Jiang Xuan could understand that. With the Nine-Breath Qi-Absorption Method serving as a foundation, not only were its effects exceptional, there was not the slightest stagnation when switching cultivation arts. Because of this, most of the Divine Firmament Sect's Dao Branches no longer invested much effort in this area—rather than spending that time and energy, they might as well consider how to increase the power and Dao Resonance of their own branch's cultivation arts.
With fewer deductions and developments, these cultivation arts naturally grew ever less accomplished on the path of Aperture Opening than the "Nine-Breath Qi-Absorption Art."
Unable to immediately experience the wonders of the Four Seasons Reincarnation Art left Jiang Xuan somewhat regretful. Seeing this, Meng Yingyue gave a soft laugh. "Little Junior Brother, don't worry about having nothing to practice. I can't teach you the cultivation art for now, but you may choose one of the spells, sword arts, or many exclusive secret techniques within the valley to cultivate."
"Ordinarily, even Inner Disciples must spend sect contribution points to earn the qualifications to cultivate the branch-defending secret arts ranked among the Twenty-Four Solar Terms. But your situation is special. You are fighting for Four Seasons Valley's honor. As long as Little Junior Sister speaks up and persuades them, you can cultivate one secret art for free." As she spoke, her gentle gaze fell upon Jiang Xuan. "Would you like to learn spell arts, body arts, or sword arts first?"
After her, the cold-faced Di Chuan also reminded Jiang Xuan, "Spell arts value mastery over quantity. Focusing solely on one is also a good thing for you."
"Thank you for the reminder, Senior Brother. I understand." Having said that, Jiang Xuan gave his answer. "Sword arts."
Jiang Xuan did not hesitate in the slightest when he gave that answer.
Having taken the Treasure Grade profession of Clear-Heart Sword Disciple, he would undoubtedly learn sword arts with the greatest efficiency.
As for cultivating spell arts, I should wait until I build the Scripture Repository and change professions into a Scripture Mystic Daoist.
Still, I need to construct that place quickly. A Scripture Mystic Daoist can improve comprehension, which will surely be of enormous benefit to my sword cultivation...
At that thought, bitterness welled up in Jiang Xuan's heart.
Building a Scripture Repository was no easy matter, especially since Jiang Xuan had no intention of doing it halfheartedly.
When he had taken the Gourmet profession, it had changed from Blue Rare Grade to Purple Premium Grade. Not only had that vastly increased Jiang Xuan's strength, it had also taught him something: even equivalent professions could ultimately display worlds-apart grades depending on how completely their awakening requirements had been fulfilled.
Jiang Xuan undoubtedly wanted to raise the profession of Scripture Mystic Daoist to Treasure Grade. That also meant that when building the Scripture Repository, he could not merely meet the bare minimum conditions. He had to do his utmost to refine it to the highest possible standard.
What a headache. And borrowing someone else's Scripture Repository will very likely affect the quality of the Scripture Mystic Daoist profession and future profession changes. That means I can only build it with my own hands...
The more Jiang Xuan thought about it, the more his head hurt. However, these were only his inner thoughts, and not the slightest abnormality showed on his face.
On the other side, seeing that Jiang Xuan's first choice was to learn swordsmanship, the aloof Di Chuan's attitude toward him improved.
"You chose correctly. Sword arts are the best, fastest, and strongest means of increasing combat power!"
The moment he said that, Wu Shan, Zhou Qing, and Meng Yingyue all curled their lips in unspoken agreement. Clearly, Di Chuan practiced the sword, while the other three did not.
This caused Jiang Xuan to cup his hands toward Di Chuan. "Then I shall have to trouble Senior Brother to guide me often in my future sword cultivation."
"..." The instant those words left his mouth, Di Chuan's expression turned strange.
Zhou Qing, standing nearby, could not hold it in any longer and burst out laughing.
"Hahaha! Little Junior Brother, you don't think Four Seasons Valley's sword inheritance is taught by Di Chuan, do you?"
Jiang Xuan said, "Uh? Isn't it?"
"Of course not." Meng Yingyue spoke this time, smiling gently. "Junior Brother Di Chuan's swordsmanship is very strong, but he has not yet reached the level where he can teach others. Nor has Four Seasons Valley declined so far that we need a disciple to instruct others in sword arts."
"Your instruction will be handled by one of the sect's senior elders."
At this point, her gaze dimmed slightly, and she let out a soft sigh. "It is a pity you arrived one step too late. Had you come earlier, we might even have invited a sword grandmaster from the Upper Branch to teach you personally... But it is not too late now. Within Four Seasons Valley, there are several sword masters who have comprehended Sword Intent."
Before her words had faded, she lightly waved her delicate hand. As spell power circulated, several phantasmal swords condensed in midair.
"Four Seasons Valley has four complete branch-defending sword arts. Which set would you like to cultivate?"
As she asked, she used illusion arts to manifest the sword stances and explained them to Jiang Xuan one by one. Only then did Jiang Xuan learn that Spring Valley specialized in healing arts and the ceaseless flourishing of life, and possessed no exclusive sword inheritance.
Summer Valley, meanwhile, had a sword art called "Grain in Ear: Blossoming Flame Tree." This sword art brought the blooming splendor of summer to its utmost extreme.
Summer governed flourishing, growth, and the fiercest blossoming. Grain in Ear was not only the season for planting hope, but also the moment when all things burst forth in an instant. This sword did not pursue heaviness, nor did it pursue harvesting. It sought only one word: "explosion."
To cultivate this sword, one first had to condense a Sword Seed within the Qi Sea of the dantian. When facing an enemy, once the Sword Seed left one's hand, it would not strike directly at the body. Instead, it would rapidly grow within the void—shooting upward, branching out, spreading leaves, and blooming flowers—until a faint glimmer expanded into sword radiance filling the heavens in a single instant.
The sword rose like fireworks soaring into the sky, its bloom like the Milky Way pouring upside down. Only a sword so dazzling to the extreme, so flourishing to the extreme, could bear the four words "Blossoming Flame Tree."
The Blossoming Flame Tree that Senior Sister Meng Yingyue demonstrated through illusion arts left even Jiang Xuan somewhat dazed.
The second sword art was Autumn Valley's "Autumn Equinox: Autumn Equilibrium Boundary Sword." Its conception stood lofty—so lofty that it touched the level of Heaven's will.
Summer was the extreme of yang, governing flourishing and growth; winter was the extreme of yin, governing stillness and returning to the storehouse. Autumn Equinox was precisely the absolute midpoint of flourishing and stillness, heat and cold, day and night throughout the year—it was the sole point among the Twenty-Four Solar Terms where yin and yang stood half and half, day and night were evenly divided, and cold and heat were balanced. It was the only dividing line where the qi of heaven and earth shifted from "rising growth" to "descending settling."
At the same time, autumn harvest was the perfection of life and the endpoint of a Dao Fruit's maturation; autumn storage was the opening curtain of death and the beginning of the mortal frame returning to soil—the day grain filled the storehouses was the very day the stalks met the sickle and turned to mud. Flourishing at its peak became withering, and life at its fullness became death. Autumn Equinox was the absolute boundary between life and death, withering and flourishing, cause and effect.
All the myriad arts beneath heaven could not escape the opposition of yin and yang, the mutual generation of the two poles. The Autumn Equilibrium Boundary Sword was the law of division that delineated the poles and severed heaven from earth.
Where the sword blade pointed became Heaven's central boundary. When one sword descended, it cleaved open every opposing Great Dao—yin and yang separated, life and death divided, withering and flourishing cut apart, cause and effect cleared away.
Its conception is exceedingly lofty. Its cultivation difficulty must also be exceedingly high. Jiang Xuan silently mused, then continued listening intently to Meng Yingyue's explanation.
The final two sword arts both came from Winter Valley.
The first was "Major Snow: Thousand-Mountain Snow Burial Sword."
The Dao intent of this sword was straightforward and bitterly cold. Taking the Major Snow solar term's conception of "a thousand miles sealed in ice, a thousand mountains blanketed in snow, heaven and earth shut away, all sounds fallen still" as its Dao source, it brought the true meaning of "Thousand-Mountain Snow Burial" to its fullest. When the sword emerged, snow fell; when the sword formed, mountains formed. With one sword unleashed, it condensed into the sword body of snow mountains stretching through ten thousand peaks and valleys, using bone-piercing, Dao-annihilating icy Sword Qi to bury an enemy's vitality, cultivation, and even Dao heart within an endless snowfield, never again to see the light of day.
Four Seasons Valley's last sword art was called "Winter Solstice: Returning to Stillness Annihilation Sword." This sword art took "stillness" as its core, corresponding to the final principle of Winter Solstice: "when yin reaches its utmost, all sounds fall completely silent."
"Stillness" was cessation, tranquil stability, the end of all movement. Wherever the sword edge reached, all circulation came to a halt.
All four of Four Seasons Valley's sword arts possessed wondrous profundities, but Jiang Xuan chose "Winter Solstice: Returning to Stillness Annihilation Sword" with almost no hesitation.
The reason was that he had learned from Di Chuan that this sword art was intimately connected to the Four Seasons Cycle.
"One sword rises from the sea of the heart, slaying others and slaying oneself... To others, that is merely a maxim of sword cultivation. But for those of us who cultivate the Four Seasons Cycle, it is a hard and fast law of cultivation. The Four Seasons Cycle seeks life amid death. To truly 'die' and welcome rebirth through reincarnation, one must use this Returning to Stillness Annihilation Sword to cut oneself down with a sword."
"Returning to Stillness Annihilation?" Hearing Jiang Xuan's choice, Meng Yingyue's beautiful brows furrowed slightly, but soon relaxed again. She spoke calmly. "Very well. For someone like you, who has resolved to walk the Great Dao of the Four Seasons Cycle, this sword is already a required lesson. Better to learn it early than late."
Having decided upon his primary sword art, Jiang Xuan did not immediately begin cultivating it. Today was the day of the sect assessment, and numerous trivial matters bound him up. His true cultivation would officially begin only tomorrow.
Yet after finishing all those miscellaneous matters, Jiang Xuan did not immediately return to his residence.
He found Xia He and asked whether Four Seasons Valley had a Scripture Repository, and whether he could enter and read the Daoist Canon.
"I do not need cultivation arts or secret techniques. Ordinary Daoist Scriptures, the Daoist Canon, and the cultivation insights of senior predecessors and sages will suffice."
The instant she heard that, Xia He gave him several suspicious up-and-down looks.
This made Jiang Xuan frown slightly. "What is it? Is that not allowed?"
"It is not that." Xia He shook her head, though her expression remained strange. "As an Inner Disciple, the first three floors of Four Seasons Valley's Scripture Repository are already open for free. Although you have not yet officially registered your name, I still have enough standing to bring you in. That will not be a problem. I simply did not expect that you, having chosen sword cultivation, would actually like reading."
Jiang Xuan was left speechless. "What is strange about a Sword Cultivator liking books? What do you think Sword Cultivators are supposed to be like?"
Upon hearing that, Xia He did not even pause to think. She raised her hand and pointed at Di Chuan nearby. "Aloof and cold by nature, ruthless in action, sparing with words, wholeheartedly devoted only to the sword, disliking every other trivial matter—he even thinks women are troublesome."
"..." Di Chuan's mouth twitched slightly at those words, but he ultimately maintained his lofty, cold demeanor and did not refute her.
His silence also left Jiang Xuan silent.
Di Chuan was a genuine Sword Cultivator, and his temperament perfectly matched outsiders' stereotypical impression of Sword Cultivators. For a moment, Jiang Xuan did not know how to defend himself.
Fortunately, Xia He merely found it a little strange that Jiang Xuan, this "Sword Cultivator," liked to read. She did not consider it troublesome.
Relying on her special status, she quickly completed the procedures and brought Jiang Xuan into the Scripture Repository.
Four Seasons Valley's Scripture Repository stood within Yellow Mud Village. From the outside, it looked like nothing more than an ordinary small courtyard built of gray bricks. Yet upon entering, Jiang Xuan discovered that it contained a world of its own.
This place employed a spatial expansion method. Within the first floor, countless bookshelves and jade slips rolled onward in unbroken waves. Jiang Xuan, who had just entered, could not see the end at all.
"There must be at least several hundred thousand volumes of texts here."
The moment Jiang Xuan entered the Scripture Repository, he was like a mouse that had fallen into a grain bin. He immediately went to a bookshelf, circulated the Nine-Breath Qi-Absorption Method, and casually pulled out a Daoist Scripture to begin reading.
With the Three Purifications Spell: Truth Communion empowering him, Jiang Xuan's Spirit Platform was clear, and his memory was exceptionally sharp.
Furthermore, as he held Qingli in his arms, he also triggered the Clear-Heart Sword Disciple's "Heart: Sincerity" talent.
With those dual enhancements, coupled with Jiang Xuan's formidable Divine Soul, his reading efficiency was extraordinarily high at first. In a short time, he had memorized four Daoist Scriptures.
But after the fourth, Jiang Xuan's page-turning gradually slowed. It was not because his reading efficiency had fallen, but because the talent of [Heart: Sincerity] had been completely activated.
At that moment, he brought sincerity of heart and focus to their utmost extremes.
Now, there were only books in his heart—even the matter of "reading in order to change professions into a Scripture Mystic Daoist" had been thrown beyond the nine heavens.
Because his heart was utterly sincere and pure, he no longer read merely to memorize by rote. Instead, he immersed himself completely, comprehending the Dao intent behind every word and every sentence.
There was only one thing out of place about Jiang Xuan, whose mind had sunk into the texts.
Eight or nine out of every ten Daoist Scriptures and Daoist Canon texts in Four Seasons Valley's Scripture Repository revolved around the turning of the four seasons, the changes of solar terms, and the influence of both upon the Great Dao of heaven and earth. Yet whenever Jiang Xuan read these texts, he would unconsciously transform all those ultimate truths of heaven and earth—the cycling seasons and shifting solar terms—into, according to his own understanding... sword arts!
Influenced by the Dao Resonance of [Heart: Sincerity], Jiang Xuan subconsciously wanted to evolve all the myriad arts of the world toward sword arts.
Just like the "Spring Wind Transforming Rain Art" he was reading at that moment. It had originally been a revival spell belonging to Spring Valley, formed by blending the Spring Return Spell and Lesser Cloud-Rain Art. Of course, its grade was too low for it to be one of Four Seasons Valley's twenty-four secret arts.
Still, since it had been stored within the Scripture Repository, it possessed some unique merits. At that moment, Jiang Xuan softly recited its incantation while his other hand unconsciously gestured through the air, actually attempting to use swordsmanship as its bones to invoke the spiritual essence of this spell art.
This scene caused the gaunt old man sitting in meditation deep within the Scripture Repository to open his eyes. With a trace of coldness in his gaze, he looked directly over.
Had Xia He not been beside Jiang Xuan, continuously cupping her hands toward the old man and apologizing, Jiang Xuan would have long since been driven out.
—The books in the Scripture Repository were precious, but they were also easily destroyed. Thus, using spell arts recklessly within was strictly forbidden.
Jiang Xuan knew this rule as well, but at this moment, his mind was fully immersed in the scriptures and Sword Intent. Not only had he thrown the repository's rules beyond the nine heavens, he had even forgotten that he had come here in the first place to study Daoist Scriptures and change professions into a Scripture Mystic Daoist.
Fortunately, Xia He's presence caused the Scripture Repository elder to show Jiang Xuan leniency.
Moreover, seeing Jiang Xuan free of distractions and wholly immersed in Dao Arts with a state of self-forgetfulness, rather than deliberately violating the rules, the elder's tightly furrowed brows eased somewhat.
The next instant, a silent spell art descended around Jiang Xuan and formed a special barrier. It both isolated outside disturbances so Jiang Xuan could comprehend in peace, and confined the Sword Intent and spell arts he tested within it, preventing him from damaging the repository's collection or disturbing others.