Bad News (Seeking Further Reading)

Inside the seclusion chamber.

With a thought, Fang Qing converted all of his Blackwater mana, newly at the seventh layer of Qi Refinement, into [Ji Water] mana.

Gurgle, gurgle!

A clear spring burbled, and a breeze drifted by.

Faint ripples seemed to surround him. A flash of black light passed through his eyes. "The sixth layer of Qi Ingestion truly couldn't break through the bottleneck of the seventh layer..."

Fang Qing was not surprised. In terms of mana quality, the Black Ridge Contemplation Scripture had always surpassed the Water Classic Commentary.

He converted it again and found that his Blackwater mana had compressed once more, becoming considerably more refined.

"Once my realm is there, my mana will quickly catch up. Refining it once is a good thing instead."

Fang Qing nodded in satisfaction and took out the Five Dragons Alchemy Classic.

After studying it for a while, he felt that this alchemy classic was written quite poorly. There were omissions in many places.

"With my current abilities, when refining first-tier high-grade pills, I'll need at most two or three failures before I can get started..."

"What kind of alchemy talent is this? If I were willing to spend the effort, talisman drawing and artifact refining probably wouldn't pose much of a problem either... No wonder that, so long as Foundation Establishment cultivators were willing to put in the work, most of them could master a second-tier craft..."

He tossed aside the Five Dragons Alchemy Classic and took out the Black Ridge Observation Book to study.

"I observe Black Ridge; there is a spring there, and Ji Water murmurs on..."

"This book... carries the resonance of the Dao..."

After a long while, Fang Qing let out a long breath. He swallowed a fasting pill, sat in meditation to regulate his breathing for a time, then tried the Horse-Head Vajra Protector Divine Art again.

This time, the moment his divine sense stirred, the Horse-Head Vajra he visualized seemed to come alive. The vajra pestle gripped in its savage hand immediately became solid.

"Hmm?"

"Using divine sense in tandem with the visualization diagram, it seems I can condense a Demon-Subduing Vajra Pestle into a secret art... This is... a secret technique for divine sense attacks?"

Joy rose in Fang Qing's heart. "As expected, this cultivation art still holds many secrets."

After studying the cultivation art a while longer, he began reading other miscellaneous books. The most important among them was the Plum Blossom Divination.

"Among Jade Island's inherited arts of cultivation, there is nothing related to divination... It seems the Qi Refinement Way has no such inheritance? There is only astrology and physiognomy, which appear somewhat related..."

As he studied the Plum Blossom Divination, he gradually gained some understanding. "This Plum Blossom Divination truly has much to do with the way of calculation: the Early Heaven Eight Trigrams, the six-line hexagrams..."

Several days later.

At sunrise.

Facing the morning sun, Fang Qing breathed in and out, drawing in that thread of violet qi.

As the Qi-Gathering Formula circulated, the final thread of Great Sun Violet Qi took shape and was guided into a jade bottle.

Within the jade bottle, a complete stream of [Great Sun Violet Qi] was clearly visible.

"Ninth-tier high-grade, Eastern Extreme Jade Clarity... it's done!"

"Unfortunately... I still haven't been able to find a Great Sun cultivation art..."

Fang Qing sighed softly. For this stream of Great Sun Violet Qi, he had spent several years in painstaking effort.

Though he only meditated for a brief while each day when the morning sun rose in the east, it still required the patience to persist day after day.

"This spiritual material, over in Ancient Shu... I wonder what kind of monstrous waves it would stir up?"

As thoughts turned in his mind, Fang Qing immediately cast a hexagram using the Plum Blossom Divination, which he had only just begun learning.

Naturally, he could calculate nothing.

"This... is not because my cultivation is too shallow, but because the heavenly secrets do not align... So-called divination and deduction are really all about 'questioning heavenly secrets.' Heaven knows, earth knows—but what I am calculating is the 'heaven' of another world. To this world's heavenly secrets, it is equivalent to not existing, so naturally there is no hexagram at all..."

"Still, even in Ancient Shu, I probably couldn't calculate such enormous karma. My realm is too low..."

After thinking it over, Fang Qing put away the jade bottle containing the Great Sun Violet Qi, then calculated his own fortune.

"Minor misfortune?... I'll have a bit of bad luck next?"

Looking at the hexagram, Fang Qing frowned. "What bad luck could there be within the sect? This Plum Blossom Divination is only so-so as well. It gives only a hexagram, and I still need to interpret it myself... What I can interpret is very vague."

Now that he had only just entered the gate of Plum Blossom Divination, not only were many matters involving profound karma difficult to divine, but the results it could produce were also few: major misfortune, minor misfortune, neutral, minor fortune, major fortune, and little else.

A thought stirred in his heart, and he went to Myriad Treasures Island.

"Hmm?"

The moment Fang Qing entered the Palace of Miscellaneous Affairs, he noticed something was wrong.

Teams of law-enforcement cultivators stood guard everywhere, their expressions incomparably solemn, utterly unlike their usual lax demeanor.

"Junior Brother, what happened?"

He casually grabbed a disciple at the fourth or fifth layer of Qi Refinement and questioned him.

The disciple had initially looked impatient, but upon sensing the concealed aura of the sixth layer of Qi Refinement around Fang Qing, he immediately did not dare slight him. "Reporting to Senior Brother... the Great White Zhong Clan has gone to war with our Azure Sea Sect! They say they have already begun attacking ships across the various sea regions. Our sect disciples who went out to sea... have suffered grievous casualties!"

"Hmm?"

Hearing this, Fang Qing's heart jolted.

The Great White Zhong Family! One of the three great Golden Core powers in the Lesser Vast Sea Cultivation Realm! It stood alongside the Azure Sea Sect and the Heavenly Heart Chain Islands, and was famed for its ice-element cultivation arts.

"No wonder my fortune is poor. A person's luck is bound to be affected by the greater tide... With two great sects at war, I'll be lucky if I'm not seized as cannon fodder."

Fang Qing sighed inwardly.

Rumble, rumble!

Just then, a sensation of the earth shaking and mountains swaying swept over him.

He hurriedly left the Palace of Miscellaneous Affairs and rode the Green Leaf Boat into the air. He saw undulating azure light emanating from the seven islands in the lake, spreading into a continuous curtain of light like a colossal bowl overturned, protecting the entire Azure Sea Sect within.

"The sect's protective grand formation—the Seven Profound Azurewave Formation—has been activated at full power?"

Beside him, a Formation Island disciple exclaimed in amazement.

"All Azure Sea Sect disciples, heed this order! The Palace of Miscellaneous Affairs will temporarily cease issuing missions. Return to your respective residences and prepare to await further orders..."

Several streaks of light flew out over Myriad Treasures Island. At their head was Elder Myriad Treasures, his voice solemn.

"Elder... my elder brother still hasn't returned!"

"Reporting to Elder, my family is still outside..."

The many disciples fell into an uproar.

"Enough! The sect has opened the harbor. Disciples outside the grand formation may enter, though they must first undergo inspection!"

Several law-enforcement personnel flew out and explained.

At this, a great number of streaks of light immediately flew toward the passage through the formation.

Fang Qing arrived at the docks and saw flying boats descending from the sky one after another as though fleeing disaster, coming into the harbor to berth.

However, the docks were still separated from the sect interior by a curtain of light. Law-enforcement disciples, their expressions frosty, inspected disciple tokens with magical artifacts, afraid that enemy spies might slip in.

The later the flying boats arrived, the more battered they appeared, clearly having gone through fierce battles.

Some Azure Sea Sect disciples who disembarked sighed in relief. Others looked grave, while still others had tear stains at the corners of their eyes, their faces filled with the look of survivors who had escaped catastrophe...

"So... it's really going to be war?"

Fang Qing exhaled slowly, suddenly thinking of Zha Zhu and the others who had gone out to sea.

"If it were me, even without a golden finger, I would definitely head straight for the deep sea, find some island at random, and hole up there for a year or half a year. I'd wait and see how things developed first..."

Just as he was considering his response, he saw a three-pronged sea ship descend from the sky.

Such sea ships had chiefly been built to fight sea-dwelling demons. Their flight function was exceedingly impractical and consumed vast amounts of spirit stones, so it was normally never activated.

Now that it had been activated, it was naturally for the sake of fleeing for their lives.

The deck was mottled with bloodstains, clearly having just endured a vicious battle.

Once the great three-pronged ship had docked, several cultivators immediately flew down.

Fang Qing looked closely and saw only Hua Lian, Li Yusu, and a scant few other disciples.

Huo Tianhuo, Ming Lingzhen, and even Zha Zhu... were nowhere to be seen.

"No way?"

A thought stirred in his heart, and he cast a hexagram for Zha Zhu.

"Major misfortune. The master has departed... This means... she's dead?"

Fang Qing could not help falling silent, as though he had returned to years ago, when he saw that little girl in a red padded jacket holding a large Blue-Flower Fish bowl.

"This cultivation... truly is lonely."

His expression dimmed. After waiting a moment, he saw Li Yusu.

Li Yusu was covered in mottled bloodstains and had lost his right arm. When he saw Fang Qing, his expression was wretched.

"Where is Zha Zhu? And what about Senior Brother Ming and the others?"

Though he already knew the answer, Fang Qing still asked.

"Dead... They're all dead."

Li Yusu's voice was hoarse. "The Great White Zhong Family! The Great White Zhong Family did it! Sob, sob, sob... Senior Sister Zha..."

Fang Qing bit his lip and saw Hua Lian nearby, who had just finished inspection.

Hua Lian's face was pale. He appeared to have expended too much mana, damaging the foundation of his mana.

When he saw Fang Qing, he gave a wretched smile. "It's over... It's all over."

Fang Qing swept him a glance and asked, "Where is Junior Sister Yu Taohua?"

"She took an Ice Spike Technique from the enemy while covering me, and her fragrant jade perished on the spot..."

Hua Lian's voice was low.

"My condolences..."

Fang Qing offered a few words of comfort, then directly took his leave.

Now that he knew the fate of Hua Lian and the others, he needed to find Xu Wusu and the others from the Five Dragons Society to discuss their plans going forward.

Yet after bidding them farewell and leaving, it was as if a great stone weighed upon his heart, impossible to dispel.

"Hua Lian... and Li Yusu?"

Fang Qing was not one to keep matters buried in his heart. He immediately cast separate hexagrams for the two men.

"Hua Lian brings me major misfortune?"

"Li Yusu... neutral?"

"Why is that?"

Fang Qing instantly fell into deep thought, then secretly grew angry. "The rank of Plum Blossom Divination is too low, and I have only just begun. I can barely divine hexagrams and cannot reveal more clues... But it seems Zha Zhu and the others' deaths cannot be separated from Hua Lian? Could it be that this man had been cultivating credibility all along?"

Thinking of how Hua Lian's fleet had always reaped plentiful gains with few casualties, earning a great reputation, Fang Qing immediately felt that this man harbored the treacherous terrain of mountains and rivers within his breast.

"Still... I struck him with a dimensionality-reducing blow through divination."

"Should I report him to the sect?"

"But Flying Fish Island supports him. I'm afraid mere words would be no proof, and I might instead invite disaster."

Fang Qing's expression turned somber. "Wait... Could it be that Flying Fish Island was cooperating behind the scenes in the Great White Zhong Family's sudden attack? Has this Foundation Establishment force, originally affiliated with the Azure Sea Sect, defected to the enemy?"