Dice

The three Black-Clad Men exchanged a glance and immediately retreated the way they had come.

Their mission was complete.

Inside Prison Suppression, Lu Ming closed his eyes and let out a long breath. He had already withdrawn unscathed from this scheme; the Sect Leader would handle the rest.

Now—it was time to work! Being imprisoned in Prison Suppression was no peaceful recuperation. He had to go mine Nether Stones.

At the Nether Stone Mine, earthly fiend winds blew, softening one's sinews and ruining one's foundation. Only the gravest criminals were sent inside.

In the Special Space, the Slovenly Old Daoist came back to his senses after a long while. His shattered thought sent a needle-like stab of pain through his divine sense.

He sensed that something was wrong. It was still understandable for the divine turtle to pass the second trial. But extinguishing his thought directly? Impossible! Had his thousand years of cultivation been fed to the dogs? Yet the Three Rivers Wasteland blocked divine sense. He could only rely on the formations and token in the little courtyard to sense things mechanically and exercise a slight degree of control. He could not fully grasp what was happening inside.

With Xia Da Li watching, that turtle should not have been able to cheat. Could it be another divine ability of a divine beast? Like those three nimble streams of water it controlled?

An innate inheritance was indeed extraordinary, but it still would not pass the third trial. The corner of the Slovenly Old Daoist's mouth curled up slightly.

The third trial was a paradox! "Patriarch..." the little Daoist Boy called softly. "Your smile looks so sinister. Did you set a trap in the third trial?"

"Nonsense!" The Old Daoist Priest glared at him. "How can cultivators call it setting a trap? Cultivation... matters of cultivators, those are trials!"

The Daoist Boy rolled his eyes. "Then, Patriarch, what impossible trial did you set? Show it off to me."

"What trial is absolutely impossible to pass?" The Slovenly Old Daoist coughed and argued forcefully, "I merely set a threshold..."

The third trial was not a hurdle. It merely required the trial participant to possess a human heart. Simply put, you might be a turtle, but you had to possess a human's awareness and believe from the bottom of your heart that you were a person! This was the restriction the old Daoist had set for his own successor. Without a human heart, how could he accept one as a disciple? His earlier desire to take in that little turtle had come from thinking it might have some chance of obtaining a Demon Transformation Fruit. Were beasts that had transformed into humans still beasts? They spoke human words, ate human food, and did human things. How were they any different from someone like the old Daoist, who possessed a beast's body? But divine turtles were different. Divine turtles could never Transform into Human.

Demons and divine beasts were two utterly different species. Divine beasts would surely take pride in their own race—how could they grow a heart that yearned to become human? Only two kinds of turtles could pass the third trial: turtles that had transformed into humans, and people like him, who cultivated the Beast Transformation Scripture and possessed turtle bodies.

Divine turtles were not among them.

If this turtle wanted to cultivate the old Daoist's techniques, it could only wait until the old Daoist returned. If it proved suitable, he could take it as a disciple... Ah!

He suddenly let out a strange cry and leaped up. "Boundless longevity and fortune, my ass!" Feedback came from the courtyard formation: that divine turtle had passed the formation trial and entered the rear courtyard.

The old Daoist was dumbfounded!

He carefully reviewed the conditions he had set for passing the trial, but could not think of a single loophole to exploit.

A divine turtle could not possibly possess a human heart, nor could a human cultivating the Beast Transformation Scripture possibly cultivate into a divine beast.

Humans cultivating the Beast Transformation Scripture could only become ordinary wild beasts, then advance step by step into strange beasts. This was the only path.

What was the explanation for this turtle?

Could it be that from the moment it hatched, it had been raised by humans, treated like a son, and never knew in its heart that it was a turtle? Who would raise a beast as a son? Not even in ten million years.

Where had things gone wrong? The old Daoist could not make sense of it.

Several times, he raised two fingers like a halberd, intending to remotely close the meditation chamber door and prevent the technique from leaking out. Yet he could not bring himself to do it. A person could be petty, but not faithless.

He had already promised that whoever passed three trials would receive the technique. Changing his mind at the last moment was not what a gentleman did.

In the rear courtyard of Turtle Crane Residence, Su He pushed open the meditation chamber door and barely squeezed his way inside.

After passing three trials in a row, the technique's inheritance was here.

The doors to the nearby Pill Room and Artifact Room had both been sealed. Only the meditation chamber door could be opened; its meaning was obvious.

The meditation chamber was utterly empty. At its center stood only a Water Foam Jade Turtle the size of a millstone, with a meditation cushion beside it.

Water Foam Jade was exceedingly translucent. Within the turtle's body, Su He could see meridians and acupoints fashioned from gold and silver.

Beasts also had meridians and acupoints; it was simply that few had ever studied them.

The bone sacrifice in the Mortal Shedding Realm was not merely a matter of bones. It also included one's bloodline, meridians, internal organs, and more. The meridians and acupoints within this jade turtle alone were worth a fortune to Su He.

Remember it! A die fell from above and spun atop the jade turtle's head. Four pips.

Light flared within the jade turtle's body. Its meridians did not change, but more than three hundred acupoints appeared, densely packed like a starry sky.

Su He's eyes lit up. This indicated that the jade turtle's map of meridians and acupoints was not his reward for clearing the trial, but an unexpected windfall.

Su He suddenly recalled: had the sword techniques of those three Black-Clad Men also been an unexpected windfall? He had his suspicions, but this was not the time to think about it. The three hundred newly appeared acupoints within the jade turtle could vanish at any moment. These were merely temporary marks to aid his memory and would not remain for too long.

Su He stared at the jade turtle without blinking. He did not know what pill the Black-Clad Man had fed him earlier, but after waking from his dizziness, his mind was exceptionally clear. He could remember everything at a glance.

Su He continued watching until the glowing points of the acupoints extinguished, only then stopping. He closed his eyes and recalled them, confirming that he had memorized all four hundred-plus acupoints before turning to look elsewhere.

A Jade Slip lay quietly beside the meditation cushion. The owner of this place must have sat facing the jade turtle, exploring turtle meridians and acupoints while creating the technique.

Su He could not pick up the Jade Slip, so he simply slammed his turtle head against it.

He knew how to use a Jade Slip. A year ago, on the small island, he had encountered the drunken Slovenly Old Daoist. The old Daoist lectured him on the Dao for three days, and when he reached a wondrous point, he directly pressed a Jade Slip to Su He's brow and guided him to view it himself.

It was also because of this that, after sobering up, the old Daoist discovered Su He's extraordinary intelligence and made an appointment for the lotus flowers to bloom on the Seventh Day of the Seventh Month.

Unfortunately, the old Daoist had not left behind his name.

Still, the old Daoist's traits were distinctive: slovenly, addicted to drink as if his life depended on it, and possessing a Profound Moon Realm camel. He could not be a nobody. Su He only needed to find someone who understood Beast Language and ask around.

The Slovenly Old Daoist had been Su He's first teacher on the path of cultivation. Since he had come to the Azure Origin Sect, he ought to pay him a visit.

Guided by divine sense, the technique within the Jade Slip flowed into Su He's mind.

"Turtle Longevity Breathing Art"

That was the name of the art. Su He had just memorized its contents when a die fell from the sky, spinning above his head as it rolled a Five Points.

The manual for the Turtle Longevity Breathing Art in his mind changed.

It had advanced.

Su He: "???"

His face was full of question marks. This manual should have been the reward for clearing the trial, but why had a die appeared? The die only appeared when he gained a windfall that did not belong to him.

Could it be that Su Hua Nian had deceived him, that there was no trial here at all? Had he broken into someone's home and stolen their cultivation art like a thief?

Su He spat out the Trial Token. It had already changed, and the words Trial Passed were clearly written on it.

Then... the owner of this art had never intended to pass it on to him. Had Su Hua Nian snatched it from them? Or perhaps the trial had contained a stage he was never meant to clear—a hurdle that should have stopped him, only for him to pass it for no apparent reason.

Was it the Black-Clad Man or the Striped Python? Of the three trials, the only one Su He had been confident of passing was the Wooden Dummy stage. The Black-Clad Man was the most suspicious.

Thinking back on it now, Su He increasingly felt that the Black-Clad Man had been going easy on him.

The Black-Clad Man had clearly intended to kill him, yet he had not acted. He had only driven Su He toward this place, nothing more.

Not only had he helped Su He withstand the Wooden Dummy, he had even given him pills to help him get past the Striped Python. That was no longer merely going easy on him—it was practically chasing after him to spoon-feed him.

Only a real mother would do something like that.