Chapter 187: The Sword-Wiping Reward
In the blink of an eye, half a month had passed.
Song Yan sat cross-legged in the cultivation chamber, wisps of spiritual energy slowly gathering around his body.
After half a month of rest, all his injuries had largely healed.
He had returned to the proper routine of condensing spiritual energy and advancing his cultivation each day.
What surprised him was that during these days, he had not taken any precious pills, yet his cultivation still advanced with remarkable speed.
It was as though some unseen force were propelling his progress ever forward.
After much deliberation, he attributed it to the relentless battles and killing of recent days.
When a cultivator walked the razor’s edge between life and death, the flesh, divine sense, spiritual energy, and even the heart seeking the Dao would all be pushed to their limits, awakening hidden potential under extreme pressure.
The sect’s Sword-Wiping ceremony was far from a life-or-death struggle, yet continuous combat still served a certain purpose.
Throughout history, tales of prodigies achieving sudden enlightenment through battle had never been rare.
That he had gained some modest benefit to his cultivation was entirely normal.
He had already spent nearly two years at the seventh level of the Qi Refining Stage, and the eighth level was now only a few steps away.
Though a breakthrough was unlikely in the short term, he still wished to attempt it before leaving the sect.
After all, each level breakthrough in the late Qi Refining Stage represented a tremendous advancement.
If he could break through before departing on his travels, it would greatly enhance his ability to protect himself.
The spirit stone in his hand gradually dimmed, then with a soft crack, it shattered.
“Hmm…”
Song Yan furrowed his brow slightly and slowly opened his eyes.
With his current accumulation of cultivation, forcing a breakthrough with that Qiyang Pill would indeed carry a fifty percent chance of success.
Yet fifty percent was far too slim a margin.
After the Changping affair, the pill Song Yan had obtained was called the Qiyang Pill, a type of breakthrough-enhancing drug.
Its potency surpassed that of the Mingjue Pill, though its effects were far more violent and less stable.
His foundation was already unsteady, and the Qiyang Pill’s wild nature made a hasty attempt at breakthrough far too dangerous.
If he simply failed to break through, he could always start over.
But if his meridians fell into chaos and he suffered qi deviation, it would damage his very foundation.
“Take it slow then.”
There was no rush for such a small matter.
At present, there was another important matter to attend to: the Dao of Alchemy.
Ever since the events at Jiran Valley, Song Yan had rarely practiced pill refinement.
For one, his energy and time were limited, and studying the Sword Dao already demanded all his attention.
For another, the sect’s newly recruited Qi Refining cultivators had been assigned missions by the sect at frequent intervals before the Sword-Wiping ceremony.
Later, he had entered the inner sect, then gone to Changping, and only now had he found the time to pick up the Dao of Alchemy once more.
The jade slips on pill refinement he had retained were already thoroughly memorized.
The pill recipes he had mastered could no longer satisfy his current stage of cultivation.
Today, Song Yan planned to visit Granny Qin and ask whether he could recommend any relevant alchemy texts.
He would also make a trip to Harmony Peak to collect the second-tier rewards from the Sword-Wiping ceremony.
At the edge of Spirit Source Marsh.
The Worry-Free General Store.
“Alchemy texts?”
Qin Xijun held a single-lens monocle, examining the color and luster of a pill, and did not even raise her head. “There are plenty of those around. Pick them yourself.”
She had always felt a measure of regret over her disciple’s alchemical talent.
In the past, the two of them had not been master and disciple, and she had no standing to offer him guidance.
Once they had established the master-disciple bond, young Song Yan had rushed off to Changping, and upon returning to the sect, the Sword-Wiping ceremony had commenced immediately.
She had truly intended to find a time to offer him a few pointers.
How many cultivators would give anything for such talent in pill refinement, and yet this boy had let it go to waste.
Now that he stood before her and raised the matter of his own accord, that was for the best, and it spared her the trouble of nagging and annoying her disciple.
Song Yan looked somewhat puzzled. “Master, what are you doing?”
“Oh, I recently acquired… bought a batch of pills, and all these assorted things make it impossible to identify the spirit herbs used in each.”
“Go on, go on, mind your own business.”
“Oh.” The storage room was piled high with all manner of things, with the jade slips set aside in a separate stack.
Song Yan picked them up and leafed through them at random.
“Fundamental Principles of Lower Pills.”
“Remnant Volume of the Ancient Chu Pill Compendium.”
“Hmm…”
They were all relatively basic content, much of which Song Yan had already studied. On the rare occasion he encountered something unfamiliar, he made a copy.
Song Yan’s demands were not high. At the Qi Refining Stage, his pill refinement merely needed to support his own crafting of Yellow Sprout Pills and Qi Condensing Pills, and that would be more than sufficient.
For now, this would do.
He organized a few of the jade slips and took his leave of Granny Qin.
“If there is anything you do not understand, you must come and ask your master. Do not go practicing blindly on your own.”
“I know.”
Before Song Yan had stepped out of the general store, he turned back. “Oh, Master, the last time I went to Changping, I came across a jade slip.”
“There is a technique called ‘Spirit-Gazing Qi Observation’ inside it. I have no use for it. Would you care to take a look?”
It had been found in Shen Huai’s cosmos bag.
The man was dead, and the enmity was already drawn.
To ask him to return Shen Huai’s belongings to Profound Abyss Sect would be sheer fantasy, but if Granny Qin could make use of it, that would be for the best.
It would also save him the trouble of putting it up for auction.
“Oh?”
Qin Xijun’s expression turned suspicious. She picked up the jade slip and swept it with her divine sense.
“Hmm…”
“Rather, this is a rare secret art. It may prove useful after all.”
Qin Xijun beamed and patted young Song Yan on the head. “Well, at least you have some filial devotion.”
“Heh heh, I leave it in your capable hands, Master. I’ll be going now.”
Watching Song Yan’s retreating figure, Qin Xijun’s expression took on a peculiar cast.
She clutched the jade slip and murmured to herself, “Here I am, the master, and I have yet to give my disciple anything, yet my disciple is already presenting me with gifts.”
“I really ought to drag that good-for-nothing Lu Ziye over here and make him learn a thing or two.”
…
Having left Spirit Source Marsh, Song Yan made his way toward Harmony Peak.
He had never had the chance to claim the second-tier rewards from the Sword-Wiping ceremony, and this outing provided the perfect opportunity to take care of everything at once before returning to his cave dwelling to hole up again.
Cultivating immortality had made him quite reluctant to venture outdoors.
“Hm?”
Song Yan stood outside the Affairs Hall and peered within. Wu Zheng, who should have been there, was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Elder Xu Ziqing was inside.
He glanced up at the plaque overhead in puzzlement, thinking he had not taken a wrong turn.
“Ah, Song Yan, come in, come in.”
Xu Ziqing had spotted the hesitant young man at the door and chuckled.
“Elder Xu, what are you doing here?”
“Me? What are you doing here? That is precisely what I am doing here.”
Xu Ziqing smiled enigmatically.
Seeing Song Yan now filled him with a quiet delight.
Qin Xijun had once come to thank him, had she not? It had been for this very boy.
At the time, he had uttered words such as “nothing more than an outer disciple” and “what business is it of mine whether he lives or dies.”
But ever since Changping, when Song Yan had cut down the Profound Abyss Sect disciple’s wretched head with a single sword stroke, his impression of the young man had completely changed.
In short, Song Yan was a dragon among men.
Just as Song Yan remained bewildered by Xu Ziqing’s words, Wu Zheng emerged from the rear hall, approached with great reverence, and presented a cosmos bag to Xu Ziqing.
“Elder Xu…”
“This is your Sword-Wiping reward.”