The Revised Profound Heaven Sword Method

So Li Fan put away the Yuan Shi scroll and the Profound Heaven Sword Method, thanking Real Person Liang for all his guidance... and gossip.

Yuan Xuanbao had only glanced at the back of the Yuan Shi scroll, yet he'd immediately spat blood and suffered a serious injury. According to Real Person Liang, his cultivation and aptitude were both lacking, and he hadn't fully purged the baleful energy from his body. The slightest provocation had made it surge up and aggravate his old injuries, so he would stay at the funeral home and continue cultivating.

Xuanbao also nodded at Li Fan to show that he shouldn't worry, and the two parted for the time being.

After leaving the funeral home, Li Fan mounted a flying crane and took to the sky. With the two newly acquired scrolls tucked against his chest, he pondered for a while.

The Yuan Shi scroll probably recorded the dreamscape Real Person Liang had witnessed while performing Moon Worship.

This and the Source Marsh that Real Person Wangshu had discussed with him back then were probably different worlds and different Daoist grounds in the void.

According to the Profound Heaven Sword Intent, although Real Person Liang was a Nascent Soul cultivator, he was far more powerful than Wangshu, who was now at the Divine Transformation stage. Perhaps it was because he was older and had a more stable cultivation, or perhaps the Daoist ground he had observed was even more perilous than Source Marsh.

Of course, the scroll should have depicted an illusion created by a spell rather than an actual Moon Worship ritual. It was like a video walkthrough for a dungeon: he could watch it in advance to prepare for the real thing. It was quite a generous gift.

It was probably Real Person Liang's reward to Li Fan for killing that Golden Core demonic cultivator and avenging his disciple.

As for the body-tempering sword art, the Profound Heaven Sword Method...

"So, Sword Intent, what did you make of it?" Li Fan glanced sideways at the silver-white blade beside him. It was now only an inch long, like half a bamboo leaf, and clung to the roughly three-inch-long catfish head. He had no idea how the two were communicating, but Kun kept licking the pages and flipping through the Profound Heaven Sword Method.

The Profound Heaven Sword Intent wouldn't let Li Fan read it. It claimed that Li Fan's comprehension was unbelievably high and that he could grasp any Cultivation Method at a glance, which was completely unreasonable and failed to demonstrate how "easy to understand" the text supposedly was. So it insisted on finding someone with ordinary aptitude to review it and judge how well the Cultivation Method was written—and how it could possibly be better suited to teaching disciples than itself. Then it had gone and stuck itself to Kun's head to read...

But no matter how easy to understand the sword method was, Kun wouldn't be able to make sense of it, would he?

'The Profound Heaven Sword Intent says this sword method is trash, but it's got a little something to it. I'll study it some more...'

What kind of review was "trash, but it's got a little something to it"? Never mind. Whatever.

Then the two of them really did start studying it, and Kun got dragged along by the Sword Intent. He'd barely even been eating tofu.

When they returned to Wangshu Residence to eat together, even Fuling, who usually doted on Kun the most, didn't notice anything. She wore a blank expression, but it was obvious something was weighing on her mind.

"Fuling, what's wrong? Is Fairy Wangshu all right?" Li Fan asked tentatively.

"Hm? Oh, yes, the young miss is fine. She's meditating in seclusion and won't wake up for three to five months, so don't worry." Fuling came back to herself, ladled a piece of tofu into Li Fan's bowl, then added a chicken wing to Kun's.

Kun was certainly making out fine...

Li Fan said, "...Then is something on your mind, Fuling? Maybe I can help?"

Fuling came back to herself and smiled. "Don't worry. It's just some business matters. With a powerful Divine Transformation cultivator like the young miss protecting me, and plenty of talismans in my hands, who would dare hurt me? Qingyue, just focus on recovering from your injuries.

"Oh, and here are the Five Elements Treasures I prepared for your Foundation Establishment, along with some medicinal ingredients. When you killed that wicked cultivator, you got a pile of jade pendants and jade tokens from him. The temple master wants to keep them for the investigation, since they may contain clues, so I couldn't return them to you. The people at Lou Guan say they'll pay you for them.

"I managed to get you some money for them, about twenty thousand strings as spending money. Qingyue, I hope you don't mind that I agreed on your behalf..."

"Fuling, don't be silly. Those things might carry more entanglements of cause and effect than we know, and they're not so easy to take. I'm happy to hand them over to the temple for an investigation into our enemies." Li Fan certainly didn't mind. Killing a Golden Core monster had paid off handsomely. He'd gotten a whole mess of things: the Yuan Shi, the sword method, Divine Astral Coins, and more.

Twenty thousand strings. There were probably a hundred cash to a string and a thousand cash to a guan, so twenty thousand guan amounted to two hundred thousand coins. To calculate purchasing power more precisely, Fuling had said that one guan could buy about twenty shi of rice, which worked out to five cash per dou.

Li Fan hadn't actually been to the Human Dao to see how many jin a shi or dou contained, but a shi of rice would probably feed a household for a month or so. All in all, rice was very cheap and its supply was stable.

That was because the Three Great Sects had gone a long time without waging war, and the Twelve Countries rarely changed dynasties. Though the occasional Devil Form appeared and baleful corpses sometimes harmed people, there weren't that many cultivators, and they were clustered in the deep mountains and forests, living in so-called Grotto-Heaven Blessed Lands. So, in practice, ordinary people were about as likely to encounter a cultivator as they were to run into bandits or wild beasts. Cultivators still went around chopping off one another's heads as usual, but the Human Dao was enjoying a rare period of peace by historical standards, and Divine Astral Coins naturally had tremendous purchasing power.

Of course, Li Fan hadn't transmigrated here to become a rich landlord. He could buy four hundred thousand shi of grain with twenty thousand guan, but he'd die before he could eat it all. But if he spent the money on cultivation ingredients, Magic Treasures, and other tools, it would disappear like water. Some things couldn't be bought at any price, so there was no need to obsess over every last coin.

Still, this showed that Fuling really did have a lot on her mind lately. She'd even been so busy that she'd forgotten Li Fan had plenty of things left with her. After all, they'd only known each other for a few days. She didn't want to say more, and Li Fan didn't want to pry into her private affairs. When they finished eating, he grabbed Kun by the tail and went back to his quiet room to cultivate.

The most important thing now was to get his mood back up. Given the intensity of the battles he kept getting dragged into, Li Fan thought he should perform Moon Worship again as soon as possible and stabilize his cultivation at Foundation Establishment Perfection. His current Dao Breath just wasn't enough. One full-power shot from the Qiankun Flying Dragon Sword emptied it out completely.

But he needed to prepare a little before performing Moon Worship. He couldn't use the sealed jade pendant, but perhaps he could bring some snacks. Whatever he did, he could only recover a little mood, so he might as well carry around some skewers of meatballs and peanuts or something...

Of course, aside from eating and drinking, appreciating flowers and plants, and occasionally getting excited for no reason, there was another fairly reliable way to restore his mood.

That was to sit in meditation and circulate his qi, breathing in the fragrant sandalwood smoke as he cycled the great circulation through his Qi Sea. His whole body would feel relaxed and refreshed, and then...

'Li Fan's mood increased by 1 point.'

Yeah, cultivation really did feel great. It wasn't fake great. Some pleasures were fleeting, short-lived, lowbrow, leaving you with aches and pains before vanishing into thin air. But cultivation wasn't like that. Cultivation was pure bliss, endless bliss. The more you cultivated, the better it felt. Ahhh, bliss...

'Li Fan's mood increased by 1 point.'

But... System, how long had it been? One point at a time. It had been seven days, and he'd eaten a ton of meals by now. He'd been cultivating around the clock—cough, cultivating—and must have recovered dozens of points, right? How many mood points did he have now? What about the lottery? Why wasn't it charged yet?

'Li Fan's mood: 96/200. Current charge: 174/200.'

Huh??? Why had the limit gone up? And by a hundred points? Was it because he'd reached Foundation Establishment? So breaking through a cultivation stage could increase the limit? System, why hadn't you said anything?

'Chirp.'

Fuck me... You win, System. You win. I'll remember that... Wait, these numbers don't look right, do they? I can't be bothered to calculate the charge going up and down, but what's with my mood being only at 96?

'The host broke through to Foundation Establishment, but the cultivation is not yet stable. Only by reaching Foundation Establishment Perfection and cultivating a Foundation Establishment-stage Cultivation Method, consuming Foundation Establishment-stage pills, or killing Devil Embryos at Foundation Establishment or above can the host raise their mood above 100 points.'

Tch... So beating ordinary white-named Qi Refining shrimp monsters doesn't give points anymore, right? I have to fight green-quality Foundation Establishment shrimp monsters, right? And later I'll have to fight colorful diamond-level shrimp monsters, right? What kind of garbage game mechanics are these!

'Li Fan's mood decreased by 1 point.'

Right! And even worse, he had that "keep calm" condition to deal with... If he had to keep chopping them down one point at a time, how long would it take to fill his mood back up? The Qi Refining stage had been easy enough; he could just gulp down Five Immortals Soup and all sorts of things. But where was he supposed to find so many Foundation Establishment pills to take, or so many Foundation Establishment monsters to grind? And what about the Golden Core, Nascent Soul, and Divine Transformation stages later on?

'Li Fan's mood decreased by 1 point.'

Damn it! Fine, fine, stop lowering it, stop lowering it! It had only taken a moment to lose two points. Wouldn't that mean he needed to kill two more Foundation Establishment monsters just to make them back? Stay calm, stay calm...

Right! He could still cultivate! First, he'd reach Foundation Establishment Perfection, then cultivate the Secret Manual for the Hidden Refinement of the Taiyin Five Luo Sword Ghosts. He could restore eight or ten points a day that way, and get his mood back up in a few days.

Right! The key was to reach Foundation Establishment Perfection first! Then he could perform Moon Worship!

But he needed a full mood gauge to perform Moon Worship!

Then he'd rely on cultivation to gain points!

But cultivation wouldn't restore mood points before Foundation Establishment Perfection!

Then he'd go perform Moon Worship!

Fuck!! It was a logical loop!

'Li Fan's mood decreased by 1 point.'

He couldn't take it anymore. He'd imagined two men throwing chairs at each other in a little skit, and now the sun had come up. His heart was exhausted...

Li Fan covered his forehead. What had he done to deserve getting trapped in such a vicious cycle? What should he do? Spend twenty thousand guan on Foundation Establishment pills? Or take things slowly and cultivate at his own pace?

Just then, Kun and the Sword Intent flew over. They'd been arguing all night, and under the Profound Heaven Sword Intent's instructions, Kun had held a pen in his mouth and scribbled all over the Profound Heaven Sword Method. At the end, he'd even drunk the ink...

'The Profound Heaven Sword Intent says that, based on the host's comprehension, I've already refined this sword method, taking the essence and discarding the dregs. It's now a proper Profound Heaven Sword Method. Let's go put it into practice.'

Li Fan flipped through the revised Profound Heaven Sword Method: The Profound Heaven and Kun Edition that Kun had brought him. Well, he could understand it.

It was a sword manual, like the Bamboo Mountain Sword Method or the Body Domination Technique. You could think of it as a sword dance made up of fixed movements, similar to broadcast calisthenics. It helped you stretch your limbs, control your muscles, and coordinate your breathing. Besides training your body, it could also give you a certain amount of combat ability.

But it wasn't a complete martial art, either. More accurately, it had been designed to counter a specific sword method.

That's right: the divine technique that served as the Divine Cult's founding treasure, the Blood Record Sword Scripture.

Yet the entire text didn't mention the Blood Record Sword Scripture once. The complete set consisted of only eighteen specific sword forms, which seemed to be designed specifically to counter the Blood Record Sword Scripture.

And it didn't just explain the forms in writing. Each one came with a diagram of the human meridians, with certain channels outlined in red and the key techniques explained in detail. Perhaps the art of recording voices and images hadn't been invented when the book was written, but it was certainly worthy of Real Person Liang's praise: the explanations were exceptionally precise.

So what had the Profound Heaven Sword Intent and Kun revised? Well, they'd inked over most of the explanations and drawn big crosses over a lot of the figures, making a complete mess of them. Of course, it wasn't random scribbling. Everything they'd removed had been judged useless trash by the Sword Intent. The crossed-out parts, meanwhile, showed the flaws that appeared after using each move—or, to be precise, the flaws as seen by the Profound Heaven Sword Intent...

After all that had been deleted, only five diagrams remained.

Had this guy really failed to realize that the "dregs" it had removed were the very essence that ordinary disciples needed explained to them?

Li Fan gave them a sidelong look. If he weren't a born genius, no one could possibly learn a sword method that looked like it had been clawed at by a dog!

"I've memorized the forms. Where are we going now?"

'The Profound Heaven Sword Intent says the host is truly a monster. You managed to learn even this? Good, then let's hurry and kill some monkeys to temper your mind.'

Killing monkeys could temper his mind, huh? Didn't they have any wildlife protection laws here?

They really didn't. Ink Bamboo Mountain had been plagued by an overpopulation of Thunder Monkeys for ages. The monkeys weren't mindless beasts. They were cowardly bullies who knew to avoid certain powerful cultivators. And since Ink Bamboo Mountain had no natural predators, the Qi Refining disciples who used to hunt them regularly had all hunkered down together to drink soup. The monkeys had gone unchecked ever since, and they'd completely disrupted the mountain's ecological balance. On top of that, they shrieked all day long, disturbing the meditation of the cultivators in their caves and residences.

But the monkeys had reached Foundation Establishment.

That's right, most of those Thunder Monkeys could reach Foundation Establishment. After all, they'd originally bought Thunder Monkeys, not Thunder Apes. In a blessed Daoist ground like Ink Bamboo Mountain, rich in outstanding people and spiritual energy, they could even sneak off and chew on medicinal herbs every now and then. How could they not reach Foundation Establishment after all these years?

The Heavenly Dao had sure changed a lot. Even monkeys could reach Foundation Establishment just like that...

"Right! Come to think of it... Qiankun Flying Dragon Sword!" Li Fan stood on a bamboo tip and flicked his sleeve, sending out black-and-white sword qi. Two sword dragons tore a Thunder Monkey that had been chewing on a bamboo shoot in half, startling the other monkeys into scattering in every direction.

'Li Fan's mood increased by 1 point.'

So it really was true. Those monkeys lived in the bamboo forest, where Nascent Soul cultivators were performing Moon Worship nearby all the time. How could they not become tainted by baleful energy? They could count as Foundation Establishment-level Devil Embryos, too.

Still, watching them from a distance, all bloody like that, was pretty disgusting...

'The Profound Heaven Sword Intent says the host should stop being so squeamish. What's so disgusting about that? You eat plenty of meat yourself. And don't use the Qiankun Flying Dragon Sword. You're going to practice with the new Profound Heaven Sword Method in a moment. Before you start, draw a talisman.'

"That's not being squeamish. Heard the saying 'a gentleman keeps his distance from the kitchen'? It's just a natural physical reaction. If you prepare it for me and cook it until it smells delicious, I won't find it disgusting." As he chatted, Li Fan took yellow talisman paper and cinnabar from his jade pendant, dipped a brush in the ink, and copied the incantation onto the paper under the Profound Heaven Sword Intent's guidance.

'The Profound Heaven Sword Intent says, "What gentleman keeps his distance from the kitchen? I say you've been spoiled rotten... Tch, you really do learn fast. I wasn't this good when I was your age. Oh, I just realized something! You can use a brush! And you can read and write! I get it! The host must come from a prestigious family that has passed down the classics for generations. Those pedantic scholars and bookworms must have corrupted you from childhood! Bamboo Mountain really is wild, casually kidnapping well-read scions like that..."'

Li Fan thought it had misunderstood. At least where he came from, fourteen hundred million people had compulsory education, and everyone had been well-read from childhood, full of knowledge. Even if he couldn't pass the imperial examination, he could at least have earned the title of licentiate. It didn't matter who they kidnapped.

'The Profound Heaven Sword Intent says, "Since you were a child prodigy who was well-read from a young age, I'll ask you this first. Those pedantic scholars are always shouting about not killing animals or people. If someone comes to kill you, what do you think you should do?"'

Call the police...

'The Profound Heaven Sword Intent says, "Call what?"'

"I mean... report it to the authorities and have the constables come save me."

The Profound Heaven Sword Intent was speechless for a while.

'The Profound Heaven Sword Intent says, "Sigh. A scholar is useless after all. You still don't understand how treacherous people can be."'

You don't know what round-the-clock public surveillance, facial recognition, identity tracking, real-time location services, and reverse DNA searches are like—or how uncomfortable it is to be handcuffed to a radiator for two hours... Cough, cough. Anyway, crime was just too easy here. People could do whatever they wanted, so of course they didn't understand that the heavens were watching everything...

'The Profound Heaven Sword Intent says, "Host, what are you babbling about?"'

Li Fan sighed. "I'm saying our constables were incredibly capable, so people were usually kind to each other, law-abiding, hardworking citizens. We reminded ourselves every day how fresh the air was and how wonderful life could be. We read funny novels to keep ourselves cheerful and open-minded, and never carried our exhaustion and stress into the next day...

"Cough, cough, cough, cough. But I understand what you mean, Sword Intent. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Fine, I'll temper my mind. I'll try to get used to your simple way of interacting with people here: chop off each other's heads as soon as you meet..."

Of course, it would be even better if corpses in this world vanished in a flash of white light, like they did in a game, instead of splattering blood everywhere and making his conscience constantly ask him what he'd done.

Cough, this talk reminded him of something. System, if killing monsters gave him mood points, why hadn't killing that Golden Core demonic cultivator and those two baleful corpses earned him any?

'The system determines that the Golden Core cultivator Chen Jinu was killed by the demonic cultivator Li Xinglong.'

'The system determines that the demonic cultivator Li Xinglong was killed by the Flying Sword Flying Rainbow.'

'The system determines that the demonic cultivator Tian Silang is not dead.'

'The system determines that only targets personally killed by Li Fan can provide mood points.'

Oh...

Wait?

System, what did you just say?

'The system determines that only targets personally killed by Li Fan can provide mood points.'

"Not that line!" Li Fan was so angry he snapped the brush in half. "Who were the three people you just mentioned? A Golden Core cultivator? That demonic cultivator? Chen Jinu? Li Xinglong? Tian Silang? Demonic cultivators? What have you been hiding from me? Confess and you'll be treated leniently; resist and you'll be dealt with harshly! Tell me everything!"

'...Chirp.'