Ritual Refinement

"Could there be something strange in there?" Chen Mu walked to the roadside and squatted before a basket maker's stall.

He casually picked up a bamboo basket, the corner of his eye catching Constable Lu approaching.

"Chief, what kind of wild beast is this? Why does it only dig out the viscera?" A Yamen Runner followed half a step behind Constable Lu and asked quietly.

"Wolves," Constable Lu said blandly.

"But the wounds don't all look like they were made by wolves," the Yamen Runner said doubtfully.

Constable Lu shot him a glance. "We'll talk when we get back."

The Yamen Runner immediately shrank his neck and dared not ask further.

After the group had gone far away, Chen Mu stood up.

He paid for the bamboo basket and continued onward as if nothing had happened.

"The smell of blood, the smell of medicine... Constable Lu was injured?" Chen Mu was puzzled.

After thinking it over carefully, he could not help shaking his head. "No. The ingredients seem to be Potent Medicine meant to stimulate an organ's potential."

His Tier 3 Medicine Crafting had strengthened his sense of smell. A mere faint trace of medicine was enough for him to detect a few clues.

"Forget it. Better stay away from him."

Constable Lu did not seem like a good man.

Early the next morning, Chen Mu woke feeling refreshed.

"It's been a long time since I've felt this good." Chen Mu stretched lazily.

Ever since he had been injured, he always woke with a groggy head.

Today, he had finally seen a glimmer of hope for a full recovery.

Imitating the Three Yang Six Gentlemen Pill was only secondarily about making money. Healing his injuries was the key.

He did not need to worry about the cost, so he could increase the dosage.

Recently, he had also been studying medicinal meals to aid his recovery.

He cooked medicinal porridge in a charcoal-fired clay pot.

Chen Mu sat in a recliner, watching the heat while taking out the Five Ghosts Moving Mountains Incantation to study.

After a long while, Chen Mu sighed. "Still no use."

He changed the arrangement of the words, but the more he altered it, the more chaotic it became.

He read it through again, word by word, and still could not make sense of it.

Just as he was about to put it away, a spark of inspiration suddenly flashed through his mind.

Chen Mu subconsciously summoned the Gray Wall.

Writing: 1666/10000/Second Tier;

Drawing: 1533/10000/Second Tier;

Throwing: 7597/10000/Tier 3;

Red Falcon Body Tempering Technique: 4009/10000/Tier 3;

Culinary: 806/10000/Second Tier;

Medicine Crafting: 626/10000/Tier 3;

Sleeve Sword: 816/10000/Tier 3;

Five Ghosts Moving Mountains Incantation: 1/10000/Tier 1;

"It made the list!"

He immediately began silently reciting the scripture again.

Five Ghosts Moving Mountains Incantation: 2/10000/Tier 1;

A faint insight rose in his heart.

He felt that the first sentence needed to be spoken faster, while the pronunciation of the fifth character needed more emphasis.

He thought so, and then he did exactly that.

The scripture, which had originally made him stumble over his tongue and run out of breath, suddenly became a little smoother.

Its Proficiency increased by one again, just as expected.

"So that was the secret—the pace, the pronunciation, and the changes in emphasis!"

After hastily eating breakfast, Chen Mu immediately buried himself in chanting the scripture.

The bright moon hung high overhead.

The chirping of insects occasionally rang out on Little East Mountain.

The Patriarch Hall of Qingfeng Temple was silent.

Moonlight streamed through the open window and fell upon the wall.

A scripture in elegant calligraphy, as carefree as an immortal in flight, was carved across an entire stone wall.

Yet for some reason, the brushstrokes that had once seemed beautiful now resembled winding serpents, giving off an eerie feeling.

Cheng Yi sat on a Meditation Cushion, staring unblinkingly at the scripture.

A masked Black-clothed figure suddenly leaped in through the window.

"The thing you wanted is here. Where's mine?" As he spoke, he placed a medicine chest cast from bronze on the floor.

"Constable Lu, if you want gains, you need sufficient patience." Cheng Yi did not turn his head as he spoke calmly.

Constable Lu hurriedly inspected his surroundings. Only after confirming that no one else was present did he breathe a sigh of relief.

His brows drew tightly together, and he said mockingly, "Is this what you realized after turning on Feng Ren?"

"Turning on him? What do you mean by that? Master has merely gone into seclusion." Cheng Yi spoke blandly.

"Give me the Five Qi Pill, now!" Constable Lu suddenly snapped.

"You should eat less of them. Look, your temper is getting more and more violent." Cheng Yi stood and looked at Constable Lu calmly.

Constable Lu took a deep breath, suppressing the irritation in his heart. "I understand."

Cheng Yi smiled and took a wax pill the size of a ping-pong ball from his sleeve.

Constable Lu snatched it away impatiently.

"Have you found the people I told you to look for?" Cheng Yi asked.

"I've already found four. Only the last one remains." Constable Lu finally calmed down, frowning slightly as he explained, "I found someone matching the requirements in the household registry. But that person's whereabouts are uncertain, so it'll take some time to track him down."

"Good. Be quick," Cheng Yi said blandly. "They are the best ingredients for Alchemy."

"Can top-grade Five Qi Pills really let someone cultivate Soul Force?" Constable Lu could not help asking.

"Hasn't your strength improved quickly lately?" Cheng Yi smiled and asked in return. He crouched down and opened the Bronze Chest.

A wave of bloody stench rushed out. Inside were Human Viscera!

Excitement appeared in Constable Lu's eyes.

He considered himself diligent in martial training. After more than twenty years of grueling practice, he had only just begun Marrow Cleansing.

Yet ever since he started taking ordinary Five Qi Pills, one month of cultivation had been faster than an entire year in the past.

If they were top-grade Five Qi Pills...

"Fine. I'll find that person as quickly as possible." Constable Lu hardened his resolve.

He had seen death often enough in the yamen. There were countless wronged ghosts who had died in its prison cells.

They were only a few lives!

"How should we deal with those people? Dig out their viscera and refine pills from them like before?" Constable Lu asked with a fervor even he did not notice.

"No, no, no. They are special, so they must be treated specially." Cheng Yi said blandly.

After chatting briefly for a while longer, Constable Lu turned and leaped out through the window.

Cheng Yi quietly watched the direction in which he departed. "He actually believed that human organs could be used for Alchemy? What an idiot!"

"A single leaf blinds the eye. The Five Qi Pills have merely clouded his vision." An old Taoist with meticulously combed white hair and a rosy, wrinkle-free complexion suddenly appeared in the Patriarch Hall.

"Master, I'll go perform the ritual refinement on the Heartless Bell first." Cheng Yi carried the bronze chest away.

This so-called organ-based Alchemy had simply been a lie to deceive Constable Lu.

Its true purpose was to perform ritual refinement on the magical artifact, the Heartless Bell!

"Go on." Feng Ren nodded.

Watching Cheng Yi leave, Feng Ren stood before the window and murmured, "I hope it isn't too late..."

Chen Mu became utterly addicted to grinding Proficiency.

Whenever he had a spare moment, he would mutter the incantation under his breath.

As his Proficiency rose, his understanding of the scripture grew deeper and deeper.

The contents of the scripture had no meaning. What mattered was the pronunciation of the words.

The gibberish-like scripture, when recited with a special cadence and pronunciation, formed an entirely different set of sounds.

It was like how people used Chinese homophones to annotate English words in the past.

Watching the Proficiency rise rapidly, Chen Mu became almost obsessed.

He chanted in the daytime, chanted at night, and even pondered it in his dreams while asleep.

Half a month later.

On the western side of Little East Mountain, in the familiar hollow within the woods.

A large black pig lay unconscious on the ground.

Chen Mu summoned the Gray Wall.

Five Ghosts Moving Mountains Incantation: 1/10000/Second Tier.

Chen Mu took out the Five Ghosts Bag and set it on the ground.

He took a deep breath.

A low chant rapidly spilled from his mouth.

Though only one person was speaking, it sounded like a thousand people whispering at once.

A mass of black mist emerged from the Five Ghosts Bag, gathering in midair and contracting inward.

A pale Paper Man appeared.

The Little Paper Man was covered in patterns, with the character "Winter" on its back.

"It worked!"

Chen Mu stared curiously at the Paper Man.

A strange sensation arose.

It was as though he had gained an extra hand out of thin air.

"So this was how that Round-Faced Daoist controlled the Paper Man!"

He willed the Paper Man to move.

Sure enough, it slowly drifted through the air as he wished.

Remembering the description of Five Ghosts Moving Mountains,

Chen Mu controlled the Paper Man to slip beneath the black pig.

"Rise!"

The black pig did not move an inch!

"Too heavy." Chen Mu understood.

He controlled the Paper Man to fly out and replaced the pig with a stone the size of a human head.

The Little Paper Man floated beneath the stone, bracing it with both hands and its head.

Chen Mu shouted, "Fly!"

The stone did not move an inch!

Chen Mu: "..."

He suddenly had a bad feeling.

A quarter of an hour later.

Chen Mu looked speechlessly at the Little Paper Man, which was slowly drifting among the leaves overhead.

And this was supposed to be Five Ghosts Moving Mountains?

More like the Foolish Old Man Moving Mountains!