"Sword Refining Art"

"Sword Refining Art, Match Rate 93%."

Chu Huai Xu was slightly surprised inwardly, never expecting it to be this high.

He looked through the remaining jade slips as well, and only this "Sword Refining Art" was above 90%.

As for the rest, the highest was just 81%.

"This one it is."

Opening the jade slip, Chu Huai Xu saw a few large characters.

"Heaven and earth as the furnace, the body as the sword, tempered by spiritual energy, forging the body to open the apertures."

He closed the jade slip and looked at Niu Yuanshan: "I'll choose this one."

Steward Niu nodded. There were simply too many cultivation techniques for the Aperture Opening Stage. Although he was an Outer Sect Deacon, he couldn't possibly know every single one.

After a moment's thought, he took out two more booklets from his storage space and handed them to the two.

"These are the Cultivation Insights for the 'Ice Purity Art' and the 'Sword Refining Art,' both written by predecessors. If you have any thoughts during your cultivation, you can also write them in the booklets for future junior brothers and sisters to reference."

"Thank you, Steward." They took the booklets.

After doing this, Niu Yuanshan initially wanted to have a private chat with Chu Huai Xu, but he held back. He simply pointed toward the east and said, "Your lodgings are over there. Find them yourselves."

"Yes."

After the two turned and left, Steward Niu didn't go back inside. Instead, he watched them go.

He stared at Chu Huai Xu's back, his heart churning with countless emotions. His curiosity about this newcomer to the organization was beyond measure. Even if he forcibly suppressed it, it would rise again immediately.

Only after the two had walked far away did he return to his courtyard and enter his bedroom.

Niu Yuanshan sat cross-legged on his bed, his mind full of Chu Huai Xu.

He was simply too curious. You were supposed to come as a handyman—how did Li Chunsong take a liking to you?

"Find a chance to chat with him?" Steward Niu thought to himself.

At this thought, he suddenly remembered when he was doing the newcomer reception mission by the dense forest, wearing the Golden Mask on his face, and his Admonition to the Silver Mask Man.

Back then, the Silver Mask Man had wanted to stay and observe that Fox Face a little longer, but he had harshly scolded him.

Thinking of this, Niu Yuanshan raised his big hand and gave himself a hard slap.

"Slap—!"

Admonition Article Three: Do not have excessive prying curiosity toward fellow members within the organization!

Chu Huai Xu's Bamboo House and Han Shuangjiang's Bamboo House were right next to each other—they were neighbors.

Their lodgings were much smaller than Steward Niu's.

Along the way, the two had no conversation at all. They simply walked in silence.

"Farewell."

"Farewell."

After exchanging goodbyes, Chu Huai Xu walked into his Bamboo House.

Every dwelling in the Dao Sect had a Dust Removal Array, so even if no one cleaned it, it was spotless.

He took out his bedding from the Storage Token and spread it on his bed.

The jade slip and booklet were tossed aside for now. He wasn't in a hurry to cultivate.

"First, add the Random Attribute Point. That's the right order," he thought.

Chu Huai Xu opened his Character Panel and took a look, checking his various attributes.

At this moment, the attributes before his eyes were very simple.

"Physique: 1 (Upgradable, max 10)."

"Spirit Gathering: 1 (Upgradable, max 10)."

"Comprehension: 1 (Upgradable, max 10)."

"Spiritual Embryo Attribute: 0 (Upgradable, max 10)."

"Experience Points: 200."

"Character Level: Level 0."

"Remaining Random Attribute Points: 1."

Now, as long as he used this 1 Random Attribute Point, it would randomly be added to one of the attributes above.

As the name implied, Physique represented health, defense, strength, speed, and other physical capabilities.

The higher the Physique value, the greater the improvement in these aspects each time the Character Level increased by one.

Spirit Gathering represented the spiritual energy within the body. Only with spiritual energy could one cast spells—that is, use Skills.

The higher the Spirit Gathering value, the greater the increase in internal spiritual energy each time the Character Level increased by one. When out of mana, the recovery speed was also faster.

At the same time, some ultimate moves had requirements for mana. If your total internal spiritual energy wasn't enough, you couldn't even use them once.

Comprehension is tied to skills—essentially, the techniques cultivators use.

Take Chu Huai Xu's high-level Spring Autumn Mountain account at level 49, for example. His main skill is called "Evil Repelling."

This skill manifests as black flames blooming like lotus flowers, with explosive visual effects.

But it requires a Comprehension stat above 5 points to learn—that's an ironclad threshold.

Beyond that, cultivators in the Xuanhuang Realm learn techniques in four stages: Initial Insight, Minor Accomplishment, Major Accomplishment, and Great Perfection.

Players, on the other hand, rely on experience points to level up their skills, which are also divided into levels 1 through 4.

At the same time, the higher your Comprehension, the fewer experience points you need to upgrade each skill. The lower your Comprehension, the more it costs.

Some skills of too high a grade can't be upgraded further if your Comprehension is too low, even if you have the experience points to spare.

Chu Huai Xu's "Evil Repelling" only reached level 3. To max it out, he'd need to raise his Comprehension to 7 points.

Spiritual Embryo Attribute is somewhat similar to Comprehension, except it's tied to cultivation techniques.

Cultivators in the Xuanhuang Realm absorb the world's spiritual energy by cycling their techniques.

Players are different—they pour experience points into their techniques.

Once it's filled up, they can level up.

But players can also log off and cultivate passively, sitting cross-legged while their technique runs automatically.

The higher your Spiritual Embryo Attribute, the more Cultivation Technique Experience Points you gain from passive cultivation.

Same logic as Comprehension: some powerful techniques have requirements for Spiritual Embryo Attribute.

The amount of experience points spent on upgrading a technique is also tied to this attribute.

If your Spiritual Embryo Attribute doesn't meet the standard, you can't even raise your Character Level!

If your Spiritual Embryo Attribute is only 1, then your level cap is 19. If it's 2, the cap is 29.

In Xuanhuang Realm terms, that means your talent is too poor—you'll be stuck in the First Realm your whole life, with no chance at the Second Realm.

Simply put, it's just turning some of the Xuanhuang Realm's cultivation systems into data.

"Han Shuangjiang's Spiritual Embryo is probably level 9, or even maxed out at level 10!"

"That means she'll level up super fast, because her experience costs are dirt cheap, and her cap is high—no risk of hitting a wall at some realm and being stuck forever."

"She basically has no bottlenecks!" Chu Huai Xu was practically green with envy.

Why was the Dao Sect's Dao Ancestor so strong—strong enough that his enemies even tried to send someone to make him lose his purity? How desperate must they be to resort to that?

Because he had the Pure Yang Physique! Also a level 10 Spiritual Embryo!

"That long-legged girl next door, with talent rivaling the Dao Ancestor, is probably already cultivating, right?" Chu Huai Xu guessed to himself.

He wasn't in a hurry, though. He had to add 1 Random Attribute Point and 1 Spiritual Embryo Attribute point first.

"Time to draw!" Chu Huai Xu rubbed his hands together. "Give it to me!"

A spinning wheel, visible only to him, materialized and began to rotate.

On the wheel, all other attribute sections were evenly sized, except for Spiritual Embryo, which was tiny, with only a 3% chance.

"Stop!" he commanded mentally.

"Ding—! Congratulations, you've received an Attribute Point—Physique!"

Chu Huai Xu narrowed his eyes slightly, pondered for a moment, then thought: "Physique, huh? That works."

In the early stages, it didn't matter what you added—everything was equally weak.

"Random doesn't matter either, since I didn't get an Attribute Point I can freely allocate."

On his level 49 account, Spirit Gathering was his highest stat.

Whenever he took girls through dungeons, he'd rely on his thick mana pool and abundant spiritual energy, spamming skills like they cost nothing, focusing on flashy effects and looking cool.

Besides Spirit Gathering, he invested more in Comprehension.

Because skills like Artifact Crafting, Alchemy, and Talisman Crafting are all profession-based and tied to Comprehension.

Artifact Crafting lets you sell equipment, Alchemy lets you sell pills, and Talisman Crafting lets you sell talismans—all ways to make money.

Chu Huai Xu was all about pragmatism: either earn from women or earn from players, climbing the social ladder.

—He was way too eager to improve!

So Physique was actually the stat he was least familiar with.

"That 1 Spiritual Embryo Attribute point can't be added yet—I need to raise my Character Level to 1 first."

As mentioned earlier, if Spiritual Embryo Attribute is 1, the level cap is 19.

If it's 0, the cap is 9.

So the top priority was to learn the Aperture Opening Stage technique.

Don't forget, he still had 200 experience points to use—more than enough to level up.

Chu Huai Xu picked up the "Sword Refining Art" jade slip and that little booklet.

After thinking it over, he decided to flip through this little booklet first.

"Sword Refining Art is basically a book, and this booklet is the notes left by seniors—pretty much the comment section for that book."

"Of course I should check the comment section first! See what everyone's saying." Chu Huai Xu felt this order made more sense.

He opened the first page of the booklet, full of anticipation.

On the first page, there were only two bold, scrawled characters, written with a bit of sloppiness.

--"Don't Cultivate!"