Qian Chen had no idea what realm that heretic cultivator Miaokong had reached, but anyone capable of wiping out the whole of Louguan Dao had to be at least a Golden Core cultivator. Not that Qian Chen necessarily thought much of a Golden Core cultivator—back when Louguan Dao was still prosperous, such a one would not even have been qualified to touch him. But outside the cave-heavens and blessed lands, among cultivators mingling in the mortal world—
Ha! A Golden Core really was something formidable.
To dare commit a crime on that scale, Miaokong was a somebody even in the Reincarnation Lands.
This man roamed the myriad heavens and the cycles of reincarnation, and had always been ruthless: killing people and seizing their treasures was routine for him. As the saying goes, no man grows rich without windfall wealth, and a man who came by windfalls as often as Miaokong had a hoard far richer than ordinary Golden Core cultivators. Otherwise he could never have gotten his hands on an ancient talisman able to carry him out of sight right under the nose of a Yuanshen Perfected One.
But in his scheme to obtain the Taishang Dao Dust Pearl, he had poured his entire fortune into it.
So to keep Qian Chen alive, Miaokong had emptied out his remaining wealth as well. Apart from the gear he truly excelled with and the life-saving items he would not part with, everything suited to a low-tier cultivator had gone to Qian Chen. Even a master could hardly treat his own disciple better.
In his scheming for the Dao Dust Pearl, Miaokong had sold off his assets; whatever he had not sold was either stolen goods too hot to move or stock that had found no buyer.
In Qian Chen's Qiankun bag there were no fewer than eight magical implements.
They came not only with the methods of ritual refinement; one implement of too high a grade had even had its restrictions struck down by Miaokong. The first to catch Qian Chen's eye was a jade ring of exceptional quality, engraved in intaglio with a dragon-sparrow. Channeling true qi into it released a mass of colored light, and a brief sensing told Qian Chen that a restriction-space between the real and the void had been opened inside the ring.
Once that colored light fell, it could draw an enemy's magic treasure or weapon—or even the enemy himself, if his cultivation was somewhat inferior—into the ring.
It was a high-grade implement for seizing people and taking treasures. The main reason Qian Chen favored it was that it brimmed with upright Daoist qi and was of excellent quality—one of the few treasures of the righteous path among the eight implements. It suited his identity and his methods well; otherwise, several of the other eight had greater power than this jade ring.
But if a disciple of the righteous path raised his hand and loosed a jet-black demonic light, or a skull as big as a bushel; if in the middle of a duel he let his hair down and shook a demonic banner hung with naked men and women in every sort of obscene pose—well, some righteous expert passing by might well send a casual sword light to purge the sect of him and be done with it.
This jade ring was called the Dragon Sparrow Ring, and Perfected One Miaokong had come by it by killing and looting in some world or other. Best of all, its method of refinement was complete: any Daoist magical power could keep refining it to ever higher levels. The Daoist text that carried the refinement method was titled The Profound Yang Hundred Spirits Scripture, though the proper Daoist methods had been cut out of it, leaving only the refinement methods for various spells and implements.
Clearly Miaokong had done this deliberately, hoping to use those ingenious spells to delay Qian Chen's proper cultivation.
Qian Chen merely smiled in contempt. Since waking, he had first sat in meditation and worked hard, then busied himself borrowing grain to nourish his body, and only when he finally had spare time did he sort through these implements and spirit pills—which showed plainly enough where his priorities lay.
In the million years Qian Chen had spent as a pearl spirit, the Daoist texts and spells he had committed to memory were actually few. After all, for a spirit treasure that could take one look only once every sixty years, memorizing too much would be asking a bit much. So apart from a few foundational texts of Louguan Dao, he knew nothing of the high-powered spells the disciples picked and chose among for their training, nor of Louguan Dao's secretly transmitted divine abilities.
What had truly tempered him was watching how the finest disciples of a Daoist orthodoxy like Louguan Dao persevered unyieldingly in the foundational Daoist methods, casting everything else aside.
They would rather polish their magical power a little more and advance their cultivation a little further than spare the slightest attention for flashy spells and divine abilities. Every one of them aimed at ascension and eternal life, and Qian Chen could not help being influenced: he steadied his Dao heart and learned what to take and what to let go.
The first million years were fine. The sect's disciples still diligently cultivated methods for protecting the Dao, and the Daoist orthodoxy had not yet reached the point of bearing down on this world as it did now. There were still many enemies to fight, and against a foe of life and death, without a formidable spell in hand, even the highest cultivation would end in bitter defeat. But as the Daoist orthodoxy flourished greatly, many Louguan Dao disciples could ascend in broad daylight simply by cultivating diligently within the sect.
Even when they went out to temper their Dao hearts, hardly anyone dared provoke them.
The Yuanshen Perfected Ones in the sect could all divine and calculate; even a momentary crisis was merely a whetstone for the disciples. Gradually every disciple of Louguan Dao pursued cultivation attainment alone. They practiced just one decisive, overwhelmingly powerful Daoist method, and when they fought, they simply overwhelmed others with their cultivation. Over time, no one bothered to refine spells anymore.
They took fewer and fewer disciples while more and more ascended, and so they sank to this state.
One could only say that Louguan Dao had carried the Daoist ideals of non-action and few desires to a certain extreme, and had taken laziness to a fine art.
"And then a little Golden Core nobody wiped them out!" Qian Chen said with feeling. He did harbor a certain affection for Louguan Dao, having watched the whole sect go from magnificent ascendancy to single-minded quiet cultivation and at last to decline. One could only say that the Taishang Dao Ancestor had set a bad example: after merging with the Dao himself, he withdrew his sacred traces far from the world, and the disciples below naturally followed suit, seeking only the Great Dao.
As a result, Taishang Dao had the most Yuanshen masters, yet its low-tier disciples were far inferior to those of the Yuanshi Yuxu and Lingbao Shangqing branches, which took the elite-troops approach.
These people sought to attain eternal life and the Great Dao; Qian Chen was not nearly so free of desire—he was already immortal... Even if someone cut him down, he would merely return to that Dao Dust Pearl. A treasure refined by the Taishang Dao Ancestor himself—there really was no one in this world who could destroy it.
But having come out of the Dao Dust Pearl, Qian Chen absolutely did not want to go back to that state, so his Dao heart was exceedingly lively.
What he sought was not deathless immortality but untroubled freedom...
So although he knew what to take and what to let go, and meant to attain the supreme Great Dao and go look upon the Taishang Dao Ancestor who had abandoned him, to say with a laugh, "Even Taishang cannot thwart my will," he likewise meant to master peerless spells, so that no one in this world could ever again coerce or bind him.
Most practically: if Qian Chen did not diligently practice a few spells and refine several formidable implements, then when Miaokong returned he would cut away this fortuitous freedom of his, destroy his current fleshly body, and carry off his true body. So the real reason Qian Chen was not much taken with these implements was that no matter how hard he worked at such goods, they could never deal with the very Miaokong who had left them to him.
To truly survive this tribulation, he would have to cultivate his attainment bitterly and then go find a formidable magic treasure left behind by some predecessor.
Or draw out a fraction of his true body's power. If he could refine the Dao Dust Pearl, then never mind a mere Miaokong—even a Yuanshen True Immortal could be casually obliterated.
Qian Chen was in no hurry. At worst he could go cling to Taishang Dao's leg! Once he told them about Miaokong, even ten or a hundred Miaokongs would be easily killed by Taishang Dao.
Only, unless it was absolutely unavoidable, he would never give up his present free and easy life.
Qian Chen first put away the Dragon Sparrow Ring, planning to refine it in a while. Another implement he meant to refine was a flight treasure. With his present cultivation, it was utterly impossible for him to ride that Flying Cloud Pouch across the blue heavens; at the very most he could rise three chi off the ground and crawl along slowly. But this implement mattered a good deal too, for it bore on his cultivation of gathering and refining qi once he could sense the primordial qi of heaven and earth.
The rest were all implements of the heterodox path, or outright demonic-path implements.
Miaokong's intent was plain to see. Of the two excellent implements, one was for flight and self-protection, the other for nothing but capture and seizure; while the heterodox and demonic implements were powerful enough, if someone familiar with their methods and techniques set himself against them, they could be countered with great ease. One could well imagine it: if Qian Chen in days to come carried these painstakingly refined implements into battle to slay this great enemy, and Miaokong, fully prepared, broke them all—then never mind that Qian Chen's cultivation was far below his; even if Qian Chen somehow, against all odds, raised his cultivation above Miaokong's, facing such countering methods he would still meet a bitter end.
Among these heterodox implements was a White Bone Relic, only as large as a wicker basket; released, it could transform into a skull demon that devoured human flesh and blood—this was the demonic implement whose restrictions had been struck down.
Even someone of meager cultivation could use this implement to fight enemies two or three tiers above him. But such implements easily ran out of control: if one could not subdue those demons, they would turn on their master, devour all his flesh and blood, and then become a demonic creature roaming everywhere to plague the mortal world. So, to keep this treasure from turning on Qian Chen, Miaokong carried the Dao Dust Pearl far away to a place beyond Miaokong's own reach, and only then struck down its grade.
Qian Chen did not need to think twice to know that Miaokong must have tampered with this implement, and could at any moment command the White Bone Relic's skull demon to turn on its master...
He also disliked the implement's material: it was refined from the skull of a cultivator with a foundation. The White Bone Relic's substance was not poor—it used the skull of a Golden Core cultivator, which among the demonic path counted as a first-rate implement.
Qian Chen casually put it away, intending to find a chance to destroy it. He had not the slightest thought of making it his own; the only reason he did not throw it away now was the fear that some wicked person would get it and plague the world.
There was also a Seven Baleful Demon Banner, refined from seven kinds of baleful qi mixed with the qi of the seven emotions—joy, anger, sorrow, longing, alarm, fear, and grief. It could stir yin demons and confuse the mind, after which a roll of baleful qi would kill the victim. It was a heterodox implement combining lethality and control; its power was not bad, but Qian Chen rather looked down on it—this implement had no future.
Refined to its utmost, it still could not hope to threaten a Golden Core cultivator—unless one obtained the demonic path's secret seven-emotion demons and refined it further... and where would Qian Chen find the leisure for that? Refine it a little, get through this stage, and it could be thrown away.
The next demonic implement was the Soul-Binding Lock—as the name suggests, for binding people. Against those of far lower cultivation it never failed. Against a great enemy, it was of little use.
The last three were worth a look, though. One was a Black Gold Baleful Hook, the only flying-sword-type implement. Such implements relied on their own keenness; in the hands of one skilled in sword arts, they could match any implement, with their power decided entirely by the owner's swordsmanship. Unfortunately, Qian Chen would rather refine a flying sword suited to his own methods and of better substance.
To spend more hard work on a flying sword whose nature did not match his magical power, and which had been refined by heterodox techniques, would be a waste. It was not even worth it for the sake of familiarizing himself with sword arts: a hook-style flying sword had many unique applications that were hard to transfer to other flying swords.
There was also a Heavenly Net Umbrella, a treasure for self-protection: opened and set over the head, its canopy could withstand all manner of spells and implements. Its refining restriction was called the Five Elements Heaven-Escape Restriction, skilled at resisting the primordial qi of the five elements and breaking the transformations of five-element spells. Though not a purely orthodox Daoist method, it was outstanding among heterodox implements. Most spells in the world fell within the five elements, so it was very practical; Qian Chen took it along and prepared to refine it.
The last was a precious mirror that could seek out an enemy's spiritual light, see through illusion spells and restrictions, fix formations in place, and reflect images from a thousand li away. It was a utility implement, quite practical; Qian Chen would refine it a little first so that it could perform its basic functions, and put in hard work later if he ever needed its more wondrous uses.
Implements were valued for quality, not quantity: Qian Chen had the Dragon Sparrow Ring for seizing people and the Heavenly Net Umbrella for protecting himself.
The Seven Baleful Demon Banner, the Flying Cloud Pouch, and the Spirit Light Mirror needed only a touch of refinement. The Flying Cloud Pouch would get hard work from Qian Chen only once he broke through to Sensing; as for the Spirit Light Mirror, unless he ran into a nasty illusion or formation, it was nearly impossible that it would ever earn his favor.
The Seven Baleful Demon Banner only needed to be able to display its power... it would be discarded sooner or later, and was not worth the effort.
The remaining spirit talismans had fixed power and nothing worth examining, and as for the spirit pills, Qian Chen despised them utterly and would not touch them at all. Of the three branches of the Daoist orthodoxy, Taishang Dao was the one that mastered alchemy; even with no spirit medicine at hand, Qian Chen could practice internal alchemy and refine a mouthful of golden nectar and jade dew into spirit medicine to take.
Why would he give a second thought to the jumble of odds and ends in Miaokong's bag?
And so, in about six hours, Qian Chen finished refining these implements. Only the Dragon Sparrow Ring, which he wore on his hand, and the Heavenly Net Umbrella, which he slung across his back, did he constantly nourish and commune with through his inner qi, to grow familiar with their power and thicken their spiritual qi; the rest he put back into the Qiankun bag.
By then it was already dark. Qian Chen sat in meditation until the zi hour, and only when he felt his Dao foundation had grown purer did he turn to meditation and visualization to restore his spirit.
As dawn drew near, he again circulated his internal breath to shed turbid qi, purify his Dao foundation, and advance his practice. He did not stop his bitter cultivation until nearly noon. After lunch, he went out to familiarize himself with using the implements.
Chapter 4