Ch 71 Part 1 – Xue Clan Head (I)
March 18, 2021April 16, 2021By koffeam
Meng Qi clenched her nameplate suspiciously.
“Beyond The Heaven has its own set of rules.” Seeing her doubts, the book hall’s old man smiled and continued to explain: “Inside this small world, no one can break the rules. It is impossible to grab anything that not belongs to you, nor can anyone take away what is yours.”
Meng Qi nodded. Feeling enlightened, she turned to look at the rows of bookshelves that seemed to never end.
Here, there must be many secrets that she didn’t know. But she already made her decision: do not doubt, do not overthink, and just focus on making herself stronger first.
Meng Qi had always been a firm person who was not easily influenced by others. Since she had decided, she no longer bothered herself.
“Thank you, Senior.” She cupped her hands to the old man, then lowered her gaze at the slips on her hands. The four bamboo slips seemed to be a bit old. Their surfaces were a little yellowed. And the jade slips looked very exquisite. One of them was carved with a pattern that Meng Qi couldn’t recognize.
She sent her aura into the slips one by one.
The old man stood by, watching over Meng Qi with a smile. Knowing that it would take her some time to read all the books he just gave her, the old man took out a bamboo slip from another shelf and started reading intently.
Meng Qi browsed the content of the bamboo slips one by one. Each recording a different cultivation technique, six in total, all of which was without grade indication and she had never heard of before.
Most of the cultivation techniques in the Three Thousand World had their rank marked on the bamboo slips. For example, the technique Meng Qi currently used was from Qingfeng Valley, and it was only a fourth-grade technique.
In other words, she could only cultivate using this technique until the fourth realm at most. After breaking through from the Golden Core stage and entering the Nascent Soul stage, it would be extremely difficult to make any progress if she kept cultivating using this technique.
The cultivation techniques passed down from generation to generation inside large sects were obviously much better, mostly of the sixth to seventh grade. Those high-grade techniques not only could help disciples to cultivate faster, but also could be used until the Void Comprehending or even the Comprehending Perfection stage1.
Of course, those large sects also had even better cultivation techniques. But those were reserved for the upper layer disciples or could only be obtained by exchanging contribution points, and not to be taught equally to all disciples.
Obviously, Meng Qi had never learned such high-level techniques.
Now the six cultivation techniques the old man gave her seemed to have no formal grades. One possibility was that these techniques had never been used by cultivators before, so their grades were still unclear. Another possibility was that these were the highest-grade techniques that could be used even up to the Great Ascension stage.
Meng Qi hesitated. She actually was still unsure what to choose.
“Young Daoist, are you unsure what to choose?” In the meantime, the old man had finished two books. He raised his head and saw Meng Qi’s hesitant face. He smiled: “Or, does none of these meet your expectation?”
“Senior.” Meng Qi didn’t hide anything, “I don’t know much about cultivation techniques and really don’t know how to choose a suitable one. If possible, can Senior give me some advice?” She bowed her head politely: “Many thanks for Senior’s help.”
“Haha.” The old man reached out to the slips on Meng Qi’s hands: “For humans, cultivating is an act against the heaven. Absorbing aura from the surrounding nature, using it for yourself, forcibly expanding the sea of spiritual aura in your body, and then storing even more aura.” He continued: “This is different from how demons and devils cultivate. Therefore, there are many obstacles in human’s cultivation.”
The old man pointed at one of the bamboo slip: “From early on, I have been collecting various human cultivation techniques. They are roughly divided into two types. The first is the techniques that focus on aura absorption, and the second is the techniques that focus on spiritual sea expansion. So, the main basis for ranking a cultivation technique into various grades is by how much spiritual aura it can absorb, or how big can it expand a cultivator’s spiritual sea.”
“I see.” Meng Qi listened very seriously. Her eyes shone brightly.
The old man put his hands on his back, gazing into Meng Qi’s eyes that were full of genuine curiosity. He was happy. Most of the younger generations in his clan were overly talented, and none of them had the patience to listen to his lecture.
“Cough…” The old man coughed slightly. He paced slowly between the bookshelves, hands on his back, and continued to say: “This is how later generation of cultivators grade cultivation techniques. In fact, in ancient times, more than tens of thousands of years ago, there isn’t such a human-made grade system.”
“I see.” Meng Qi nodded obediently.
“So when choosing a cultivation technique, human cultivators like to choose a higher-grade one, that can be used longer.” The old man said. “What troubles you is that these techniques have no grades, so you don’t know how to choose?”
“Yes.” Meng Qi was a little embarrassed, “This junior has limited knowledge and low cultivation talent, and only knows to choose the highest grade possible.”
“Haha.” The old man smiled and nodded, “Let me see.” He took the bamboo and jade slips back.
Although the old man was idle, if Meng Qi didn’t take the initiative to ask, he would not deliberately give her guidance either. Now that Meng Qi asked actively, he was willing to help her. This could be considered a small assessment.
