Candlelight Thousand-Jin Finger

This time's D-Rank Rating was also within expectations.

Although Jiang Che killed thirty Demon Monsters inside the instance, it actually changed the outcome by a negligible amount. It was already not bad that he did not get a "none".

In terms of hard difficulty, the Little Hidden Temple instance was much higher than Willow Source Old Dream.

Yet the consumption to open the instance was three times that of Willow Source Old Dream, and the rewards were also much more generous.

Merely for a D-Rank Rating, there was already a Seventh-Rank Cultivation Method. Willow Source Old Dream had required a Grade Bing Rating just to have an Eighth-Rank Cultivation Method.

Moreover, it was a killing blow that Jiang Che urgently lacked.

The Azure Torrent Sword Art was undoubtedly outstanding, with distinct characteristics. It excelled at defense and agility while its counterattacks were sharp, yet it simply lacked a bit of initiative.

The Candlelight Thousand-Jin Finger was different. Once a finger landed solidly, a trace of dim light exploded inside the enemy's body, and a thousand-jin force followed to crush them, which was quite fierce.

Using Azure Flow for close combat and Candlelight Thousand-Jin Finger to shatter the enemy at a critical moment was a huge supplement for him.

However, there were two troublesome points.

First, this was a Buddhist technique.

The trace of candlelight at the fingertips had to use Buddhist Dharma as a guide, chanting Buddhist verses and harboring wishes, in order to evoke the force with the aspiration to destroy darkness before it could condense.

In his two lifetimes, Jiang Che had barely stepped into a temple in his previous life, and in this life he studied a cultivator's breathing techniques. He had not read a single volume of Buddhist scriptures, and understood nothing of the so-called Buddhist Dharma. If he truly had to cultivate it himself without the guidance of a renowned master, he might not even cross the threshold after wasting three to five years.

Fortunately, this was given by the instance.

The moment the information entered his mind, this finger technique was already in a state of preliminary mastery. The most difficult threshold of entry was abruptly skipped.

What he needed to do hereafter was nothing more than diligent practice, training this finger stance until it was proficient. Although he would still achieve half the results with double the effort due to his poor grasp of Buddhism, at least there was a path to walk.

The second trouble was that this did not belong to the path of Azure Mystic's cultivation methods, and since it came from the instance, it was not very easy to explain.

However, Jiang Che was no longer his former self. Having knocked about in Azure Mystic for over half a year, he had gained a certain amount of understanding.

The Candlelight Thousand-Jin Finger not being an Azure Mystic inheritance was actually a good thing.

The sect was quite strict regarding Azure Mystic's own inherent inheritance parts. Stealing learnings and external transmissions, even passing them to other disciples, were simply unacceptable as long as one's authority was insufficient and one lacked the master-disciple status or the qualifications to transmit the Dharma on behalf of a master. Those who did would be severely investigated; light offenses meant reprimands and confinement, while heavy offenses meant crippled cultivation or even execution.

As for non-Azure Mystic inheritances-whether disciples under the sect possessed their own inheritances or happened by fortuitous coincidence to learn other houses' techniques-the sect did not care much.

The Upper Azure Smoke Clouds was the sect's own introductory cultivation method, while the Azurefall Wind Dew and Azure Torrent Sword Art had been incorporated into the sect after Azure Mystic annihilated Heaven Pillar. He did not know how things were in the past, but anyway they were now sect inheritances as well.

However, the Candlelight Thousand-Jin Finger logically did not matter.

This actually allowed Jiang Che to set his mind at ease.

He chanted softly in his heart: Many thanks, Master.

Who the source of this finger technique was went without saying.

Opening his eyes once more, Jiang Che sat alone in the room with only himself, his mind still filled with thoughts.

He thoroughly combed through the numerous pieces of information from this instance trip from beginning to end, examining them in detail.

Aside from Master Chunji's story itself being deeply moving, this trip into the instance held far too many details that deserved Jiang Che's attention or even made his hair stand on end.

Recalling repeatedly, Jiang Che still maintained that Master Chunji had not lied, nor had he ever set up a scheme against him.

According to what Chunji said, the Demon Sword triggered a Demon Calamity every seven years. That night in Xianxi Year Fifteen was the first time, and the Master sacrificed his life to forcibly suppress it, which was why that year, Ailin suffered no calamity.

Seven years later, in Xianxi Year Twenty-Two, according to Chunji's prophecy, the Ailin Demon Calamity truly and certainly erupted.

Cross-validating the two, the Master's words were true.

Then the problem arose.

What the Master said was "every seven years".

Counting seven years forward from Xianxi Year Twenty-Two brought one to Xianxi Year Twenty-Nine.

Wasn't that this very year?

His trip into this instance was merely a D-Rank Rating, representing that his changes to the instance story were negligible. The general trend of history ought to have remained unchanged; it should not have been that he did anything to cause the failure of the seal, but rather that history was just like this-half successful and half failed.

Since the general trend had not shifted, then in true history, what happened after Chunji died?

Jiang Che attempted to reconstruct the entire story of real history.

The Master's dying entrustment was for him to go out and seek reinforcements from Azure Mystic. But he, Jiang Che, was someone destined to be dragged back to reality, so this burden in true history could only fall upon Puxin, the thirteen or fourteen-year-old novice monk.

Given Chunji's personality, having no other choice, he would have demanded Puxin do this.

Yet in Xianxi Year Twenty-Two, the Demon Calamity ultimately erupted.

This indicated that seeking reinforcements had failed. Either Puxin never went at all, or he went and nobody believed or paid him any heed, or... that child had long since died somewhere.

In short, with no one coming to exterminate the Demon Sword, it steadily lurked beneath the Buddha's seat for another seven years. The suppression sacrificed by the Master gradually loosened, and then the Demon Calamity erupted.

During this period, the Little Hidden Temple had indeed survived and even gathered the incense of civilian households. He did not know who had propped it up, but in the end it was altogether destroyed in the Demon Calamity seven years ago. In the end, even the Main Hall where that sword-suppressing giant Buddha resided had become a True Demon's nest in these past few days.

This year was Xianxi Year Twenty-Nine, the second seven-year period. Would the Demon Calamity come or not?

Steward Wei had now taken away the Demon Sword; did that count as eliminating it?

I'm afraid it did not.

The three Qi Refining cultivators mainly fought a single True Demon. That Demon Sword indeed displayed formidable might in the hands of the True Demon, but it was merely a powerful divine weapon. It was completely different from what Jiang Che had seen in the instance-an object that could independently gather demonic qi and summon countless Demon Monsters was not a concept on the same level.

Was this Demon Sword useless now, or was it biding its time?

Thinking to this point, Jiang Che even generated a notion: Could it be intentional?

Moreover, Jiang Che also recalled Du Yongchang's warning on the day he first arrived in Ailin: "The situation has been getting more and more abnormal lately."

At the time, he merely took it as ordinary guidance, an evaluation of the current appearance of a True Demon.

Pondering these words now and placing them alongside the prophecy of a calamity every seven years, that became deadly.

Jiang Che harbored a very bad premonition.

He simply followed the train of thought a layer deeper: How on earth did instances come to be?

Willow Source Old Dream was his first instance. At that time, he was mired in the crisis of Willow Source in reality, hanging by a thread, and then he obtained the instance-and within the instance, the crucial key to resolving the reality crisis was precisely hidden.

What about this time then?

He was in Ailin and obtained the Little Hidden Temple instance. If a Demon Calamity were truly to erupt this year, and if the Demon Calamity happened to erupt precisely during these three months he was in Ailin, it would clearly endanger his life.

Within the Little Hidden Temple instance, key clues regarding this great disaster were obviously concealed as well.

He had a bold thought: perhaps it was not that time fragments were left behind whenever a major historical event occurred, but rather that the instance only manifested before his eyes every time a great disaster was about to befall him!