Clan Head Jin was also stunned, looking left and right without recognizing Daoist Buyu in disguise. “You know me?”
He had traveled ten thousand li to Great Xia in search of its top storyteller. How could this person possibly know who he was?
Was his fame really that widespread?
Clan Head Jin grew wary, his aura circulating as a chilling killing intent slit through his lapel. He suspected this might be one of his creditors, but on second thought, his only current creditor was the Meng Family.
“It’s me, Daoist Buyu,” Daoist Buyu whispered. He wasn’t afraid of revealing his identity; he had no grudge against the Qiongqi Clan.
Daoist Buyu had principles when it came to his conduct. When scamming people, he was selective with his targets: he never conned the poor. The Qiongqi Clan was already impoverished enough; there was no need to torment them further.
As for Clan Head Jin mistakenly wandering into the Nine Nether Cult, that had been the Eighth Elder’s doing—what did it have to do with him?
Nor was he worried Clan Head Jin harbored any ill intent.
Could someone with bad intentions end up living in such dire poverty?
“Daoist Buyu?” Clan Head Jin’s eyes went wide, and then realization dawned on him. No wonder the pingshu performance had been *Legend of the Dao Seeking Sect*—it was their own Sect Master telling the tale! Perfectly reasonable.
“Wait a minute. How did you track me down?”
“Oh, that was simple. In my younger days, I defaulted on debts and hid all over the place. With enough experience hiding, I naturally picked up plenty of experience tracking people down.”
Daoist Buyu: “...”
“You want to take me as your master to learn pingshu storytelling?” Daoist Buyu hesitated. This was the first time an apprentice had ever sought him out of their own accord.
Clan Head Jin also felt some hesitation. Daoist Buyu had a terrible reputation; if he took him as a master, would his own reputation be dragged through the mud as well?
Then again, Daoist Buyu truly was an exceptional teacher—eloquent and a master con artist, possessing precisely what Clan Head Jin lacked. As the saying went, learning from another’s strengths to make up for one’s weaknesses was what this was all about.
He gritted his teeth. Fortune favored the bold. To master a set of skills, how could one take no risks?
A gamble it was.
“Yes, I came to take you as my master!”
Daoist Buyu seemed to sense Clan Head Jin’s resolute determination and was deeply moved.
Although he had heard that the Qiongqi Clan possessed a bizarre fate prone to attracting disaster, to the point that even the Falling Coin Chamber of Commerce dared not shelter them, he had always acted with great caution, so nothing should go wrong.
“There’s no need for an apprenticeship. You’re nearly a thousand years old; our Dao Seeking Sect doesn’t accept disciples that old. However, you can stay by my side and learn.”
...
Having sold out his master, Lu Yang continued studying techniques in the Scripture Pavilion with a clear conscience.
Jiang Lianyi was in no hurry to track down Daoist Buyu either; after all, he couldn't escape Great Xia. The most pressing matter right now was to learn about the changes in the cultivation world over the past three hundred thousand years.
If she encountered anything she didn’t understand, she could simply ask Elder Tao.
Facing the Phoenix Ancestor’s questions, Elder Tao naturally told her everything he knew. He had no intention of prying into how Jiang Lianyi had ended up at the Dao Seeking Sect. Since Xiaoyun had sent her here, she naturally enjoyed Xiaoyun’s trust. As a retiree, he only needed to mind his own small plot in the Scripture Pavilion; whatever happened to the Dao Seeking Sect was the younger generation’s business.
Besides, in answering the Phoenix Ancestor’s questions, she could also recount ancient secrets in return—a win-win for both sides.
The Scripture Pavilion held an all-encompassing collection of cultivation techniques. The last time Lu Yang came, he had only been at the early Golden Core stage. He had browsed a few Nascent Soul stage techniques back then and found them obscure and difficult, but now that his cultivation and perspective had caught up, those Nascent Soul stage arts were no longer hard to grasp.
“*Pure Yang Art*... Oh, the ancestral technique of the Bachelor Spiritual Root. No need to look at this.” In Lu Yang’s understanding of the *Pure Yang Art*, it either contained encouraging words left behind by Bachelor Spiritual Root predecessors—something akin to chicken soup for the soul—or mild cultivation methods, such as splashing oneself with cold water or living in an ice cellar when experiencing fiery heat in the body. Or perhaps radical cultivation methods, like taking aphrodisiacs to boost yang energy: tearing down the old to build up the new.
The latter method effectively accelerated the cultivation speed of a Bachelor Spiritual Root, but the risk was immense; he had heard that several predecessors with Bachelor Spiritual Roots hadn't survived the potency of the medicine.
Old Meng was bolstered by Nirvana True Fire, so even those predecessors who took aphrodisiacs would call his situation excessively radical.
“*Mountain-Moving Art*, a Body Tempering technique. Upon reaching great mastery, one can attain the pinnacle of strength at the Nascent Soul stage, moving mountains and filling the seas with ease.” Lu Yang drew in a breath of cold air. This Mountain-Moving Art was truly formidable; Old Meng could come and train in it.
As for himself, forget it; he wasn’t a body tempering practitioner and couldn’t cultivate Body Tempering techniques.
“If you want to temper your body, there’s a shortcut you can take,” the Immortal Fairy suggested kindly, seeing Lu Yang intrigued by such techniques.
“What shortcut?”
“Getting struck by lightning. If you can survive a lightning tribulation, you can effectively enhance your physical strength. Before Immortal Ying Tian became an immortal, he used to do this all the time. If he hadn’t been exceptionally blessed and possessed an endless supply of pills, he would have been struck dead long ago.”
“Still, when it comes to effectiveness, it really works. During that period, Immortal Ying Tian could suppress and pummel Immortal Kirin. Later, Immortal Kirin got anxious and underwent lightning tribulations as well before they managed to fight to a draw again. The two spurred each other on through competition, becoming quite the celebrated story for a time. Top prodigies scrambled to imitate them, and quite a few got struck dead.”
One didn’t only undergo lightning tribulations when breaking through realms; if someone wanted to face a lightning tribulation, there were plenty of ways to summon one down.
“I’m only in the Nascent Soul stage. Wouldn’t getting struck by lightning be very dangerous?”
The Immortal Fairy waved her hand; having considered every detail, she had already thought of a solution. “What’s there to be afraid of? Did you forget your Invincible Nascent Soul? If you truly encounter a lightning tribulation you can’t survive, the Invincible Nascent Soul will run away as a warning. It’s safe as can be.”
“...The Invincible Nascent Soul is safe, but what about me?”
This was a tricky question, and for a moment, the Immortal Fairy couldn’t think of a good solution.
“Uh, what if this fairy shows her face and tells the lightning tribulation to go back?”
“Are you sure the lightning tribulation would show you respect?”
“Hard to say. A formidable lightning tribulation would respect me, like the Nine Heavens Profound Lightning or something. But you’re only in the Nascent Soul stage, so yours are definitely low-level, petty tribulations. They might not have ever seen me.”
Lu Yang shook his head, tossed the Immortal Fairy’s suggestion to the back of his mind, and continued examining the techniques.
“*Myriad Tribulations Imperishable Art*, a technique specifically for tempering the Nascent Soul. Upon reaching great mastery, the Nascent Soul becomes undying and imperishable, eternal and enduring. Even if giant stars collapse and myriad tribulations descend upon it, not the slightest damage will be done.”
Lu Yang drew in a sharp breath. To think that such a formidable top-tier technique was casually placed on an ordinary bookshelf! If someone could master this, it felt like it would be even more powerful than his Invincible Nascent Soul.
He glanced up to confirm that this was not the “Yun Zhi Section,” then continued flipping through the pages to see how the technique was cultivated.
“To cultivate the Myriad Tribulations Imperishable Nascent Soul Body, one must first have their Nascent Soul survive ten thousand kinds of tribulations.”
“...Damn it, so it’s a theoretical cultivation technique.” Lu Yang lacked the energy even to complain as he recalled that this category of techniques existed.
There was a category called theoretical cultivation techniques—feasible in theory, but strictly limited to theory; no one had ever accomplished it in practice.
Such techniques were either meant to swindle laypeople or were whimsical flights of fancy dreamt up by mighty cultivators.
“Who wrote this... Tao Ran? I’ve never heard that name before.”
As if realizing something, Lu Yang turned his head to look at Elder Tao not far away, who was currently explaining modern cultivation philosophies to Senior Lianyi. He seemed to have found the author of the technique.
Chapter 632