Chapter 34

This spot halfway up the mountain happened to dip inward, keeping the wind and snow outside. Though his master, Wei Long, seemed rather unreliable, his initiation gift had been exceedingly practical: a portable cave abode. With just a bit of spiritual energy, it could transform into a large house on the spot.

Wen Xu had seen all manner of immortal methods over the past few days, so he was not terribly surprised. Well, he was still very surprised, but he was a reserved person and did not show it outwardly.

Fortunately, he had been the only one present when he released the portable cave abode.

Wen Xu had a strong sense of territory. He first used the cleaning technique he had just learned to scrub the place inside and out, then took stock of his few possessions. The benefit of having a storage ring was that he could carry even his home with him, rather than being like he had been in the Mortal Realm, able to bring only a few beloved books and writing supplies on the road.

Wen Xu spread everything from his storage ring across the floor. He had a total of 103,056 spirit stones. Of those, 100,000 had been given by his master, 2,000 had been his share from the Mountain Examination, and the remaining thousand-odd stones were his inner sect disciple stipend. Perhaps because of his seniority, it had been doubled according to the inner sect disciple standard.

Of course, compared to 100,000, a thousand was hardly much. But Wen Xu did not intend to touch those 100,000 spirit stones unless he had truly reached the end of the road, with mountains exhausted and rivers spent.

Aside from the spirit stones, there were some talismans—not many, all of them stuffed into his hands by Bian Chunchou—as well as a Windfold Fan. He had not known it when he accepted it, but he now knew that the person who had given him the folding fan was True Lord Zheng Jin of Artifact Refining Peak.

Wen Xu put everything away properly before reaching for the final two jade slips on the ground.

Wen Xu was already highly proficient at reading jade slips. He had gone over the introductory cultivation jade slip Elder Zhan of Pill Peak had given him hundreds of times. As the saying went, read a book a hundred times and its meaning would reveal itself; the same principle still applied in the cultivation world.

At the very least, he could now answer fluently regarding the cultivation world's basic knowledge.

He infused the two jade slips with spiritual power separately. Wen Xu soon learned that one of them contained a single strike from his master. It could withstand attacks below the Tribulation Transcendence Realm. In other words, this was a life-saving talisman for him. It seemed his master was well aware of the fact that he had "old friends" scattered all over the cultivation world.

The other was a cultivation art.

Generally speaking, cultivators could not simply conjure up a method of cultivation out of thin air. Like martial artists, they needed cultivation arts to set their practice on the right course, and cultivation arts naturally came in good and bad varieties.

Heaven, Earth, Mystic, Yellow—the Heaven grade was naturally the best, while the Yellow grade was the lowest. Yet even a Yellow-grade art, if cultivated and comprehended to the utmost, could still allow one to transcend tribulation and ascend. So-called good and bad depended entirely on a cultivator's personal fortune, talent, and comprehension.

Generally speaking, cultivation arts followed one's Spiritual Root. Take Bian Chunchou: he possessed a Fire-Water Spiritual Root, so he could only cultivate fire-and-water arts. Fortunately, while Fire-Water Spiritual Roots were rare, they were not unheard of. Yonglu Mountain had a vast foundation, and with some careful searching, they could still find one or two fire-and-water arts.

Wen Xu possessed a Mutated Wind Spiritual Root, so his cultivation art naturally could not escape the word "wind." Yet the strange thing was that the cultivation art personally handed to him by Divine Dragon Cheng Wei had nothing whatsoever to do with wind.

Myriad Things Arise Art.

Wen Xu had naturally read the Tao Te Ching. He had also read the line: "Attain utmost emptiness, guard steadfast stillness. The myriad things arise together, and I watch their return." Put plainly, it meant doing one's utmost to keep one's heart empty and still, firmly maintaining that tranquil state, so that one could repeatedly observe the cycles of life and death of all things beneath heaven.

"Myriad things arise together" referred to all things under heaven flourishing and growing. At a superficial glance, this seemed more like a cultivation art prepared for someone with a Single Wood Spiritual Root. It seemed... a little off for wind.

But the accomplished came first. Wen Xu was merely a newcomer who had just glimpsed the gateway, while his master not only possessed the body of a Divine Dragon, but also had Body Integration Realm cultivation. He could not possibly have casually pulled out some cultivation art and told him to practice it.

Wen Xu steadied himself and continued reading the cultivation art within the jade slip with spiritual power.

To be honest, the contents of the Myriad Things Arise Art were exceedingly obscure and difficult to understand. Though Wen Xu had earned the provincial graduate degree and read quite a few ancient books and old classics, he had read far too little about Daoist teachings, making it difficult for him to understand them smoothly now.

He could not help fetching ink and brush, intending to copy it down. Yet whenever he set brush to paper, he felt... there was no need. It need not be written. It was as though the moment those words fell onto paper, they became vulgar, lost their spirituality, and no longer possessed that sense of all things bursting forth—

Wen Xu suddenly froze where he stood. Did "myriad things arise together" refer only to all things in this world? Did words not also have moments when they "arose and flourished together"?

He lowered his head and watched the ink slowly bleed across the paper. His mind abruptly became empty, and then a question—a very simple question—leaped forth:

In the mortal world, even in the cultivation world, when did the myriad things begin to arise together?

An answer slowly emerged in his heart:

—The first breath of spring wind at the Beginning of Spring.

"Spring wind first wakes the plum within the garden walls,

Then cherry, apricot, peach, and pear bloom one after another.

In deep villages, shepherd's purse flowers and elm pods too

Say that the spring wind has come for me."

Only with the arrival of the spring wind did spring truly arrive. In spring, all things revived, but only when the first breath of spring wind swept through did all things begin to grow.

It was the spring wind—the gentle, warm spring wind.

Wen Xu had already put down his brush, because there was no longer any need to write. Just then, he had finally touched upon the key to entering the Myriad Things Arise Art.

—Wind could affect all things.

Before Wen Xu even had time to assume the five-hearts-facing-heaven meditation posture, he entered the first enlightenment of his life regarding wind.

"Ah, ah, my little disciple's comprehension is truly not bad. At last, someone has taken over my Myriad Things Arise Art." Divine Dragon Cheng Wei happily took a sip of wine. The wine, however, lacked flavor. Ah, he had spent too long on this mountain; the wine in his storage space was nearly gone.

Bian Chunchou encountered the first hurdle on his path of cultivation, and this roadblock... was exceptionally formidable!

He had never expected to suffer from being uncultured! Was this reasonable? Was this acceptable? He, a university student at a top-tier school, could handle math, physics, and chemistry with one hand tied behind his back, but this—