Distinctions of pedigree

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Chapter 21: Distinctions of pedigree

"Chen Beiwu wins!" the homeroom teacher declared admiringly.

Ignoring her classmates' applause below the platform, Xu Ziqing looked straight at Chen Beiwu. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?" Chen Beiwu asked.

"Don't play dumb." Xu Ziqing rolled her eyes at him as she walked off the platform. "The Water-Gathering Technique alone couldn't have fooled my senses."

Chen Beiwu smiled and answered frankly, "Blazing Flame Pull is tricky, with seven variations, but every time you switched variations, your magical power hesitated for half an instant as it passed through your Shanzhong acupoint. Your perception weakened at that moment, too."

To be fair, if Xu Ziqing hadn't trusted her spiritual perception so much, he would have struggled to win so quickly.

"So you've mastered Water Shadow Convergence, too?" Xu Ziqing stopped in her tracks and turned back in surprise.

Water Shadow Convergence was a first-tier supreme-grade special spell of the same rank as Blazing Flame Pull, an advanced variation of the first-tier high-grade Water-Gathering Technique.

The flowing-water double created by the Water-Gathering Technique had one drawback: it couldn't move.

The flowing-water double formed by Water Shadow Convergence could not only move freely and pass for the real thing, but also conceal the caster's aura while confusing an opponent's spiritual sense.

It had taken her half a month after reaching the seventh layer of Qi Refining just to gain a rudimentary grasp of Blazing Flame Pull. Yet Chen Beiwu had learned Water Shadow Convergence within days of his breakthrough in Qi Refining and could already use it skillfully in actual combat.

No wonder Mr. Wang Kui had publicly called Chen Beiwu a spellcasting prodigy and considered him the most gifted student at Shouhe No. 2 Middle School when it came to learning spells.

"Spells like this aren't difficult. One look and you know how." Chen Beiwu gave her a puzzled glance, as though wondering why she would even ask such a question.

The corner of Xu Ziqing's eye twitched. She nearly failed to maintain her air of a well-bred young lady.

Was he kidding?

As the saying went, beyond seven paces, spells were fast; within seven paces, spells were both accurate and fast.

Before contracting a Companion Beast, Qi Refining cultivators fought primarily with spells.

Whoever had greater mastery of their spells and could employ them flexibly in battle would ultimately win.

Spells were simply difficult to cultivate and struggled to draw upon the Great Dao of heaven and earth.

Immortal Alliance cultivators believed that rather than waste time learning spells to fight over fleeting victories, they would be better off contemplating the Great Dao of cultivating through beasts.

After all, once they contracted a Companion Beast, Qi Refining cultivators would naturally gain ways to protect themselves.

Compared with attaining the Great Dao and longevity, mere spells were hardly worth mentioning.

But if every cultivator possessed Chen Beiwu's talent for mastering spells so quickly, the vast majority of Qi Refining cultivators would probably be happy to spend time learning them, then grant their Companion Beasts all sorts of buffs during battle.

"Not difficult, huh? Fine, fine. If you're so capable, learn Blazing Flame Pull for me, too." Xu Ziqing tossed something behind her with her right hand, and a spell jade slip instantly landed in Chen Beiwu's palm.

Chen Beiwu: "???"

He wasn't humblebragging. Comprehending spells truly wasn't difficult for Chen Beiwu.

Back when he had been learning the Nine-Breath Qi Ingestion divine ability, he had undergone a full five hundred years of instruction from the divine statue in his dreams before finally managing, through a stroke of luck, to grasp its basics.

Although Chen Beiwu didn't know exactly how high the Nine-Breath Qi Ingestion divine ability ranked, he could be certain of one thing.

After that instruction, first-tier supreme-grade special spells that other Qi Refining cultivators struggled to begin learning looked to him like simple arithmetic problems-one plus one. A single glance was enough to roughly understand how to cast them.

As for the Nine-Breath Qi Ingestion divine ability, Chen Beiwu could only use it for now. He had no understanding of its principles, let alone the Great Dao contained within it.

But he dared say this: if learning a first-tier supreme-grade special spell was as difficult as learning simple arithmetic, then learning the Nine-Breath Qi Ingestion divine ability was like studying an inscrutable heavenly tome of mathematics.

"You're really giving me Blazing Flame Pull?" Chen Beiwu asked in surprise.

The Immortal Alliance Official Website housed the knowledge of sects across the world. It even had collections of immortal arts from the legendary Five Great Grotto-Heavens, but cultivators had to spend Spirit Origin to redeem them.

Ordinary cultivators who wanted Spirit Origin recognized by the Immortal Alliance had to take spirit stones to their local Immortal Alliance Bank and exchange them at a one-to-one rate. In other words, one low-grade spirit stone was equivalent to one Spirit Origin.

Blazing Flame Pull was a first-tier supreme-grade fire spell. Its redemption price on the Immortal Alliance Official Website was a staggering five hundred low-grade spirit stones per person.

Yes, that was right. The authentic scriptures and spells collected on the Immortal Alliance Official Website could only be studied by the person who redeemed them. They could not be taught privately to others.

If that person's family members wanted to learn them, they had to spend spirit stones to redeem their own access on the Immortal Alliance Official Website.

Those who trusted their luck and dared violate the rules generally met their deaths under Immortal Alliance law.

Precisely because of this, the Immortal Alliance could do nothing else all year and still acquire enormous quantities of spirit stones from cultivators simply by sharing cultivation knowledge.

As the Immortal Alliance's reign grew longer, Spirit Origin gradually replaced spirit stones as the most trusted currency for transactions between cultivators.

Every year, however, there were always some cultivators who refused to submit to discipline-or, more accurately, cultivators whom cultivation loans had stripped of their entire fortunes. Bare-bottomed and unafraid of death, they preferred "zero-cost shopping" to paying with Spirit Origin.

A few extremists even degenerated into evil cultivators, stirring up unrest across the Heavenly Abyss Star before ultimately being suppressed by the Law Enforcement Bureau's experts.

Chen Beiwu, "zero-cost shopping"?

He certainly wouldn't dare. Every first-tier spell he knew had been learned at Shouhe No. 2 Middle School, with the school's spell teachers as witnesses.

As homeroom teacher Wang Kui's prized student, Chen Beiwu often received special instruction, learning first-tier special spells that his classmates had no access to. Even then, these were limited to relatively weak offensive spells of the water and wood elements.

Blazing Flame Pull, however, was widely recognized as the most compatible, most destructive, and most versatile of all first-tier supreme-grade fire spells.

Its advanced spiritual spell, [Blazing Dragon Shatter], was even more extraordinary. It possessed immense power and could even shatter the flawless defenses of a Foundation Establishment late-stage expert with a direct hit.

Even for someone like Xu Ziqing, who came from the Fallen Dragon Xu Family, Blazing Flame Pull was a considerably valuable gift.

"Of course I am." With eyes as limpid as water, Xu Ziqing looked at Chen Beiwu, her gaze brimming with amusement.

Chen Beiwu didn't refuse. He thanked her.

He wasn't an idiot. In their everyday interactions, he could sense both Xu Ziqing's and Xu Lingling's affection for him.

An ordinary person approached by two beautiful women with different charms and exceptional family backgrounds might have become tangled in indecision, unsure which one to choose.

But Chen Beiwu was different. His approach was simple: neither take the initiative nor refuse.

As long as he didn't explicitly reject anyone, no girl would get hurt, much less have her love turn into hatred.

The reason Chen Beiwu was so cautious was simply that cultivation Aristocratic Clans were not to be trifled with.

Cultivation Lineages varied in strength. Those lasting three generations counted as pedigreed households, five generations as financial dynasties, and nine generations as Foundation Establishment Lineages. Only those lasting twenty generations or more qualified as Golden Core Aristocratic Clans. The Immortal Alliance counted a hundred years as one generation.

A Foundation Establishment Rogue Person's maximum lifespan ranged from three hundred to five hundred years.

If a Lineage could cultivate another Foundation Establishment Rogue Person within four or five generations, before its existing Foundation Establishment expert died, that new expert could shelter another four or five generations. Such a Lineage was known as a Foundation Establishment Lineage.

Golden Core Aristocratic Clans were even more formidable. They needed a Golden Core True Person presiding over them and an unbroken succession spanning two thousand years. In a small place like Far Sky County, such a power was a colossal behemoth.

Although Xu Ziqing was not a legitimate daughter of a Golden Core Aristocratic Clan, but merely a concubine-born daughter, she could still use her clan's name to make many cultivators risk their lives and do things ordinary people could scarcely imagine.

For example, making a genius Qi Refining cultivator disappear without gods or ghosts knowing.

(End of chapter)