The next day, Li Ling felt refreshed and clearheaded, unaffected by his nocturnal excursion.
Now that he could perform Soul Projection, his Spirit Body was gradually transcending the mundane. Maintaining abundant energy for long periods was no difficulty.
Though his flesh had not grown stronger along with it, resting properly in his room kept him from suffering the exhaustion he had previously feared.
Remembering the inspiration that had struck him during last night's excursion, Li Ling sent servants to prepare materials at the Fragrant Incense Pavilion while he accompanied the Ninth Princess at breakfast, and began turning the idea over in his mind.
Judging by the Incense Essence they contain, quite a few incenses can merge with the soul. But what I need now is something my unusual gift can perceive, and which will linger for a long time.
Simply put, incense specifically for a Spirit Body—its fragrance must spread over a wide area without appearing within ordinary people's range of perception.
It should be both concealed and enduring, or else able to cling to me and leave a trail.
Spirit-Communing Incense worked wonders in Soul Tempering, which actually made it unsuitable for this purpose.
Li Ling soon thought of a wondrous substance called Returning Soul Incense.
Records of the Ten Isles Within the Sea had described a place called Divine Bird Mountain, where a miraculous soul-returning tree grew. Striking its trunk produced the sound of a herd of cattle, shaking the hearts and minds of those who heard it. Felling the tree and taking the heart of its root, then boiling it in a pot, yielded black sugar-like lumps or pellets-a wondrous aromatic material.
Once lit, its fragrance could drift for a hundred li. Even the dead would revive upon smelling it, hence the name Returning Soul Incense.
The Incense Compendium, written by Zhou Jiazhou of the Ming dynasty, also contained a story about incense presented by a western kingdom.
Legend had it that during Emperor Wu of Han's reign, someone from the Western Ruoshui Kingdom crossed the Ruoshui River in a feathered carriage to present incense: three pieces as large as swallow eggs, resembling jujubes. At first, Emperor Wu paid them no mind and simply tossed them into a storeroom.
Later, a great epidemic struck Chang'an. Many in the palace were infected, and even music and dancing were suspended. The western envoy requested an audience and asked that one piece of the tribute incense be burned to dispel the pestilential air. With no better solution, Emperor Wu reluctantly followed his advice.
The fragrance spread for a hundred li, and the sick within the palace recovered that very day.
There was a similar legend about Dumu Incense.
The medical text Classified Materia Medica recorded that Dumu Incense, presented by the Duoqu Kingdom, resembled soybeans. Applied to the palace gates, its fragrance could be smelled a hundred li away.
When a great epidemic swept Guanzhong and the dead lay piled head to head, burning this incense stopped the plague.
In essence, just a bean-sized dab of the Dumu Incense presented by the Duoqu Kingdom, smeared on a palace gate, could spread its fragrance a hundred li and halt even a plague that had killed countless people.
Li Ling was not interested in the legends claiming it could bring even the dead back to life, but in the description of its fragrance spreading a hundred li.
He really had encountered such a remarkable material in this world!
Of course, it was not so extraordinary that ordinary people could smell it a hundred li away. Only someone with an unusual gift like his could perceive it under certain conditions.
It was a deciduous tree of the maple genus that grew in the great southern mountains, a peculiar plant the locals called incense sugar maple. Its branches, leaves, and heartwood were fragrant and could be boiled down into a resinous paste, much like the substance in the legends.
The Old Ancestor has high hopes for my new inventions, and he's certainly fulfilled my wish to collect unusual mundane aromatics. We happen to have a few portions of this material left at home. Perhaps I can use it to blend something whose fragrance spreads a hundred li.
I might as well follow the legend and call it Returning Soul Incense.
This time, Li Ling gave it that name not for any power to resurrect the dead, but because it guided his soul back after Soul Projection.
If it could also work wonders for other cultivators, like Spirit-Communing Incense, he would truly have invented a second item useful to immortal masters.
His reputation and standing would then rise considerably.
After breakfast, Li Ling informed the Ninth Princess and went to the Fragrant Incense Pavilion to blend the new incense.
The servants there had already prepared everything he needed, sorting the various aromatic materials he might use for easy access.
Li Ling took white honey, spikenard, Black-Horn Agarwood, borneol, musk, and other ingredients, grinding and processing each before adding them to a cauldron to simmer with the syrup boiled from incense sugar maple.
His true target was the Incense Essence his gift perceived, not the scent other people could smell.
These supplementary ingredients served to balance its properties and scent, altering some of the incense sugar maple's less satisfactory qualities so its strengths could shine to their fullest.
With his unusual gift supporting him, Li Ling, a master of the Incense Path, pushed his knowledge to its limits.
Other expert incense makers might surpass him in knowledge and experience, but they certainly had no ability so useful.
To his perception, the scents of aromatic materials were no longer vague concepts, but tangible things.
As though stacking blocks or shaping clay, Li Ling's seemingly casual adjustments concealed exquisitely precise harmonization, gradually bringing every proportion into its ideal balance.
As Li Ling had once told the Ninth Princess, over the past few years his craft had reached maturity. He had developed several base materials from pepper, orchids, fragrant eupatorium, and cassia, and learned to distinguish hundreds upon hundreds of plants. What followed should have been a prolific period of weaving all that knowledge together.
From conceiving the idea to making it a reality, he needed only a little less than half a shichen.
Such a thing would once have been unimaginable. In a sense, it was one minute onstage supported by ten years of effort offstage.
When the incense was finished, it resembled a large jujube. A strange rhythm seemed to ripple through the air, and a thread of indescribable fragrance lingered at the tip of his nose.
Yet when he left his meditative state, deliberately shut off his special perception, and sniffed with his nose, he smelled nothing at all.
The odorless incense he had envisioned, which acted exclusively on the spiritual plane, was complete.
Knock, knock, knock...
Just then, someone knocked on the door.
"What is it?" Li Ling asked.
The servant replied cautiously, "Prince Consort, Immortal Master Zhu is here. I dared not delay and came to report at once."
"All right, I understand. I'll be there shortly," Li Ling said.
Looking at the four finished samples of Returning Soul Incense on the table, Li Ling simply set them aside for now.
I can only venture out at night. I'll try them then.
Soon afterward, Li Ling took a carriage from the inner grounds to the main hall at the front of the residence. He found that his wife had arrived first and was speaking with Zhu Ming inside.
Zhu Ming was as disheveled as ever, looking somewhat out of place in the lavishly decorated reception hall. Yet he sat casually, perfectly at ease, while the Ninth Princess, the mistress of the residence, stood listening as he relayed the Old Ancestor's instructions.
"Li Ling, you're just in time. There are a few things I need to tell you."
Seeing Li Ling arrive, Zhu Ming greeted him and spoke briskly. "I've dealt with Wei Du. The Zhu Yuan Kingdom is busy fighting a war and won't have much opportunity to stir up trouble for now, so you can rest easy. However, an unidentified person with suspicious intentions appeared last night. The Old Ancestor is worried he might fan the flames and provoke infighting within Skycloud. We'll need to be careful."
Li Ling was briefly taken aback. He had not expected that secretly guiding everyone to hunt down Wei Du, convenient as it had been, would lead to such a misunderstanding.
Still, their concerns were perfectly natural. When an unknown third party suddenly appeared in a struggle between two sides, who would believe he had no ulterior motive?
Without waiting for Li Ling to answer, Zhu Ming continued, "But that isn't something you need to worry about yet. Look after yourselves and ensure the Old Ancestor's supply of Spirit-Communing Incense. You're someone who saves us worry. You know what to do."
"Rest assured, Senior Brother Zhu," Li Ling said. "I've already had everything from the incense workshop moved here recently. From now on, I'll go out less and stay home to make incense."
In a world where the mighty power of Divine Abilities resided in the individual, building a business and becoming a tycoon meant little.
Those had merely been youthful aspirations and the means by which he had first made his living. Of course he could distinguish the important from the secondary.
Take the flying sword he had acquired only yesterday: after playing with it, Li Ling was already beginning to lose interest.
Ultimately, it had been nothing more than a cherished fancy.
"I've advised him before," the Ninth Princess said. "We have space here, so why go out of his way to open a workshop elsewhere? Fortunately, we now have enough experienced workers and incense-making apprentices. Leave mundane matters to them and just concentrate on making incense for the Old Ancestor."
"Going out less will save some trouble," Zhu Ming said. "As for you, Junior Sister, improving your cultivation in a short time won't be easy."
"With aptitude like ours, Qi Refining is ultimately a matter of patient grinding, relying on accumulation over long years. We can't compare ourselves to those geniuses."
"The Old Ancestor previously bestowed the Golden Shuttle Sword and the Heart-Warning Bell upon you. Both are graded, low-grade magical artifacts. Giving you another artifact this time would violate sect rules, so he decided to teach you a method instead."
"What method is it?" the Ninth Princess asked.
"You should have heard of it," Zhu Ming said. "It's Cloud Escape, taught throughout our Skycloud Sect. Learning it will make travel easier and let you escape in a crisis."
"Really? The Old Ancestor is willing to teach me this escape technique ahead of time?" the Ninth Princess said delightedly.
"Don't celebrate just yet," Zhu Ming said. "I'm only responsible for passing it on. How much you learn depends on your own ability."
Li Ling suddenly asked, "Senior Brother Zhu, may I listen as well?"
"Oh, very well. It isn't a secret art anyway, so it hardly matters," Zhu Ming said. "But you haven't refined any spiritual qi, so you probably won't be able to use it. You absolutely mustn't tinker recklessly, hoping to modify it or even create your own cultivation method from it. Otherwise, you'll suffer cultivation deviation."
"Of course I understand that," Li Ling said. "Haven't you told me before, Senior Brother Zhu?"
"Those were only minor tricks," Zhu Ming said. "This time, it's a genuine escape technique!"
"Speaking of which, I really don't understand you. You keep studying these things but can never learn them. What's the point of listening?"
Li Ling did not argue. "Just teach it, Senior Brother Zhu. I'll treat it as broadening my horizons."
The Ninth Princess smiled without speaking. She had long known of Li Ling's passion for immortal cultivation. Though he lacked the aptitude, he had certainly encountered plenty of methods and practical tips.
Zhu Ming shook his head. To him, Li Ling was hopelessly bad at it yet hopelessly hooked, a strange man indeed. Still, he taught the method as requested and shared the various insights he had gained over the years.
At the end, Zhu Ming sighed softly. "Unfortunately, I'm not particularly good at this Divine Ability either. I intend to cultivate metal fiend in the future and follow the path of a sword cultivator... These insights are only my personal views, not principles established by the sages. Just take them for what they're worth."
"Not at all," Li Ling said. "Senior Brother Zhu, you've walked the path of cultivation sixty years longer than we have. As the saying goes, you've eaten more salt than we've eaten rice."
Amused, Zhu Ming chuckled. "You certainly have a way with words, lad. But you probably still don't understand what a true seed of the Dao is."
"I'd be glad to hear more," Li Ling said.
"Do you know how long the Old Ancestor, Azure Cloud True Person, and the others took to reach Foundation Establishment after entering the sect?" Zhu Ming asked.
Even the Ninth Princess was curious about this and could not help asking, "How long?"
A peculiar expression appeared on Zhu Ming's face, as though the answer troubled him a little too. "A hundred days!"
"In just a hundred days, they went from beginning cultivation to successfully establishing their foundations. That is the true starting point on the path of immortal cultivation!"
The Ninth Princess looked astonished, finding it somewhat hard to believe.
Li Ling was stunned too. "Foundation Establishment in a hundred days? The gap between people really is enormous..."
He had never really looked into this before. It seemed his flattery had landed on the horse's leg rather than its rump.
From that explanation, Li Ling also caught the underlying meaning. Perhaps Zhu Ming's earlier remark about his personal views had not been modesty, but a lack of confidence.
Seemingly feeling embarrassed that his guidance was somewhat unreliable, Zhu Ming nevertheless pointed out a broad, clear path. "But there is a shortcut, a genuine insight distilled by our predecessors. You won't go wrong following it."
He addressed this to the Ninth Princess, expecting nothing of Li Ling. "You can use your Qi Refining method to refine tangible cloud fiend gathered from outside... Any type of cloud fiend will do, though in general it should be light, nimble, and mild. This lets you borrow the external to cultivate the true and speed up the condensation process."
"As for Divine Abilities and spells, one is an instinctive means refined and polished in daily practice, ready for use whenever needed; the other is the accumulated experience passed down by our predecessors and summarized by the sages. In essence, they're much the same: applications of the great Dao of heaven and earth."
"This escape technique belongs to the category of Divine Abilities. It places more importance on the cloud you condense than on your own cultivation. In fact, it leans toward mundane artifact-making methods. It's just that cultivators' artifact refinement relies more on vital qi, magical power, and Dao resonance, rather than focusing on the physical shell as mundane crafts do."
"Oh, and you've probably heard of sword fiend and Sword Pellets. Refining them follows the same principle."
Understanding dawned on the Ninth Princess. "Thank you for your guidance, Senior Brother Zhu."
Having done what he came to do, Zhu Ming departed once again with carefree ease.
Given his temperament, he would certainly never stay for a meal and social pleasantries, nor remain to guide Li Ling and the Ninth Princess in cultivation. They could only let him leave.
Her mind already on the escape technique, the Ninth Princess resembled a little girl with a new toy. She eagerly said to Li Ling, "Husband, I'd like to..."
Li Ling smiled understandingly. "Go and cultivate. Don't worry about me. I have some workshop matters to attend to shortly as well."
Despite his words, he did not actually attend to workshop matters. Instead, he returned to the Fragrant Incense Pavilion to study the Cloud Escape cultivation method he had just received.
The result was entirely unsurprising. With his deficient Spirit Root, Li Ling could not activate the escape technique at all. There was not a trace of spiritual qi within his body, leaving him nowhere to begin.
As he sighed with a helpless smile, something suddenly occurred to Li Ling, and his body gave a slight shudder.
Right, my physical body's limitations prevent me from mastering this escape technique. That's obvious...
But my mind isn't restricted. My soul can undergo Soul Departure!
What if I followed the methods of those Nascent Soul experts and Spirit Transformation powers, applying them to a Spirit Body, a Dharma manifestation, or a Dharma body?
According to the texts he had read before, these methods should have been transferable. They simply belonged to different systems and required adjustments for compatibility, with slight differences in how they were cultivated and employed.
It was rather like the cross-platform concept he had known in his previous life: the physical body and the soul could be regarded as different systems.
He immediately decided to undergo Soul Departure that night and give it a try.