Eldest Young Lady Shi's Intelligence-Dropping Aura

At Yuqing Temple in Penglai, inside the Scripture Depository, Luo Yan finally settled on an explanation and launched into a long-winded lecture for Shi Liuli.

Each cultivation stage had its own special significance.

The Qi Refining Stage was the process of opening the qi sea and filling it completely. It took a great deal of time to draw qi into the body and refine it.

The Marrow Cleansing Stage began once the qi sea was full. True Qi was circulated through the limbs and bones, cleansing the meridians and tempering the bones and marrow. This stage greatly improved a cultivator's physical constitution and extended their lifespan to around two hundred years.

The Abode Transformation Stage involved transforming the dantian around the qi sea into a Violet Mansion and condensing the True Qi within the qi sea into True Essence, laying the foundation for the crucial next step: "forming a golden core from True Essence."

Overall, the Qi Refining Stage took the longest, lasting anywhere from thirty to sixty years or more.

The Marrow Cleansing Stage took the least time; it could usually be completed in under ten years.

As the most crucial step in laying the foundation, the Abode Transformation Stage was highly flexible in terms of duration.

In theory, building the Violet Mansion took only five years on average. The rest of the time was spent refining it further and purifying one's True Essence.

But if you skipped the latter and tried to form a golden core as soon as the Violet Mansion was built, you would almost certainly fail to survive the golden-core tribulation.

Golden cores came in nine grades, with a clear distinction between good and bad.

If someone spent less than a hundred years in the Abode Transformation Stage, then even if they survived the golden-core tribulation, the highest grade they could achieve was a seventh-grade golden core. There was absolutely no way to form an infant from one of those later on, which meant their lifespan was capped.

So everyone spent as much time as they could in the Abode Transformation Stage...

"So what exactly are you trying to say?" Shi Liuli asked impatiently.

Luo Yan smiled faintly and said:

"Senior Sister, that's exactly why someone would want to skip the Qi Refining Stage and hurry through Marrow Cleansing, so they could devote more time to the Abode Transformation Stage and improve the grade of their golden core as much as possible."

"If my calculations and analysis are right, this Li Palace must be a secret realm that lets people jump from Qi Refining to Marrow Cleansing, or straight from Marrow Cleansing to Abode Transformation... That would also explain why Eldest Senior Brother let the word slip. It makes sense logically."

"Your guess makes some sense." Shi Liuli thought it over and saw that it did add up. She looked at him in surprise. "I didn't know you were so clever, Junior Brother."

"I'm not clever. I just make a habit of thinking a few steps further than other people." Luo Yan immediately replied modestly, his narrowed eyes giving him a harmless, guileless look.

Fake Persona, synchronization +1.

"Really?" Shi Liuli said innocently. "Whatever, I'll take your conclusion and see if I can get Eldest Senior Brother to tell me more!"

With that, she jumped up and hurried away.

Luo Yan watched her go, his narrowed eyes concealing the gleam within.

This Eldest Young Lady Shi—well, she wasn't exactly stupid. She knew how to fish for information.

But she wasn't exactly clever, either. She was so innocent and sweet it was adorable.

She was quite the plump sheep... Ahem, I mean, an adorable young lady.

After Shi Liuli left, Luo Yan returned to his workshop and resumed studying the art of cauldron-making, working on the assignment Elder Shi Ding had given him.

A cauldron was a bronze vessel with three legs and two handles. It had originally been used for cooking meat, then evolved into a sort of artifact used to arrange formations.

Myths and legends recorded that long ago, the earth's veins had split open and reached all the way to the Nine Springs. Countless yin spirits had burst from the netherworld into the mortal realm. In the end, Shennong had gathered the metals of the Nine Provinces and forged nine cauldrons, then arranged a great formation across the land. Only by using the nine cauldrons to suppress the Nine Provinces had the netherworld and the human realm been separated once more.

The Shennong Cauldron mentioned here was an innate spiritual treasure on the same level as Nuwa's Stone and Fuxi's Sword, used to suppress the formation's central points throughout the Nine Provinces.

The assignment Elder Shi Ding had given Luo Yan this time was the Quicksand Net, the portable cauldron artifact Lou Zhizheng had used before. It was designed to trap enemies.

First, he had to forge a small cauldron, about the size of a palm.

Its base had to be square and its mouth round: "the circle represents heaven, the square represents earth." It should resemble a Penglai pot, shaped like the human body.

Then he had to divide it into three tiers, representing the upper, middle, and lower dantian.

Finally, he had to carve the formation into it, with Kan below and Dui above, drawing each line carefully and channeling Spiritual Power into it steadily.

And just like that, the cauldron artifact was complete.

Phew! Luo Yan let out a long breath and began inspecting the cauldron artifact in his hands.

This item was called the Quicksand Net. Once activated and tossed to the ground, it sank into the earth and immediately formed a nine-foot formation zone around it.

Anyone who fell into the zone would keep sinking and become trapped, as if the ground had turned into a swamp, unable to move any farther.

Of course, as an extremely low-level formation, the Quicksand Net's weakness was Water Element Daoist Magic.

The Image said: "A lake without water: distress."

If the Quicksand Net encountered Water Element Daoist Magic, the formation's image of "water beneath the lake" would be overturned, and its ability to trap people would instantly be broken.

After going over the manufacturing process once more, Luo Yan was sure there was nothing to improve.

After all, with the talent of One Hear Thousand Comprehensions, he understood any scripture at a glance and never forgot what he had read. Making a low-level cauldron artifact perfectly on the first try was naturally no challenge.

Hmm, in that case, he could make a few cauldron artifacts and give them to Qiu Changtian and Ling Yunpo to carry with them.

They could pull them out for protection in a critical moment; it would give them another trump card.

Just as Luo Yan had started quietly calculating what kind of cauldron formations would complement Qiu Changtian and Ling Yunpo's fighting styles, he heard Shi Liuli's excited voice from far down the hall:

"Junior Brother! Junior Brother! Eldest Senior Brother admitted it! There really is a Li Palace, just like we guessed!"

"Oh." Luo Yan replied calmly.

Of course, under the Mirror Flower Water Moon art of his Fake Persona, that calmness came across as simple-minded and guileless, like Guo Jing.

"Mission two! Mission two!" Shi Liuli burst into the workshop and grabbed his shoulders, shaking him. "Help me find out what secret realms are in the Li Palace and how to pass their trials!"

Luo Yan: ...

So I'm neither Doraemon nor an encyclopedia. You come to me with every question you have, Eldest Young Lady. Don't you think you expect a little too much of me?

"Do you think the Li Palace is built inside a fire?" Shi Liuli sat down on his desk without a care, making a guess. "Should we prepare some fireproof artifacts?"

"Mm, very likely." Luo Yan thought that, according to Xu Changqing, the Li Palace used the Spiritual Power of an underwater volcano. There might well be some fire-related trials.

"When will the Li Palace open?" Shi Liuli asked again. "Next month? At the end of the year? Next year?"

Luo Yan pondered for a long time. Then, under Shi Liuli's expectant gaze, he slowly said:

"I think you should ask Eldest Senior Brother."

"Dummy!" Shi Liuli tapped him on the head. "If Eldest Senior Brother were going to answer honestly, why would I come to you?"

"So in Senior Sister's heart, I'm just Eldest Senior Brother's backup?" Luo Yan immediately put on a mournful expression.

Fake Persona, synchronization +1.

"Ah, that's not what I meant!" Shi Liuli immediately grew embarrassed and hurried to explain. "No, Junior Brother."

"My senior brothers and sisters know the answer, but Father told them not to tell me. That's why I came to you for help. You'll help your senior sister, won't you?"

She leaned her pretty face toward him, gazing at Luo Yan with wide eyes. She clasped her hands before her chest and shook them eagerly back and forth, making a pleading face.

Luo Yan suddenly felt his cheeks grow warm and hurriedly looked away.

He wasn't some green boy who'd never seen a beauty. Xu Yinglian, cold as a snow lotus atop an icy peak, and An Zhisu, gentle as a water lily by the lake, were every bit Shi Liuli's equal in looks and bearing.

But the girl's bright, innocent, lively nature was hard for him to resist. It felt like being whisked back to those innocent high-school days, shyly falling for the cute girl at the desk beside him.

Wait!

Luo Yan jolted awake from his dreamy thoughts.

Could this Eldest Young Lady Shi... actually have an intelligence-dropping aura that made people dumber just by being around her?