◎ Mental Power = Spiritual Sense Development ◎
Meng Zi draped in the black cloak of the Annihilation Pavilion, wore a bamboo hat, and stacked two black masks on his face.
“The Annihilation Pavilion is here to apprehend Liu Ba of the Golden Hammer.”
He had a green bronze token on his waist, bearing the character “annihilation,” which flew to the three in front of him, including Lin Shuang.
“Please bear with me for a moment.”
As he spoke, Meng Zi’s sharp gaze fell on Liu Ba, who was covered in talismans and had a look of despair.
“Assassin from the Annihilation Pavilion?” Zhou Xuanwu halted his sword cautiously.
Meng Zi cleared his throat and looked at Lin Shuang, who was leisurely reclining on the broadsword, and then at Zhou Xuanwu, who was similarly dressed in Clearwater Sect robes. He stiffly touched the mask on his face.
The Annihilation Pavilion, born from insignificance a hundred years ago, had gradually become a prominent assassin organization known in both the Eastern and Western realms. It was said that as long as you paid enough spirit stones, they could assassinate anyone you wanted.
The top ten assassins were at a level close to crossing the tribulation and ascending.
But assassins always conducted their dealings in secret, everyone wearing masks and bamboo hats. No one had seen their true faces.
After all, they shunned the light; everything was about the reward.
Meng Zi turned his head, lowered his bamboo hat, and avoided the inquisitive gaze of the other.
Thankfully, he was in disguise, and he wasn’t afraid to meet his fellow sect members.
Thinking this, Meng Zi lowered his voice, “Indeed.”
However, his gaze under the bamboo hat was fixed on Lin Shuang, who was still lying flat.
From within the Clearwater Sect to outside the sect gate.
Did she do this even when she was on a mission?
Meng Zi’s eyes flickered, he withdrew his gaze and nodded towards Zhou Xuanwu and Xiao Qi. “Annihilation Pavilion’s bounty mission for the Golden Hammer, Liu Ba, valued at five thousand spirit stones.”
“I was with another assassin earlier, and I cut off his right arm. However, he escaped. Since you two captured him, you’ll get the bulk of the reward. We’ll take two thousand, is that okay?”
He completely disregarded Lin Shuang as he said this.
But Zhou Xuanwu and Xiao Qi turned to her, “Junior Sister Lin, what do you think?”
Meng Zi: “?”
Under the sunlight, Lin Shuang scrutinized the newcomer from the Annihilation Pavilion.
Before acting or speaking, conducting thorough observation can greatly reduce the time cost of misunderstandings, bad impressions, and even communication failures.
She propped her forehead with her hand, sat up on the broadsword, and her gaze wandered over the intersecting edges of the mismatched masks. It paused briefly on the disarray of the black cloak, one corner of it caught in the belt, and the apparent mismatched sock colors peeking out of his boots.
Then, her gaze lowered and landed on the plain square wooden table under his feet—a table leg had a familiar dent.
It was the same table corner that was bumped into when Xiao Ai, was pouring tea.
Lin Shuang looked up at the sky.
This was the most generous one that bought her the table.
This messy appearance was quite similar to the disciple who led the patrol outside the No. 99 wooden house that day, with his clothes in disarray.
At this moment—
A person standing on the table, with the table standing on the sword, this acrobatic posture was truly… shocking.
This design… she didn’t want to try it!
In the future, whether it’s for personal use or drawing symbols on a table, it might be better not to do so.
“Uh, he’s already here with injuries. We’ll take three thousand spirit stones, which is quite fair.”
Lin Shuang had no objections.
Haggling wasn’t on her schedule.
After draining this Foundation Establishment evil cultivator, whatever remained of his ill-gotten wealth, gained or lost, was inconsequential to her.
With a balanced mindset and heightened emotions, efficiency could be improved.
She nodded to the other party and quickly reclined again.
Meng Zi’s forehead twitched, and he averted his eyes.
He counted out three middle-grade spirit stones and shot them toward Zhou Xuanwu.
Zhou Xuanwu flew his sword forward and abruptly caught them.
“Goodbye!” Meng Zi turned around, carrying the limp Liu Ba away.
Leaving Zhou Xuanwu standing there, his gaze fixated, “This table… is a third-grade talisman?!”
Xiao Qi turned to look at Lin Shuang.
“Drawing symbols involves guiding spiritual energy into the paper’s patterns… the complexity of this spiritual wood table’s patterns far surpasses that of a thin piece of talisman paper. How would you even inscribe symbols on this spiritual wood table…”
“There’s always someone better than you. Truly, there’s always someone better…”
Zhou Xuanwu, who always wanted to be the best, once again realized the vastness of the world and fell into a self-enclosed state of “Why am I not good enough.”
Lin Shuang closed her eyes to rest, seemingly indifferent to all of this.
Xiao Qi couldn’t help but reach out and poke her from behind.
Lin Shuang dodged away with disgust, giving him an unusual look.
“What’s wrong? Split your spiritual perception into one hundred and eight parts, enter the wood table’s patterns, while seeking the most abundant wood essence positions for the symbols, communicate with the power of heaven and earth, and draw with your other hand. Isn’t that simple?”
“???”
Xiao Qi staggered.
What? Do you have one hundred and eight parts to your spiritual perception?
【Lin Shuang’s Experimental Notes】
【First Year, First Month, Third Day】
Today’s training covers the odd-numbered parts 1-25 of spiritual perception, along with the newly added parts 26-30 of this month.
Gradually becoming proficient.
【Second Year, Second Month, Seventh Day】
Today, I mastered the transition between ‘using odd-numbered spiritual perception to draw first-order symbols, and using even-numbered spiritual perception to learn the second-order Haoran Technique.’
I’ve preliminarily verified two theories I’ve proposed.
1. The division of labor between the left and right brains in humans can be applied to the development of different abilities using odd and even-numbered spiritual perception.
2. Speculated similarity between the development of the human brain and the development of spiritual perception: Frequent use of the brain with conscious training can make spiritual perception more active, and powerful, and generate more abilities.
【Second Year, Twelfth Month, First Day】
Today, my spiritual perception has finally crossed from the 107th to the 108th strand.
I feel like this is the limit to developing my mental power in this body.
I will continue to alternately train the different abilities of odd and even-numbered spiritual perception.
One month later, in the alternating training, I’ll focus on the flexibility of spiritual perception at multiples of 1, 2, and 3.
Half a year later, I’ll strive to manipulate all 108 strands of spiritual perception simultaneously.
【Second Year, Twelfth Month, Ninth Day】
Sigh.
The experiment of using 108 strands of spiritual perception to perform 108 tasks separately has failed.
I was being too optimistic.
It seems that I can only quickly advance to the Nascent Soul stage, and master the art of clones, to do everything at once!
【Third Year, First Month, Third Day】
Mm, I’ve made some progress again.
Using all 108 strands of spiritual perception simultaneously, focusing on one specific task, increases efficiency by nearly 100% to 999%.
Continuing to develop the sharpness of my spiritual perception, there’s hope for further improvement.
And what about the Dantian? Can my current 36 Qi Refining Dantians practice 36 different techniques simultaneously?
Forget it, Lin Shuang, focus, that’s the way to be faster.
…
【—Lin Shuang’s Summary of Spiritual Perception Cultivation Experience (Draft 137)】
Familiarity breeds innovation.
Lin Shuang was reminded by Xiao Qi and retrieved her diary on spiritual perception cultivation.
Due to the saturation of her spiritual perception intensity, its growth rate gradually slowed down.
She hadn’t recorded anything for a long time.
Now, looking at it again, she felt that the 108 strands of spiritual perception that had formed about eight years ago and had been used daily for nearly three thousand days, had become more flexible and refined.
[Sure enough, a scientifically planned schedule for learning, entertainment, and rest has made my spiritual perception more effective.]
[PS: The variety of entertainment and rest activities should be diversified, not limited to just a few. For example, watching movies, the battles of Zhou Xuanwu, and others—a first-time experience—has a wonderful effect on resting spiritual perception.]
[But for others, like Xiao Qi watching Zhou Xuanwu’s battles, there seems to be no rest or growth in spiritual perception. Is it because of their mindset? Or a lack of long-term training?]
—Summary of Spiritual Perception Cultivation Experience (Draft 138)
Lin Shuang finished recording and nodded satisfactorily as she dried the ink marks.
She stretched lazily on the wide sword.
“Junior Sister Lin, I’m returning to Mountain and Sea Sect. Contact me again for our next outing or fat-burning exercise.”
Upon reaching the entrance of the Clearwater Sect, Xiao Qi continued westward, parting ways with them.
Zhou Xuanwu hesitated to speak but ended up just pursing his lips in silence. He followed Lin Shuang into the sect’s gate.
As soon as the scattered outer sect disciples saw them, they eagerly rushed toward the management hall.
“Senior Brother Xu Rui, they’re back!”
“No worries, no worries. They didn’t encounter that Foundation Establishment evil cultivator!”
Senior Brother Xu Rui came out with his Eight Trigram Sword on his back. He quickly flew over, seeing the two of them, his expression relaxed for a moment, “Thank goodness, thank goodness. This dangerous Desolate Mountains nearly had an incident. You two didn’t encounter that Foundation Establishment cultivator, you’re really lucky.”
Zhou Xuanwu: “…”
Senior Brother, not only did we encounter him, but we also defeated him.
“Junior Brother Zhou, why do you look so pale?”
Senior Brother Xu Rui quickly noticed something was off.
“Did your mission go smoothly?”
Zhou Xuanwu opened his mouth and then closed it again.
Xu Rui had been in charge of the outer sect management for ten years and was well acquainted with the personalities of each disciple. He shook his head, not expecting the reticent one to speak up. Instead, he quickly observed Lin Shuang.
He saw that her eyes were bright, her cheeks were slightly flushed like peaches, and her outer sect robe was neat and fluttering without a single tear.
It seems she didn’t suffer any losses.
“As long as there were no major mishaps,” Xu Rui breathed a sigh of relief, “let’s go to the management hall to submit the mission.”
Outside the management hall stood a towering pine tree that was over three hundred years old. On the west side of the pine tree was a stone tablet for ranking the disciples.
Zhou Xuanwu and Lin Shuang handed over the mission evaluation of the merchant Sun Lao’s task to Xu Rui.
Xu Rui opened it and was taken aback.
[Zhou Xianren (Immortal Zhou): Grade A. Courageous and fearless, willing to sacrifice.]
[Lin Xianshi (Fairy Lin): Grade A. The fairy’s divine skills are mighty, guarding us fiercely, and she’s approachable, sharing interesting stories on the road.]
This Sun Lao guy was quite a flatterer.
Their cultivations were vastly different, yet the evaluation he gave both of them was first-rate.
Xu Rui let out a sigh, “Ordinary people generally respect cultivators, which is why you two could easily achieve such excellent results. In the future, as your cultivation levels rise, you’re bound to receive requests for tasks from fellow cultivators and even seniors. At that time, remember to be diligent and cautious.”
After he finished speaking, the mission book was quickly updated to Grade A tasks, and the stone tablet at the entrance of the management hall emitted a spiritual light.
[Zhou Xuanwu completes a Grade A task, rated Grade A.]
[Lin Shuang completes a Grade A task, rated Grade A.]
[Mission difficulty changed: Originally 200 contributions, now doubled for a reward of 2000 sect contributions.]
[Rated Grade A, an additional reward of 500 sect contributions.]
[Zhou Xuanwu’s ranking among outer sect disciples updated: 2 → 1.]
[Lin Shuang’s ranking among outer sect disciples updated: 17291 → 14993.]
Xu Rui nodded, particularly encouraging Zhou Xuanwu, “Well done, keep improving your cultivation.”
But Zhou Xuanwu didn’t hear anything; he was fixated on the stone tablet.
Lin Shuang, 14993rd.
Unconsciously, a scene of a pair of pink fists planting the Foundation Establishment Stage Hammer into the ground flashed before his eyes…
In a daze, he saw Lin Shuang looking at the ranking on the stone tablet, a satisfied smile on her face.
She was still unremarkably near the bottom.
“You two should rest and recuperate for a while.”
Xu Rui Senior Brother was about to leave the management hall when he stopped, “Oh, by the way, Junior Brother Zhou, I’ve already submitted your name for the elite disciple quota to the elders at the end of the year.”
Zhou Xuanwu looked at Lin Shuang who was leisurely standing with her hands in her pockets, and then turned around contentedly.
“Next spring equinox, it’s up to you for the competition among the strongest outer sect disciples of the twelve major sects within the Eastern Realm will depend on you.”
Senior Brother Xu Rui reminded him, patting his shoulder.
Quickly, he raised his brows with compulsive behavior, patting his other shoulder as well to maintain harmony between Yin and Yang.
Zhou Xuanwu suddenly snapped to attention, “Senior Brother, did you also submit Lin Junior Sister’s name?”
“Huh?”
” Junior Sister Lin, which one are you talking about?”
Lin Shuang, who was already gliding on her wide sword like a snowboard, paused mid-air.
Author’s Note:
Lin Shuang: Finally, couldn’t keep it hidden anymore?
“Record of the 134th Generation Zhao Sect Master of the Clearwater Sect, Chapter 12”:
“On that day, Senior Sister was visibly uneasy. Senior Brother Xu Rui knew that Senior Sister was efficient in doing miscellaneous tasks, often arriving late and leaving early. But in the past ten years, all he had seen was the fastest Senior Sister in handling miscellaneous tasks.”
“Note, the miscellaneous tasks are only a small part of the first volume of ‘Fastest Learning,’ occupying just a fraction of the content.”
Senior Brother Xu Rui: ??? Speak human language.
Zhou Xuanwu: Elite disciple, I’m not worthy.
