Lingyu Water Control Art

Chapter 18: Lingyu · Water Control Art (Seeking Follow-up Reads)

"Ah Xie, go ask the tribal chief if any new fragments have been found."

The young man guarding the cave entrance heard the command and quickly walked away.

He couldn't discern any particular clues. For now, he could only place his hopes on finding more fragments.

If he could piece together more than half of the entire Iron Wood Boat, and the beast patterns on it were more comprehensive, perhaps he would gain some inspiration.

A burly, strong man walked into the cave.

"Old tribal uncle, have you found anything?"

"No, witchcraft is a divine art, born from the supernatural abilities of desolate beasts. It's not something you can understand just by looking at it."

The strong man was Huang Yun, the tribal chief of the Shanghuang Tribe.

"I've already sent out both Huang Shi and Huang Shang. One is searching to the south, and the other to the north. Once any new fragments are found, they will be sent back to the tribe quickly. No one in the vicinity can snatch them from us Shanghuang."

"Mm."

The elder nodded. "We still need to find the place where the Iron Wood Boat shattered as soon as possible. If we can find the person who piloted the boat, perhaps we can find the true remains of a witch doctor."

Based on the beast patterns pieced together from the fragments of the Iron Wood Boat, it was clear that it belonged to a desolate beast, the Lingyu.

The only tribe that used the Lingyu as their tribal totem was the Lingyu Upper Tribe.

The Lingyu Upper Tribe was more than ten thousand miles away from this place. Even if an Iron Wood Boat from the Lingyu Tribe shattered, the probability of it drifting to the nearby mountains and wilderness with the flood was not high.

There was only one possibility: an Iron Wood Boat from the Lingyu Tribe had broken down in the nearby mountains and wilderness.

"Don't worry, I've already sent people out to search. If a witch doctor from the Lingyu Upper Tribe really died nearby, and if they possessed any witchcraft, it will surely belong to us. In this vicinity, besides us Shanghuang, who else has the right to control witchcraft!"

Huang Yun's large eyes flickered with a bright light. The difference between the upper and lower tribes was not just in Martial Arts, but also in Witchcraft.

The Shanghuang Tribe had been established for over five hundred years, and obtaining the inheritance of witchcraft had been the long-cherished wish of successive tribal shamans and chiefs.

Blazing Flame Tribe.

Inside the cave, Shen Can lay on the stone bed with his eyes closed.

[You have invested another thirty years, repeatedly sketching the beast patterns. As your mind moved, you captured a wisp of spiritual charm like a swimming fish.]

[This wisp of spiritual charm complements the runes you previously deciphered. The spiritual charm seems naturally formed.]

[Fifty years later, following the spiritual charm, you naturally wrote out the second rune.]

[The two runes intertwined, as if stirring up ripples of water, waves surging, and light sparkling.]

Shen Can opened his eyes. As his thoughts drifted, his [Lifespan: 1011].

Deducing witchcraft was indeed difficult. In total, it had consumed over three hundred years of lifespan intermittently.

But it was worth it. The two witch runes, or rather, witch script, were imprinted in his mind, as if filled with water.

Now that the effect had been verified, it was time to go all in.

"Sacrificial Cauldron, give me a thousand years' worth."

Within the three-legged Sacrificial Cauldron, a phantom sat cross-legged. In the depths of his consciousness, he heard a movement.

[Stubborn one, you are being stubborn.]

[You have invested one thousand years of lifespan, wanting to deduce the complete Water Control Witchcraft.]

[You have already mastered two witch runes and captured some of the profound mysteries of water within the witch script. You continued to deduce along this profound mystery.]

[The entire process was dry and tedious, but your goal was firm. When you felt restless, you would sketch the beast patterns.

Hard work pays off. The third, fourth witch script... were continuously deduced by you.

As the number of witch scripts increased, the spiritual light of water you felt became more and more brilliant.]

[The ninth witch script was deduced by you. The nine witch scripts, arranged in a line, underwent a change. Amidst the rippling water, the nine witch scripts moved in unison and automatically reorganized.]

[After reorganization, the nine witch scripts connected with each other. Vaguely, a strange desolate beast with a human face, a fish body, and four legs appeared before your eyes.]

[Your first impression was that this divine and strange desolate beast was very insubstantial overall, only having a framework, with nothing inside its belly.]

[You immediately realized that you had seen beast patterns on the fragments of the Iron Wood Boat. It was like a part of the fish body of the strange desolate beast before your eyes, except that the strange desolate beast before you had not yet grown scales.]

[Congratulations, after spending five hundred and seventy-three years, you have successfully comprehended the Lingyu Water Control Art.]

Inside the cave, Shen Can directly plunged his hand into the large pottery jar where he kept his water.

The water in the jar transformed into a stream and wrapped around his wrist.

As he raised his hand, the stream of water wrapped around his wrist climbed onto his shoulder like a transparent little snake and began to wander around his body.

Controlling the water flow was just a small trick. Witchcraft contained too many variations. Different arrangements of witch script would result in different divine manifestations. This was something he had understood through years of deduction.

It took him over three hundred years to deduce one witch script, and five hundred and seventy years to deduce one witchcraft. In total, it cost nearly a thousand years of lifespan.

Shen Can felt it was all worth it.

Looking back now, this thing seemed simple because he understood it.

He had a feeling that the so-called Lingyu Water Control Art was a vast system, and he had only uncovered a tiny corner of it.

He had only initially deduced one witchcraft spell. The Lingyu script wasn't just nine characters; the somewhat faint Lingyu phantom image was enough to prove that.

It wasn't that the Lingyu phantom was faint, but rather that what he had deduced so far could only vaguely form the Lingyu's phantom image.

"Lingyu... it really is something from the Upper Tribe. It floated over from such a distance. These things from the Upper Tribe are too durable."

Shen Can's thoughts returned to the Iron Wood Boat itself.

No wonder the Shanghuang Tribe had come to the tribe twice to coerce and entice him. Now he was even more convinced that the Shanghuang Tribe might have obtained more fragments of the Iron Wood Boat.

The more fragments there were, the more beast patterns they would have. If he had more beast patterns, deciphering them wouldn't consume so much lifespan.

Perhaps someone in the Shanghuang Tribe was also deciphering the witchcraft spells on it. He just didn't know if their talent was as great as his own genius.

Collecting his thoughts, he walked out of the cave.

Day was about to break, and it was time to clean up for his ancestors. After cleaning, he had to go patrol the tribe.

As long as the plague wasn't gone, he couldn't relax.

He wondered how long the tribal chief would keep people in isolation.

"The tribal chief is also an old schemer."

Facing the rising sun, Shen Can mumbled softly as he walked out of the Ancestral Temple cave.

Though he mumbled, it wasn't out of complaint, but out of immense joy.

From the Iron Wood Boat fragments to hiding the beast blood and isolating the tribesmen, it was clear that the tribal chief had been guarding against external intrusion in advance.

He acted very shrewdly.

At noon, Shen Can emerged from the isolation cave. As he gazed into the distance, he suddenly saw someone approaching the tribal grounds.

Squinting, he saw it was Huo Shan.

He just remembered he hadn't seen Uncle Huo Shan in a month.

As the tribe's reserve Heavenly Vein, and the hunting team leader second only to Huo Tang, he hadn't shown his face in the tribe at all in the more than a month since the floodwaters receded.

Where had he been?

He looked up again at Huo Tang, who was like a "wangfu stone" above the tribal grounds.

"There's something wrong."

Shen Can muttered, then returned to the Ancestral Temple, picked up the lunch prepared by Huo Xian, and ate ravenously.

After eating, he went back to the West Ear Cave and practiced the Kui Ox Fist.

"You're saying that other nearby tribes were all very lucky, and none of them were attacked by Plague Worms on a large scale?"

In the cave dwelling, Huo Tang looked at Huo Shan, who had returned covered in dust, with a face full of regret, helplessness, and indignation – a mixture of various emotions.

The plague-curing witch medicine had maintained the tribe's strength without any reduction.

On the surface, three new Mountain Opening Realm experts had emerged, and in secret, six new Mountain Opening Realm experts had emerged.

This was equivalent to doubling the combat power of the tribe's Mountain Opening Realm martial artists.

He had already sharpened his blade, sighing... why hadn't there been any spillover benefits?

Patting his chest, Huo Tang took a long time to recover.