A few days later.
Xiao Han finished reading all three books seized from the Tiger Demon and figured out what they contained.
This was truly an incredible stroke of luck!
The first book was an internal Qi cultivation manual called the Danyuan Technique. Supposedly, it had belonged to a Taoist priest from Kunlun.
The reason Taoists like Yan Chixia and Zhiqiu Yiye could use all kinds of unusual spells was that they had cultivated Zhenyuan, which they then transformed into magical power.
But Xiao Han's Dou Qi was more like the inner strength cultivated by ordinary martial artists. It was simply that the worlds had different power systems. Compared with Zhenyuan, Dou Qi—the souped-up version of inner strength—was every bit as formidable.
At least in Xiao Han's view, cultivating Dou Qi gradually increased both one's lifespan and strength. Once someone reached the Dou Zong level, they could shatter mountains thousands of meters across with a casual wave of the hand and walk through the air. It was terrifying!
That was no less impressive than the Earthly Immortals in those xianxia novels.
Besides, although he didn't know how much longer it could extend one's life, a Dou Di could conservatively expect to live for tens of thousands of years.
After all, Gu Yuan alone had lived for at least several thousand years.
What's more, cultivating Dou Qi also strengthened one's Soul Power whenever one advanced in cultivation. It still fell far short of what an alchemist who focused exclusively on Soul Power could achieve, but the improvement was impressive all the same. It was like the Spiritual Sense of a cultivator, growing stronger over time.
In other words, Dou Qi was cultivation in a fantasy world.
But there was a problem, owing to the nature of the setting. To be precise, the Dou Qi in Battle Through the Heavens was simply martial arts on a larger scale. The Dou Continent did have Dou Techniques that worked like the spells of a cultivation world, but they were extremely rare.
In a xianxia setting, these Dou Techniques could be classified as part of the Martial Path, but not as "spells."
In Xiao Han's view, Yellow Tier and Heaven Stage Dou Techniques were just like the various martial arts of a low-martial world. By the time they reached the Earth-Tier Dou Technique level, they could unleash ranged blasts and cause widespread destruction, making them the equivalent of martial arts from a high-martial world.
For example, the Emperor Seal Technique and the Flame Splitting Wave Ruler both dealt large-scale AOE damage. They had already transcended ordinary martial arts and entered the realm of "techniques." They were simply amplifiers that magnified the power of Dou Qi.
There was no need to even mention the Heaven-Tier Dou Techniques above those. With one of them, even a Dou Ling might be able to defeat and kill a Dou Wang.
But no matter how powerful they were, they all remained rooted in the Martial Path. That was probably another result of the difference in their worlds and power systems.
The second book was titled Nameless. It looked more like a collection of miscellaneous spells, but Xiao Han gave it a name: Compendium of Spells.
Even setting everything else aside, its thickness—about the same as the Xinhua Dictionary—was enough to make Xiao Han look at it in a new light!
It recorded a great many Taoist spells, including the roar the Tiger Demon had used to disrupt his mind and leave him dazed for a brief moment.
There were also spells for summoning clouds and rain, calling down Heavenly Thunder, and all sorts of support spells.
The sheer variety of these spells and divine abilities left Xiao Han repeatedly amazed. If he brought them back to the Douqi Continent and had the system convert them into Dou Techniques, he'd have what it took to found a sect. After all, spells like these were unheard of on the Douqi Continent!
Even more excitingly, the book also described how to make several kinds of Taoist talismans. That would be a tremendous help to Xiao Han.
Unfortunately, the book's owner hadn't been a sword cultivator. It didn't contain instructions on how to craft Magic Artifacts, much less the Sword Control Technique Xiao Han had long yearned to learn!
That was the one thing Xiao Han had truly been unlucky about.
But he already had a refined Dharma Sword in his possession, so there was no rush. Once he reached his destination, he'd have plenty of time to study the thing.
The third book was something else entirely.
The moment he opened it, golden light streamed from the Buddhist Scripture.
The dense aura of the Buddhist Sect made Xiao Han's heart skip a beat. Even the Demon Armor inside him began to stir.
It wasn't that the Demon Armor feared the scripture. It was simply instinctively repelled by the Buddha's light, since the two were natural enemies.
Then he looked at the title. Good heavens!
The Immovable King Mantra!
Xiao Han examined it and found that it inflicted extraordinary damage on the soul.
Never mind whether he could use it to send his own teacher, Old Man Yao, to the afterlife. If he recited even a couple of lines to the female ghosts at Luo Temple, he was sure to make them wail like banshees.
If he played this thing as music for ghosts, Xiao Han guaranteed it would be even more addictive than the Great Compassion Mantra.
This was definitely a scripture copied by a high-ranking Buddhist monk. Xiao Han couldn't for the life of him understand how the Tiger Demon had managed to defeat Taoists and monks who knew these Magic Incantations.
It couldn't be that those people were underdeveloped and still went looking for trouble, charging in to get themselves killed, could it?
If that was the case, Xiao Han would have to look down on them.
With these three books in hand, anyone who had mastered even one of them shouldn't have been afraid of the Tiger Demon. He really couldn't understand how the people before him had lost.
In Xiao Han's imagination, some hotheaded young monk had charged alone up Tiger Head Mountain and raised the Immovable King Mantra in his hand, showing off.
"Once I bring out the Immovable King Mantra, you think you can kill me? You think you can kill me in one blow? If you can smash the Immovable King Mantra in my hands today, you can eat me right here!"
And then—and then there was no more.
Ahem, he was getting carried away.
Whatever the case, these people had sacrificed themselves to vanquish evil spirits and demons.
It wasn't polite to look down on them like that. So he gave them a tiny middle finger, then put on an innocent look to show his respect.
Once Xiao Han understood the nature of the three books, he immediately fused the Danyuan Technique. The Swallowing Spirit Technique gained a new property.
The Dou Qi Xiao Han cultivated now was much like Zhenyuan, except that it was far more powerful.
He continuously converted his power into magical power according to the Danyuan Technique, then began learning the Taoist spells.
As for the Immovable King Mantra, he forced himself to spend 100 Energy Value to learn the basics.
There was no need to practice it deliberately. With an entire copy of the Immovable King Mantra that radiated Buddha's light kept close at hand, his proficiency naturally shot up.
Unexpectedly, Xiao Han's talent for learning spells was no worse than his talent for cultivating Dou Qi.
He could cast some low-level spells at will. For example, he could use a clone technique to separate a fragment of his mind and place it in a small object for reconnaissance, such as a Paper Crane or a paper airplane.
Some other spells were rather lewd, like Invisibility and X-ray.
Ahem, what did you think of?
But what helped Xiao Han most were the techniques in the Compendium of Spells for tempering Spiritual Sense—in other words, Soul Power. Some of their practical applications were much better than what Old Man Yao had taught him.
With the help of spells, Xiao Han cultivated and vanquished demons along the way, and his strength began to improve by leaps and bounds!
The spells were a bit of a hodgepodge, but there were so many of them.
With Xiao Han's abundant magical power, tossing out a few spells was enough to drive the demons into a frenzy.
Whenever a demon ran amok, it couldn't escape Xiao Han's Dog Nose Tracking Technique.
"Heaven and Earth Have No Limits, Tracking for Thousands of Miles!" The moment he caught even the faintest whiff of Demon Aura, he charged in and used the Immovable King Mantra to control the battlefield. Once the Buddha's light shone on them, these Evil Spirits would either be gravely wounded or be suppressed so thoroughly they wailed for their mothers. Their fighting strength would plummet.
No matter how cleverly those demons tried to escape, somehow they could never get away from Xiao Han.
Xiao Han: "I said I'd kill your whole family, so I'll kill your whole family. I never go back on my word."
As Xiao Han traveled around vanquishing demons, his reputation gradually spread among the common folk, and he earned quite a name for himself as a chivalrous hero.
After all, how could people not talk about a boy of just thirteen or fourteen who possessed such strength and a Chivalrous Spirit? Xiao Han became a favorite topic of conversation among ordinary people, and his fame gradually spread.
Since Xiao Han liked to wear black and wielded a sword, the common folk gave him the illustrious title "Black-Clothed Swordsman."
But Xiao Han didn't care much about it.
A nickname was just a nickname. That was enough.
It couldn't raise his stats or give him a buff. Apart from sounding nice, it was completely useless.
He had come to this world to cultivate and grow stronger, not to pursue fame and fortune. Once he left and returned to the Douqi Continent, the reputation he'd earned in A Chinese Ghost Story wouldn't be worth a damn!
Before you continue