Insect Art and Spirit Material Bring Double Joy (Please Vote to Boost the Rankings!)

Fang Shu etched the lesson from Cheng the Jar deep into his heart.

Thus, the feud between the two Chengs and the uncle-nephew pair came to an end, settled once and for all.

He threw himself back into his daily grueling cultivation.

Not long afterward.

One day, as Fang Shu practiced his insect art, he discovered that the circulation of his blood and qi was growing ever faster and more effortless. The blood and qi within his body became as distinct as flowing water, moving wherever his will directed it.

For a full hour, he maintained this highly efficient state of driving his blood and refining his art, as though he had taken some forbidden drug.

Yet his heart remained exceedingly calm, utterly unlike the killing intent and savage fury that had filled him when his insect art had surged before.

Only after the medicinal essence in his stomach had been exhausted did an overwhelming hunger rise within him, making him feel as though even a whole calf would not be enough to fill him. Only then did Fang Shu slowly come back to himself.

Understanding dawned in his heart. His Hundred Insects Blood-Refining Body-Nourishing Secret Art had most likely reached great mastery, with all nine secret characters now under his command.

Sure enough, he silently called, "Dao Register."

With a hum, a line of text immediately surfaced in his mind:

[Technique: <Hundred Insects Blood-Refining Body-Nourishing Secret Art, Path-Entering Chapter> (Complete)]

The Dao Register had indeed finished analyzing the insect art. All nine secret characters had been deciphered, and throughout Fang Shu's cultivation, they had imperceptibly all been instilled into him.

From this day onward, so long as his cultivation had not reached a bottleneck, he could keep his cultivation efficiency at its optimal state at all times!

That was why he had just entered that effortless state of cultivation and remained there for a full hour without withdrawing.

Amid his delight, Fang Shu's gaze fell upon the three words "Path-Entering Chapter" in the name of the insect art on the Dao Register.

He carefully reviewed the Dao Register's records and found that, after fully unraveling the secret characters of this insect art, the Dao Register's deductions based on the nine secret characters revealed that the technique he had obtained was only part of the complete insect art. Or perhaps this insect art was simply an incomplete fragment; after breaking through the gate and entering the path, he would need to switch to another secret art.

Fang Shu was not overly surprised by this.

He and the Solitary Gu Hall Master were neither kin nor friends. One paid to learn, while the other took money to do business.

Naturally, the other man could not possibly teach all his closely guarded skills in one go. Selling and teaching them in batches was the most normal thing in the world.

Suppressing his stray thoughts, Fang Shu took an Essence-Nourishing Pill and a Grain-Repelling Pill from his waist.

With two sharp cracks, he crushed the wax seals on both pills and swallowed them together.

He once more assumed the stance of the insect art, sometimes still and sometimes moving, tempering himself in the cultivation hall.

Fang Shu intended to thoroughly test just how high the cultivation efficiency brought by his fully mastered insect art truly was!

And so, from morning until evening, then from evening until midnight.

He remained in cultivation throughout, without the slightest distraction.

Over those seven hours of cultivation, so long as the medicinal essence in his stomach could keep up, the speed at which he drove his blood and qi truly did not diminish in the slightest.

This conclusively proved that Fang Shu had mastered his insect art to perfection.

Compared to before he had reached completion, his cultivation efficiency had doubled.

Before the insect art was complete, Fang Shu could take at most three Essence-Nourishing Pills a day, and even then, excess medicinal essence would remain unrefined, either accumulating in his body or going to waste.

But now, he could take five Essence-Nourishing Pills in one breath and digest every bit of their medicinal effect!

Had he not learned from the Dao Register, after seven or eight hours of tempering, that his flesh, bones, and sinews were already nearing their limit—if he continued driving them, he would instead damage his body, hinder the next day's cultivation, and leave behind hidden troubles—

Then he could have continued taking medicine and refining it, continued driving his blood and qi, trading potential for vigor!

After sorting through the changes in his body, Fang Shu's heart and mind were filled with a calm delight.

He let out a long breath and quietly said:

"Not bad."

With that, the cultivation process that had originally required two years before he could break through the gate and enter the path could be cut in half. He needed only one year, perhaps even less, to break through.

Fang Shu stood quietly where he was, savoring the sensation in his body—comfortable, yet sore, swollen, and aching.

After a long while, he slowly rose, gathered up his clothes, and calmly left the corner.

By then, the cultivation hall.

Had long since become completely empty. Even the young man who cultivated bitterly day and night without rest had gone to sleep early, preparing for another day of arduous cultivation.

For a moment, Fang Shu had no one with whom to share the joy in his heart, but there was no need to find anyone to tell.

He walked outside.

The only things that lingered around him were the stench of sweat covering his body and the deep chill of the night.

He casually breathed out, and a patch of white mist bloomed before him.

On Mount Lu, it seemed late autumn had arrived.

He returned to the communal sleeping quarters.

Night passed into dawn.

After mastering the insect art to completion, Fang Shu could not only keep his cultivation state at its optimum, but also maintain the best possible state while resting at night.

Four hours of rest were enough for the body that had been swollen and aching the night before to recover almost completely, without delaying the next day's cultivation.

But after dawn.

For once, he did not hurry to the cultivation hall. Instead, he slowly strolled out of the Solitary Gu Hall and headed deeper into the market district.

Since he had gained one happy occasion this time, why not gain another?

He was going to collect Cheng the Jar's final inheritance—the black storage note.

Thus, after changing his appearance and proceeding with the utmost caution.

Inside the secret chamber of a pawnshop, Fang Shu lit a smoke candle in each direction. Billowing white smoke immediately rose, like curtains concealing his entire body.

Within the smoke screen, he kept his distance and carefully used the Long-Tongue Sword to open the black storage chest.

With a crack.

The black chest opened easily. No poisoned needles or toxic water shot out from within; it was merely an ordinary black storage chest.

But the things inside the chest were far from ordinary.

The first thing that entered Fang Shu's eyes was a heap of talisman coins, linked together in strings and tied into bundles, heavy and solid.

Each string held one thousand talisman coins. There were a full thirty strings piled in the chest—thirty thousand Greenfly Blood Coins in all!

It was a windfall, one even richer than the big gold chain.

It was enough to cover Fang Shu's tuition for nine months, or a huge sum that an ordinary person would need more than eight years of selling blood without eating or drinking to save up.

Besides the talisman coins, there was also a copper-skinned gourd and a yellowed sheet of paper in the black chest.

The gourd was heavy, as though it were solid pure copper. Yet it contained only a little more than half a gourd of liquid, which sloshed incessantly with the slightest shake.

Fang Shu did not rashly open the copper-skinned gourd. He first carefully inspected the yellow paper, and only after confirming that it was not poisoned did he unfold it.

A crude and simple, yet exceedingly complicated diagram immediately appeared before his eyes.

At first glance, Fang Shu thought it was a child's scribble. He even suspected it might be some strange secret character.

But after studying it carefully and turning it upside down, especially after spotting several tiny words on the drawing.

He finally determined that it was a hand-drawn map, seemingly pointing directly to a certain mine outside the market district.

And within that mine, there had most likely once been something known as Purple Lead Mica Milk.

Realizing something, Fang Shu's gaze suddenly jumped, snapping toward the copper-skinned gourd beside him.

In a flash, he abruptly recalled something else.

His neighbor Dou Sufu had once revealed that Cheng the Jar had joined others to mine in the mountains years ago, and in the end, that bastard had been the only one to escape alive. Even Dou Sufu's beloved had died in that mining expedition.

Everything became clear to Fang Shu.

He narrowed his eyes and rubbed the copper-skinned gourd with his hand, anticipation rising in his heart as he thought:

"Could this be a precious medicine from the mountains, a spirit material from the mines!?"