After handing Jiang Xuan the rice ball and straightening his clothes, Shen Yuerong finally let him head out.
"Whew..."
Once outside, Jiang Xuan glanced at the sky, which had yet to fully brighten, then hurried toward Star Daoist Academy.
Jiang Xuan was not alone on the road. Many youths around his age were also making their way toward Star Daoist Academy.
Some of them knew him, and most traveled in groups, discussing cultivation as they hurried along.
"How many Apertures have you opened?"
"Two. What about you?"
"Same... Aperture Opening is too difficult..."
"I'm doing a little better than you guys. I've opened four, but opening thirty-six Apertures within fifteen days is simply a distant dream..."
From their conversation, Jiang Xuan learned that having opened three Apertures, his cultivation speed was not considered poor among the academy's students.
But he knew even better that merely not being poor was absolutely not enough to earn an excellent or good rating and enter the Dao-Bearing Class.
"Pure Heart, Purification of the Mouth, Purification of the Body... I hope these spells work."
Muttering to himself, Jiang Xuan arrived at Star Daoist Academy.
By then, more than half the academy's students had already arrived.
Rather than heading to the enclosed classrooms, Jiang Xuan followed the crowd to a plaza built halfway up the mountain.
At that moment, those who had arrived earlier had already taken up most of the space in the plaza.
The spots seemed random, but a closer look revealed that the very front rows, closest to the instructors, were mostly occupied by gifted students and direct descendants of cultivation lineages.
Even if those people did not come, no one dared sit in their places.
The sight stirred a sigh in Jiang Xuan's heart.
"Everyone's class had already roughly taken shape at this point."
"Fortunately, there was still a chance to change it."
With that in mind, Jiang Xuan had no intention of heading forward.
For now, these spots only represented face and offered no special benefit. Jiang Xuan had no desire to scheme and contend for them.
He found an empty corner near the back and stopped there.
Instead of sitting down immediately, he began making preparations according to the ritual knowledge in his mind.
"Rustle..."
Bending down, Jiang Xuan tidied the place where he intended to cultivate.
He swept the fallen leaves aside, removed the pebbles, and even sprinkled some water from his flask over the ground to keep dust from rising.
The next moment, Jiang Xuan pressed his palms together and sincerely bowed in worship toward the earth before him.
Though he had yet to learn the Land-Soothing Divine Incantation, the words "Heaven and Earth" hanging on his wall made Jiang Xuan worship Heaven and Earth before cultivating as a Daoist Acolyte.
After that, Jiang Xuan stood where he was and carefully straightened his clothes. He then washed his palms with water from his flask—this was purification of the body and hands.
Next, Jiang Xuan rinsed his mouth with clean water—this was purification of the mouth.
Of course, these actions alone were naturally not enough.
As he cleansed his body, the chanting of incantations within his heart never ceased.
"Cinnabar Mouth Deity, expel filth and disperse foul vapors; Tongue Deity Zhenglun, open the flow of life and nourish the spirit; Luo Thousand-Teeth Deity, banish evil and guard the true..."
This was the Mouth-Purification Divine Incantation.
"Celestial Worthy of Numinous Treasure, soothe and comfort this body; disciple's soul and spirit, Five Viscera Dark Nether..."
This was the Body-Purification Divine Incantation.
When Jiang Xuan completed these rituals and finished reciting the incantations in his heart, the game interface sent him two messages.
[You cast the Body-Purification Divine Incantation through a ritual. Your casting succeeded. You gained the "Untouched by Dust" effect.] [Untouched by Dust: Duration, one incense stick.]
[You cast the Body-Purification Divine Incantation once. Body-Purification Divine Incantation experience +1.]
[You cast the Mouth-Purification Divine Incantation through a ritual. Your casting succeeded. You gained the "Purification of Verbal Karma" effect.]
[Purification of Verbal Karma: Duration, one incense stick.]
[You cast the Mouth-Purification Divine Incantation once. Mouth-Purification Divine Incantation experience +1.] ```
"It really worked!"
Once he confirmed that it worked, Jiang Xuan remained outwardly calm, but his following actions became even more serious and reverent.
"Rustle..."
He looked himself over from top to bottom. Only after confirming that his clothes, hands, and mouth were all clean did Jiang Xuan sit down in his spot.
At that moment, he began reciting the final, yet also the first, divine incantation—the Heart-Purification Divine Incantation.
"Supreme Dais Star, respond to change without pause; drive off evil and bind demons, preserve life and protect the body..."
Cultivating the heart required no external preparation—or rather, its preparation had to be done beforehand.
"When performing a ritual, I need to eat vegetarian food, abstain from alcohol, and keep stray thoughts from arising in my heart. This purity of heart and few desires is the preparation before casting the Heart-Purification Divine Incantation, and also why it is called a Dao-Heart Anchor."
"I had already completed all of that beforehand."
As he silently pondered, Jiang Xuan recited the Heart-Purification Divine Incantation once.
Then, a [Clarity of the Spirit Platform] status settled over Jiang Xuan's mind.
[You cast the Heart-Purification Divine Incantation once. You gained the "Clarity of the Spirit Platform" effect. Heart-Purification Divine Incantation experience +1.]
"Whoosh..."
After completing this entire ritual, Jiang Xuan felt as though his body had grown lighter, as if not a speck of filth remained anywhere upon him.
Just as Jiang Xuan experienced the blessings granted by the Three Divine Incantations, Song Zhou, an instructor of Star Daoist Academy, appeared at the cliff's edge.
He raised his head and looked toward the Eastern Domain. Seeing that the sun was about to rise, he immediately gave the command.
"Cultivation begins!"
"Whew..."
At his voice, the more than three thousand boys and girls in the plaza immediately faced the rising morning sun in the Eastern Domain and began breathing in and out together.
Jiang Xuan did the same.
Before long, he noticed the benefits bestowed by the Three Divine Incantations.
First came body purification. "Exhale... inhale..." As Jiang Xuan breathed in and out, spiritual energy was immediately drawn into his body.
Yet everyone knew that there was never only one kind of gas in the air.
In his previous life, there had been oxygen, carbon dioxide, other gases, and vast quantities of tiny dust particles.
This world was even more complicated. Besides oxygen, spiritual energy, and dust, there were also turbid qi and Killing Intent in the world.
Normally, when Jiang Xuan activated the Nine-Breath Qi-Absorption Method, all those gases would be drawn into his body as well.
But as the "Untouched by Dust" effect of the Body-Purification Divine Incantation activated, the turbid qi of Heaven and Earth, dust, and certain other filthy gases could no longer enter Jiang Xuan's mouth and nose.
Without impurities, the pure spiritual energy not only made Jiang Xuan's breathing feel comfortable, but after filtering it once, it also became much easier for him to taint the ownerless spiritual energy with the power of his blood qi and Divine Soul.
"So the poor refining results before were partly because the spiritual energy was impure..."
As realization dawned upon him, Jiang Xuan made an even more astonishing discovery.
"Just the Purification Spell alone increased my cultivation efficiency by more than thirty percent!!!"
The Untouched by Dust effect increased Jiang Xuan's qi-refining efficiency by nearly thirty percent, and the subsequent mouth purification offered some benefits as well.
Breathing cultivation used the mouth and nose as its gates, and the free spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth entered the body through them.
The power of "Purification of Verbal Karma" from the Mouth-Purification Divine Incantation was like an invisible filter, cleansing and refining all the free qi of Heaven and Earth flowing into Jiang Xuan's body once more.
Because the spiritual energy was pure and unmixed with other filthy auras, whether Jiang Xuan used his divine sense to guide it through his meridians in a cyclic circulation or used his blood qi and Divine Soul to taint it and refine it into his own Spell Power, both smoothness and efficiency surged by far more than a single level.
The subsequent Clarity of the Spirit Platform allowed Jiang Xuan to circulate spiritual energy with less mental effort.
"Exhale, inhale..."
The benefits of the three divine incantations stacked layer upon layer, their effect far exceeding Jiang Xuan's expectations.
As spiritual energy entered his body with every breath and circulated through its cycles, he discovered to his immense delight that spiritual energy which once needed repeated refinement now required only four cycles within his body before being completely cleansed and refined into pure Spell Power he could command at will.
Even more precious was that, without turbid qi mixed within it, the quality of the Spell Power he refined far surpassed the past. Using pure Spell Power to nourish the Apertures throughout his body naturally yielded twice the result with half the effort.
"With the Three Divine Incantations stacked together, my speed of opening Apertures and refining spiritual energy has increased by at least double!"
"I chose the Daoist Acolyte profession correctly!"