The Perfect Ending

The third Plot Simulation ended.

Jiang Chen returned to the point where time stood still.

After practicing the Form-Returning Technique, his Root Bone talent had declined. His cultivation speed from absorbing spiritual energy alone would fall even further, approaching that of an ordinary mortal.

At the same time, his dantian could fully withstand demonic energy from both beasts and fiends. Combined with normal spiritual power at an equal spiritual pressure, it could send his cultivation soaring in an instant.

What a way to retreat in order to advance, mixing the spiritual power of humans, beasts, and fiends without shying away from anything...

It truly deserved to be called a Demi-Immortal Art!

The drawback was that his mind might not withstand it. He could pass out, which made it risky.

After all, Jiang Chen had the soul of a transmigrator and a system protecting him, so he did not faint easily. Yet he had still lost consciousness for two whole hours...

This time, though, he had underestimated the concentration of demonic energy in those two pills.

If he crushed the pills and took them a grain at a time, along with Spirit-Healing Pills containing spiritual power at an equal pressure, he should be able to control the breakthrough himself.

And now, his cultivation had not merely risen to Qi Refining, Third Layer.

Jiang Chen also felt that his body had become as solid as a boulder, while his control over Five-Element Spirit Control had improved.

He had not won over Thousand-Faced Fox yet, but he had made his feelings clear without making her hold a grudge...

"This is a perfect ending!"

Before him, Liu Ruyan stood frozen in time, steeped in morning mist and rosy dawn light like a watercolor painting.

More precisely, she had become a figurine.

Without hesitation, Jiang Chen chose the third ending.

[The third ending is about to overwrite reality. You will be placed under automatic control for twelve hours, until the ending is reached!]

His vision went black, and Jiang Chen arrived instantly at the end of the third outcome.

In the disciples' quarters, daylight blazed. The rising sun shone through the lattice window onto his face.

Overnight, Jiang Chen's cultivation had shot up to Qi Refining, Third Layer, and his talent had exploded.

He could feel a vortex like an Abyss forming at the center of his qi sea.

Because it gave off no aura, the vortex was like a black hole. No outsider could detect it with divine sense; only Jiang Chen knew it was there.

Beasts, fiends, and ghosts abounded on the Ascending Dragon Continent. His talent appeared to have declined, but in truth it had improved enormously.

He opened the system panel. Two more recordings had appeared under [Butterfly Effect].

"Two recordings?"

Jiang Chen hurriedly opened them one by one.

The first recording: Reverend Guiqi's scheme.

Reverend Guiqi had spared no expense, frantically laying arrays, restrictions, mechanisms, and traps throughout the Scripture Pavilion.

He had even made a paper effigy to stand guard in the archive in his place.

Reverend Guiqi himself had left the Azure Mist Sect and gone into hiding on a barren mountain west of its gates.

Jiang Chen carefully compared that old cur's hiding place with the barren mountain where he had once hidden. They were right next to each other.

It seemed he would have to be more careful about where he hid in the future. Popular mountains were out.

The first recording: Liu Ruyan's little warning.

From her private cave residence, Liu Ruyan contacted Tian Mingye again. She told her that an old monster at Nascent Soul Peak still lurked within the Azure Mist Sect, skilled in all kinds of forbidden arts, and that she should be on her guard.

Tian Mingye paid the warning no mind. She still planned to raid the Azure Mist Sect in five days.

Feeding real intelligence to both sides. You're something else!

Jiang Chen thought.

A storm was brewing, yet the Azure Mist Sect remained peaceful, its disciples absorbed in cultivation.

Jiang Chen still had four days to cultivate.

His resources were exhausted, so he had no chance to advance another stage for now.

He went alone to the bamboo grove to teach himself the Five-Element Spirit Control Technique.

It was spring. Water babbled through the grove, bees and butterflies flitted about, a few sparrows chirped, and clusters of azaleas bloomed amid birdsong.

Even so, nothing could dispel the grove's lingering spring chill and cold, austere air.

After a little experimentation, Jiang Chen successfully fused the five spiritual powers of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, forming a spiral sphere that rotated steadily.

It was useless in itself, but it let him practice the five forms of Basic Spirit Control and the complex fusion of multiple spiritual powers.

This was the foundation of all spells.

Jiang Chen's diminished Five-Element Endowment gave him perfectly balanced control over all five spiritual powers.

Its weakness was obvious: it lacked force.

Fortunately, the Demi-Immortal's Book could create an Abyss within his qi sea and fuse the two kinds of demonic energy, providing at least triple the spiritual pressure and perfect control over them. That also made forbidden arts easier to master.

Jiang Chen tried the Spiritual Power Snap next.

He gathered spiritual power with a flick of his finger.

The spiritual pressure was not high, but the fused five-element spiritual power was balanced to an extraordinary degree. Its strands were bound together like a spiral rope, concentrating its force.

Bang!

A flick of Jiang Chen's finger pierced several bamboo leaves.

It pierced the bamboo stalk behind them, too.

Its power was almost identical to a bullet's. A flick to an enemy's head would blow it apart!

Jiang Chen then tried the Stone-Piercing Flick.

At first, he could only add more force, blasting the stone apart with one flick.

Gradually, he increased the proportion of earth-element spiritual power. At last, with a sharp ding, he bored a hole through the stone.

He even twisted spiritual power and both kinds of demonic energy into a single strand, their spirals interlocking, and unleashed his strongest flick: Three-Aspect Spirit Finger!

Bang!

In one strike, it punched through his brand-new disciple's sword.

Jiang Chen felt a pang of regret, but far more excitement!

The pellet had left only a peanut-sized hole in the blade. It would not affect the sword's use or its ability to be infused with spiritual power.

He could set a gemstone in it someday...

Clearly, his fine control over five-element spiritual power and both kinds of demonic energy had reached near perfection.

The freedom of that control was intoxicating. It felt as though he had the power to command all the spirits of heaven and earth.

Next, he opened Chen Gongxing's jade slip.

Among the Basic Spirit Control methods, forming a spiritual sphere was elementary Spirit Control, the Flicked Spirit Pellet was intermediate, and the advanced method was the Spirit-Infused Sword Art.

As its name suggested, the Spirit-Infused Sword Art infused sword techniques with spiritual power to increase a sword's strength, speed, or sharpness, or to produce special effects.

The most common example was the Fire-Spirit Sword. Infuse a blade with fire-aspected spiritual power and slash, and an arc of flame would sweep out. It looked spectacular.

The swordsman Ximen Chuixue, cold as ice and frigid as snow, infused his blade with ice-aspected spiritual power to produce his icy effects.

To increase a spirit sword's strength, speed, or sharpness, one only had to infuse the blade with metal-aspected spiritual power.

Jiang Chen practiced for a while.

He had to admit that the Spirit-Infused Sword Art was far harder than the Flicked Spirit Pellet.

The art required spiritual power to pass unimpeded through the blade and become part of the sword technique. Only then could the sword unleash power beyond its own.

Jiang Chen cultivated in the bamboo grove for three full days before finally mastering the Spirit-Infused Sword Art!

He opened the system panel and saw that two new entries had appeared in the [Skills] section.

[Skills]:

Eight-Step Mad Blade: Some Accomplishment.

Basic Spirit Control: Skilled Mastery.

Demi-Immortal's Book: First Glimpse.

Jiang Chen looked over the skill ratings. They were divided by proficiency into five levels—

First Glimpse.

Some Accomplishment.

Skilled Mastery.

Masterful Refinement.

The Pinnacle.

What surprised him was that after two full years of practice, his Eight-Step Mad Blade had reached only [Some Accomplishment].

Yet after just a few days, his Basic Spirit Control had reached [Skilled Mastery].

Was the Demi-Immortal's Book this powerful even at [First Glimpse]?

And the skill section explicitly called it the Demi-Immortal's Book, not the Form-Returning Book.

Could the Demi-Immortal's Book really let me become an immortal?

Or is this cultivation method a perfect fit for me?

On the night of the eighth day.

Jiang Chen packed his things.

He had obtained the Form-Returning Book and mastered Basic Spirit Control. He dared not linger any longer and decided to leave the Azure Mist Sect that night.

He had wanted to visit Senior Sister Liu at Tranquil Heart Peak, but after some thought, he gave up on the idea.

In the Plot Simulation, he could laugh and chat with Senior Sister Liu, spar with her at the edge of intimacy, or spend moonlit hours with her among the flowers and in the pool.

But in reality, despite the dramatic gains in his cultivation and talent, he was still just a weakling at Qi Refining.

There was no need to get mixed up in a game played by a pack of old Nascent Soul monsters. Even when pursuing a woman, he had to know his limits.

Fortunately, he had carefully reviewed the recordings from the past two Plot Simulations. Apart from Liu Ruyan, no other Demon Sect spy had taken notice of him.

He had hidden his Qi Refining, Third Layer cultivation even from the entirely well-meaning Wang Baolin.

Going unnoticed was safest!

The night was like water, and the moon hung above the bamboo tips.

Jiang Chen quietly left the disciples' quarters.

He headed out of the Azure Mist Sect in the direction opposite Reverend Guiqi's hiding place.

On a hill a mile from the mountain-protecting array, a beguiling figure leaned against a branch. Draped in moonlight, she looked like a silver fox.

"What, you're not staying to watch the show?"