Updated Skills

Evening.

The rear courtyard of the Zhou Residence.

Inside the room that belonged exclusively to Zhou Muzhi.

Xiaozi sat on an eight-immortals chair to one side, her little hands propping up her chin. Her eyes kept fluttering shut and open, and she was terribly sleepy, yawning now and then as moisture welled in her eyes.

Rustle.

The faint sound of pages gently turning rang out in the room from time to time.

"Go get some rest."

Zhou Muzhi's gentle voice drifted over with the rustling pages.

The sudden voice struck Xiaozi, jolting her awake. She immediately stood up, shaking her head like a rattle drum.

"I'm not sleepy, Fourth Young Master! I have to put out the lamps once you're asleep, and, and..."

Seeing the maid's anxious expression, Zhou Muzhi set the incense-making booklet in his hand on the table.

He looked at Xiaozi and lowered his voice. "Go rest. You have my permission. Stay home tomorrow and work out how much allowance I have left."

Xiaozi nodded repeatedly. She dared not contradict the Fourth Young Master and immediately left the room.

Zhou Muzhi picked up the booklet again and finished reading the remaining contents.

He closed his eyes as a few ideas surfaced in his mind, then opened them a moment later.

He murmured, "Making incense depends on the wood. Wood that restrains vengeful spirits and evil entities has to possess supreme yang and utmost hardness."

Where was he supposed to get the things listed in this booklet?

There was lightning-struck wood, for instance, which even proper Daoist priests coveted, or the slightly inferior hundred-year-old peach wood, thousand-year-old jujube wood, and even ten-thousand-year-old fragrant rosewood, among others.

The supplementary ingredients were even more outrageous, all of them premium materials: heart's blood freshly taken from a slaughtered ten-year-old black dog, honey from a hive that had existed for over five years...

There were all sorts of bizarre things.

Zhou Muzhi pinched the bridge of his nose, opened the deduction panel, and began deducing the booklet.

The same choices appeared.

Following his thoughts from that afternoon, he chose to enhance the effects.

A moment later.

More profound knowledge of incense-making appeared in his mind, feeling as though it had been engraved into his brain the instant it appeared.

The original three main incense varieties-Mind-Awakening Incense, Evil-Banishing Incense, and Demon-Suppressing Incense-had now become Spirit-Cleansing Incense, Evil-Repelling Incense, and Demon-Subduing Incense.

Their effects were also much stronger than before.

Zhou Muzhi opened the panel again, and the information within had updated accordingly.

[Name: Zhou Muzhi]

[Status: Curse (temporarily sealed)]

[Skills: Incense Maker (beginner), Nine Heavens Profound Intent (time limit: twenty-five double-hours), Wisdom of the Ancients · Enlightenment (2/3)]

[Deduction Points: 1.1]

So he had reached beginner level in incense-making?

Zhou Muzhi rubbed his chin with the pad of his finger. If he remembered correctly, the panel had described Half-Immortal Xu as an incense maker of rudimentary skill.

Rudimentary might mean he had yet to enter the craft, while the stronger incense Zhou Muzhi had obtained through deduction had put him at beginner level.

Forget it.

Zhou Muzhi stopped dwelling on it. When he had time tomorrow, he would go over and ask, and then he would know what was going on.

After stretching, he blew out the candles around the room and returned to lie down on his bed.

After a day of running about and the exertion of martial training, his body needed rest too. His consciousness gradually blurred, and he sank into dreamless sleep.

The next day.

Dark clouds pressed down over the city.

Zhou Muzhi wore a well-fitted white training outfit embroidered with black cranes, which accentuated his tall, slender figure. Together with his regular features, it lent him an air of chivalry.

Inside Li Jingfei's courtyard.

The master circled Zhou Muzhi, examining him again and again, his eyes filled with disbelief.

Just one day.

He had already reached beginner-level Body Condensation?

Was the martial path so easy to walk?

Li Jingfei could not help recalling his younger days studying in his sect. Had he not painstakingly built every bit of his martial prowess little by little?

"Looking at you, you don't seem to have trained through some evil method." Li Jingfei spoke with his hands behind his back, declaring with certainty, "Then our sect's method must suit you extraordinarily well-so well that a hundred days of someone else's training can't match a single day of yours!"

He seemed to have found the answer in his heart.

Li Jingfei delivered his verdict on Zhou Muzhi.

Zhou Muzhi followed the opening like a snake climbing a raised pole, without the slightest concern for his dignity. "Master?"

This time, Li Jingfei did not rush to object, tacitly accepting it.

Zhou Muzhi immediately knew where he stood. With a master, he now had a mountain at his back.

A martial artist who could become one of only two great martial masters in this small city certainly had a few tricks up his sleeve.

He continued asking, "Master, do you have any way to deal with this sinister thing on me?"

Now that he had been called Master, surely he had to look after his own disciple.

This time, Li Jingfei did not beat around the bush. He looked Zhou Muzhi up and down and tossed out a remark.

"Train. Once your realm is high enough, you'll naturally be able to pound it to death."

To Zhou Muzhi, those words were as good as saying nothing.

Reaching beginner-level Body Condensation in one day had relied on deduction, and he had only two chances left for such rapid progress.

To be honest, Zhou Muzhi was not confident he could fully complete Gate Knocking. If he could not do that, what was the point of talking about reaching a high enough realm?

Not being confident of success was the same as having no confidence he would succeed.

Seeming to realize the inadequacy of his words, Li Jingfei clicked his tongue.

"No one dares get involved with spirits and ghosts in times like these. Such things are hard to encounter in the first place. You're quite something yourself, managing to run into one."

As he spoke, Li Jingfei seemed to make a decision. He slapped a board, then first pointed at Lao Xu, who had been moving things all this time.

"First, tell that foolish guard of yours to stop pretending to move things. Watching him flit around is getting on my nerves."

Lao Xu stood awkwardly beside the flower beds and potted plants, not daring to speak, simply remaining there.

"Also, as the saying goes, every grievance has its culprit, and every debt its debtor. You'll have to resolve this karma yourself. When you come tomorrow, I'll give you some pills. They might hold it off for a while."

With that, Li Jingfei offered a few words of encouragement to train diligently, then left.

He left quickly, presumably to attend to the pills he had mentioned.

Zhou Muzhi watched his newly acknowledged master leave, then called out to Lao Xu, who was still standing dumbly to one side.

"What are you still standing there for? It's no problem if you hoodwink me outside, but here, I'm not the one you're hoodwinking."

That hint was enough. Lao Xu was not truly stupid, after all.

He soon grasped the key point and went to find Li Jingfei's grandson.

A child was easier to coax than an old man, after all.

Of course, Zhou Muzhi watched the entire time. He certainly could not let anyone lead his master's grandson astray.

With that settled, the remaining time was devoted to martial training.

The Body Condensation method had to be practiced.

Zhou Muzhi assumed the opening stance of the Turning Lock Body Condensation Method, as though fastening a great lock, firmly locking the strength inside his body without letting a single trace escape and directing all of it wherever his mind moved.

By the time he had tempered himself to exhaustion this way, only three double-hours had passed.

Li Jingfei had returned long before then, but he had gone straight to the rear courtyard upon his return. Who knew what he was doing there?

After finishing his training, Zhou Muzhi took Lao Xu with him, said goodbye to Li Jingfei's grandson, and walked out of the Li Residence beneath the shadows filling the sky.

Lao Xu had learned nothing today, yet his face was still filled with delight.

To him, getting into the Li Residence without being thrown out was a success in itself.

After all, if he came here every day, why worry about having nothing to learn?

As a result, he became even more obedient to Zhou Muzhi.

"Have you arranged the carriage?"

Zhou Muzhi glanced at the sky, which threatened rain, and asked Lao Xu.

Lao Xu nodded in reply. "Yes. Look, the carriage is here, Fourth Young Master."

As he spoke, a carriage ordered in advance slowly drew to a stop in front of them.

After the two confirmed their identities with the driver, they boarded the carriage. The driver flicked his whip, and the carriage headed toward Half-Immortal Xu's home.