Yun Shu didn't look at those things right away.
Instead, he learned about the continent.
No one knew how vast this continent was. Even at the Myriad Sword Pavilion's peak, they had only glimpsed the Ten Provinces.
Countless mighty figures had named them the Ten Mortal Provinces.
And the place where the Myriad Sword Pavilion stood was Yunzhou, one of the Ten Provinces.
Yunzhou was boundlessly vast, with Immortal Sects scattered across it. The Myriad Sword Pavilion was now merely an insignificant part of it.
Many cultivators spent their entire lives without ever leaving the land of Yunzhou.
There were also details about how the various factions were divided. They gave Yun Shu a clear understanding of this world—or, more precisely, of Yunzhou—and let him match each detail to the script in his mind.
The two worlds seemed to be constantly overlapping, colliding inside Yun Shu's mind.
"This is the cultivation system." Yun Shu glanced at it, his eyes flickering.
The cultivation system was divided into Body Refining, Qi Refining, Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, and Nascent Soul.
As for what came after Nascent Soul, there was no answer. This was only one part of the cultivation system.
It described in detail the changes that took place in the body at every realm. It could be called an encyclopedia.
It even recorded that, tens of thousands of years ago, the cultivation system had no Body Refining Realm. Cultivation aptitude could be tested simply by checking one's Spiritual Root.
But the human body was too weak. Most people could barely withstand the Spiritual Energy that entered their bodies during Qi Induction.
With no hope of pursuing the Immortal Path, they could only linger outside the threshold of cultivation.
An Immortal Venerable had wanted to help the mortal woman he loved cultivate, so he spent over a hundred years creating the Body Refining Technique and dividing it into the Nine Realms of Body Refining.
In the end, the Body Refining Technique spread far and wide, allowing the countless masses to open the door to immortal cultivation, reach the threshold of Qi Refining, and withstand the power of Qi Induction into the Body. The Immortal Venerable, too, ascended to godhood through his supreme merit.
It became a beloved tale.
Yun Shu was utterly engrossed.
That Immortal Venerable sure was devoted.
The story really did feature this Immortal Venerable. But that was one thing in the plot, and another in the story.
The tale was so vivid it was like a popular romance from the Mortal World.
Who knew if it was true or not?
The simple Body Refining Technique I practice was actually created by an Immortal Venerable?
What a joke. Even that Body Refining Technique might have been butchered and revised countless times.
Yun Shu continued reading.
But with his current cultivation, he could only compare it against material on the Body Refining Stage. He could read about the Qi Condensation Stage as preparation, while everything else was just a story to him.
Page after page, time slipped by unnoticed, and a whole day passed.
Sleepiness washed over him. Only then did Yun Shu realize he had been sitting there reading for ages.
"I'll head back for now and come again after Body Refining tomorrow," Yun Shu thought.
"How was it?" the Old Man asked with a smile. He seemed to have asked everyone the same thing.
"I gained a lot."
Before dawn, Yun Shu got up early.
Under cover of darkness, he made his way to the Training Ground.
Only a handful of people were scattered across the Training Ground. Fortunately, Yun Shu was used to this kind of loneliness, and began with a round of practice in the Body Refining Technique.
He kept at it until he had practiced the eighth level of the Body Refining Technique, then finally stopped.
They said the Body Refining Technique had been created by an Immortal Venerable to benefit all living beings. But Yun Shu couldn't sense even a trace of mystery or power in it.
His Body Refining Technique had reached Great Accomplishment and was now approaching perfection. Even so, he'd gained no special insights. It was still a rigid set of punches and kicks, no different from before, let alone anything profound.
Cultivation techniques were divided into five grades: Minor Accomplishment, Great Accomplishment, Perfection, Limit, and Peerless.
Extreme Realm meant reaching the level its Founder had been capable of attaining. Or, perhaps, even the Founder had never reached it. It was the most original form of a technique, the highest and most exalted level the Founder believed it could reach.
Peerless meant developing new insights on the foundation of a technique. Yun Shu hadn't reached it yet, so he naturally didn't dare make any rash comments.
Let alone that almost no one had ever reached the Peerless Realm of a technique—even if someone did, others might not be able to absorb those insights.
Next came Falling Cloud Palm. It consisted of three simple palm moves, but Yun Shu still practiced them thoroughly for about half an hour.
Falling Cloud Palm was an unranked Martial Technique, but for Yun Shu, it was one of the few Martial Techniques he could access at this early stage.
And thanks to Falling Cloud Palm, he had completed his missions time and again.
It had helped him tremendously. Now that he had reached Great Accomplishment, Yun Shu naturally wouldn't neglect it.
Putting everything else aside, Falling Cloud Palm at Great Accomplishment was no weaker than a top-tier Martial Technique at Minor Accomplishment.
Simplicity meant it could be used again and again, with little expenditure of blood and qi. That was only natural.
So for a long time to come, he might rely on simple, unranked Martial Techniques like Falling Cloud Palm to fight by overwhelming his opponents with superior levels.
At last, Yun Shu took out two manuals.
They were his greatest gains from his trip to the Gufeng Dynasty.
The two manuals were bound to be valuable, especially a movement technique like this.
Qi Nurturing Pills that cost over a hundred inside the sect might fetch who knew what price outside.
They were the entire fortune of an expert at the Body Refining Ninth Level, so naturally it was quite substantial.
As for the bandit stronghold he had searched afterward, there hadn't been much else to find.
The stronghold was only a temporary base.
They had split up the gold and silver they'd robbed and hidden it in the Great Mountain.
Everyone who knew about it was dead. That was, admittedly, a small but genuine regret.
Still, he had made some gains.
There was also a low-grade Martial Technique, Savage Blade Technique.
It had belonged to the bandit at Body Tempering Stage Six. He hadn't even had a chance to use it before he was dead. If Yun Shu could find a sword cultivator, he could probably trade it for a fair amount of resources.
Aside from that, there had been little else of value. The odds and ends wouldn't fetch much if exchanged, so Yun Shu had handed them all over to Lin Yang.
Lin Yang needed them more than he did. Yun Shu had even copied that fist technique for him.
But Yun Shu hadn't given him the movement technique.
Lin Yang wasn't strong enough yet. If he practiced it, it would only bring him trouble.
That was simply how the Cultivation World worked. A three-year-old carrying a gold ingot would only invite others to covet it.
So Yun Shu had always tried to keep his strength hidden, never drawing too much attention. But when the time came to act, he wouldn't skulk around in the shadows either.
A person should stand tall between heaven and earth.
He had given Lin Yang more than enough. He had done all that could reasonably be expected of him.
What's more, he had saved Lin Yang's life, even if only in passing. He didn't expect Lin Yang to be grateful beyond measure; he just hoped he wouldn't cause trouble for him behind his back.
Ghost Shadow Steps.
A mid-grade technique, and a rare movement technique at that.
After studying it for a long time,
Yun Shu began to follow the steps in the manual, moving slowly.
Ghost Shadow Steps were incredibly fast, as if a shadow trailed behind the user. Beneath the night sky, they made him look like a ghost.
Yun Shu didn't stop.
With his current blood and qi, using Ghost Shadow Steps was fairly easy.
On his first try, he was nowhere near as smooth or practiced as the black-clothed Old Man.
But he had managed to pull off a few tricks. By the end, his feet were almost invisible as they moved; he was nearly teleporting.
"If I ever give up cultivation, I could go out at night and scare people," Yun Shu said with a laugh.
"Ding, you practiced Ghost Shadow Steps once. Proficiency +1."
"..."
"Ding, you practiced Ghost Shadow Steps once. Proficiency +1."
His steps grew more and more practiced.
Yun Shu felt that if he reached Minor Accomplishment, he might be on par with the Old Man.
The Old Man hadn't reached Great Accomplishment.
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