"Yu Canghai!" Ling Yi looked at the ugly dwarf before him.
Yu Canghai shuddered when he heard Ling Yi call his name, his heart full of regret and fear.
If he had known this kid was so formidable, he wouldn't have come to meddle even if someone had beaten him to death.
The key was that Lin Pingzhi had clearly joined the Liyang Sect, making it nearly impossible for Yu Canghai to obtain the Bixie Sword Manual.
Besides, the Bixie Sword Manual was so sinister that he no longer had much desire for it.
Who would willingly cut it off unless they had no other choice? Even if he was ugly, that was no reason to cut it off, all right?
"Fighting and killing have always been normal in Jianghu. Good or evil, it all comes down to a single word from the strong. What I did was the real Jianghu, wasn't it?" Yu Canghai said with a bitter smile.
"You're right, and you see things clearly. So there's no need to agonize over life and death." Ling Yi had never expected Yu Canghai to say something like that.
Sure enough, no one who became a sect leader was a fool.
Ling Yi looked at Lin Pingzhi. "I'll give you two choices. Either I kill him for you now, or you kill him yourself once you've succeeded in your cultivation."
Without a second thought, Lin Pingzhi said, "I want to avenge my family myself, and avenge the lives of the more than a hundred people at the Fuwei Escort Agency."
"Very good. Go to the Liyang Sect and make it through the Trial Tower, and you'll have the strength to kill him."
Lin Pingzhi wanted to follow Ling Yi, but since Ling Yi had said so, he could only go to the Liyang Sect first. He understood that this was already his fortunate opportunity. If he gave an inch and demanded a foot, he would be failing to appreciate his good fortune.
Ling Yi patted him on the shoulder, strengthened his Yang Soul, and turned to leave. After a few flickers, he vanished from sight.
Yu Canghai sighed helplessly, his heart full of bitterness. When he looked at Lin Pingzhi and Old Yue, he was filled with envy.
"Sect Leader Yue, congratulations. An Innate expert! Sect Leader Ling's methods are simply beyond imagination. I'm afraid Zuo Lengchan is in serious trouble."
Old Yue nodded. He looked down on Yu Canghai. Although Old Yue usually put on a sanctimonious air and posed as a modest gentleman, he was in no mood to act at the moment.
The key was that Old Yue knew perfectly well that Yu Canghai was certain to die.
"Little brother, come visit Mount Hua when you have time," Old Yue said to Lin Pingzhi.
"All right!"
The three soon parted ways. Old Yue had no desire to linger; he wanted to return to Mount Hua and discuss his next plans with his junior sister.
Lin Pingzhi went to the Liyang Sect on Mount Lu, while Yu Canghai returned to the Qingcheng Sect without stopping.
Ling Yi continued south for another half month.
Along the way, Ling Yi toured mountains and rivers, doing entirely as he pleased.
When he encountered blind mountain bandits, he played a game of wiping them out. When he came across sects, large or small, he paid them a visit and challenged them.
He also killed quite a few people he couldn't stand the sight of.
His points kept rising. In half a month, they once again reached over 5,000, but Ling Yi didn't unlock a new passive aura. He merely upgraded the Passive Cultivation Aura again.
Host: Ling Yi Life: 999 Internal Energy (Spiritual Power): 999 Cultivation: Peak Grandmaster Cultivation methods: "Liyang Heart Sutra" (Great Perfection), "Liyang Sword Technique" (Great Perfection), "Liyang Palm Technique" (Great Perfection), Taizu Long Fist Fragment (Great Perfection), Lü Family Springing Legs (Great Perfection), Mantis Fist Fragment (Great Perfection), Tang Family Flying Sword Technique (Great Perfection), Liu Family Yin-Yang Legs (Great Perfection), Willow Leaf Movement Technique Fragment (Great Perfection), Water-Severing Sword Technique (Great Perfection), Hunyuan Breathing Technique (Great Perfection)... Cultivation Method Fusion progress: Internal cultivation methods (28%), fist techniques (3%), palm techniques (21%), leg techniques (8%), movement techniques (15%), sword techniques (25%), Hidden Weapons (6%), saber techniques (2%)... Skills: None Points: 71. Plot progress: The Smiling, Proud Wanderer (25%). Passive Cultivation Aura lv3 (71/8000) (activated): Once activated, all learned cultivation methods and skills enter Automatic Cultivation. Current cultivation speed bonus: 4x. Automatically activates the cultivation method and skill fusion function. Similar cultivation methods and skills automatically fuse into higher-tier forms, with no limits or upper bounds. Passive Transmigration Aura lv1 (activated): Transmigration becomes available once participation in the current world's plot reaches 30% or higher. The destination world is random, and the timeline of each destination world begins at the start of its plot.
This upgrade brought very obvious changes to the system interface.
A skills category had been added, and the cultivation aura was no longer limited to martial arts cultivation methods. Clearly, the Passive Cultivation Aura was more complete.
As for what counted as a skill, that still needed to be verified. Obviously, ordinary abilities couldn't be called skills.
And most important of all was the fusion function.
Ling Yi had collected quite a few cultivation methods from various sects during this time, and all of them had reached Great Perfection under the Passive Cultivation Aura.
Some cultivation methods sounded awesome, but in reality, they were only basic breathing methods or utterly third-rate fist, leg, saber, and sword arts.
Altogether, there were nearly a hundred cultivation methods. Although they couldn't raise the upper limit of Ling Yi's cultivation realm, they had greatly solidified his foundation, leaving him almost without a flaw from the inside out.
But having so many cultivation methods was also a headache. Sometimes, when he used them, he felt a sense of confusion.
It was like trying to solve a math problem: a dozen different solutions would always pop into your head, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. If he could fuse these cultivation methods and ultimately create a simple, efficient way to solve the problem, that would be perfect.
The arrival of the fusion function happened to solve this problem for Ling Yi.
Ling Yi instinctively felt that once all the cultivation methods had been fused, his strength would surely undergo a qualitative leap.
Perhaps he might even be able to break through his current bottleneck.
To wait for the cultivation methods to finish fusing, Ling Yi decided to stop running around for the time being and found an inn to stay at.
It was an inn in Mount Heng City. Every day, apart from sleeping, Ling Yi sat in a corner of the inn, listening to passing Jianghu folk chat and shoot the breeze.
It had to be said that these Jianghu folk were quite entertaining when they gossiped.
That day, as usual, Ling Yi ordered some side dishes and a jug of wine, eating as he listened to people chat.
His gaze, however, rested on the stream of people coming and going in the street. Pouring and drinking by himself, he was quite at ease.
Just then, an old monk with white eyebrows, clad in Buddhist robes and holding a monk's staff, appeared at Ling Yi's table at some unknown point. Without asking, he sat straight down across from Ling Yi.
"Amitabha. A bodhisattva should contemplate that all food depends on one's parents; pus and blood are unclean, and the union of red and white gives birth to an unclean body."
Ling Yi turned and gave the old monk a look of intense disgust, with a trace of killing intent mixed in.
"Stay away from me. Don't force me to kill you."
The old monk frowned. Ling Yi's gaze baffled him, but he showed no intention of leaving. Frowning, he asked, "Might I ask why Benefactor Ling wants to kill this poor monk?"
"Heh, I can't stand the sight of you monks."
"We of the Buddhist School contend neither for the world nor for this life or the next. You and I have never even had dealings with each other. If you want to kill me, then you are a demon."
"Demon or Buddha, aren't those labels all yours to give? Since you've come to me, I happen to have a question that's bothered me for a long time, one I'd like to ask you monks." Ling Yi picked up a chopstick and casually tapped it against the tabletop.
"Please, Benefactor Ling, go ahead. If I can dispel the demon in your heart, my journey here will not have been in vain."
"If everyone under heaven became a monk, would the world still exist?"
The old monk was taken aback, then smiled. "Amitabha. Buddha saves the people of the world. If everyone entered our Buddhist School, no one would contend, desire, be greedy, or do evil. Naturally, there would be peace under heaven."
"That makes sense. Then let me ask you another question. Monks can't marry, can they?"
"The character for lust has a blade hanging over its head."
"Then have you ever considered what would happen if everyone under heaven became a monk and abstained from lust? No one would ever have children again. If no descendants were born, what would the world look like ten or a hundred years later?"
The old monk froze. The diners around them were also stunned for a moment.
The question seemed simple, yet no one had ever seriously considered it.
"You monks produce nothing, yet receive offerings of incense and money. You pay no taxes, yet occupy millions of acres of fertile land for nothing. With the words 'I enter the monastic life,' you destroy several families. No matter how great the crime, a single 'I take refuge in Buddha' can exempt you from every punishment."
Ling Yi raised his voice, his eyes filled with killing intent as he stared at the old monk and shouted, "Tell me, did those harmed by evildoers deserve it? 'Lay down the butcher's knife and become a Buddha on the spot'-how can a butcher's knife be laid down so easily? Even if you can lay it down, who gave you the right to become a Buddha on the spot? Don't you have to repay the evil you've committed? Absolutely ridiculous."
The old monk frowned and pressed his palms together. "Your words are somewhat biased, Benefactor. The Buddhist School guides people toward goodness, and persuading the wicked is Merit. By eating vegetarian food, chanting Buddha's name, and praying sincerely for past sins, one will find redemption."
"Heh, what utter nonsense. I can't be bothered wasting words with you. I wasn't planning to make trouble for your Shaolin Temple yet, but since you've come looking for death first, I'll wipe out your Buddhist School. I won't kill you. Go back and tell Fangzheng to wash his neck clean and wait for me to kill him."
The old monk could clearly sense the towering killing intent coming from Ling Yi and inwardly cried out in distress. His purpose in seeking Ling Yi out had been to use his glib tongue to convert Ling Yi to the Buddhist School.
Although he knew the chances were slim, if he could talk Ling Yi into it, the benefits to the Buddhist School would be enormous.
More importantly, the rise of the Liyang Sect and Ling Yi's sudden emergence had nearly ruined Shaolin's existing plans for Jianghu, and Shaolin was gradually losing its control over the martial world. That was absolutely not what they wanted to see.
He simply hadn't expected Ling Yi to harbor such great hostility toward the Buddhist School. If they had proceeded slowly, there might still have been a chance, but this time, it seemed their cleverness had backfired.