The cultivation scam

Two burly men hauled Mo Chen downstairs, and the manager poked his head out over the staircase.

"Keep an eye on him! Don't let him upstairs! A penniless servant only deserves to shop on the first floor!"

After withdrawing his head, the manager made sure to let out a deliberately loud "Tch!"

Then he went back to serving the other customers, leaving Mo Chen standing there in embarrassment.

Mo Chen pursed his lips. He had been about to say something, but the two burly men guarding the stairs stepped forward again. Their bare shoulders blocked his view, and they looked ready to strike if he took another step.

Seeing this, Mo Chen turned and left the Gathering Fate Trading House, grumbling inwardly.

If you won't have me here, somewhere else will! There are plenty of shops on this street. It's not as though I have to buy from you!

The thousand-odd Spirit Stones at his waist were unmistakably heavy, yet right now, Mo Chen felt as though they weighed nothing at all.

It all felt a little unreal.

Forty years of my savings aren't even enough to cover the daily expenses of cultivation?

Then what does that make Zhou Ping, who drinks every day and draws his stipend?

Before Mo Chen could think any further, he rounded a street corner, and a shop came into view.

It had blue-brick walls and gray roof tiles, with a plaque reading "Zhiwei Hall" hanging above its entrance.

A long line stood outside Zhiwei Hall. Everyone in it was a cultivator, ranging from the first to the seventh layer of Qi Refining, all waiting patiently with respectful expressions.

Mo Chen paused at the sight. In the mortal world, fortune-tellers merely set up a table by the roadside, hung a cloth banner, and collected a few copper coins.

He had never seen a fortune-teller open a large shop, much less one that looked so respectable.

This truly was a rare sight!

His curiosity stirred, and Mo Chen joined the back of the line.

The cultivators ahead spoke quietly in twos and threes, their conversations full of phrases like reading Eight Characters and assessing Annual Fate.

Some wore worried frowns, saying that things kept going wrong in their cultivation and that they wanted to check whether some conflicting influence was to blame.

Others were delighted, saying they had recently encountered a fortunate opportunity and wanted a reading to help them advance another step.

After listening, Mo Chen grew even more puzzled. Cultivators were supposed to defy the heavens rather than believe in predestined fate, so why did they place such unwavering faith in divination and fortune-telling?

When Mo Chen's turn came, a youth in a blue cotton robe approached and led him through the front hall.

The hall was divided into eight compartments, each door bearing a small wooden plaque numbered from one to eight.

Whenever a compartment door opened and a cultivator emerged, the youth would lead the next person inside. Everything proceeded in an orderly fashion.

The youth led Mo Chen to compartment three and gently pushed the door open. "The master is waiting inside."

The room was small, furnished with a long desk covered by a plain tablecloth. Several brushes, a stack of paper, and an inkstone sat on it.

Behind the desk sat a middle-aged man in a plain robe. His face was lean, and his features held a faint air of detachment.

The middle-aged man was only at the second layer of Qi Refining, lower than Mo Chen. The desktop was clean and uncluttered, holding only three writing brushes and a stack of yellowed hemp paper, without even a divination-stick cylinder or a compass.

"Sit."

The man looked up at Mo Chen and pointed to the small wooden stool before the desk.

Mo Chen sat opposite him and, as instructed, gave the Eight Characters of his birth date and time.

The man picked up a brush, dipped it in ink, and swiftly wrote down the Eight Characters on the hemp paper. He began drawing lines and marks, then suddenly looked up at Mo Chen. His voice was calm but certain. "Water and wood are excessively strong in your Fate Chart. You must avoid those two attributes in your cultivation, or you'll get half the results for twice the effort. If you practice a water-wood cultivation method for too long, it will even damage your foundation, preventing you from going far on the immortal path."

Mo Chen went rigid.

The Black Turtle Breathing Method was precisely a water-wood dual-attribute cultivation method!

Having struggled for decades before finally drawing qi into his body, Mo Chen naturally remembered this cultivation method all too well.

Relying on this method, casually discarded by a female cultivator, Mo Chen had endured fifty years before finally breaking through to the Qi Refining Third Layer.

That white-robed female cultivator declared that I wouldn't reach the Qi Refining Third Layer even in a hundred years. She said my meridians were sluggish and my Spirit Apertures blocked. But what if this cultivation method was incompatible with me from the start?

Mo Chen had no choice but to consider the worst. Perhaps he had been led into a trap from the very beginning.

Did she deliberately give me the cultivation method least suited to me?

The more Mo Chen thought about it, the more wrong it seemed. Countless thoughts surged through his mind, but his expression remained composed, his eyes merely lowering slightly.

"Master, are Spiritual Root attributes actually related to one's Fate Chart?" Mo Chen asked softly.

"Of course."

The answer sent a tremendous shock through Mo Chen's heart.

After all those years in the Scripture Pavilion, how could I never have heard a word about this?

Mo Chen pondered for a moment, then attributed it to his fellow disciples being too busy asking him to find books whenever they visited the Scripture Pavilion, combined with his own habit of never going out and shutting himself away at night to study talisman drawing.

Apparently, this was what the ancients meant when they said that hiding too long in one place would leave one sitting amid emptiness and ruin.

He really needed to come down the mountain more often.

The fortune-telling cultivator set down his brush and said evenly, "So-called Spiritual Roots are merely the body's affinity for the spiritual qi of the Five Elements. When certain elements are excessive in a Fate Chart, the body naturally rejects their corresponding spiritual qi and favors the elements it lacks. Your Adverse Spirits are water and wood, so you naturally reject water and wood spiritual qi. Your Favorable and Useful Gods are fire, earth, and metal. Thus, you have Fire-Earth-Metal Three Spiritual Roots."

Mo Chen pressed further. "According to what you're saying, everyone has corresponding Favorable and Useful Gods. Doesn't that mean everyone can cultivate?"

"In theory, yes."

The middle-aged man sighed. "But mortals eat ordinary grains from childhood and become tainted by turbid qi. Their meridians gradually wither. Even if they have suitable attributes, their cultivation advances at a snail's pace. Besides, the cultivation world only has so many resources. Who would willingly pass their cultivation methods on to mortals and let them climb up to compete for their share?"

The middle-aged man paused, then continued with a trace of coldness. "The mortal world has martial arts masters. If they also obtained immortal methods, how could low-level cultivators possibly stand against them? So cultivators tacitly agree to keep raising the threshold for transmitting their methods. It isn't that mortals cannot cultivate. It's that cultivators don't want them to. In the end, they're simply afraid of someone taking their place."

Mo Chen remained silent.

He had spent a hundred years in the Wenyuan Pavilion and decades in the Twin Crane Sect's Scripture Pavilion. He had seen far too many people come to blows over an incomplete cultivation method, and far too many disciples frame one another while competing for places in the inner sect.

The fortune-teller's words had plainly exposed the deception of the white-robed female cultivator he had met at the Wenyuan Pavilion.

Mo Chen took out the Black Turtle Breathing Method and asked, "This book..."

"It's a Water-Wood Dual Attribute cultivation method. It doesn't suit you," the fortune-teller answered before he could finish.

"But a senior in my sect gave me this cultivation method only after examining my Spiritual Roots!"

The fortune-teller smiled at that.

"Fellow Daoist, you've been deceived. First, this talk of Spiritual Roots is merely something we use to fool mortals. Second, if that senior truly wanted to guide you, why would she give you this cultivation method after examining you?"

Mo Chen said nothing, looking at the man across from him with utter confusion.

The man smiled again. "Examining your Spiritual Root only requires drawing the surrounding spiritual qi into your body and circulating it once. Your body will expel spiritual qi corresponding to the Adverse Spirit in your Eight Characters and naturally retain the spiritual qi for which you have an affinity."

"So I can guarantee that whoever gave you the Black Turtle Breathing Method merely found you amusing and wanted to laugh at your inability to improve your cultivation."

As he spoke, the fortune-teller gathered a clump of surrounding spiritual qi with one hand and sent it into Mo Chen's body.

When that spiritual qi naturally drifted back out of Mo Chen, only water and wood spiritual qi remained in it.

The spiritual qi retained in his body, from most to least, was...

Fire, earth, metal...

"This..."

Seeing was believing. Now Mo Chen had no choice but to believe him.

"Then should I primarily practice a fire-attribute cultivation method?" Mo Chen asked after a long, stunned silence.

The fortune-teller nodded and continued:

"Correct. Fire can drain wood and exhaust water, balancing your Fate Chart perfectly. If you primarily practice a fire-attribute cultivation method, not only will your cultivation progress much faster, but your fortune will gradually turn around as well."

"If you keep primarily practicing a cultivation method aligned with the Adverse Spirit, you can still forcibly retain its qi in your body and increase your cultivation, but your fortune will only worsen until you ultimately accomplish nothing."

Seeming to gain some understanding, Mo Chen said respectfully, "Thank you for your guidance. Sorry for the further trouble, but could you also read my Annual Fate?"

The fortune-teller calculated on his fingers again, his brows gradually furrowing. "Your luck has been extremely poor lately. Within three months, I fear you'll face a calamity of bloodshed."

Mo Chen fell deep into thought and did not reply.

Then the fortune-teller continued, "Your destiny is very strange. Your entire life is weighed down by pressure, with obstacles at every step and almost no stretches of smooth sailing. Yet strangely, the Lifespan Line in your fate is extraordinarily long—absurdly so. As long as you endure these obstacles, the longer you live, the greater your achievements will become. So great that even I cannot see their extent."

After saying this, the fortune-teller shook his head as though muttering to himself. "Strange, really. Over the past few days, I've read the fortunes of no fewer than several hundred people, and almost all of them have terrible Annual Fate for these two years, with calamity after calamity. I wonder whether something major is about to happen."

Something stirred in Mo Chen's heart, and he wanted to ask more, but the man had already waved his hand. "That is all I have to say. More words would serve no purpose."

Mo Chen then took two Low-Grade Spirit Stones from his Storage Bag and placed them on the desk. "Thank you for your guidance, master."

The fortune-teller nodded without saying anything more, lowering his head to gather the hemp paper on the desk.

Mo Chen rose and left Zhiwei Hall. Watching the cultivators passing to and fro, he found himself unable to calm down for a long time.

Mo Chen had always believed that his slow cultivation was entirely due to his poor aptitude.

Only today had he learned that someone had led him astray onto the wrong path from the very beginning.

Had that white-robed female cultivator made an honest mistake, or had she done it deliberately?

And there was also a calamity of bloodshed coming within three months?

But Mo Chen did not dwell on it. Right now, he needed to hurry and find a fire-attribute cultivation method, then buy a couple of useful Spirit Artifacts. That way, even if a bloody calamity truly awaited him, he would not have to fear disaster suddenly arriving at his door.