As for the Everlasting Spring Inner Vista Art, it was a foundational cultivation art of the yellow grade.
According to the Records of Profound Mysteries.
Immortal cultivation arts were divided into four grades-yellow, profound, earth, and heaven-according to their power, potential, and upper limits.
As for the cloth pouch and emerald-green jade slip, he had already felt them over seven or eight times.
The cloth pouch felt soft in his hand. Based on the descriptions in the Records of Profound Mysteries, he guessed it might be a storage pouch.
The jade slip was cold as ice.
But he had not even reached Qi Refining. Without spiritual sense or magical power, he could not open the storage pouch, much less see what was inside the jade slip.
Qing Chen guessed it might be a jade slip for transmitting cultivation arts.
Such jade slips usually recorded precious cultivation methods or secret arts, treasures that immortal cultivators dreamed of obtaining.
Qing Chen wrapped both in the front of his robe and kept them against his skin. Even if he could not use them yet, they were the closest things he had to the path of immortality.
Not much time had passed when he felt his way back down the mountain through the secret passage.
The vanguard army's battle cries still echoed from Northern Mang Mountain.
He did not dare linger. Taking a side path back to camp, he hid the items in the bundle he kept close to his body before finally breathing a sigh of relief.
Three months later, the wind in Ford City still carried the smell of blood.
A full three thousand people had died in the battle at Northern Mang Mountain. The bandits' heads had been piled outside the city gate into a mound half a person's height.
Sun and rain had blackened them, and flies buzzed around them.
Master Eagle's head had even been hung from an iron hook in the most conspicuous spot on the gate tower. The rope had grown brittle in the sun.
Dressed in the blue-green official robes of the Subordinate Seventh Rank, Qing Chen stood at the western city gate, holding a wooden travel-inspection token, but had no mind to watch the people passing through.
Li Muyun, the city lord's son-in-law, had secured this office for him, saying that Qing Chen had rendered great service at Northern Mang Mountain by "commanding effectively and slaying several bandit leaders."
Thus, he had leaped from a centurion in the cannon-fodder army to assistant commandant of the western city gate.
But only Qing Chen himself knew that his little bit of "merit" had all been fabricated.
For him, this was undoubtedly a rare opportunity.
Yet Qing Chen no longer cared about it. He already had higher aspirations.
Returning home, Qing Chen shut the door, tossed his official robe onto a chair, and went straight into the inner room.
There were few furnishings in the room, only a meditation cushion in the corner, its edges worn white, while smoke from the oil lamp had yellowed the window paper.
He sat cross-legged, took the Everlasting Spring Inner Vista Art from beneath his pillow, opened it to a familiar page, and formed the hand seal described in the art;
-he had practiced this posture for three months.
This was a wood-aspect cultivation art, focused on sensing the spiritual energy between heaven and earth.
Then guiding that spiritual energy into the body and making it one's own.
According to the art, someone with a middle-grade spiritual root could sense spiritual energy within twenty days.
Someone with a high-grade spiritual root needed only ten days.
With an earth-grade spiritual root, success was certain within three days.
As for the legendary heaven-grade spiritual root, the Records of Profound Mysteries recorded that the fastest person had taken only two hours.
But him? For three whole months, he had meditated day and night, yet apart from numb legs and an aching back, he had not caught so much as a trace of spiritual energy.
He had even suspected that the spirit-testing stone was fake and turned it over countless times, but the stone remained pitch-black.
Only when he pressed his hand against it did it give off a little yellow light-that was clearly the sign of a middle-grade spiritual root.
"What's going on? Is the spiritual energy on Immortal-Severing Island so thin that even someone with a middle-grade spiritual root can't absorb it?"
Qing Chen swore and slapped the book down onto his legs.
A pile of Taoist scriptures lay on the desk, all borrowed from Ford City's library, some still stained with ink.
"To think a brothel thug and scoundrel like me would end up reading Taoist scriptures."
From his understanding, this cultivation art actually drew upon the principles of the Taoist Lesser Celestial Circuit.
It emphasized drawing spiritual energy into the dantian, connecting the conception and governing vessels so that energy flowed through them in an unending cycle.
This maintained the balance of yin and yang within the body, cultivating the body and temperament while prolonging life.
During cultivation, practitioners might experience various inner vista phenomena.
Such as seeing lights of different colors, hearing strange sounds, or sensing subtle changes in their bodies.
These phenomena were actually direct reflections of spiritual energy circulating within the body and unobstructed meridians, as well as important signs that a practitioner was gradually approaching success.
As a yellow-grade cultivation art, it was actually relatively simple to get started with.
After three months of thoroughly reading Taoist scriptures, Qing Chen had gained some insights into how to practice it.
He knew that his continued inability to sense spiritual energy was very likely because his surroundings were too unfavorable.
Immortal-Severing Island lay in the Azure Wave Archipelago, in the Moon Sea Region of the Gouwu Sea.
The Gouwu Sea was a boundless expanse of ocean divided into three regions: Sun, Moon, and Star.
The Sun and Moon Sea Regions were known as the inner seas, where human cultivators had already established themselves for tens of thousands of years.
Countless spiritual islands of the immortals dotted these waters like stars, scattered as densely as pieces on a game board.
The Star Sea Region, meanwhile, was a more mysterious outer sea.
It was both a buffer zone and a vast battlefield between human cultivators and sea-dwelling demonic beasts, as well as a resource-rich virgin land.
Cultivators had settled there less than a thousand years ago, yet it had already given rise to countless extraordinary treasures and rare resources.
It was a treasure-filled region for immortal cultivation that could be continually opened up, though countless cultivators had also perished there.
Thus, Qing Chen had only one path: find a way to leave Immortal-Severing Island, enter the Azure Wave Archipelago, and step into the true world of immortal cultivation.
And the only way to leave was with a boarding token from the Condensed Jade Sect.
Every thirty years, that Golden Core sect sent a spirit ship to take away people with spiritual roots. The token was the ticket.
As he pondered this, a knock came at the door, followed by Li Muyun's voice. "Brother Qing, open up!"
Qing Chen stuffed the book back beneath his pillow, rose, and opened the door.
Li Muyun wore a brocade robe and carried a wine flask, his face showing a hint of displeasure:
"You certainly have it easy as a commandant. How come you've stopped visiting my residence so often since you took office?"
The two went inside and sat down. Li Muyun poured a cup of wine, a measure of displeasure in his eyes. "What? Now that you're an official, you look down on me?"
Qing Chen held his wine cup without drinking.
For these three months, he had devoted himself entirely to cultivation and had long since lost interest in worldly feasting and socializing.
But looking at Li Muyun's face, with the smell of wine on his breath, a thought suddenly sprang into his mind!
Li Muyun was the city lord's son-in-law, and the city lord wielded towering power. Perhaps...
The moment that thought emerged, Qing Chen tightened his grip on his wine cup.
He suppressed his eagerness and put on an apologetic expression. "You must be joking, Brother Li. There's been a lot to do in the western part of the city lately. I've been so busy checking people through the gate that I haven't had a chance to visit."
Li Muyun snorted and sipped his wine. "What could possibly be happening in the western part of the city? It's just those people carrying shoulder poles and driving carts..."
As Qing Chen listened to Li Muyun ramble on, a thought gradually took shape in his mind.