Cultivation Method (Part 1)

Though he was immersed in the joy of having just received his cheat, Lu Qingshan quickly noticed something unusual on his attribute panel.

His attribute panel was the ordinary character panel players received upon entering the game. All six basic attributes were 1, commonly known as a blank slate. Yet a very special entry had appeared in his talent column.

Legendary Talent: Innate Sword Seed.

Legendary Talents were something no player had ever possessed, even before he transmigrated.

Obviously, there was only one reason this had appeared on his attribute panel: when he transmigrated, he had also brought along the ultimate reward from the God Slaying War.

Did this count as a cheat with super doubled rewards?

Lu Qingshan frowned and fell into thought.

According to the game settings of "Nine Heavens," the six basic attributes were as follows:

Strength determined the explosive power of one's bodily functions and had a significant effect on physical attack power.

Agility affected a character's reaction speed, attack speed, movement speed, and attack execution speed.

Mana affected the power of the spells a character cast. Unlike in other games, the mana attribute did not determine a character's maximum Spirit Power. In "Nine Heavens," a character's maximum Spirit Power depended entirely on the cultivation method they practiced.

Soul affected a character's perception, soul strength, willpower, common sense, judgment, and intuition. Its greatest difference from the mana attribute was that Soul was more focused on awareness and understanding of the things around one.

Charm affected the favorability gained from characters and factions. In addition, the abilities of certain professions had hard requirements for Charm, and Charm also provided additional bonuses to those professions' abilities.

Endurance determined the body's resistance to blows, as well as maximum health and health regeneration speed. Increasing Endurance increased one's health points, making it an extremely important attribute for any profession.

Free attribute points could be used to increase the six basic attributes of Strength, Agility, Mana, Soul, Charm, and Endurance.

When players entered the Qi Refining stage, they could choose their cultivation system—their so-called profession.

"Nine Heavens" was a world of cultivators.

The human race had six cultivation systems, known as the Six Paths of Cultivation, corresponding to the six basic attributes:

Body Cultivators, whose primary attribute was Endurance.

Beast Cultivators, whose primary attribute was Charm.

Magic Cultivators, whose primary attribute was Mana.

Spirit Cultivators, whose primary attribute was Soul.

Nether Cultivators, whose primary attribute was Agility.

And Sword Cultivators, whose primary attribute was Strength.

Every profession had its own combat style and focus. Put simply, Body Cultivators were warriors, Beast Cultivators were summoners, Magic Cultivators were mages, Spirit Cultivators were priests, and Nether Cultivators were naturally assassins. Only Sword Cultivators, due to their unique qualities, had never had a fitting comparison.

In his previous life, Lu Qingshan had been a player specializing in Sword Cultivation. He had devoted ten years of his youth to this profession. Without question, now that he had been reborn and transmigrated into this game, he would still choose Sword Cultivation without hesitation—the profession he knew better than any other.

Not to mention that the Legendary Talent he had drawn, Innate Sword Seed, had clearly been tailor-made for Sword Cultivators. There was no reason for him to throw away such a heaven-sent opening just to try something unconventional.

Rustle—

Footsteps approached from the depths of the silent cave.

Someone was coming!

Every hair on Lu Qingshan's body stood on end as he went on high alert.

Lu Qingshan held his breath.

Two youths in black robes, no older than fourteen or fifteen, entered the cave.

Glancing at the dozens of corpses arranged neatly in the Corpse Pool, one of them said, "Master instructed us that corpses being soaked in corpse-strengthening fluid for refining corpse puppets must not remain there for over three months. Otherwise, after too long, the remnant souls in the corpses will be completely rotted away by the fluid, and they can no longer be used to refine corpse puppets. This batch has been in the Corpse Pool for three months already. Why hasn't Master returned yet? If this drags on any longer, I'm afraid these materials will be ruined."

"Yeah. Master left last month and still hasn't returned. Normally, before the corpse puppet materials mature, Master would rush back. Could something have happened?"

"Don't worry blindly. Master has refined so many corpse puppets lately. In a small place like this, how many people could possibly threaten him? Let's move these corpses out of the Corpse Pool first. If we're too late, they won't be usable for corpse puppet refinement, and Master will definitely scold us."

"That's true. Then let's get to work."

Lu Qingshan, holding his breath in the Corpse Pool and pretending to be a corpse, was delighted by their conversation.

From their brief exchange, he had obtained a crucial piece of information.

Their master, the most powerful cultivator at this corpse-refining site, was not in the cave at the moment.

Simply put, the boss of this cave instance had gone out and had yet to return.

This was undoubtedly the best opportunity for him to escape.

As long as he cleared out the remaining "mobs," he could clear this cave instance.

Lu Qingshan cast a Heavenly Eye Technique on the two people before him.

Though the Heavenly Eye Technique was merely a universal skill given free to players when they created an account, its practicality could, in many ways, be called godlike.

No one could detect the Heavenly Eye Technique probing a character's attributes. Even if the target of the skill possessed an extremely high Soul attribute, it made no difference. At most, the information he obtained would be nothing but question marks.

One had to know that the detection skills NPCs could master could be noticed if the target's Soul attribute was high enough. Randomly casting detection skills on other cultivators had always been a major taboo in the cultivation world.

A detection skill like the Heavenly Eye Technique, with no negative effects whatsoever, was truly the only shit in a scorpion's ass—one of a kind. It was more or less a modest cheat the game developers had given players.

The two before him were not very strong, so under the effects of the Heavenly Eye Technique, Lu Qingshan received highly detailed character panel information:

Song Qing (Human)

Profession: Magic Cultivator (Primary) / First-Rank Talisman Master (Secondary)

Cultivation Method: Qi Guiding Technique Lv2 (151/200)

Tier: Qi Refining

Attributes: Strength 1, Agility 1, Mana 2, Soul 1, Charm 1, Endurance 1

Health: 11/11

Spirit Power: 20/20

Skills: Fireball Technique Lv1, Swiftness Talisman Lv1, Fireball Talisman Lv1

Talent: None

------

Xie Shi (Human)

Profession: Magic Cultivator (Primary)

Cultivation Method: Qi Guiding Technique Lv3 (127/300)

Tier: Qi Refining

Attributes: Strength 1, Agility 1, Mana 2, Soul 1, Charm 1, Endurance 1

Health: 11/11

Spirit Power: 30/30

Skills: Fireball Technique Lv2, Wind Riding Technique Lv1

Talent: None

------

They were low-level cultivators at the Qi Refining Second Layer and Qi Refining Third Layer, both Magic Cultivators.

In terms of attributes, there was not much difference between Lu Qingshan and the two of them.

At the Qi Refining stage, one only gained a free attribute point every two levels. With the ten health points granted by Thick Skin and Flesh, Lu Qingshan had actually already caught up to them in overall attributes.

But in the world of "Nine Heavens," a person's combat strength clearly could not be judged by attributes alone.

These two were cultivators who had practiced cultivation methods. They had already cultivated Spirit Power and mastered one or two spells.

The gap between Lu Qingshan and them was like two ordinary people with equal physical fitness facing off in reality—one bare-handed, the other holding a pistol.

Who do you think would win?

Obviously, the one with the pistol would win.

So if Lu Qingshan wanted to take down these two, the only way was to make sure they never got the chance to fire their pistols.