Ways to Communicate with the Gods

[You are undergoing a forced inheritance from the Priest]

[You are gaining knowledge]

[Congratulations, you have obtained the Priest's closely guarded secret, ancient knowledge: Qi-Observing Eye]

[You are gaining knowledge]

[Qi-Observing Eye (Incomplete): A variant of geomancy. It touches upon heaven's secrets, and more than half of it has destroyed itself. For certain reasons, the Qi-Observing Eye was divided into thirty-six parts. This is one of them]

[Qi is the substance of matter; observing qi is geomancy. Geomancy began with the Yellow Emperor and was a sacred office.

The Han era marked a watershed. Before the Han Dynasty, geomancy evolved into an art of humanity, focusing on heaven, earth, and man. After the Han Dynasty, geomancy took qi as its standard and split into numerous schools.

The Qi-Observing Eye you have obtained is an ancient, fragmented inheritance containing only one aspect of the art. It allows you to discern another person's true nature. As the saying goes, do not exhaust your blessings or wield your power to its fullest extent. Bringing together all thirty-six Qi-Observing Eyes will cause an enormous catastrophe]

[Congratulations, you have obtained the secret of the Qi-Observing Eye]

This time, there seemed to be a faint warning in the narration.

But another wave of excruciating pain soon hit.

It made Lin Feng forget about the matter for the moment.

[You are undergoing a forced inheritance from the Priest]

[You are gaining knowledge...]

[Knowledge acquisition failed]

[Your will has been broken]

[You have been assimilated by the Flesh · Priest Mask]

[You have died]

He was ejected from the game.

Lin Feng took off his helmet.

Deep in thought.jpg.

This mask killed people in such a predictable pattern.

Die once, receive one piece of knowledge.

Fair dealing for young and old alike.

Of course, he was only taking advantage of the fact that other people could not keep dying and coming back to life as he could.

Lin Feng did not think this counted as exploiting a bug.

At most, it was making reasonable use of the game mechanics.

This was how the game was meant to be played.

But acquiring skills this way was not particularly friendly to others.

While enduring that unbearable agony, Lin Feng had a feeling: could the pain in this game be genuine pain, with no reduction whatsoever?

If so, the fact that he had not actually died yet owed something to luck.

If Lin Feng's swordsmanship passive had not constantly tempered his essence, qi, and spirit during combat, he probably could not have endured this kind of "torture."

Suffering was part of the game, too.

Lin Feng had even had time to savor the sensation of being on the verge of death.

How should he put it?

Wearing the Flesh · Priest Mask was like having a facehugger crawl onto his face, forcibly invading through every facial opening.

This mask really was sinister!

All three chances to die were gone.

He could not return to the game for now.

He had spent all three lives here, on something that had nothing to do with the main storyline.

Yet Lin Feng was not disappointed in the slightest.

He clicked his teeth together and looked at his new active skills, then opened the window, letting the hot air outside rush in.

Out of the game and without the boost from [Mountain God's Power], he was still at ninth-grade qi gathering.

But that was fine. Looking at his new active skills, Lin Feng did not try Self-Sacrificing Strike.

Who would he strike?

Take a swing at the door?

Take a swing at the wall behind the TV?

If he demolished the apartment today, would his landlady not come charging back from her wonton shop tomorrow, wielding her big skimmer and taking his life without a word?

He had merely acquired a game console and a few tricks beyond an ordinary person's abilities. Lin Feng was not so deranged that he would kill his landlady over his own mistake.

There was no need for that.

How full of himself would he have to be?

Lin Feng decided to play it safe and try "Feasting on Wind and Drinking Dew" first. After all, it sounded more reliable, like going without food.

For Feasting on Wind and Drinking Dew, Lin Feng did not need to sit cross-legged or enter a meditative state. He simply used it, and immediately felt a hunger rise within him that could turn his eyes red and rob him of reason. He could not tell what exactly was hungry.

Was it his stomach? His intestines? His brain?

He did not know. He was just hungry!

Lin Feng pushed off with his feet, failing to rein in his strength, and shattered a floor tile underfoot. He swept over to the refrigerator like a gust of wind.

He opened it and stuffed food into his mouth, bite after bite, not caring whether it was hot or cold.

But that burning, sudden, terrifying hunger did not ease at all. The food before him seemed incapable of filling him up in the slightest.

Instinctively, he formed a strange gesture with both hands. A sound resembling throat singing rolled out of his throat. It defied ordinary physiology and damaged the human throat.

Even after a day of nourishment from qi gathering, Lin Feng strained his throat. The rusty taste of blood arose in his throat and nasal passages.

Every breath carried that bloody taste.

It was deeply unpleasant.

But he could not spare it any attention.

Nor did the taste of blood awaken his animal instincts.

Driven by hunger, Lin Feng changed his hand gestures again. Without ritual implements, he would do it himself.

His feet began tracing strange steps. This was communication between humans and heavenly gods.

Through dance.

Dance, melody, and writing were ways and channels through which humans communicated with the gods. What Lin Feng was performing now was a strange dance.

Even Lin Feng did not know what he was dancing.

His dance brimmed with wild abandon and untamed freedom.

Some movements were simply impossible for a human to perform.

Fortunately, Lin Feng's body was supple. At ninth-grade qi gathering, even torn or strained muscles did not interrupt the dance. Gradually, as he danced, more and more wind appeared around him.

At first, it was an almost imperceptible breeze.

Then it became strong enough to stir leaves.

By the end, it could billow curtains, lift skirts, and leave people feeling refreshed from head to toe!

Wind poured through Lin Feng's open window and swept toward him. The moment it reached him, his skin swallowed it. Lin Feng opened his mouth and devoured great quantities of the surrounding wind as though drinking sweet rain. Instead of entering his lungs, it passed through his throat and into his skin.

Fortunately, Lin Feng was consumed by hunger at the time.

Otherwise, his occupational habit would have kicked in.

He would definitely have cracked a joke.

For fuck's sake, I've barely cultivated for two days, and I'm already running on dual cores.

One lung core, one skin core.

The wind grew stronger and stronger. Lin Feng's rented apartment became the source of the gale, and he had no sense of being full.

The dance continued for over half an hour, and the sounds rolling from his throat continued for half an hour as well.

During that time, someone must have heard the sounds of dancing and ritual worship.

But no one came up to stop him.

At first, Lin Feng's footfalls had been quiet. Later, as he threw himself passionately into the dance, he could no longer worry about that. His stomping was like a ceiling-thumping machine.

Only after half an hour did Lin Feng finally stop, drenched in sweat as though he had run a marathon in the hottest days of summer.

He exhaled.

He was no longer hungry.

His mind had cleared, too.

He examined his hands and frowned.

Huh?

He straightened and glanced around.

He was certain he was not seeing things.

Had his surroundings really become different from before?