Imperial Cultivation

Chapter 1425 - 1421: Five Mysterious

Ning Dongge and Zhang Ji Yuan watched him bustling about, going in and out, dazzled.

Chu Zhiyuan finally stopped and smiled. "That’s enough, you two Senior Brothers."

"This guy has made a full circuit around the twelve heavens?" Zhang Ji Yuan asked curiously.

Chu Zhiyuan nodded.

Zhang Ji Yuan said, "You’re way too fast at this. How could you possibly find anyone like that?"

Ning Dongge smiled. "He was just walking it once, didn’t have time to sense anything, right?"

Chu Zhiyuan nodded slightly. "First get familiar with the route, then slowly sense things later. No rush."

Ning Dongge said, "From now on you won’t need us to open the entrance?"

Chu Zhiyuan nodded.

Zhang Ji Yuan sighed. "As expected of the Taihao Jade Void Scripture."

He was extremely envious.

He very much wanted to have that kind of ability.

Unfortunately, he could not cultivate the Taihao Jade Void Scripture.

He took the Void-shifting of the Earth Origin Technique to be a part of the Taihao Jade Void Scripture.

So he found it easy to accept that after Chu Zhiyuan became a Spirit Venerable he could still return to the Heaven-Reaching Hall.

Chu Zhiyuan did not say much more.

The three arts of the Taihao Jade Void Scripture indeed had the wondrous effect of breaking open space.

If cultivated to the Extreme Realm, one might not necessarily be unable to reach the step he stood at now.

Zhang Ji Yuan said, "Junior Brother, finding a successor depends on luck; you can’t rush it. Even after you become a Spirit Venerable you still have to wait slowly."

Ning Dongge nodded.

A Spirit Venerable’s cultivation was powerful, but that didn’t mean they were omnipotent.

For this sort of matter, you still had to rely on luck; there was no way to directly pick out a successor.

Chu Zhiyuan said, "I’ll try to see if I can find one as soon as possible."

Zhang Ji Yuan smiled. "Then we’ll wait and see how you manage to find a successor faster."

Ning Dongge said, "Junior Brother, don’t push yourself too hard either. Focusing on your cultivation is most important."

Though he had the protection of the Heaven-Reaching Hall, Chu Zhiyuan couldn’t possibly stay in the Heaven-Reaching Hall all day without going out; that would suffocate him.

If he wanted to roam the world, gallop unhindered across the mortal realm, he still had to raise his cultivation, at least to the Second Transition.

"What Senior Brother Ning says makes sense." Chu Zhiyuan nodded. "Senior Brother Zhang, other than the Ascension Technique, what other secret techniques can we spread out to test who is qualified to become a Heaven-Reaching Sect Disciple?"

Zhang Ji Yuan said, "Among the Ascension Technique, the Ascension Technique, and the Void-breaking Skill, the simplest is the Ascension Technique. If one can’t even cultivate the Ascension Technique, there’s no need to mention the other two."

Ning Dongge said, "The one spread outside is the Ascension Technique. The other two have never been passed out."

Chu Zhiyuan said, "They’re spread secretly, right? Not widely and openly disseminated?"

"Humans are just cheap by nature," Zhang Ji Yuan said. "The more something is spread in secret, the more zealously people train it. If it’s available everywhere, they look down on it, and some won’t even bother to cultivate it."

Ning Dongge nodded. "Exactly. The more privately it circulates, the more fiercely they train. This is also an experience summarized by the sect over generations."

Chu Zhiyuan said, "What if we build a Cave Mansion and let others discover it?"

"Don’t do that!" Ning Dongge said hastily. "That would invite endless trouble."

Zhang Ji Yuan said, "Once a Patriarch did just that—built a Cave Mansion and placed the Ascension Technique inside, then let word spread."

"And then?" Chu Zhiyuan raised his brows slightly.

This was more or less the same train of thought as his own, just a few degrees cruder and more direct.

"Sigh—!" Zhang Ji Yuan sighed. "The whole world fought over that Cave Mansion, causing massive casualties... That Patriarch clearly had peerless talent, yet because he was wracked with guilt, he ultimately never stepped into the Spirit Venerable Realm."

Ning Dongge asked, "Junior Brother, you were thinking of doing the same thing, weren’t you?"

Chu Zhiyuan smiled. "I’ll write a Secret Manual, make up a terrifying title for it, include the Ascension Technique in it, then spread it out and lure everyone into cultivating it."

"Write a Secret Manual...?"

"Integrate some of the mental methods I’ve seen, fuse them into one, so that the early stages of cultivation speed up, and the later stages can also break through to a sufficiently high Realm."

Zhang Ji Yuan laughed. "Haha, where would such a mental method come from!"

Chu Zhiyuan smiled. "I think the mental method I’ve put together is actually pretty good."

"Then let us have a look," Zhang Ji Yuan said.

Chu Zhiyuan smiled. "Please wait a moment, Senior Brothers, I’ll write it down."

"I’ll grind the ink!" Zhang Ji Yuan said.

He rose and went to the desk by the veranda, rapidly grinding the inkstone. Very soon he laid out the paper, then offered the Purple Hair Brush with both hands. "Junior Brother, please."

Chu Zhiyuan, smiling, stepped behind the desk and raised the brush to begin writing.

The brush danced like a wandering dragon, the writing done in a single breath.

As soon as he finished one page, Zhang Ji Yuan pulled that page out and lifted it up before his eyes.

Then he passed it to Ning Dongge.

As they finished one page, Chu Zhiyuan finished writing the next.

Page after page, in one go he wrote twelve pages, then set the Purple Hair Brush aside and revealed a smile.

Zhang Ji Yuan and Ning Dongge’s expressions were solemn.

When Chu Zhiyuan saw them finish the last page, he smiled. "Senior Brothers, please give me your guidance."

"This mental method of yours..." Zhang Ji Yuan hesitated and looked toward Ning Dongge.

Ning Dongge nodded gravely. "The foundation is solid and the cultivation speed is fast, with an ingenious structure... Junior Brother, I’m impressed!"

Zhang Ji Yuan looked at him in astonishment. "How did that brain of yours come up with this?"

Chu Zhiyuan smiled. "After reading enough mental methods, something like this just naturally emerges."

"A work of natural perfection," Zhang Ji Yuan sighed.

Ning Dongge said, "This mental method truly is marvelous. I fear that..."

Chu Zhiyuan smiled. "No matter how exquisite it is, it has one fatal flaw: the level is still too low, and it can’t be cultivated up to the Venerable Realm."

Ning Dongge said, "What about the Venerable Realm then?"

"What we have here is enough," Chu Zhiyuan said. "The key is to draw them into cultivating the Ascension Technique."

Zhang Ji Yuan said, "But with only this, I’m afraid many people won’t want to cultivate it."

Chu Zhiyuan said, "We’ll give this Secret Manual a resounding name, then say that this is only the upper half... In truth, just cultivating this upper half already brings endless benefits. I’m not worried that people won’t train it."

This mental method was a further development based on the Five Elements Technique; people in the Little Outer Heaven who cultivated it would find it easier to step into the Realm of Grandmaster.

Grandmasters of the Little Outer Heaven were actually equivalent to Venerables in other heavens.

Compared to the Five Elements Technique, this mental method had an advantage: the early stages were faster and took an unconventional path; it also had a weakness: the later stages slowed down.

Overall, it offered a higher chance of stepping into the Grandmaster Realm than other mental methods.

This was already a top-tier mental method in the world; there was no need to worry that others wouldn’t scramble to cultivate it.

"This really dangles the bait," Zhang Ji Yuan laughed. "Interesting!"

Chu Zhiyuan looked toward Ning Dongge. "Senior Brother Ning, what do you think?"

Ning Dongge thought for a moment, then flipped back through the twelve pages of paper, closed his eyes, and began Operating his cultivation to test it.

After a while, he opened his eyes and said slowly, "If we do it this way, there shouldn’t be any major issues."

Zhang Ji Yuan rubbed his hands, his eyes shining. "Junior Brother, if you can really get more people to cultivate the Ascension Technique and find more successors, you’ll be a great meritorious figure of our Heaven-Reaching Sect!"

Chu Zhiyuan smiled. "Let’s hope it goes smoothly. Senior Brother Zhang, Senior Brother Ning, would you help me copy a few more sets?"

"No problem!"

The two agreed readily.

...

Chu Zhiyuan stood atop a mountain peak.

It was a towering great peak of Dan Yang Heaven.

In his hand was a scroll—the Heavenly Five Mysterious Techniques that he himself had copied.

He lowered his head to glance at the scroll, then looked down at the vast giant city below.

This Gu Yun Peak lay ten li outside that city; standing on the summit, the outline of the giant city was clearly visible.

His eyes suddenly turned vacant.

A moment later they cleared, and he shook his head in disappointment, then drifted away.

An hour later, he appeared again outside another giant city and once more used the Donghuan Saint Technique to observe.

Then, once again disappointed, he drifted away.

...

By evening, he stood in a pavilion on the summit of a small hill, looking toward the small city a li away.

After a whole day, he had gained nothing at all and had already begun to lose hope.

The Heaven-Reaching Sect having so few Disciples was not without reason; the Ascension Technique’s requirements on aptitude were simply too high.

In this vast Dan Yang Heaven, with more than thirty giant cities and over a hundred million people, not a single one had succeeded in cultivating it.