Meeting the Yanfa Jade Again

Looking around, it was still an enclosed chamber. Only, compared to what he had seen in his previous life when using a Nascent Soul-grade Law-Audience Jade Plaque, this place was far more spacious. Apart from the treatises he had seen before, such as *Guidelines for Using the Yanfa Jade* and *Ten Treatises on Dharma Deduction*, the bookshelves also held a number of short, unsigned essays. *An Inquiry into Relations Between the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals and the Five Elders Association over the Next Century*, *The Secret of Fairy Kongyou's Special Physique*, *An Essay on the Foremost Beauty of the Immortal Alliance*... To avoid arousing suspicion, Xu Bai feigned interest and browsed through books like *Guidelines for Using the Yanfa Jade* first. Then, his spirits lifting, he began perusing those anonymous essays one by one. "There are quite a few fascinating eccentrics in the Immortal Alliance. Then again, anyone who can enter a waiting room at the Dao Integration level is hardly an ordinary figure to begin with." After finishing several treatises, Xu Bai still felt hungry for more. With a sigh of admiration, he pulled out another and began reading. As it turned out, these anonymous essays had all been left behind by cultivators who had visited this place in the past. With no names attached and no way to trace them, they had been free to speak their minds without restraint. The topics covered were vast and varied, all-encompassing, and entirely taboo-free. Though they were merely personal perspectives and might not reflect the truth, they provided ample amusement. Even better, later visitors could add their own commentary to these anonymous pieces, creating a lively dialogue. It carried quite the flavor of a hundred schools of thought contending. Xu Bai was thoroughly engrossed as thirteen shichen slipped by in the blink of an eye. "Cultivator Xu Bai, your turn is approaching. Please prepare yourself." It was that same prompt that snapped him back to his senses. Xu Bai glanced at the countdown displayed on the wall of the chamber and returned the book to its shelf. Before doing so, he did not forget to leave an annotation on *An Essay on the Foremost Beauty of the Immortal Alliance*: "Fellow Daoist possesses grand talent! Why not try appraising the 'Foremost Beauty of the Five Elders Association' as well? Combine the two, and you could compile the 'Xuanhuang Beauty Ranking'!" With a slight smile, he watched the countdown reach zero. The scenery in the room turned ethereal in an instant. It dissolved into countless flecks of light that drifted toward a distant coordinate, gleaming brilliantly like a long ribbon of luminescence across the darkness. Following the path of the light ribbon, Xu Bai arrived before the Yanfa Jade. Beneath a colossal sphere formed of countless characters that constantly shifted and morphed, a desk floated in midair. Resting her chin in her hands atop the desk, the little loli of the Yanfa Jade had her eyes half-closed, her head bobbing rhythmically. A thread of drool trickled from the corner of her mouth; she seemed utterly exhausted, dozing off. Even as Xu Bai flew up close, she remained dazed and oblivious. "Ahem!" Xu Bai cleared his throat softly. The little girl shuddered, startled awake in an instant. A look of annoyance crossed her face as she furrowed her brow and pouted, glaring toward the person who had disturbed her rest. When she clearly saw Xu Bai's appearance, however, her eyes went wide and her small mouth fell agape. Wiping away the lingering drool at the corner of her lips, she sat up straight and proper. "H-Hello!" A hint of bashfulness actually surfaced on the little girl's face. Remembering what his true self had experienced in his previous life, Xu Bai fell silent in his heart. Yet he did not hesitate in his actions, bowing with utmost politeness. "May I ask if you are the Yanfa Jade..." "It's me, it's me! Do you have any requests?" The little girl nodded repeatedly, her large eyes fixed squarely on Xu Bai. "Just say the word, and I'll help you!" In a childish, tender voice, she patted the desk, and a blank sheet of paper flew over to hover before Xu Bai. No matter how one looked at it, this sheet of paper seemed significantly larger than the one his original self had received in the previous life. "..." Xu Bai was silent for a moment, but then, with a thought, he began writing upon it. Lines of text emerged one after another. "Taking the Golden Core art *Mountain-Sitting Art* as the blueprint, taking the Spring and Autumn Great Dream Formation as a reference, and taking the Heavenly Sight and Earthly Hearing technique as a reference." "Deduce a Dao Integration version of the *Mountain-Sitting Art*." "While retaining the *Mountain-Sitting Art*'s trait of reaping without sowing, enable a certain degree of surveillance over the cultivators who serve as the source of cultivation feedback. Under more ideal circumstances, establish a form of connection and sharing among the consciousnesses of all cultivators tied to the *Mountain-Sitting Art*." ... Xu Bai wrote out his requirements in as much detail as possible. Though the paper had not yet flown back into the Yanfa Jade's hands, she already seemed to see the contents clearly. A look of surprise and distress crossed her face. Once the blank paper was densely covered from top to bottom, Li Fan handed it over. The little girl made a show of taking it and began reviewing it with utter seriousness. The chamber fell into silence for a time. "What is it? Is there some difficulty?" Xu Bai offered a handsome smile and asked with concern. "If you find it somewhat troublesome, I can lower the requirements for the cultivation art slightly," he said softly. The little girl slammed her chubby palm onto the desk. "What are you talking about? Don't underestimate me! How could a little thing like this stump me?!" "Hmph!" Her brow knitted tightly, as if she were getting truly serious. She reviewed the paper Li Fan had presented once more, then tossed it upward. In an instant, the characters on the page seemed to come alive, scrambling over one another as they flew toward the colossal sphere overhead. *Creak...* Instantly, the frequency at which the sphere's characters shifted accelerated countless times over compared to before. It even emitted faint, groaning sounds of bearing an unbearable burden. *Thump.* Xu Bai looked over and saw that the little girl had already rested her head on the desk, sound asleep and snoring softly. Smiling faintly, Xu Bai tilted his head up and kept his gaze locked on the giant glowing sphere above. Having advanced to the Nascent Soul realm, his vision and discernment were several times greater than back when he was at the Golden Core realm. He could now vaguely make out some of the changes occurring within. As the characters shifted ceaselessly, some gradually faded and vanished, seemingly eliminating ineffective combinations. At other times, a burst of bright white light would erupt, sweeping away countless characters at once. Soon after, however, new sequences of characters would emerge in the blank space, flashing anew in deduction. *This must indicate the successful deduction of a new cultivation art.* Xu Bai observed the massive sphere of characters carefully. He discovered that nearly a tenth of its area was still performing this kind of ordinary art deduction. As for the remaining nine-tenths, the characters flashed and morphed at a speed that was an entire tier faster. *It must be helping me deduce the continuation of the Mountain-Sitting Art.* *Compared to the previous life, she truly is going all out. This can no longer be explained merely by handsome looks or reverse psychology.* *Favored by Heaven and Earth, the avatar of a wonder of Heaven...* *I see.* Xu Bai's peripheral vision swept toward the seemingly sleeping little loli of the Yanfa Jade, and understanding dawned in his heart. The permitted deduction time granted by a Dao Integration-grade Law-Audience Jade Plaque was two days. Xu Bai simply stood quietly beneath the sphere, awaiting the Yanfa Jade's final deduction result. However, perhaps because the requirements Xu Bai had set were truly too demanding, the difficulty of deducing this art seemed to have exceeded the Yanfa Jade's capabilities to some degree. When an ethereal countdown timer appeared before Xu Bai's eyes, the little girl had still not completed the deduction.