Chapter 99: Chapter 71: Cultivation (System Settings, Slightly Watery)

Translator: 549690339

Out of the Green Jade Order, there were some items even the man in white couldn’t identify, nor understand their uses. Xu Yang classified them as special items.

For now, they were useless, so he decided to put them aside for later.

Were magical artifacts of any use?

He had a few, but not many.

The superior-quality Gengjin Sword was already scrapped, the medium-quality Green Jade Sword was of average power, and as for the inferior-quality artifacts, there was no need to mention them—they were junk, unusable, and couldn’t be sold casually, since they were stolen goods.

Although these few individuals were Loose Cultivators, Loose Cultivators also had their foundations and backgrounds, especially Zhang Guanghua, a late-stage Qi Cultivation shrimp who had quite a network within the Cultivation World. If he were labeled a Robbing Cultivator for these stolen goods, that would be more loss than gain.

Despite the Cultivation World following the law of the jungle, even encouraging the pursuit of Immortal fate Men, Robbing Cultivators were still severely cracked down on by all major Sects and markets. Once wanted, they would become targets for everyone, with everyone entitled to strike them down.

This is also understandable. Even though Cultivators follow the principle of the survival of the fittest, forces such as Sects, markets, and families also need order, which allows for continuous business and trade.

Robbing Cultivators plundered, which meant disrupting the order of these major powers and smashing their rice bowls, essentially cutting their leeks, so naturally, they couldn’t be tolerated.

Therefore, without any special abilities, it’s better not to engage in Robbing Cultivation—it’s no joke being on the wanted lists of major powers.

Although the artifacts weren’t very useful, this trip wasn’t entirely fruitless.

Various consumables like Spirit Stones, Talismans, and medicinal pills added up to the value of several hundred inferior Spirit Stones. If the five Storage Bags were included, it would easily be over a thousand.

A thousand Spirit Stones, nearly enough to buy half a Foundation Building Pill.

Indeed, murder and arson provided a golden belt; being a Robbing Cultivator was a quick way to make money.

“Death comes just as quickly though,” Xu Yang shook his head, dismissing the entirely untempting thought from his mind and turned his attention to the final spoils of war.

Cultivation Skills!

For Xu Yang, these were the most valuable spoils of war, which could help him directly understand the Cultivation World and Cultivators, as well as aid his own advancement and power increase.

Knowledge is power!

Xu Yang took a Jade Slip and began “reading” it with Divine Intent.

The “Qi Cultivation” system of Cultivation shared many similarities with the two systems of “Martial Arts” and “Body Training” he had researched, yet they were not entirely the same.

Qi Cultivation involved cultivating nature’s spiritual energy and required a special qualification called “Spiritual Root” to enter the threshold of Cultivation.

The first realm of Cultivation was the Qi Cultivation realm.

Qi Cultivation had twelve levels, each with three levels making a checkpoint, which could be divided into the early, middle, late stages, and Perfect Qi Refinement.

In the early stage, one cultivated “Internal Breath.”

In the middle stage, one cultivated “True Qi.”

In the late stage, one cultivated “Mana.”

At Perfect Qi Refinement, one cultivated the “Perfect Qi Refinement.”

Internal Breath, True Qi, and Mana were easy to understand, corresponding to the Inner Strength, True Qi, and Gang Yuan of the Martial Path system.

But what did Perfect Qi Refinement mean?

Actually, it was not hard to understand—it was the limit of Condensing Spirit, the Grandmaster Realm of the spiritual state of mind.

After achieving Perfect Qi Refinement in Qi Cultivation, one’s body, Divine Soul, and Mana needed to be perfect, and only then could one attempt to reach the Foundation Establishment Realm.

Therefore, the Cultivation system and the Martial Path system corresponded in this way.

Martial Path Inner Strength equates to early-stage Qi Cultivation.

Martial Path True Qi equates to middle-stage Qi Cultivation.

Martial Path True Gang equates to late-stage Qi Cultivation.

Martial Path Condensing Spirit equates to Perfect Qi Refinement in Qi Cultivation.

Martial Path creating a “Golden Core” equates to Cultivation’s Foundation Establishment.

According to this correspondence, Xu Yang should be considered as a

Cultivator at the Perfect Qi Refinement stage.

But while that’s the theory, in reality, it doesn’t work quite like that.

From the very beginning of Qi Cultivation, at the Internal Breath Realm,

Cultivators start absorbing nature’s spiritual energy for their practice, and their Cultivation Techniques generally include methods for cultivating the Divine Soul.

Therefore, whether it’s the Divine Soul or body, or the Internal Yuan Mana, Cultivators are superior to Martial Artists of the same realm.

According to that man in white, even an early-stage Qi Cultivating Cultivator could effortlessly cross realms and pin down an opponent who is at the mid-stage Qi Cultivation and a True Qi Martial Artist.

With impressive artifacts or spells, they could even challenge those at the late-stage Qi Cultivation and True Gang Martial Artists, spanning two realms.

Such is the dominance of a Cultivator.

According to this logic, a Martial Artist with Four-Realm Condensing Spirit might very well be unable to defeat a late-stage Qi Cultivating Cultivator.

But this only applies to ordinary Martial Artists.

Xu Yang does not fall into this category.

The Martial Scripture is profound; even without nature’s spiritual energy, the martial arts cultivated are not inferior to the magic techniques of Cultivators of equal realm. His combat skills might also be on par with or even superior to magic techniques.

Plus, as the Founder of the Martial Scripture with traits such as Unity of Heaven and Man and Martial Path Communicates with God, along with his dual cultivation of both the internal and external path—Martial Path internal and Body Training external—when all these advantages are combined, he should not worry about challenging others across realms. Others challenging him across realms?

They likely don’t know the meaning of death.

Therefore, Xu Yang now fully qualifies to regard himself as a Cultivator at the Perfect Qi Refinement stage.

Although he’s on par with Cultivators at Perfect Qi Refinement, it doesn’t mean that these Cultivation Techniques have no value to him.

On the contrary, these Cultivation Techniques are of great significance.

They represent a system, a system of Qi Cultivation in Cultivation.

Though the Martial Scripture is exquisite, Xu Yang is neither arrogant nor satisfied with his current state, nor will he confine himself to his present achievements.

He intended to absorb the strengths of other systems, integrating them into the Martial Scripture, enriching its potentiality.

In time, the Martial Scripture might transcend the mundane, becoming marvelous and stunning, evolving into the world-shaking Divine Demon Martial Arts.

Who says one cannot practice martial arts while cultivating immortality?

Celestial martial arts are still martial arts, Divine Martial is also martial arts!

So, these cultivation techniques are very important, containing methods for cultivating nature’s spiritual energy and Divine Consciousness. After integrating and thoroughly understanding them, the Martial Arts Scripture will indeed be able to advance further and become “Divine Martial Cultivation!” However…

After reading through the various technique jade slips among the spoils of battle, Xu Yang then invoked the power of his Divine Soul to perform Inside View and eventually discovered a little problem.

He… did not have a Spiritual Root!

Not even a bit, he was a true and thorough, complete mortal.

This was not surprising, as the major powers had always had “Searching Immortal Envoys” walking the earth. If he had the qualifications of Spiritual Roots, he would certainly have been discovered early on and sent to the Cultivation World to cultivate, rather than fishing on Dongting Lake for decades.

No Spiritual Roots, what to do?

Nothing can be done!

At least the techniques of the Cultivation World cannot be done.

Their stance is one, no Spiritual Roots, don’t cultivate; otherwise, it’s like a eunuch going to a brothel, full of desire but powerless to do anything but stare.

This was a big problem.

But for Xu Yang it wasn’t really a problem.

No Spiritual Roots, don’t cultivate?

Then he simply wouldn’t cultivate.

What he valued most was the application of nature’s spiritual energy and the cultivation of Divine Soul and Divine Thoughts in the cultivation techniques.

Although both were centered around the Spiritual Roots, the great paths are varied, but all lead to the same destination. Xu Yang could transplant their philosophies and create his own Martial Path to cultivation or use some other organ to replace the Spiritual Roots.

According to the descriptions in cultivation techniques, the Spiritual Roots are similar to the Dantian, both are hidden within the body. Although invisible and intangible, they definitely exist.

Since they exist, there must be ways to transplant, replace, stimulate, or create them; Xu Yang didn’t believe a living man could be choked to death by urine.

So, the issue of Spiritual Roots, wasn’t an issue.

After finishing with the technique jade slips, Xu Yang turned his gaze to those

“miscellaneous books.”

These miscellaneous books were varied, some were jade slips, some were books.

Xu Yang picked up a jade slip and explored it with Divine Intent.

Then, he backed out with a speechless expression on his face.

Truly a mixed bag, there were even dynamic erotic pictures!

Unfortunately, the drawings were very ordinary, not even comparable to those of Great Tang or Great Zhou…

Cough cough, back to the main topic, after rummaging through the pile of miscellaneous books, Xu Yang finally found some relatively valuable things.

First was a travelogue, a travel journal of the Cultivation World, recording the customs and geography of various places.

Next was a map, marking the topography and the distribution of powers in the Cultivation World, even indicating information about the powers.

Last was a “Primary Understanding of Array Formation!”

A Formation Book?

No, not really a Formation Book, just an introduction to the most basic knowledge about formations.

Although there are said to be a hundred arts in cultivation, the ones that truly flourish are just a few: formations, alchemy, artifact refining, and talismans.

An Array Master sits at the top of the hierarchy, with the highest status, strongest power, and most revenue, truly invincible.

The only downside is the potential to go bald.

Unfortunately, formations are very hard to learn; the beginning is hard, the middle is harder, the latter part even more so, and the end as difficult as ascending to the heavens.

But that still doesn’t negate the strength and prestige of an Array Master; the value of the inheritance of array knowledge always surpasses that of alchemy, talismans, artifact refining, and other skills.

Xu Yang also wished to become an Array Master.

For an Array Master, the most difficult task is learning; formations are difficult to learn and even harder to master. Many Array Masters neglect their cultivation in favor of studying complex formations, and before they even master the formations, they meet their end.

But this was not a problem for Xu Yang, who yearned nothing more than learning and had more than enough time.

Even if his understanding was poor, his aptitude weak, and his talent for formations lacking, he could still forcefully accumulate success over time.

Not to mention, he had the Attribute Panel and Skill Traits.

For him, the way of formations was like a fish in water!

Unfortunately, this was merely a basic introduction to formations and not a real Formation Book, containing only a few common formation explanations and some basic knowledge, without the real methods for setting up formations.

“Maybe I should consider buying one. After all, I have quite a few Spirit Stones, and a beginner-level Formation Book shouldn’t be too expensive, right?”

Xu Yang stroked his chin, quickly forming a plan.

No time like the present.

Xu Yang opened up the map, beginning to select a target.

To buy things, naturally, one looks for a market.

But not just any market will do.

You have to consider the type of goods, the market’s specialty, but most importantly, the strength of the market, business reputation, and the distribution of Robbing Cultivators—these critical, life-or-death details.

Fortunately, the map was clearly marked.

Soon, Xu Yang found the most suitable market for himself, based on his own conditions.

The White Dragon Island Market, located on White Dragon Lake, was a market built on a Lake Island.

He could get there via a tributary of the Dongting water system, ensuring he could enter the water at any time to play to his “Muddy Water Jiao Dragon” strengths.

Moreover, the power levels around the White Dragon Lake Market and the surrounding Cultivation World were generally lower, with Foundation

Establishment Cultivators being the backbone, and it was unlikely for Golden Core masters to appear; those overseeing the market were also at the Foundation Establishment level.

With no Golden Core masters appearing, only Foundation Establishment, and being on a lake island, as long as he avoided traps and formations, he was confident he could escape unharmed.

So… why not go have a look?

It would also be a good opportunity to lay low; those five cultivators had connections, and now that they were all extinguished at Dongting Lake, who knew what trouble that could stir up. And so it was happily decided.

Off to White Dragon Lake!