Back at the stone cottage, Zhou Wuji didn't even exchange a word with Yiping and went straight to his own room.
Mostly because the back of his Daoist robe had been clawed to shreds and was beyond saving.
He had gone deep into the cavern to slay ghosts, and his Five Yin Pouch carried nothing else.
After a gulp of cold water, Zhou Wuji changed his Daoist robe, and only then let out a long breath.
He silently counted his blessings. He'd really been overconfident this time—assuming that because his Yin Thunder was fully mastered and he held a treasure sword in hand, he dared take on ghost entities two ranks above his own.
The fight just now had been fraught with danger; the ghost marshal was far more formidable than he'd expected.
The star robe formed by the Big Dipper Heavenly Astral Divine Incantation had been shattered with a single blow.
Fortunately he had the Heavenly Puppet and the White Rainbow Sword, and at the critical moment he'd turned his blade and killed the ghost marshal in a counterattack.
Of course, without these two treasures he never would have taken the risk.
Calming himself, Zhou Wuji drew the battle out of his memory and reviewed it over and over through his sea of consciousness.
His powerful spiritual sense let him record all sorts of combat details, but in the thick of fierce fighting, his mind could only process the most crucial information.
Now, by reconstructing the whole battle through his sea of consciousness, he could re-examine all the combat details and review what he'd done right and wrong.
After watching it dozens of times, Zhou Wuji felt he'd handled it reasonably well.
If he hadn't activated the Pojun Talisman within the White Rainbow Sword with that strike, he couldn't have cut through the ghost marshal's body so easily.
The instant the sword struck, the ghost marshal transformed his soul and spiritual nature, condensing a new body behind himself.
This transformation directly accomplished a shift of position through the void, then re-condensed his body—uncanny and unfathomable, and exceedingly powerful.
Even with his powerful spiritual sense, he hadn't been able to catch the ghost marshal's process of transformation. What he couldn't observe, he couldn't record.
So no matter how many times he watched the battle over, he couldn't work out the details of the ghost marshal's transformation.
He could only conclude that the fourth-rank ghost entity must possess some kind of supernatural power that let it shift so unpredictably.
Zhou Wuji thought this clone-transformation technique was quite formidable. A pity he hadn't even understood it clearly—let alone learned it.
Having nearly met disaster, Zhou Wuji realized he couldn't keep taking risks. There was no need for it.
After all, they were just some ghost entities that could only provide primordial profound qi and save him a bit of cultivation time.
This time he'd been lucky. If he ran into a fourth-rank ghost marshal again, there was no telling what would happen.
After dinner that evening, Zhou Wuji told Yang Tieying to temper his true qi at the entrance of the first layer and not go deeper.
The fourth-rank ghost marshal hid in the fourth layer and wouldn't come out—the rune arrays of the first and second layers suppressed it heavily, and the depths below the fourth layer were perhaps better suited to high-rank ghost entities, so it had no intention of emerging anyway.
His warning was also out of fear that Yang Tieying would foolishly wander deep into the cavern; if he really ran into a powerful ghost entity, he'd be done for.
Lying on the hard wooden bed that night, Zhou Wuji opened the Northern Emperor's Book of Heavenly Punishment.
Having faced great danger today, his gains were of course also good—the ghost marshal could be converted into six liang and one qian of primordial profound qi.
This was also the most powerful ghost entity he had ever slain.
Besides that, there were two ghost generals and eleven ghost soldiers.
Zhou Wuji first converted six of the ghost soldiers, gaining a total of a hundred points of true qi; the last ghost soldier gave only a pitiful dozen or so points.
A ghost soldier of just over three liang was now of very little value to him.
The remaining five ghost soldiers wouldn't add much true qi even if he used them, so he simply left them for the Five Yin Pouch.
The remaining two ghost generals and one ghost marshal he converted entirely into primordial profound qi.
A thick golden light flowed through his whole body, finally gathering at the nine acupoints; after cycling like this for thirty-six revolutions, it all merged into the spirit aperture between his brows.
Zhou Wuji felt the calm yet deep, thick true qi within his spirit aperture, and a surge of joy rose in his heart.
This feeling was like clenching a fist and bending the arm to flex the muscles—a person could sense his own strength and, from that, feel a sense of fullness, satisfaction, and security.
He opened the Northern Emperor's Book of Heavenly Punishment again; his true qi had risen by about sixty percent, to a total of five thousand five hundred.
Of this, the fourth-rank ghost marshal had contributed two thousand, and the two ghost generals added up to fifteen hundred.
At his current cultivation speed, plus tempering his acupoints, in three or four months at most he could refine the nine apertures to perfection, open a stable upper dantian, and reach the peak of Rank Six.
Over the course of next year, he could surely open his heart aperture and advance to Rank Five.
Zhou Wuji felt this speed was quite fast. A Rank Five at twenty-four would rank among the notable ones of his generation in the Arctic Sect.
Of course, whether to be so high-profile depended on the specific circumstances.
He still didn't know the situation in the Upper Court, so there was no need to speculate wildly.
A great advance in his true qi level meant that the power of his spells and swordsmanship would increase accordingly.
Zhou Wuji felt his heart stirring again—taking shortcuts felt wonderful, if a little dangerous.
But what endeavor wasn't without danger?
He forcibly suppressed the thought. Fourth-rank ghost marshals were too dangerous; he'd better think of other ways.
Right—Zhang Shiheng had already been transferred away. That brat Zhang Yunfeng, and Zhang Banshan too; maybe it was time to find a chance to finish them off...
Zhou Wuji felt no burden of conscience about this. They had wanted to kill him; he was merely retaliating.
As the sage said, to take a blow and not return one is no courtesy either.
Zhiyuan had warned him about this, but he didn't want to listen to Zhiyuan's warnings now.
Still, he had to find a suitable opportunity.
The deeper Zhou Wuji's cultivation, the deeper his thoughts grew as well. The people he wanted to kill belonged to a great clan of long standing and deep foundation; it was by no means a matter of just killing them with a single sword strike.
He also had to consider how to clean up afterward, how to leave no trace.
At this thought, Zhou Wuji felt a bit of regret. If his Heavenly Puppet Technique could be raised to the perfected realm, he should be able to truly unleash the full power of this magic treasure.
By making use of the Heavenly Puppet's marvelous functions, perhaps he could kill people imperceptibly, without a trace.
But the Heavenly Puppet was, after all, an external thing, and its arcane technique was bizarre and vastly different from the Arctic Sect's secret arts. For now he should focus on raising his own cultivation; these side-path arts were not something to rush.
With Zhang Shiheng gone, who would take over the Pacification Office? And what sort of power structure did Yunyang City have now?
With Yizhen and Wuming gone, he didn't even have a channel for news—right now he was completely in the dark.
Uncle-Master Yiping couldn't even recognize all the people of the Lower Court, still less be counted on...
Zhou Wuji thought of Wuming's parting words. He didn't know whether that Jin Ying was reliable or not.
The main thing was that she was a young girl, and he had no real business to go chat with her—it just wouldn't feel right...
The next day, Zhou Wuji didn't enter the cavern. During the day he chatted with Yiping and read some light books.
When they moved over this time, they hadn't brought much else, but they had brought quite a number of light books from Feixuan Hall.
After leafing through the light books for a while, Zhou Wuji suddenly recalled the gourd he'd gotten from the Cold-Blooded Twin Fiends—he'd never figured out what it was for.
He decided to ask Uncle-Master Yiping. Although this uncle-master had long since lain flat and given up on striving, he'd read who knew how many light books, so he might recognize this thing.
"Uncle-Master, what do you make of this?" Zhou Wuji handed over the palm-sized yellow jade gourd.
Yiping took the gourd and examined it up and down. When he saw the two characters on its base, his eyes lit up at once.
When it came to refining weapons, refining pills, or appraising objects, Yiping couldn't do any of it, but he'd read so many light books that he also recognized a great many ancient scripts.
Pointing at the two characters on the base of the yellow jade gourd, he said, "These two characters read 'Moon Soul.'"
"This script is from the previous dynasty—very old. This gourd is an antique..."
Having recognized these two complex ancient characters, Yiping was rather pleased with himself.
"From what the records say, Moon Soul should be related to Taiyin qi. This gourd should be able to absorb moonlight, right?"
When it came to the gourd's actual use, though, Yiping grew vague again.
Zhou Wuji nodded. "That must be it."
He'd always been very busy and had never had time to study the yellow jade gourd.
The yin qi stored in the gourd was pure, but it was useless to him.
If it truly could absorb moonlight and continuously generate Taiyin qi, then it would be somewhat useful.
For instance, those who cultivate the spells or martial arts of the Taiyin lineage—including evil entities like ghosts and demons—mostly favor Taiyin qi.
Suddenly it dawned on Zhou Wuji: the reason the Cold-Blooded Twin Fiends had treasured the gourd was that they used Taiyin qi to nourish their ghosts...
For their Heavenly Ghost Sect, this was a supreme treasure.
No wonder their cultivation was mediocre yet they possessed sixth-rank ghost soldiers!
If that was the case, then feeding the Five Yin Pouch with Taiyin qi would work too.
Zhou Wuji returned to his room, sealed the doors and windows, and released the five yin spirits from the Five Yin Pouch.
Then he poured out some water-like Taiyin qi from the yellow jade gourd, and sure enough, the five spirits all eagerly went over to consume the Taiyin qi.
But there was no immediate effect.
That was only natural—he had fed the five spirits plenty of primordial profound qi, which was not something a bit of Taiyin qi could compare to.
So the gourd was almost useless to him. He could only keep it to give away as a gift or sell for money.
Zhou Wuji thought of Jin Ying. This might be a pretty good excuse, and besides, the thing really was useless...
But he was in no hurry—there was still plenty of time...
The five ghost soldiers were useless, so Zhou Wuji converted them directly into primordial profound qi and fed it to the five spirits.
Rank Six ghost soldiers were a great tonic for five Rank Seven yin spirits.
This immediately raised the Five Yin Pouch—already at the height of mastery—to the perfected realm.
To Zhou Wuji, this was the real unexpected joy.
The perfected Five Yin Pouch's carrying space had grown to eighteen chi square, and it could transform at will into all sorts of forms.
For instance, it could turn into a black robe draped over him, shielding his living aura—simply a must-have for doing bad deeds.
This spell had also reached its peak.
He need only wait until he went to the Upper Court, completed his advancement to Rank Six, and then cultivate the Five Spirits Pouch. He just didn't know whether the Five Yin Pouch could transform into the Five Spirits Pouch...
Over the following days, Zhou Wuji spent the daytime chatting with Uncle-Master Yiping over tea, or reading and studying.
In the evenings he guided Yang Tieying in sword practice and cultivation, and occasionally gave some pointers to Shangxing as well.
This went on until early in the seventh month, when the weather grew increasingly hot.
But cooking and boiling water still couldn't do without firewood.
Some time ago Zhou Wuji had refined pills and used a lot of firewood, so the firewood was suddenly running short.
Yiping told Shangxing to go to the steward to requisition more, so Shangxing took Yang Tieying and went.
Zhou Wuji didn't think much of it, but before long Shangxing and Yang Tieying came running back—Shangxing panting for breath, while Yang Tieying wasn't even red-faced or short of breath, only wearing a somewhat odd expression.
"Uncle-Master, this is bad—Senior Brother hit someone from Bixing Hall..." Shangxing was so frantic as he spoke that he looked about to cry.
Yang Tieying stiffened his neck and said, "Master, that fellow from Bixing Hall was too much—he said we were using too much firewood and told us to wait a few days."
"I couldn't hold it in and said a few words to him, but he mocked me as a country bumpkin, and in a fit of anger I gave him two slaps..."
At this point Yang Tieying felt a bit guilty again, and his voice dropped.
Shangxing was frantically wringing his hands and stamping his feet, sighing over and over. He felt that hitting someone from Bixing Hall had landed them in serious trouble.
He and Yang Tieying were close friends, and he was very much afraid Yang Tieying would be punished for it.
Zhou Wuji, however, couldn't help but smile. "You blockheaded kid—if you've got something to say, just say it properly; don't always go straight to your fists.
"This time you were lucky—the experts weren't there, so you got the better of it. Next time you run into someone tough, you won't even be able to run away."
"Oh." Seeing that Zhou Wuji was all smiles and seemed to have no intention of punishing him, Yang Tieying also relaxed.
Zhou Wuji then said to Shangxing, "It's all a small matter. Don't worry about it."
Before the words had even left his mouth, a clamor arose outside, and several Daoists wearing Hunyuan caps pushed the door open and came in...
Chapter 123