Secret of the Feather Transformation Sect

Descending along the rope, the light gradually dimmed. Lu Bei swept his gaze around, and an eye-catching depression caught his attention.

It was about the length and width of a palm, with a shape that looked rather familiar.

After thinking for a moment, Lu Bei took out the Feather Transformation Sect's Sect Master's Seal from his Qiankun Bag and tried it. It fit perfectly into the depression.

A ripple of watery light spread out. A passage large enough for one person appeared in the damp, slippery well wall, and an information prompt announced that Lu Bei had triggered a quest.

[You triggered the Main Quest Secret of the Feather Transformation Sect]

[Quest Description: The Feather Transformation Sect of Sanqing Peak is a small sect that no one cares about. Its former sect leader, Mo Buxiu, was a rather mysterious cultivator, and few people knew anything about him. Want to know the secrets of the Feather Transformation Sect? Go on, seek them out. Mo Buxiu placed everything in the underground palace.]

[Main Quest: Solve the mystery. Reward: 30,000 experience]

[Side Quest: Not triggered]

[Accept?]

Whether to accept it or not.

"Sure enough, it changed the map."

Lu Bei accepted the quest. Comparing the experience reward with that from his previous relic-exploration quest, he realized that the underground palace beneath the ancient well was his first dungeon.

He stepped into the passage, wary of Mo Buxiu playing tricks, and used the Formation Breaking Compass to guide his way. Before long, he activated another familiar object.

The Everlasting Lamp.

Its style was exactly the same as the one from the relic-exploration quest.

Lu Bei's lips twitched. He followed the stone steps downward, ran into two dead ends, and finally reached the end of a passage.

The cavern stretched a hundred meters, its floor covered in mud. Fallen stalactites and stalagmites had joined together, compressing most of the cavern's space. Under the embellishment of the Everlasting Lamps, light and darkness constantly interwove, giving the place a somewhat sinister appearance.

The Formation Breaking Compass trembled slightly, warning Lu Bei that an offensive formation lay ahead. He took out the Black Gold Straight Saber and strode in according to the compass's directions.

In less than a moment, Lu Bei discovered the formation core beneath a stalagmite.

It was powered by a Spirit Crystal, and the arrangement was quite crude.

An idea struck Lu Bei. He tossed out a Qi Ling Pill, which landed in the muddy ground and triggered the formation, setting it in motion to repel intruders.

Clumps of mud gathered and bulged, transforming into broad, heavyset mudmen that blindly paced back and forth through the passage sealed by stalactites and stalagmites.

[Side Quest: Crush the Mudman Formation. Reward: 10,000 experience]

Lu Bei raised an eyebrow. Driven by the experience reward, he charged into the formation with his saber and pounded the mudmen into sludge in a few swift blows.

The formation core remained intact. The mud covering the ground quickly rallied, swelling high in clump after clump before writhing forward with heavy, sluggish steps to surround Lu Bei.

Lu Bei's eyes shone. After blasting the sludge away once more, he removed the Spirit Crystal from the formation core.

Without its energy source, the sludge could no longer rise again, and the cavern finally fell completely silent.

"What a fine formation. Master really put some thought into this!"

Lu Bei gripped the Spirit Crystal in his hand and thought to himself that becoming Mo Buxiu's disciple had not been a bad deal. Although Mo Buxiu himself had never instructed him, he had indeed put considerable effort into cultivating him.

This could already be seen from the Mudman Formation.

For Lu Bei, a level-20 Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator, the Mudman Formation posed virtually no threat. But back when he was still a novice, that might not have been the case.

Whenever a player left Novice Village, one or two novice guides would always pop out—perhaps the village chief, the blacksmith, the village chief's daughter, the village beauty, or a pretty widow whose blacksmith husband had died—to tell the player that the outside world was dangerous. Conveniently, there would be a mass grave beneath the tree at the village entrance, and the player might as well level up there before leaving.

The mudmen moved slowly and dealt laughable damage, making them perfect for training newcomers. Their significance was equivalent to the mass grave beneath the tree at the village entrance.

Lu Bei put away the Spirit Crystal, crossed the cavern, ran into two more dead ends, and reached the end of the stone-paved passage.

[Side Quest: Crush the Strawman Formation. Reward: 20,000 experience]

Outside the Feather Transformation Sect, a sloping flight of stone steps descended into concealment beneath the green shade of ancient trees.

A figure dressed in black climbed the stone steps. Upon reaching the Feather Transformation Sect, he raised his hand to knock, then stopped halfway and straightened his clothes.

The man was twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, with a handsome face and deep-set eyes. He should have had the same Pretty Boy potential as Lu Bei, but his conspicuous scruffy beard and lazy bearing left him looking listless and worn. He seemed more than ten years older than he really was, and his market value had plummeted.

Even so, he was still an uncle who could live a life of well-fed and clothed comfort on the strength of his face alone.

Knock, knock, knock!

The knock echoed through the door. A moment later, it creaked open, and a red head poked out, curiously looking up at the stranger.

The man in black froze when he saw it. Noticing the little fox's lively eyes, he realized it had awakened its Spiritual Intelligence and could understand human speech. He politely said, "I came to find Lu Bei of the Feather Transformation Sect. Sorry for the trouble, but could you notify him?"

As soon as he finished speaking, three more red heads poked out. They lined up vertically along the edge of the door, and four pairs of eyes began sizing up the man in black together.

"Uh, is Sect Leader Lu not home?"

"Squeak."

"You can nod or shake your head."

"Squeak."

"..."

Just as the man in black was at his wit's end, the little fox Demon Cultivator Hu Jiao chased away the four mischievous little foxes. She shook her head to indicate that Lu Bei was not home, then used her paw to write a line of words, telling the man in black to come visit another day.

"All right, then."

With the foxes blocking the way and refusing to let him enter, the man in black did not force his way in. He closed his eyes and sensed around. Whatever he sensed, his entire aura suddenly changed. His eyes turned sharp, and his lazy fatigue vanished without a trace. He became like a soaring sword that could split the heavens, startling Hu Jiao into hurriedly shutting the main gate.

"I know Junior Disciple Brother Lu is currently inside the mountain gate. Tell him that a senior disciple brother from the Lingxiao Sword Sect is waiting for him at the deep pool behind the mountain." After leaving those words behind, the man in black shot into the sky and vanished in the blink of an eye.

The deep pool behind the mountain was where Bai Jin had taught Lu Bei to cultivate and helped him Open Apertures. The man in black descended from the heavens, his eyes like lightning piercing straight into the depths of the pool. His sharp gaze seemed almost tangible enough to cleave the icy water in two.

After a long while, his hands and feet began trembling uncontrollably. Covering his face, he burst into loud laughter. "Hahaha! Gaining it is my destiny; gaining it is my good fortune. Junior Disciple Brother Lu, since you've entered a treasure mountain and returned empty-handed, don't blame your senior disciple brother for being rude!"

When his laughter ended, the man in black waved his hand and took out a fishing rod and bait. He lowered his rear onto a small folding stool, scattered some bait, and immediately cast his line.

"There must be plenty of big fish in this deep pool. If I don't cast a line, I won't even be able to sleep."

Motionless as a bell.JPG

Back to Lu Bei: after passing through the Mudman Formation, he encountered three more formations—the Strawman, Woodman, and Stone Man Formations—as well as dead ends that could not be avoided no matter what.

All three formations triggered Side Quests for him. The difficulty of clearing them rose step by step, and the final Stone Man Formation's attacks and defenses were no weaker than those of the zombies he had encountered earlier. It rewarded him with 50,000 experience.

Since he was farming them after changing the map, the experience came easily, feeling almost like picking it up for free.

Upon reaching the stone chamber at the very bottom, Lu Bei used the Sect Master's Seal to activate a mechanism and obtained a Qiankun Bag from the depression.

There were not many items inside. Lu Bei first took out the envelope bearing the words "For My Disciple's Eyes Only" and began reading it line by line and word by word.

My disciple, things a second-generation disciple of the Feather Transformation Sect must know...

After several lines of warnings expressing a senior's concern for a junior, the letter abruptly changed direction and swiftly got to the point.

I became a disciple of the Lingxiao Sword Sect from a young age. My master was both master and father to me, and he placed great expectations on me, granting me the name "Buxiu," meaning "cultivate and reflect, cultivate oneself." However, I had always been unrestrained by nature, causing no small number of troubles. I failed my master's deep affection and rarely cultivated or reflected upon myself.

During my first ten years of learning the Dao, my talent towered over my peers, and my cultivation advanced by leaps and bounds. During the next ten years, my cultivation was beset by setbacks and twists. Doubts arose in my heart, but I could find no answers, so I entered the demonic path and suffered a sharp decline in cultivation. After that, lost and unsure where to go, my cultivation fell into a bottleneck. Unable to break through, I gradually faded into the crowd.

One day, I traveled far and wide in search of ancient ruins and gathered the secret arts of the Dao, demonic, demonic beast, and Buddhist paths. From the minutiae, I glimpsed the workings of fate.

Heaven's mandate has changed. Dao Cultivators face a dead end; Buddhist Cultivators are withered bones in a grave; Demonic Cultivators are flowers that bloom for but a moment. Even if cultivators of these three paths possess world-shaking talent, they cannot defy heaven, alter their fate, and seek immortality in the celestial realm.

Only Demon Cultivators still possess a thread of hope!

Therefore, I established the Feather Transformation Sect, changed to the path of Demon Cultivation, and sought immortality.

Lu Bei: (—`—)

Was it really all right to reveal such an important secret to a Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator? What if one day he lost a battle against a powerful enemy, and some demoness, witch, or fairy tasted the truth from him?