"The art of [Deprivation] could, by happy chance, claim for oneself the profound spells others had cultivated. Nothing could be more suitable for tiding one over."
Spells were difficult to cultivate.
Meng Nan increasingly understood just how rare and precious [Deprivation] was.
Take the 'Red Robe Nightmare Suppression Art,' for instance.
Had Meng Nan obtained this method and begun cultivating it from scratch, he would likely have needed to reach Qi Refining and then spend another hundred, perhaps even two or three hundred years studying it before achieving anything—before gaining the power to curse-kill a Qi Refining Immortal Master.
Yet now, having [Deprived] it from the Red Robe General, he had acquired it already at the minor mastery stage, saving him years of bitter effort.
But this was duckweed without roots: useful for a time, but not for a lifetime.
He still could not slacken in cultivating his own spells.
Meng Nan worked diligently.
Morning and evening, he cultivated his method, tempered his true essence, and stole the Three Cavities.
By day, he cultivated spells, pondering them without cease and refining them to ever greater perfection.
In the gaps between cultivation, he also made time to further his studies in pill refinement and artifact forging. These were both ways to earn a living and arts of self-sufficiency, well worth the effort.
Thus, every day of Meng Nan's was packed full, without another moment to spare.
After remaining in seclusion for too long, with the days of cultivation stretching on, he inevitably began to feel stifled and irritable.
So he wandered idly through the mountains, descending to the markets and visiting Immortal Masters, all the while inquiring into the situation and gathering stray tales.
And whenever he occasionally found time, he selected soldiers, taught them the 'Red Robe Cultivation Method,' and