"Don't worry. Big White is perfectly fine. Perhaps she is undergoing some changes," Yu Rong said calmly.
Xu Ling sighed in relief upon hearing this, while Yang Mu remained as taciturn and cold-faced as ever.
"What has the White Snake been eating these past few days?"
After thinking it over, Yu Rong felt it was impossible that this snake had simply cultivated so quickly on her own. It was more likely that she had eaten something good, causing her vitality to flourish and her cultivation to rise.
"Uh..."
Xu Ling and Yang Mu exchanged awkward glances.
"What? Don't tell me you two fed the snake the monthly medicinal pills from the palace?"
Yu Rong's expression darkened.
"Absolutely not. Big White has only been going to Lingxu Palace lately to eat lots of Failed Pills and Medicinal Dregs. Senior Brother Du, who manages the Failed Pills and Medicinal Dregs, has been much more relaxed lately. Um... she's eaten nearly a whole basinful, I think?"
Yu Rong's mouth twitched. Well-traveled and knowledgeable as she was, she quickly understood what had happened. Human absorption and digestion could not compare to a snake's. To a snake, Failed Pills and Medicinal Dregs were practically tonics. After all, the herbs used in medicine and pill refinement were all great nourishing substances, things cultivators used to raise their cultivation and heal injuries. She had eaten a whole basinful—was she about to evolve?
The master and her two disciples stared intently at the White Snake on the ancient pine.
Before long, the White Snake began slithering across the sturdy old pine, occasionally rubbing her head against its rough edges. Soon, the scales around her head lifted, revealing fresh snakeskin beneath...
"This is... shedding."
She continued slowly rubbing against the tree, using branches to snag the old skin and struggling to wriggle free. First came her head, then her body. Steadfastly, slowly, the usually idle master and disciples stood at the cliff's edge and watched carefully.
Every shedding was dangerous for a snake. If she failed to shed successfully, death was certain.
It took more than an hour. When the snake's tail finally slipped free from the old skin, Xu Ling clapped happily. Yu Rong smiled, deep in thought. For some reason, after watching the snake shed from beginning to end, her state of mind seemed to have subtly improved. Shedding old skin and gaining new life—everything under heaven had its own karmic fate.
After shedding, the White Snake clung to the ancient pine and fell asleep.
When she awoke again, she had grown to nine meters long.
Within this renowned sect of the cultivation world, the White Snake found a way of life that belonged to her.
At dawn, she practiced Breath Control with the clouds and mist by the cliff. When hungry, she went to the dining hall for meat. She lurked around Lingxu Palace to mooch food and drink, raising her cultivation, then returned to Qingxu Palace to guard the gate and sleep. Her days were leisurely beyond words.
Xu Ling discovered that Big White had recently been visiting Taiji Plaza often.
Taiji Plaza was where Chunyang Palace disciples practiced martial arts and drilled. Viewed from high above, the plaza formed an enormous Eight Trigrams diagram, with a massive Yin-Yang Fish at its center. The plaza was immense, at least the size of ten football fields. The White Snake guessed that some mighty expert had likely used magic power to shave an entire mountain peak flat.
More than a thousand disciples practiced swordsmanship in the plaza, Sword Qi surging like mountains, like seas, like wind.
Some disciples practiced sword formations, but more were studying sword techniques. Practicing swords here allowed them to sense Sword Qi and sword intent, and they could also observe the swordsmanship of older senior brothers. When their hands itched, they could seek out fellow disciples for a spar. Most importantly, the chief disciples of each lineage would come to Taiji Plaza to teach martial arts and explain difficult cultivation problems.
Today's teacher was Chu Zhe, chief disciple of the sect master's Jade Void Lineage, the reigning number one handsome man of Chunyang Palace for six consecutive years, the dream Dao companion of most female cultivators in Chunyang Palace, and the object of countless secret crushes.
Chu Zhe wore a Daoist robe, a jade crown, and carried a treasured sword as he earnestly instructed the younger disciples.
"Remember: sword techniques should move like a Flood Dragon Emerging from Water, and remain still like a Spirit Cat hunting mice. In motion, the hands divide Yin and Yang, while the body conceals the Eight Trigrams..."
While explaining sword techniques, he occasionally turned to look at the White Snake beside him. No one had ever heard of a demonic beast stealing lessons, so no one bothered to ask what the White Snake was doing there.
The White Snake was indeed learning in secret.
Taiji Plaza was where low-ranking disciples practiced martial arts. Even if the White Snake went to the places where high-ranking disciples trained, she would neither understand what she saw nor heard. A firm foundation was most important in martial training, so she settled herself in Taiji Plaza to learn cultivation techniques.
After staying for a long while, she slithered toward Zuowang Peak.
New disciples who had just entered the sect had to come to Zuowang Peak for meditative cultivation in addition to studying sword techniques at Taiji Plaza. There, they practiced how to circulate their cultivation methods and enter the true world of cultivation.
Zuowang Peak was vast, its mountain covered in open spaces and platforms of every size. Waterfalls and streams wound through them, adding several degrees of immortal grandeur.
There was a reason it was called Zuowang Peak. To cultivate, one first had to enter the state of quiet sitting and the state of forgetting, seeking with one's whole heart and body the true, existent state of life along the Righteous Path. Forgetting was not necessarily a bad thing, and remembering was not necessarily a good thing. What suited oneself was best.
"To sit in oblivion: cast off the limbs and body, discard hearing and knowledge, depart from form and abandon understanding, become one with the Great Thoroughfare—this is called sitting in oblivion."
"Those who sit in oblivion attain it through contemplation, and through contemplation, forget."
One had to return to simplicity in spirit, completely free one's innate nature, let the heart achieve purity, serenity, solitude, and nonaction, as though merging with the universe and ascending into the realm of 'realizing the self.'
At the summit of Zuowang Peak stood an enormous boulder, its top as large as a basketball court. An ancient Stone Pavilion stood at its edge, and before it grew an ancient peach tree.
Those who could cultivate atop this boulder were all exceptionally gifted geniuses among the disciples. Elders of the palace or those with extremely high cultivation would resolve their doubts and teach the Dao. Sometimes, even the sect master would come to guide the disciples' cultivation. Of course, Yu Rong also came to teach, and the two youngsters, Yang Mu and Xu Ling, were frequent visitors here.
Today's lecturer was an elder. An elder was not necessarily an old man; anyone whose cultivation reached a certain height could be promoted to elder.
The youngest disciples were only five or six years old. They could not help turning curiously toward the peach tree, where a gigantic White Snake coiled around the trunk, her head lowered as though listening to the Dao. This genius disciples' training ground had once again become the White Snake's target for stealing lessons.
"Know the male, guard the female, become the valley of the world..."
"Become the valley of the world, and constant virtue will never depart; return once more to the state of an infant..."
"Know the white, guard the black, become the model of the world..."
"Become the model of the world, and constant virtue will not stray; return once more to the limitless..."
The White Snake habitually flicked her tongue, striving to remember these scriptures that had once sounded familiar but that she had never seriously studied. Those young disciples did not know how great a stroke of fortune a snake needed in order to cultivate. The mere shackle of opening Spiritual Intelligence had sealed off the path of cultivation for the overwhelming majority of birds and beasts. No teacher, no method, no gate—cultivation was difficult beyond difficulty.
Now that she had an opportunity, she naturally had to devote every ounce of effort to remembering everything. The road of cultivation was incomparably rugged; all she could do was climb upward with all her strength.
It had to be said that compared to humans who had opportunities yet failed to cherish them, the White Snake was indeed diligent.
Understand its meaning, sense its meaning. In truth, many cultivation methods could also be cultivated by beasts. For a beast to cultivate human methods was truly a strange wild blossom blooming in the history of cultivation...
That day, the White Snake learned much. As the red sun slanted westward, she twisted her enormous body and returned to Lingxu Palace. She still had to spend the night digesting, comprehending, and integrating what she had learned that day. It did not matter if there were many things a snake could not do. When one method was understood, ten thousand methods were understood; by drawing inferences from one instance, she would eventually comprehend them.
Upon returning to Qingxu Palace, the candles and lanterns within the hall lit automatically with the aid of formations, and soft candlelight illuminated the great hall.
The White Snake clung to a thick, towering pillar beside the hall doors, like a white jade ornament upon the pillar...
Before you continue