The wind and rain had ceased, and the horizon was paling. The moon was about to sink, and a red sun was beginning to show itself.
His figure flickering, Wang Qing arrived beside the other two, and the three stood around Daoist Mu.
Wang Qing looked at Daoist Mu, whose red and green innards were scattered across the ground, then suddenly turned away and retched.
After a while, Wang Qing suppressed his nausea and said, "Eldest Senior Brother, Second Senior Brother, those cultivator biographies never said people looked this hideous after they died!"
"If they really wrote that, would you still enjoy reading them? All right, stop throwing up. Come search his belongings."
Liu Yu looked at Wang Qing's pale face and teased him with a smile.
Before he had finished speaking, Wang Qing turned back, fighting down his nausea.
"Ah, I almost forgot about that!"
"Eldest Senior Brother?"
Ever since the speck of light had merged into his body, Zhao Yi had been silently monitoring the changes within himself, afraid that Daoist Mu was trying to possess him.
Hearing Wang Qing call him, Zhao Yi hurriedly came back to his senses. Concealing his alarm, he nodded, then said to Liu Yu:
"Second Brother, help Wang Qing deal with the corpse. I'll go tend to my injuries first!"
"All right, Senior Brother. The Boiling Blood Art does far too much damage to the body. You need to recover as soon as possible!"
As he spoke, Liu Yu handed him a bottle of Spring Return Pills.
Zhao Yi took the jade bottle, tipped out a spirit pill, and put it in his mouth before returning the bottle to Liu Yu.
Walking into the nearby woods, Zhao Yi picked a rock at random, sat cross-legged on it, and began repairing his damaged meridians and stabilizing his injuries.
An unknown amount of time passed before Zhao Yi slowly opened his eyes and gently exhaled a breath of stale air. Looking around, he saw Liu Yu meditating nearby, but Wang Qing was nowhere to be seen.
Zhao Yi shook his head. He did not need to think to know that Wang Qing was surely searching the Daoist temple for treasure.
Killing someone, searching the corpse, and finding treasure-Wang Qing had always believed firmly in such scenarios. He had even studied several volumes of the Treasure-Seeking Secret Records in the hope that they would prove useful on his cultivation journey.
Today, they had finally come in handy. There was no need to bother with him; he could search to his heart's content.
Zhao Yi closed his eyes again and regulated his breathing. As his breaths grew long and even, he gradually entered a meditative state, concentrating his mind and stilling his breath to look within himself.
His meridians resembled dried-up riverbeds, covered in cracks. As his true qi circulated through them, the pain was unbearable, like being pricked with needles.
These injuries would take at least a month to heal.
Continuing his inward examination, he saw a jade register floating in his dantian.
"What is this?"
The dantian was the foundation of a cultivator, and there had never been anything in his before.
Suppressing his alarm, Zhao Yi directed his mind to try touching the jade register.
In an instant, a stream of information entered his mind.
This was the Sect Jade Register, an essential item for founding a sect.
Anyone whose name was entered in the jade register would have their true spirit recorded. Even if they died, they could reincarnate and return. Their life or death could also be checked, and their life history traced.
Beyond that, as long as someone's name was listed on it, the Jade Tablet's holder could examine their fortune and alter their luck and fate.
Of course, all of this came at a price. Whether guiding a true spirit through reincarnation, checking someone's life or death and history, or altering their fortune, all required fortune to be expended.
According to the information the Jade Tablet conveyed, reincarnation required at least ten thousand fortune points, while tracing a life history required at least one thousand.
As for altering fortune, however many fortune points were changed, that same number would be consumed. In other words, increasing someone's fortune by one point would cost two fortune points.
Moreover, whether it was reincarnation, tracing a life history, or altering fortune, the higher the recipient's cultivation, the more fortune points would be consumed.
Opening his eyes again, Zhao Yi suppressed the upheaval within him. A cheat! My cheat has finally appeared!
His aptitude was mediocre, and Linghua Island lacked resources. He had thought he would spend the rest of his life frittering his years away like this.
The path of immortality was perilous, its destination distant and hazy. Hoping to live out his natural lifespan was already asking plenty, yet the cheat he had searched so desperately for over a decade had appeared!
During his first few years of cultivation, Zhao Yi had constantly wondered whether he had a cheat too, just like the transmigrated protagonists in the novels from his previous life.
Then came attempt after attempt-dripping blood, searching for treasure, calling out to a system, and so on-all to no avail.
As for jumping off cliffs and the like, Zhao Yi knew where to draw the line.
Try it and die!
In the end, he could only accept reality: the great god of systems had abandoned him.
The cheat's sudden arrival shook Zhao Yi's mind so violently that he nearly fell out of his meditative state.
Zhao Yi hurriedly calmed himself and silently recited the True Scripture.
Once his mind had steadied, he looked again at the Jade Tablet floating above his dantian.
This was a treasure capable of controlling reincarnation and altering fortune!
Fate was determined by heaven, formed at birth; luck was determined by people, arising afterward.
A child of fortune was blessed with every kind of luck and aided by benefactors, able to trip over spirit stones just by walking down the road.
They might look up and see a rare spirit medicine in the grass ahead, pick it, then accidentally slip and tumble down a cliff, landing right outside a predecessor's cave abode.
The cave abode was ancient, its restrictions dilapidated. They would stumble inside, receive the legacy left by their predecessor, and soar into the heavens with unstoppable momentum.
Fortune was that miraculous. The books on Linghua Island were full of similar fortuitous cultivation encounters. Otherwise, why would Wang Qing be so obsessed?
His mind sank into it once more, and the Jade Tablet slowly unfolded before Zhao Yi's "eyes." Light flickered, finally forming a silvery-white screen.
[Sect: None] [Fortune: 0] [Names in the jade register: 0] [Available fortune: 2]
A few lines of information, simple and clear.
Zhao Yi opened his eyes and extended his left hand. With a thought, an illusory Jade Tablet appeared in his palm.
The Jade Tablet slowly unfolded, turning to its first page, where two lines appeared.
[Name: Zhao Yi] [Fortune: 7]
Too simple. I wonder if I can add more.
At a stir of his mind, the Jade Tablet immediately sent him a message.
After a brief consideration, Zhao Yi decided to add two more lines. At his thought, the Jade Tablet shimmered like silver sand.
[Name: Zhao Yi] [Fortune: 7] [Spiritual root: Low-grade earth spiritual root] [Realm: Great completion of meridian opening]
This made it look clearer.
Right, I haven't named the sect yet. Zhao Yi thought for a moment and decided to keep the name his grandmaster had chosen: Linghua!
[Sect: Linghua] [Fortune: 0] [Names in the jade register: 0] [Available fortune: 2]
He tried focusing his thoughts on [Available fortune points], adding his only two fortune points to [Fortune] on Zhao Yi's page.
As the value changed from seven to eight, Zhao Yi vaguely felt that something about him had changed, but he could not say what.
The workings of fortune were miraculous to begin with. Since he could not figure it out, there was no need to dwell on it. An increase in fortune was better than a decrease!
The information conveyed by the Jade Tablet also told Zhao Yi that he could use spirit jade to refine a magic artifact to house the Jade Tablet, keeping it within the sect as a copy for others to consult.
With a thought, the Jade Tablet vanished from sight.
Zhao Yi stood and stretched, his bones and joints cracking.
Nearby, Liu Yu looked toward Zhao Yi, stood, and walked over, asking with concern:
"Senior Brother, how are your injuries?"
"They've stabilized, at least. My meridians are cracked, so I'll probably need a month to recuperate. We can't use the Boiling Blood Art lightly again. It hurts us before it hurts the enemy. If my bones and sinews weren't naturally strong, I'm afraid my injuries would have been even worse."
Zhao Yi spoke with lingering fear on his face.
"Senior Brother, we were still too reckless this time. With Daoist Mu's cultivation at the perfection of meridian opening, even the three of us together were no match for him. If he hadn't fought that sea beast for half the night, we three brothers would be the ones lying on the ground now!"
Liu Yu's expression was grave as he spoke as well.
"We can't underestimate any cultivator who has set foot on the Dao Path. Let this be a warning. It must never happen again-we don't have a second life!" Zhao Yi said, his gaze firm.
"Oh, where's Wang Qing?"
"Searching the Daoist temple for treasure."
"Come on, let's go take a look."
Before you continue