The newly arrived Daoist novice wanted to defy heaven and change his fate.
He did not want to be a mud-legged peasant. He wanted to stand high above others.
So every day, after studying scriptures, cleaning, and practicing martial arts, he knelt before the statues of Wang Quan and Qing He, burning incense and praying.
Day after day, year after year.
The novice felt that his life still had not changed.
Yet he still did not give up his worship.
The crow flew and the hare raced on:
This year, he would formally begin cultivating spells.
The day before he began, he knelt before the statues, silently burning incense and praying for heaven-defying aptitude.
Yet during this prayer, he suddenly discovered that the patterns on the statues seemed to come alive.
The next instant, a golden pattern descended from a statue and landed on his spine.
At that moment, he felt only a blazing heat in his spine, and many unorthodox spells appeared in his mind.
These spells were simple to cultivate and immensely powerful, but the price of using them and their other costs were also rather high.
He thought little of these spells.
The next day, he began cultivating Clear Wind Temple's Windblown Sand series of spells.
These spells were steady and conventional, weak in power, and had a very low ceiling, leaving him disappointed.
Fortunately, he had the spells imparted by the statues of Wang Quan and Qing He.
In the days that followed, the novice quietly cultivated many spells, and his strength increased at a furious pace.
One day, while practicing the spells from the statues in a secluded place, he suddenly discovered that the temple master had appeared.
The instant he saw the temple master, thoughts of fleeing, killing him to silence him, confessing, and