Reading Books

"That is the water aspect bird... Senior Brother Yu, you must help me this time!"

After Baoguang gave a brief explanation, Yu Ci understood immediately. The little Daoist had accepted a Good Deeds message yesterday, which was to capture a water aspect bird lingering in the Duanjie Mountain Range. The reward was a full hundred Good Deeds, which was quite substantial even among outer chamber disciples.

Do not think Yu Ci had earned three hundred Good Deeds with a single fish dragon because it was anything easy; that was only because the fish dragon was far too rare, and someone had been in urgent need of it. Within the merit system established by the Li Chen Sect, examples like the fish dragon task, whether looking at the demand or supply columns, might not even exceed ten. The vast majority of Good Deeds rewards were in the single digits, and things like two or three Good Deeds were the bulk of them.

For example, the fish dragon grass: Bai Ri Mansion exerted the power of the entire city to offer about ten plants each year, which was almost all of the Li Chen Sect's income in recent years. Yet for such a resource on the goods column, its exchange price was only five Good Deeds per plant.

It was not that tasks with a reward reaching a hundred Good Deeds did not exist, but high returns represented high difficulty.

The water aspect bird was a highly peculiar kind of bird. It was said to have no fixed form. Each year, it would randomly choose a flock of migrating birds, transform into a similar shape to blend in among them, then steal and devour their young. It was utterly detestable.

It sounded bizarre, but in truth, it merely possessed a certain aptitude for illusion arts. Such creatures were not uncommon in the cultivation world. The ghost beasts beneath the Sky Rift Gorge were the most typical examples.

This bird was not any sort of fierce raptor, but that mastery of Illusionary Arts was truly headache-inducing. Especially since this thieving bird mingled among a large flock of migratory birds, almost identical to normal birds. Since it could not be found, there was no need to speak of the matter of capturing it.

"Helping is no problem, but according to what you mean, have you already discovered the water aspect bird?"

The most crucial part of this task was finding the traces of the water aspect bird. If the task steps and rewards were broken down and matched, the phase of searching for the bird probably accounted for ninety-nine Good Deeds!

Faced with Yu Ci's question, the little Daoist wore a gloomy expression, with even more eagerness: "Senior Brother Yu, Senior Brother Yu, you must help me this time. We will talk about other matters on the way. My first strike failed and I have already startled that bird. A bit later and perhaps that bird will fly away."

As he spoke, Baoguang pulled Yu Ci to jump onto the "Ghost Gauze Cloud" that had already stopped in the courtyard. The cloud-like sheer gauze fabric occupied most of the courtyard, and touching it truly felt like gauze and mist, almost without any sense of substance.

Seeing this, Yu Ci smiled: "The last time I wanted to take it to play for a while, you were not at all willing. Now you have become quite generous instead."

Baoguang blushed and was unable to speak a word. Seeing this, Yu Ci stopped teasing him, straightened his robes, and stepped up, landing steadily beside him. Baoguang could no longer hold back and rapidly recited the driving incantation. The Ghost Gauze Cloud gently trembled and began to float upward, rising straight to an altitude of nearly a hundred zhang before stopping.

"Good treasure."

Yu Ci patted the sheer gauze fabric beside him, feeling genuine envy. Perhaps the magic treasures and ritual tools in the cultivation world that could fly were countless, but those required a cultivator's fairly long period of refining to control freely, and were also closely related to one's own cultivation level. Under normal circumstances, driving a tool to fly was the patent of cultivators at core formation cultivation and above.

Against this background, if there was an artifact that, the moment it left a craftsman's hands, did not even require the cultivation of Differentiate Consciousness, Transform Thought to control flying up into the sky, and possessed relatively good maneuverability, even if it only belonged to the crafted tool tier, it was rare to the extreme.

Such praise was something Baoguang had lost count of hearing, but he merely chuckled, then changed the incantation. The high-altitude moisture gathered here, soaking into the sheer gauze, and when the moisture accumulated to a certain degree, clusters of mist were born from it, wrapping the sheer gauze within. At this moment, even sitting upon it, one could not feel that this contraption was woven from sheer gauze; it was truly wondrous.

At this time, the sheer gauze cloud moved, starting extremely slowly, but increasing in speed more and more. The surrounding moisture gathered on all sides was controlled by the array formations within the sheer gauze, transforming into driving force, and was bundled and thrown toward the rear, generating a clear trace beneath the clear sky.

The Ghost Gauze Cloud could fly four hundred miles in a single hour, roughly the same as the full-speed running of a spirit cultivator, but it consumed almost none of one's own strength. Therefore, even though it had defects such as a too-slow starting speed, sluggish deceleration and acceleration transitions, extreme fear of fire, and inability to fly on rainy days, it remained a rare treasure.

This artifact was the spoils of war seized by old Daoist Yu Zhou in his early years when he overrode an evil cult that deluded ordinary mortals. Its maker could no longer be traced; the people of the evil cult used it to impersonate immortals, which was merely deceiving ordinary mortals. Yu Zhou saw that its manufacture possessed considerable ingenuity, so he brought it back for collection, and later gave it to Baoguang. Do not look at how it had no use other than transportation; it was also the only one of its kind in the entire Li Chen Sect.

Traveling at full speed on the Ghost Gauze Cloud, the two of them arrived above South Frost Lake in only a short half-hour. During this period, Baoguang had already confessed the embarrassing mishap he had earlier.

Originally the little Daoist had a lot of fortune. Two days ago he went to South Frost Lake to gather medicine, and under a most accidental circumstance, he witnessed a water aspect bird change its outer appearance and blend into a flock of wild ducks that had just migrated over. Upon returning to the temple, he happened to see a newly released message in Tongde Hall, which was precisely to hunt down a water aspect bird.

Baoguang was overjoyed and rushed over eagerly the next day, only to find that the craftiness of the water aspect bird far exceeded his expectations. He failed to catch the bird, but instead was bewildered by the water aspect bird's Illusionary Arts, took a hit to the face, and startled that flock of wild ducks. Such a vigilant bird might change its habitat at any moment, and at that time the water aspect bird would inevitably follow. The little Daoist could not accept such an empty basket for fetching water no matter what, so he hurried back to fetch reinforcements.

"Bah, that feathered beast definitely flew over from the Six Barbarian Mountains."

Baoguang was still nursing his grievance, and Yu Ci smiled upon hearing it.

The so-called Six Barbarian Mountains were a immensely famous mountain range an unknown number of thousands of miles south of the Boundary Breaking Mountain, and legend had it that it was the largest gathering area for demons, ghosts, and monsters in this realm. For Baoguang to speak this way was to curse that water aspect bird for having turned into a spirit.

The two of them stood on the Ghost Gauze Cloud, looking down from above. South Frost Lake was situated within a valley surrounded by mountains on three sides, serene and quiet. This year the reed flowers bloomed late and were still lingering at this time. Viewed from high altitude, they spread out around the lake in a vast expanse of white, which was quite spectacular.

Baoguang paid no mind to these things; his entire mind was placed on the water aspect bird. His gaze swept successively across the flying birds rising and falling by the lake, and abruptly he cried out happily: "There, there, Senior Brother Yu, look, it hasn't flown away yet."

Yu Ci saw it clearly a step earlier than him. By the edge of the reed marsh, there really was a flock of grayish-black wild ducks swimming out, extremely eye-catching on the mirror-like, clear lake surface. Yet, which one was actually the water aspect bird?

Baoguang suddenly became hesitant and unable to speak smoothly: "It should be, it should be... My marker fell off!"

An awkward silence descended upon the Ghost Gauze Cloud.

Yu Ci looked at the hundred-odd wild ducks playing on the lake surface, speechless for a moment. This kind of bird not only possessed extremely strong vigilance, but also flew at a very fast speed. Once startled, these hundred-plus wild ducks would scatter and dart away in all directions. On the wide lake surface, relying on two people to catch a single bird that had no obvious markers, was proficient in Illusionary Arts, and had almost turned into a monster was simply an impossible matter!

After a long while, Yu Ci asked with a bitter smile: "Is it certain to be captured alive? Will a dead one do?"

He was thinking of using the Five Thunder Talisman, blasting a bolt of lightning across; wild ducks, water aspect bird, and all would be finished, only the condition would be terrible.

Baoguang shook his head resolutely, refusing to agree no matter what.

Yu Ci also shook his head, remaining silent. Actually he still had a method, which was to deliberately startle this flock of wild ducks continuously while using the Zhaoshen Map to lock onto them for a long time. Sooner or later he would discover the flaw of the water aspect bird from among them, and capture it in one go then... Yet to expose the Zhaoshen Map because of such a trivial matter was truly not what he desired, and his friendship with Baoguang had not reached that level yet.

"Is there really no way?"

Baoguang was dejected. "If only we had Senior Brother Li of our mountain gate's 'One Qi Thousand Knot Yin Thunder', with a range of a single li, just a shake like that, and no bird could escape."

The little Daoist spoke without intentional meaning, but Yu Ci listened with intentional ears. He did not care about Baoguang's unintentional slip of the tongue; he was merely interested in the other piece of information revealed in the dialogue.

"A single... Wait, let me think."

Yu Ci stood at the edge of the Ghost Gauze Cloud, looking at the lake surface in a daze. Baoguang was scratching his head: "Fishing? I don't think it'll hold up; this flock of birds is too thievish, ordinary methods simply can't catch them."

Yu Ci did not reply. After deep thought for a period of time, he simply sat cross-legged, his fingers still unconsciously twitching and gesturing. Seeing him looking this way, Baoguang only felt the atmosphere was heavy and did not dare to make a sound for the time being, only watching with wide eyes until Yu Ci took out a roll of silk fabric from his Storage Ring.

The little Daoist could no longer suppress his curiosity and leaned forward.

What Yu Ci took out was the only cultivation manual by his side, namely the "Shangqing Juxuan Xing Shu Mi Shou Fu Jing" that he had taken out from Great Immortal Purple Thunder's sleeping quarters back then along with the Zhaoshen Bronze Mirror. For a very long time, this talisman book was almost the sole guidance on his cultivation path.

If it were someone else or somewhere else, Yu Ci might not have dared to openly take it out, but these past few days, staying overnight in Zhixin Temple and communicating with the Daoists of the temple, he became increasingly clear about what kind of colossal entity that Li Chen Sect was. Passing down through generations counted in tens of thousands of years, wondrous techniques, secret skills, magic treasures, and rare treasures could be said to be readily available. This talisman book of his, which was a treasure to him, probably did not measure up to standard for the Li Chen Sect.

Therefore, he did not need to hold onto any notion of hoarding it jealously, and very generously took it out for reference.

This talisman book did not exist in the form of jade slips common in the cultivation world, nor was it ordinary paper; rather, it was woven from a certain extremely tough silkworm silk. Tens of thousands of words were written upon it in a flowing script, along with thousands of talismanic runes and illustrations, all woven on stitch by stitch. He truly did not know how much painstaking effort was expended when the book was made.

Since it was made of silk fabric, this book had no page numbers; normally it was rolled up, and when used it was simply spread out. Yu Ci slowly unrolled the silk fabric, its text and graphics flowing through his eyes like water.

Baoguang beside him let out a cry of "wow," making Yu Ci feel that this kid was making a fuss over nothing. Without even raising his head, he merely made a quiet gesture, then continued to unroll, searching for the talismanic rune in his impression, and quickly obtained a result.

"It is this one... Yindu Black Law Ghost Binding Curse."

Baoguang beside him also saw the talismanic rune upon it. But with just a glance, his eyeballs were almost twisted by the complex patterns, and he could not help drawing in a cold breath: "What is this used for!"

"Bind!"