Nine Heavens True Dragon Art

"A scroll?"

Lin Shisan seemed to remember something.

His eyes blazed as he looked again at the cultivation scroll that had fallen out of the Little Black Cauldron.

He remembered that the scroll had originally been yellowed and tattered.

But now, something seemed different.

Not only was the cultivation scroll no longer yellowed, it was no longer tattered either. It looked brand-new.

A faint fragrance of books even drifted from it.

"Could it... could it..."

"Could this cultivation scroll have advanced too?"

At that thought, Lin Shisan's hands curled into chicken claws again.

This time, he was more excited than he had ever been.

A cultivation art advancing? That was the stuff of myths. It was simply unbelievable.

"Nine Revolutions Star Art?"

"Wasn't it the Tai Chi Body Tempering Manual? How did it become the Nine Revolutions Star Art?"

Lin Shisan's mind went blank.

Could even the name advance when a cultivation art advanced?

Lin Shisan rubbed his eyes hard.

By his ninth look, he was certain the cultivation scroll was called the Nine Revolutions Star Art.

"Heh heh heh..."

An unprecedented smile spread across the usually reserved, honest Lin Shisan's face.

He really had stumbled upon a treasure this time.

The Little Black Cauldron was incredible.

Nine Revolutions Star Art-the name alone sounded imposing enough.

It surely couldn't compare to the Tai Chi Body Tempering Manual, which nobody practiced even in the Azure Cloud Lineage.

At that moment, Lin Shisan's little heart didn't leap out of his chest-it stopped.

"This..."

Lin Shisan's face turned pale.

The moment he opened the pages, he went completely numb.

He didn't see a single word.

He kept looking through it. All twenty pages were utterly empty, turning it into a wordless heavenly book.

The reversal came too fast.

One moment, it gave you a roaring blaze; the next, a stream of piss put it out completely.

From blazing fire to freezing ice.

"Are you messing with me?"

His disappointment now was as great as his hope had been moments before.

He truly understood what it meant to fall from heaven into hell.

Refusing to believe it, Lin Shisan flipped back and forth through the twenty-page scroll no fewer than ten times.

But just as before, he found not a single word.

Only the large characters spelling Nine Revolutions Star Art shone on the cover.

"My pill..."

What truly pained Lin Shisan was the loss of his two-pattern Body Tempering Pill.

It had cost him a full forty Spirit Coins-the first time in his life he had spent money so lavishly.

"Whoosh..."

"What the hell..."

Just then, a strange gust of wind blew in.

Accompanied by specks of starlight, it swept the cultivation scroll straight out the window.

Bad luck shouldn't hound a person like this.

Standing there mourning his forty Spirit Coins, Lin Shisan didn't even chase after the wordless heavenly book.

After all, it was nothing but wastepaper.

"Zzz..."

The sizzling sound finally startled Lin Shisan out of his heartache.

He saw that the starlight outside in the courtyard seemed to have come alive.

Those tiny points of light were like little people, leaping about and gathering together.

They all streamed into the wordless heavenly book.

Lin Shisan stared, wondering what on earth was happening.

"I'm going to see what's going on."

Angry at being toyed with, Lin Shisan opened the window and vaulted out.

This time, he went numb again.

Tiny golden characters had actually appeared in the once-empty scroll.

He hurriedly opened the first page. Sure enough, it was covered in words.

Although they were very ancient, Lin Shisan could still make out their general meaning.

That was entirely thanks to his father's patient instruction.

The opening discussed the sources of spiritual energy in the cultivation world and their corresponding types.

They fell broadly into three categories: plant essence, metallic baleful energy, and star power.

In that ancient era, the three types of essence had coexisted and complemented one another.

Then came metallic baleful energy, followed by star power.

Finally, in the present era in which Lin Shisan lived, plant essence held sway.

The other two were essentially nowhere to be found.

It wasn't that the three types of spiritual energy were ranked as higher or lower, noble or base. Rather, their requirements differed.

Plant essence was the gentlest, and ordinary people could cultivate it.

Star power was the most domineering, placing almost harshly exacting demands on a cultivator's physical body.

Since star power came from the stars filling the heavens, it was incomparably domineering.

One careless moment, and a person could be shredded by star power, their soul scattered into oblivion.

Most who cultivated it were body cultivators.

Although metallic baleful energy was somewhat domineering as well, it was much gentler than star power.

Generally, anyone with a firm will could barely manage to cultivate it, provided they could withstand extreme physical pain.

As time and space shifted and spiritual energy grew sparse, star power gradually withdrew from the stage of history.

With the disappearance of the last group of powerhouses who called themselves the dragon race, star power was abandoned entirely, becoming taboo even among sects and immortal clans.

But when Lin Shisan reached the second page, his eyes lit up.

Cultivators who cultivated star power had no need for a Dao Seed.

In other words, even a good-for-nothing with a false spiritual root like him could cultivate it.

It was as though it had been tailor-made for him.

But when he recalled the earlier warning that one careless moment could leave him shredded by star power, his little heart twisted into a braided knot again.

What a dilemma.

He wanted to cultivate, but he didn't want to die.

If he lost his life, what the hell was the point of cultivating immortality?

"Hmm? There's an annotation in small print?"

Just as he was about to close it, Lin Shisan spotted another line of tiny writing at the very bottom of the second page.

Without looking closely, he would never have noticed it.

Someone calling himself the Old Madman had boldly modified the Nine Revolutions Star Art after ten thousand years of research.

To cultivate a stellar dragon body, one must first temper the mortal body, reaching at least the ninth level of body tempering.

Nor could one pour star power directly into the body. One had to proceed step by step.

For instance, one could temper the body using the forces of nature, supplemented with high-quality Body Tempering Liquid.

First, use plant essence to nourish the body and lay a foundation, then metallic baleful energy to forge it, and only finally pour the power of the nine heavens' thunder into it.

Gradually, it would transform into a supreme dragon body.

At the end, where he signed his name, he had even given it a resounding title: Nine Heavens True Dragon Art.

"...Heh heh heh."

Lin Shisan, brimming with hope, once again felt his disappointment plunge

to the bottom of the valley.

Like a white lotus, it could only be admired from afar, not touched.

No matter how wonderful it sounded, without practical use, it wasn't worth a damn.

The ninth level of body tempering?

High-quality Body Tempering Liquid?

Those things were a hundred and eight thousand miles beyond his reach.

Once someone had reached the ninth level of body tempering, who would be foolish enough to practice the Nine Heavens True Dragon Art, which could scatter their soul into oblivion at any moment?

Besides, as for that supposedly high-quality Body Tempering Liquid, never mind not having the money-even with money, where could he buy it?

According to the Old Madman's description, high-quality Body Tempering Liquid was already comparable to third- to fifth-grade Spirit Pills.

With that kind of wealth and power, who would be stupid enough to switch to the Nine Heavens True Dragon Art and willingly become his test subject?

Only the Old Madman could have dreamed this up. He was a pure idealist, without a shred of practicality.

"What a madman."

Lin Shisan spat out the scathing remark.

Despite himself, he looked at the fourth page.

It mainly described alternatives for harnessing the forces of nature.

Plants and animals with lightning attributes could replace the thunder of the nine heavens for body tempering.

One moment his blood boiled, and the next it dropped to freezing, leaving him tumbling between fire and ice, battered and tempered all the while.