Chapter 27 – The Beginnings of Spells
What made Liu Ming feel even more depressed was the fact that he was only able to understand about thirty to forty percent of the Dark Bone Method’s first level.
This Cultivation Method was entirely different from the Practitioner Method that he practiced previously. A lot of the sentences had double, sometimes triple interpretations that made it hard to determine the text’s true meaning.
Under this situation, there were two things that Liu Ming could do: He could ask someone to explain the method sentence by sentence or he could read some texts on cultivation experiences and determine the true meaning based off of those experiences.
Clearly the first would yield quicker results. However, Ruan Martial Uncle had warned Liu Ming about telling others about the Dark Bone Method, and thus Liu Ming could only choose the second option.
After confirming that the second option was his only choice, Liu Ming put the book away and left his dwelling. Once again, he set out for the Spirit Spell Pavilion.
When Liu Ming came back, he had acquired two extremely thick books on cultivation experiences while his final two Spirit Stones were gone.
However, Liu Ming had quite a bit of excitement on his face.
The two books on cultivation experiences were written by two Spirit Masters of the Barbarian Ghost Sect, and contained careful explanations of the various intricacies in entry-level Cultivation Methods which was just what Liu Ming needed.
However, when Liu Ming returned to his dwelling, he did not dive straight into comprehending the Dark Bone Method. Instead, he went straight to his room and fell onto his bed.
His slept for a full day and night.
When Liu Ming opened his eyes again, he quickly went to the courtyard to wash his face before walking back into the room that was designated for his training.
Sitting down cross legged, Liu Ming opened the two borrowed books and the Dark Bone Method in front of him. After some slight hesitation, he also took out a small cloth pouch and poured out quite a few Pills of Fastening which he then shoved into various places in the Dark Bone Method book.
With this precaution, Liu Ming would no longer face situations where he might accidentally starve himself to death.
After taking a deep breath, Liu Ming began reading the pages of the book. Soon after, Liu Ming became immersed in the text…
……
Half a month later, a burst of wild laughter came from Liu Ming’s training room.
From his seated position, Liu Ming suddenly stood up and raised his head, laughing.
However, Liu Ming’s appearance told a completely different story. His hair was scattered into thick, tangled strands that stuck together, his clothes were full of wrinkles, and he faintly carried with him a pungent, sour scent.
But there could be no doubt as to why Liu Ming was in such a bad state!
For the past half month, whenever Liu Ming was hungry, he would eat a Pill of Fasting; whenever he was thirsty, he would take a gulp from the bucket beside him, and whenever he was tired, he would sleep on the futon below him. He had not even once, taken a step outside of the room this whole time.
However, because of Liu Ming’s persistence, he finally understood the first level of the Dark Bone Method; all he needed to do now was slowly train in it until he got to the Middle Spirit Apostle level.
After Liu Ming overcame his excitement, he quickly realized the inadequacy in his appearance and thus, with furrowed brows, he dragged the wooden bucket out of the room.
After taking off his clothes, Liu Ming washed himself with water from the well and once again, became what some might call “presentable”.
With his wet hair, Liu Ming put on the dust resistant clothing and returned to the training room.
Although there were wrinkles on the dust resistant clothing, it was made of a special material and was not dirty in the slightest. In addition, even if water was poured on it, the water would just flow till it hit the ground and not affect it in the slightest.
Sitting back down, Liu Ming didn’t start practicing the Dark Bone Method. Instead, he took out the three spell books and started reading them over.
The original obscure sentences in the methods now seemed to be extremely simple in Liu Ming’s eyes.
After spending nearly 4 hours, Liu Ming memorized the three techniques.
Liu Ming let out a light breath as he placed all the books to the side, then closed his eyes and held up strange hand signs above both of his knees.
A second later, Liu Ming felt as if his mind sank into his body, and suddenly he could see his inner self which was currently a jumble of lights.
Liu Ming could see the subtle pulsation of his regular meridians. The three thick Spiritual Pulses that wrapped around his entire body and the fist-sized silver Spirit Sea that was quietly sitting within his Dantian.
With a slight thought, Liu Ming’s Spirit Sea started spinning faster and faster.
With a few popping sounds, a couple of white Yuan Li strands flew from Liu Ming’s Spirit Sea and pushed themselves into Liu Ming’s meridians before they were finally transported all over Liu Ming’s body.
Like this, Liu Ming finally took the first step into the training of Dark Bone Method.
Three days later, Liu Ming was still seated on his futon. However, he was muttering some chant as his hands furiously made symbol after symbol.
Before him, a small grey fog was forming. As time went by, more and more grey fog formed until it finally became a small grey cloud after ten to fifteen minutes.
“Rise!”
Seeing the grey cloud below him, Liu Ming changed the symbol in his hand without any hesitation.
With a “peng” sound, the cloud rose and carried Liu Ming as it slowly flew higher.
Seeing this, Liu Ming face showed happiness. However, while Liu Ming was busy celebrating, his hand symbol had been altered slightly.
With another “peng”, Liu Ming fell from the disappearing cloud and heavily crashed onto the ground.
Thankfully, the cloud had not risen more than a couple of feet above ground. Thus, Liu Ming did not suffer any damage besides a slight bruise.
Although he fell, Liu Ming showed an exuberant expression.
This was only Liu Ming’s third attempt at the Soaring Sky Technique, to already have mastered the technique to such an extent was beyond Liu Ming’s expectations.
According to the cultivation experience books, even the simplest spells need dozens to hundreds of repeated practices before they could be performed.
It looked like the above average mental strength and talent of his, gave him two benefits:: One was boosting his cultivation training, the other helped him master spells much faster than other disciples.
Once Liu Ming transformed more Yuan Li into Fa Li and was more practiced with the technique, he would master the Soaring Sky Technique.
As Liu Ming thought about what uses the Soaring Sky Technique had besides transportation, he started make another hand sign and started practicing in the other two spells.
……
After most of the day, Liu Ming was still sitting quietly on the ground. However, one of his hands suddenly formed a sign while his other hand started to move forward with its palm facing the sky.
With a “pu”, a ball of fire the size of an egg started to burn within his palm.
With a light smile, Liu Ming made a fist with that hand and the fire immediately extinguished.
Afterwards, Liu Ming started chanting as his fingers danced in front of him.
A line of white mist started to form in the air before Liu Ming, and when he spat out the final word of the chant, it condensed to form a clear water ball the size of Liu Ming’s fist. It unsteadily hung in midair and appeared as if it would fall down at anytime.
At this time, Liu Ming’s hands finally stopped. Liu Ming slowly extended a finger, poking the ball of water. Afterwards, he quickly withdrew his wet finger and tasted the water before finally smiling with a sense of achievement.
……
About a dozen days later, Liu Ming was sitting on a decently-sized grey cloud as he flew back and forth a few hundred feet above his dwelling.
Feeling the strands of wind that passed him by, Liu Ming had an excited expression that was hard to hide.
Even though Liu Ming was usually much more calculating and mature than other youths of his age, Liu Ming right now, looked like a regular kid.
Soon, Liu Ming felt that his Fa Li was about to run out. Immediately, he made a hand sign and the grey cloud slowly descended towards the ground.
Liu Ming couldn’t sustain the Soaring Sky Technique for long right now, but the time in which he could perform it was more than enough for him to use it as a method of transportation.
As for the Flame Technique and Condensation Technique, Liu Ming had also achieved quite a high level of mastery in them.
Unfortunately, these three techniques were the most basic spells and were mainly used to introduce new disciples to the art of spell casting. They had very little use in actual combat.
It looked like the next time Liu Ming went to the Spirit Spell Pavilion, he needed to pick out two combat spells.
However, when Liu Ming thought about the Spirit Spell Pavilion, the first thing that came to his mind was Senior Zhao that was in charge of the pavilion. All she ever saw was “money” and it showed through her narrow and skimpy face.
When Liu Ming thought of money, he suddenly remembered that he had been in the sect for almost a month now. Thus he had to go to the Duty Hall to receive a chore sect mission, or else he would have no Spirit Stones for the next month!
However, Liu Ming didn’t rush out of his dwelling. Instead, he quickly returned to his training room and began to recover his Fa Li.
Thankfully, Liu Ming was still quite weak and the amount of Fa Li he needed to recover was not large, which meant that recovering the Fa Li did not take that long.
After an hour Liu Ming was once again sitting on a grey cloud, flying towards the Duty Hall.
When Liu Ming went into the Duty Hall, his face was instantly filled with surprise.
The first floor was filled with fifty to sixty people. However, most of them were Outer Sect disciples while only seven or eight of them were disciples with the clothings of Inner Sect disciplines.
“Could I ask you a question, Senior? What is going on right now? Are there usually this many people here?” Liu Ming blinked his eyes and walked towards a Inner Sect Disciple around the age of 20 that was standing by the door. After greeting the senior with his hands together, Liu Ming began asking his questions.
“Oh, you’re a new Disciple Junior right? Haha, today is the Duty Hall’s annual rotation in the various Sect chores and missions. Therefore, a lot of people have came early in order to pick a better mission or chore. However, the reality is that the good missions that pay quite handsomely have already been reserved by others.” This Inner Sect Disciple was extremely friendly and after glancing at Liu Ming, explained the situation in detail.
“Oh I see. Thank you for your advice.” Liu Ming, was not dumb and instantly realized the situation.
“Hehe, I am Li Zong from the Corpse Refinery Faction. What is your name and which faction are you under?” Seeing how respectfully Liu Ming was despite his age, the Inner Sect disciple got a fairly favorable impression of him and thus carelessly asked him another question.
“My name is Bai Chong Tian. I am under the Nine Infant Faction.” Liu Ming answered without hiding anything.
“Oh, so junior is under Gui Martial Uncle’s teachings. However, the Nine Infant Faction has been quite weak for many years now so junior’s future doesn’t look too great.” Hearing this, Li Zong expression became one of sympathy.
“It’s alright. I think that my seniors are quite caring about us juniors.” Liu Ming answered back without showing any emotion.
“Hehe. Within the factions, everyone is friendly. However, when the Large Competition and the following Trials start, you will come to understand the pain of being in a weak faction.” Li Zong shaked his head as he slowly muttered.
“Oh? The Large Competition and Trials! Although I have heard people talk about them, I really do not know the specifics. Could senior Li enlighten me about them?” Hearing this, Liu Ming became thoughtful.