Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Two flicks of a finger.
Yu Wenxiu and Xiang Shaoyun were stunned for a moment after a finger tapped each of their foreheads.
Did this person know who the two of them were?
One was the emperor of Great Zhou, and the other was Mayor of West County… They were both very important people, and one could say that they stood on the top rung of society.
But despite that, their foreheads had been flicked like a naughty child’s.
Lu Fan was floating in midair, and the Spirit Qi continued to swirl around him, covering his face and body more and more thickly. They found it difficult to make him out.
“Your Excellency, what do you mean by this?” Xiang Shaoyun was already on the verge of losing his temper.
Yu Wenxiu frowned but didn’t say anything.
“Didn’t you want an immortal encounter? I have just granted you a special gift…” Lu Fan calmly replied.
“Since you do not wish to hand over your cultivation techniques for me to improve, then I will not force you to do so. But do not regret this in the future.”
“I have bestowed a gift on both of you. It is your choice whether or not to believe me.”
“Spirit Qi has been restored in this world, and the immortal realm has returned, so there will be a great change in this continent. Experiencing this immortal encounter is the greatest blessing you will receive in three lifetimes, so if you don’t know how to cherish it, then that will definitely be your greatest tragedy,” Lu Fan said as Spirit Qi encapsulated his body.
His voice seemed a little far away, coming down to them as if he was high up in the heavens.
“Leave now. Since you are the chosen ones, I will give you one more chance. Three days from now, you will have one more opportunity to come back here.”
Lu Fan then waved his sleeve.
The Spirit Qi suddenly became a typhoon.
Yu Wenxiu and Xiang Shaoyun opened their mouths to say something, but their bodies, which were merely made up of Spirit Qi, exploded into pieces and were thrown out of the Dao Imparting Platform.
In the huge immortal pavilion area, only Nie Changqing remained. The butcher stall owner stood by himself in a far corner.
Lu Fan was still floating in the great mist of Spirit Qi as he looked at Nie Changqing.
He shot a meaningful glance at the man.
“Do you wish to leave too?” Lu Fan asked calmly.
Nie Changqing took a deep breath. Even though everything he had seen here was way too magical, his intuition told him that perhaps… Perhaps none of this was a dream.
“This world really has immortals?” Nie Changqing asked finally.
Lu Fan didn’t answer immediately. He looked hard at Nie Changqing.
“This world did not have immortals. But because I have come, now there are.”
These simple words made Nie Changqing’s entire body start trembling violently, as if he was about to have a seizure.
He slowly closed his eyes.
After taking three deep breaths, Nie Changqing opened his eyes again.
He looked at Lu Fan, stubbornly but with determination.
“I don’t believe in immortals,” Nie Changqing said to Lu Fan.
Lu Fan’s expression didn’t change after he heard those words. “Whether you believe or not, immortals exist.”
Nie Changqing laughed. “Even though I don’t believe in them, I am willing to give you my cultivation technique.”
He smiled and laughed, but there was sadness in his eyes.
“All these cultivation techniques are all useless to me. Right now, I am nothing but a butcher,” Nie Changqing said bitterly.
Lu Fan sat down in the floating cloud of Spirit Qi, his face calm and cold. Perhaps Nie Changqing had a story to tell, but he didn’t have any wine on hand.
He didn’t want to listen to the man’s story, anyway.
“Read the contents of your cultivation technique to me and I’ll listen,” Lu Fan said calmly.
Nie Changqing’s eyes filled with nostalgia as he slowly started reciting the contents of a transfusion technique and a knife technique.
As he spoke, Spirit Qi flowed like a river from his mouth and formed his words, arranging themselves neatly in the space between himself and Lu Fan.
Nie Changqing was shocked by this and paused for a while, but soon he calmed himself down and continued his recitation.
After some time, Nie Changqing finally finished.
Nearly a thousand words formed a long, continuous essay in the once-empty space.
“Cultivation method, Daoist Transfusion Technique.”
“Knife technique, Dispersed Knife Technique.”
Lu Fan was taken by surprise. He hadn’t expected this very ordinary-looking butcher to actually be someone so special.
He was a Daoist.
Lu Fan narrowed his eyes.
In the Wuhuang Continent, besides the Great Zhou royalty and various other political factions, there were also several martial arts powers.
In the martial arts world, practitioners were split into various sects and clans within the Hundred Schools of Philosophy.
Daoism was one of the schools of philosophy. It was an extremely mysterious one.
Besides Daoism, there was also Confucianism, Mohism, Militarism, the Sword Sect, the Yinyang Clan, and the Astrology Sect, among many others.
Of course, the “Hundred Schools of Philosophy” was just a general way of referring to them. There weren’t necessarily one hundred of them.
The Imperial Advisor of Great Zhou, the teacher to the emperor Yu Wenxiu, was a Confucianist, belonging to one of the schools of philosophers.
But this Daoist disciple was now merely a butcher?
Was he hiding his actual identity? Or was there more to it?
Lu Fan was suddenly very curious about Nie Changqing.
“Cultivation techniques are useless to me, since I’m now a good-for-nothing. If you want my cultivation technique, you can have it.”
Nie Changqing waved his hands. He started looking a little tired and impatient as he said, “Can I go now? Twelve more pigs are waiting for me to slaughter them.”
Lu Fan continued to float in the swath of Spirit Qi. He faded in and out of view, sometimes appearing clearly in the pavilion and sometimes not.
“Don’t be in such a hurry… It won’t take long to make some improvements to this low-grade cultivation technique that doesn’t even know how to make use of Spirit Qi,” replied Lu Fan.
His voice seemed far away, and his words were hard to understand.
Nie Changqing froze when he heard these words. This was a Daoist cultivation technique, a world-class technique! What did he mean by calling it a low-grade technique?!
“Activate Dao Imparting Platform Access… Make changes to the Daoist Transfusion Technique and Dispersed Knife Technique,” Lu Fan commanded in his heart.
In the next second, the trigram labels floated up before Lu Fan’s eyes and started arranging themselves.
To Lu Fan, these labels were like keys on a computer keyboard. They were neatly stacked in front of him.
He rubbed his palms together.
Lu Fan’s lips twitched slightly, and he stretched his palms out above the trigram labels as his fingers began typing. A wave was sent out every time the flesh of his fingers touched the labels. He looked like an elegant elf performing a beautiful piece.
Qian, Dui, Li, Zhen, Xun, Kan, Gen, and Kun… Each label had its own special meaning. When he paired them with their corresponding labels and arranged them in various combinations, it was like writing code, creating sequences and logic that a program could base its operations on.
The Dao Imparting Platform could improve cultivation methods and create treasures, among other things… All these functions were possible, but Lu Fan had to develop it first.
Based on his knowledge, Lu Fan decided that the Dao Imparting Platform was the fantasy version of computer programming.
Just as Lu Fan finished writing the program for making changes to cultivation techniques, a message from the system popped up.
[Congratulations to the Host for successfully creating the All-Method Furnace (Level One) for making changes to cultivation techniques. You have received a Transformation Reward of five available points.]
Lu Fan was stunned for a moment. Then he was overjoyed.
A hidden quest?
He had received five points as a reward without even intending to do so…
Five points was the same thing as 50 wisps of Spirit Qi!
That was a huge reward!
His consciousness shifted.
The stats page popped up.
[Host: Lu Fan]
[Title: Qi Refiner (Permanent)]
[Refined Qi Level: 1 (Level 2 progress: 10/100 wisps)]
[Soul Strength: 1.5]
[Physique Strength: 0.5]
[Spirit Qi: 6 wisps]
[Transformation Reward: Fantasy Creation Qi Refining Manual]
[Current World Ranking: Wuhuang Continent (Low-Level Martial World)]
[Access: Quests, Dao Imparting Platform, Spirit Qi Deployment]
[Sub-Access: All Method Furnace (Level 1)]
[Available Points: 5]
As expected, there was now a Sub-Access section on the stats page.
“All-Method Furnace is still at Level One? Looks like this All-Method Furnace has several levels too.” Lu Fan smiled.
Back in the Dao Imparting Platform, Lu Fan focused his mind on the Sub-Access.
Then a loud ringing sound boomed throughout the whole space.
The entire Dao Imparting Platform started shaking.
Nie Changqing’s heart filled with fear that quickly slid toward despair when he heard this terrible sound.
A palm-sized furnace suddenly appeared in Lu Fan’s hands.
As opposed to Nie Changqing’s terrified face, Lu Fan looked very calm, as if he had seen all of this before. He held the furnace in his hand as if everything was going according to his expectations.
He had to maintain the elegant and mysterious aura of an immortal, after all.
He flipped his thumb up daintily and pulled the lid off the All-Method Furnace. The words of the cultivation technique that had been floating in the air earlier jumped into the furnace by themselves, as if they had come alive.
System message: [Confirm deduction of five wisps of Spirit Qi to improve Daoist Transfusion Technique and Dispersed Knife Technique?]
Lu Fan’s face froze. Even breathing felt painful.
Wasn’t he merely improving some techniques?
Doing so required FIVE wisps of Spirit Qi?
This was daylight robbery!
Lu Fan’s heart was bleeding, but he didn’t have a choice. He had started this process to impress the right people, so he had to finish it, even if he felt like crying.
“Make the changes!” Lu Fan said through gritted teeth.
As expected, five wisps of Spirit Qi were deducted from the Spirit Qi field, and now the stats page reported his one lonely remaining wisp of Spirit Qi.
The All-Method Furnace in his palm started to spin at high speed.
[Improvement completed. Cultivation technique Daoist Spirit Transmission and military strategy Knife Control Technique successfully developed. Rating: Earth Level High Grade.]
On the floor of the platform, Nie Changqing took a deep breath. That voice from above had made the blood in his veins, which had been stagnant for a long time, suddenly start to rush. The terrifying authority of the voice had shaken him. That was a voice that defied all resistance.
Could there really be immortals?!
Suddenly, Lu Fan opened his eyes and stood on a blurry cloud, looking just like an immortal.
“I have helped you to improve your cultivation method. Take it,” Lu Fan said, holding the furnace with one hand as the other hand rested behind his back.
With that, he violently waved his sleeve.
Nie Changqing felt as if something strange had entered his brain, and the scene in front of him began to fade.
His body, which was made up of a cloud of Spirit Qi, exploded into pieces.