, and the low-hanging sky—everything seemed to transcend the mundane and material world, like a mad dream.
Legend has it that when the emperor of the cultivation world ascends to the throne, three flowers gather at the crown, five Qi converge toward the origin, and rosy clouds billow in the sky. Perhaps the scene before them was a kind of omen.
Lin Xun narrowed his eyes.
Judging by this spectacle, Yan Yangzi truly intended to ascend the throne. He would not allow it.
Qi Yun had asked him to ensure the safety of his master, and since he had agreed, he would definitely do it, never giving Senior Yan Yangzi any chance to go berserk.
The next moment, Lin Xun’s gaze sharpened. He transformed the keyboard into a sword, gripping the long blade in his hand, and pointed it straight at Yan Yangzi’s back, thrusting forward abruptly!
The moment the sword tip struck Yan Yangzi’s back, the blade trembled violently, as if it had collided with an impenetrable wall.
—It was within Lin Xun’s expectations that a cultivator of high cultivation would have protective Qi surrounding their body.
And Yan Yangzi was clearly at the Soul Division stage. All the living beings in this area were under his control, serving as sources of Spiritual Power and becoming part of his computational power, helping him resonate with the Chixiao Longque Sword… Resonance—what exactly was it?
Yan Yangzi remained unmoving.
Sorry, I didn’t hit hard enough.
Lin Xun took a deep breath and shifted his gaze to the crowd downstairs. His fingers flew across the keyboard as he swiftly typed, competing with Yan Yangzi for control of the computational units. He was essentially alone, but he was at the Tribulation Transcendence stage—a lone warrior at that level. There was no reason he couldn’t overpower someone at the Soul Division stage. After all, in Cultivation, surpassing a single level meant a world of difference.
Things unfolded just as he had anticipated. Within two minutes, the first computational unit was breached—it was the person closest to them, right below the hotel building.
At this pace, he could gather enough resources, but it was too slow.
Since he was at the Tribulation Transcendence stage, he naturally wouldn’t rely on Soul Division methods.
Without delay, he activated the Goddess of the Luo River program he had input into the system, embedding it into the first computational unit. The next moment, a faint blue glow emanated from that person—the color of the Goddess of the Luo River. At this moment, he had been completely taken over by Lin Xun, or rather, by the Goddess of the Luo River system under Lin Xun’s control.
The person turned to the others around him, and an invisible ripple spread among them—this person had become an extension of Lin Xun. Lin Xun no longer needed to breach their firewalls one by one; his artificial intelligence would handle it for him.
It took him two minutes to gain control of one computational unit, and that unit would acquire another within the next two minutes. So, in four minutes, he would have two computational units.
Two was a small number, but in six minutes, he would have four; in eight minutes, eight; and in twenty-two minutes, 1,024. It was an exponential function.
But… Lin Xun looked back at the Chixiao Longque Sword, now glowing brightly.
In just these two minutes, it had already undergone a change.
The sword, originally deeply embedded in the jade and unmoving, now trembled and swayed slightly, emitting a faint hum as if trying to break free from its jade pedestal.
He glanced toward where the seniors were: “Only the Emperor can draw the sword, but Yan Yangzi cannot.”
This was obvious because if it were possible, Yan Yangzi would have already drawn it long ago, without going to such lengths.
He continued, “So, he’s forcing…”
He didn’t know what words to use to describe it.
“Exactly,” Xiaoyaozi chimed in. “He covets the divine artifact, attempting to forcibly refine the Chixiao Longque Sword with his own power.”
Lin Xun looked at Yan Yangzi. “And he’s about to succeed.”
Spiritual Power slowly gathered upon his own body. Lin Xun’s mood could hardly be described as confident of victory, nor as calm and composed. In truth, ever since hearing the news of the Chixiao Longque Sword’s theft, everyone in the cultivation world had prepared for a fierce battle, regardless of life or death.
Would he be the first to gather sufficient Spiritual Power to forcibly interrupt Yan Yangzi from his meditative state, or would Yan Yangzi take the lead and complete the refinement of the Chixiao Longque Sword first?
Or perhaps…
Lin Xun took two steps forward, passing by Yan Yangzi and approaching the radiantly glowing longsword. He reached out his hand, slowly grasping toward the hilt entwined with dragon and phoenix patterns. An invisible resistance seemed to surround the hilt, making progress difficult for him, like two magnets with the same poles meeting.
But at this very moment, his gaze transcended all of this, looking toward the silently standing Galaxy Tower across the way.
Would Dong Jun be there? He suddenly wondered.