Black Mountain

After completing the procedures for advancing to a Yellow-Rank Inner Disciple, Dong Lin returned to his Spirit Chamber.

After two months of hard work, selling spirit insect shells had earned Dong Lin five hundred and sixty Low-Grade Spirit Stones.

If not for the excessive power of the Mystic Spirit Heavenly-Thunder, which had obliterated a batch of excellent shells, he could have earned at least another hundred.

Still, where there was loss, there was gain.

Being accepted as the Fifth Elder's disciple had truly caught Dong Lin off guard.

He knew far too little about the relevant matters and had no idea whether taking a master required following any traditional procedures.

He had heard that formally becoming a disciple required some sort of apprenticeship ceremony. He did not know whether the Fifth Elder had such cumbersome rites here.

Zheng Huayuan and Li Lei had mistaken Dong Lin for having spent merely a little over two months cultivating, then trained the Thunder Summoning Art from complete unfamiliarity to great mastery, even carrying a faint trace of perfected Thunder Spirit True Intent.

Little did they know that Dong Lin had barely spent any time on this Lightning Art.

He had devoted himself wholeheartedly to cultivating the Dao Xuan Heart Sutra.

Dong Lin truly had grievances he could not voice.

Relying on his ability to use spiritual sense with almost no depletion, Dong Lin had studied the Dao Xuan Heart Sutra day and night.

Yet after two months, he had only barely entered the gate.

One had to know that Dong Lin's cultivation efficiency meant the effort he expended in a single day of cultivation was comparable to the spiritual sense power an ordinary disciple would expend over five or six days.

And that was for the kind of disciple who was diligent and wholly devoted to cultivation.

In other words, with Dong Lin's talent, without the convenience of inexhaustible spiritual sense power,

he would need around a year to enter the gate of this foundational cultivation method of the Heaven Sect's inner sect.

An ordinary inner disciple would need only around half a year on average to enter the gate of the Dao Xuan Heart Sutra.

As for those Dao Child-level prodigies, they would need less than half a month to enter the gate of this moderately difficult cultivation method.

From this, it was clear that Dong Lin's own talent in cultivation was truly not worth praising.

Dong Lin himself had realized this as well, so he did not dare halt his cultivation for even a moment.

Before achieving success in cultivation, Dong Lin did not even intend to leave the mountain.

When he had first arrived in this world, that all-encompassing sinister wind that pierced straight into the soul had still left Dong Lin with lingering fear.

This world was certainly not so peaceful. For all he knew, somewhere, a group of people was watching him from the shadows.

After all, the deaths of the original body's parents had not been an accident. There must be a group of enemies within the cultivation world.

After so many years of reading webnovels, Dong Lin's instincts told him with certainty that this matter was not so simple.

Unfortunately, he was still insignificant and weak in cultivation, with no power yet to investigate the matter.

"In any case, cultivate first. This world may have no entertainment,

but roaming heaven and earth, free and unfettered for tens of thousands of years, is still an immense temptation to me.

After all, who doesn't have a dream of cultivating immortality?"

Early the next morning, Dong Lin tidied his clothes and appearance before arriving at the foot of Black Mountain.

Foundation Establishment experts could control objects to fly through the skies, while only Golden Core great cultivators could walk through the air.

This mountain floated nearly a hundred meters above the ground. With Dong Lin's own abilities, it was truly difficult for him to reach its foot.

Nor was there any mountain guardian in sight below it.

After looking around for a while, Dong Lin failed to find the Elder Feng whom Master Zheng had mentioned yesterday.

Left with no choice, he took out the passage token from yesterday.

There was nothing extraordinary about the token. Dong Lin raised it up.

"Eh, a Black Mountain Token? You're a newly admitted direct disciple? How come this old man hasn't heard a single whisper about it?"

An elderly voice rang out behind Dong Lin, yet before that, he had not sensed anything amiss.

Is this the strength of someone with profound cultivation? He got behind me without a sound.

When Dong Lin heard the voice behind him, he was nearly startled out of his wits, cold sweat breaking out all over him.

One had to know that the area below Black Mountain was incomparably open, with a ground paved in white marble beneath his feet.

With nothing to conceal himself behind, the old man had suddenly appeared at Dong Lin's back, truly giving him a fright.

Turning around, he saw an elderly man dressed in plain hemp robes, his back hunched.

"May I ask if you are Elder Feng, Senior? This disciple has come to Black Mountain to find Elder Zheng. I ask that Senior send this disciple up the mountain."

Elder Feng nodded, conjured a lotus leaf in his hand, and tossed it onto the ground, signaling Dong Lin to step onto it.

Once Dong Lin had found his footing, the lotus leaf rose into the air and flew steadily toward the mountain's foot.

"Old Zheng took in a disciple? Looks like the sect will have another lightning cultivator."

Elder Feng muttered a few words before turning and vanishing from Dong Lin's sight.

A hundred meters was reached in the blink of an eye.

Once the lotus leaf came to a stable stop, Dong Lin jumped down from the leaf, which hovered half a meter above the ground.

He landed steadily at the foot of Black Mountain.

A few steps back lay sheer cliffs. With Dong Lin's current cultivation,

if his foot slipped and he fell from the mountain, he might well leave not even a corpse behind.

The spiritual energy on the mountain was indeed dense. Even at its foot,

Dong Lin could already sense that the spiritual energy here was not much weaker than in the Spirit Chamber where he cultivated.

With every stretch of distance he climbed, the concentration of spiritual energy quietly rose a little.

The Thunder Division, where the Fifth Elder Zheng Huayuan resided, was halfway up Black Mountain. Another dozen or so meters higher, and one would enter the shroud of clouds and mist.

The dense spiritual energy at the mountainside seemed as if it might condense into spiritual liquid and drip down at any moment.

Dong Lin was already finding the sheer density of spiritual energy difficult to bear.

At this moment, Dong Lin had accumulated one hundred and twenty-three units of spiritual power in his dantian.

He was still a long way from the completion of the Mid Qi Refining Stage.

After breaking through to the Middle Qi Refining Stage, Dong Lin's dantian capacity had increased by around one hundred and six units.

At present, his dantian could hold around two hundred and ten units of spiritual power.

In other words, he still lacked nearly eighty units before reaching the completion of the Mid Qi Refining Stage.

In the past, even if Dong Lin cultivated day and night, it would take him nearly three months to reach that point.

But now, Dong Lin sensed that the spiritual power within his dantian was unusually active.

His cultivation method was slowly circulating unconsciously on its own,

and the dense spiritual energy environment was driving the spiritual power within him to increase spontaneously.

It was utterly outrageous!

In the mere half hour it took him to climb halfway up the mountain,

the total amount of spiritual power in his body had increased by nearly a tenth of a unit, almost equivalent to circulating one Lesser Celestial Circuit.

"If I cultivated here every day, even a pig could attain the Dao."

Dong Lin secretly marveled.

In his previous life, an excessively high oxygen concentration could cause oxygen intoxication. Today, Dong Lin felt that he was about to become "spiritually intoxicated" as well.

He did not dare imagine how absurdly dense the spiritual energy would become if a Spirit-Gathering Formation were set up here,

let alone farther up the mountainside.

As expected of a treasured land capable of supporting Nascent Soul great cultivators in their cultivation. Seeing it today, its reputation was well deserved.

Following the jade token's guidance, he arrived at the Thunder Division.

The Thunder Division belonged to the Fifth Elder, Zheng Huayuan.

It was also a treasured land specially established by the sect for prodigies cultivating lightning-affinity techniques.

Within the Heaven Sect, Zheng Huayuan would recruit disciples with talent for Lightning Arts into the Thunder Division

to cultivate Lightning Arts.

The uniquely blessed destructive power of Lightning Arts had established the fierce and formidable image of lightning cultivators.

They were no less formidable than sword cultivators, who stood first in offensive killing power.

There were very few cultivators in the cultivation world named after the element they cultivated.

There were no so-called fire cultivators, water cultivators, or even such titles for special elements like ice,

yet lightning cultivators were the sole exception.

Recognizing this, the Heaven Sect's upper ranks had established the Thunder Division.

Elder Zheng Huayuan, who specialized in Lightning Arts, served as the head of the Thunder Division.

Even though Elder Zheng held several posts at once, the Thunder Division was not particularly busy.

Because the requirements for cultivating lightning-affinity techniques were too demanding,

even an enormous Immortal Sect like the Heaven Sect found it difficult to produce cultivators with lightning-affinity talent.

Whenever one appeared, the sect would treasure them like a precious gem.

It was said that only upon reaching the legendary Spirit Transformation realm, where mastery of one art led to mastery of all arts,

would the advantages of lightning cultivators gradually become less apparent.