I can still defeat my opponents without this bronze mirror!

(Thanks to Xu Ziyue, Ivory Tower, Feijuan, Chen Shaoqiu, and the Goddess's Male Pet for the tips. I haven't missed anyone, have I? Quite a few familiar names there. Thanks again.)

At Green Willow Manor, the full moon stood magnificent.

The night breeze on the fifteenth day of the seventh month already carried threads of chill, the first hint of autumn. In the courtyard, the footsteps of cult members on night patrol sounded now and then, and two lanterns slowly approached.

"Cult Leader!"

Li Yu nodded and continued down the corridor.

Once the blue-robed figure had gone some distance, the two young cult members exchanged a glance, excitement flashing in their eyes.

They were newly recruited disciples, one formerly a martial arts school apprentice, the other an escort agency's trail caller. Both came from respectable backgrounds and had some fighting skills. Before their hot blood cooled, they wanted to venture into the martial world and gamble for fame and fortune.

Lately, no name had been mentioned more often in the martial circles of South Canal than that of the blue-robed man who had just passed them.

He had destroyed the Red Flower Society and attacked the West Canal Gate, accomplishing several major feats in a short time. Those who had still been hesitating and watching from the sidelines were finally convinced that the Divine Dragon Cult, with its grandiose name, was no night-blooming flower destined to fade at dawn.

"A mirror is used to see one's own form..."

Li Yu lowered his head and entered the pavilion. Sitting on a stone stool, he studied the plain, antique bronze mirror in his hand, his brows tightly knitted.

That night at Mantuo Manor, he had thought he had unraveled its secret. The Langhuan Jade Grotto housed a thousand volumes of martial arts texts; an ordinary bronze mirror could not possibly belong among them. There was a strong possibility that it had been moved there along with the grotto's martial arts collection from Mount Wuliang in Dali.

This bronze mirror might even have once belonged to Li Qiushui and Wuyazi.

"Neither side has ever been polished. It reflects no human image-that is formlessness."

Naturally, he had thought of the Minor Formless Skill!

One of the finest Daoist inner cultivation methods under heaven.

Created by the founding patriarch of the Carefree Sect.

Xiaoyaozi.

The most mysterious man in a century of martial history. No one knew where he had come from or where he had finally gone. The few disciples he left behind were all martial geniuses. They could have spread the Carefree Sect's Daoist martial arts far and wide, yet every last one had gone mad, trapped in a sea of love and a web of desire, unable to free themselves...

In recent times, Wudang had closed its doors and Dragon Tiger had withdrawn from the world. Shaolin reigned supreme in the martial world, regarded as the ancestral court of all martial arts under heaven. Daoist martial arts had little renown, and few people still knew of them.

"If I can obtain the Carefree Sect's supreme arts, I'll have a foundation to stand upon the crest of the martial world's tides... Leaving aside the threat from First Rank Hall for now, even the immediate situation demands it. The West Canal Gate has secretly allied with the Beggars' Sect. A major battle is inevitable, and I urgently need to improve my strength..."

Unfortunately.

Seven full days had passed since the seventh day of the seventh month. He had waited from the half-moon until the full moon, trying all sorts of methods: burning it, soaking it in water, steeping it in medicinal solutions, making rubbings... All had yielded nothing.

"Could I have been overthinking it... Is this just an ordinary bronze mirror?"

A west wind drifted through the hall into the courtyard, bringing wisps of chill.

Li Yu set down the bronze mirror and unfastened the yellow-skinned gourd at his waist.

The five jin of plum wine had filled two gourds in succession.

The first gourd had helped him master the Returning Wind Brushes the Willow Sword and, when he was surrounded outside the Flower Reverence Pavilion, fully awakened the Wine Worm, rendering considerable service. The remaining two jin were in the gourd before him.

Savoring the plum wine's lingering finish, Li Yu gazed at the frostlike radiance below the pavilion steps. It resembled a sheet of lake water. As the wind stirred the trees, the shadows of their branches and leaves fell across it, like a school of a dozen or so fish swimming together.

"Interesting..."

The interplay of light and shadow could be so wondrous.

In the past, he had always thought about mastering peerless martial arts that reached through heaven and earth as soon as possible, accomplishing earthshaking deeds, and ultimately attaining carefree freedom without restraint. Yet he had scarcely spared a moment to notice the flowers and grasses around him.

It had been the same in both his previous life and this one.

He had always thought that only after reaching a certain height would he have the right to slow down and live.

He might never reach it, or he might find the price unbearable once he did.

It was not that he did not know. He simply could not stop.

"Striving for what I cannot obtain. I've been too impatient."

Li Yu sighed deeply, gently exhaling a breath of turbid Qi that had built up for a long time. The urgency in his heart slowly dispersed. When he looked again at the bronze mirror on the stone table, it seemed quite ordinary.

"My memories of my previous life and the associations I made in this one endowed this bronze mirror from the Langhuan Jade Grotto with a mysterious luster. In truth... it's just an ordinary bronze mirror, buried there through sheer coincidence..."

Once he understood this, the gloom between his brows vanished. Even several of his acupoints showed faint signs of loosening.

Li Yu raised the gourd and tilted his head toward the bright moon beyond the pavilion. Fine wine poured down his throat, and high spirits rose with his tipsiness. With a light sweep of his sleeve, the bronze mirror flew out of the pavilion and landed precisely in the patch of moonlight below the steps.

"I can still defeat my opponents without this bronze mirror!"

As he lowered the wine gourd, his gaze happened to fall upon the paving tiles before the pavilion. His expression froze, and he started in alarm.

There were words on the ground, each as large as a fist!

"With appearance comes form; without appearance, no form. Shadow and light, the circle's cycle; heaven and earth, the order of time. The divine man claims no merit, the sage no name, the perfected man no self..."

The densely packed writing seemed to gush from the mirror's surface.

"This is..."

Li Yu strode out of the pavilion and turned the bronze mirror over. Under the moonlight, each side revealed four or five hundred words.

Suppressing his excitement, he hurried to fetch paper and a brush to copy them. When he reached the final line, "All that has form is illusory," he suddenly understood the secret behind this seemingly immortal art.

Both sides of the bronze mirror were rough and uneven.

Someone had used exquisitely precise internal force to engrave these nine hundred and ninety-nine characters in the hollows of the bronze. The abundant moonlight refracted through them and projected them outward. Daylight was too intense, making them invisible instead.

Lamplight was too dim and would not work either.

Only when the radiance of heaven and earth was at its fullest would the Minor Formless Skill's formula appear.

So this was no immortal art, but its craftsmanship was indeed almost divine!

Half an hour later, Li Yu picked up the bronze mirror and returned to the Flower Reverence Pavilion with the hemp paper covered in the Minor Formless Skill. The bright moon had shifted eastward, and the dozen or so "little fish" gradually swam farther away.

"With appearance comes form; without appearance, no form..."

He closed his eyes. That patch of moonlight bearing fist-sized words of light and shadow appeared in his mind. Perhaps he had been so focused while copying that he had unknowingly memorized every word.

From the instant he had thrown out the bronze mirror, he had already crossed the threshold of the Minor Formless Skill. At least in his state of mind, there was no obstruction.

The Carefree Sect's martial arts had always placed great emphasis on temperament and disposition. Their mysteries ran deep beyond reason.

Time passed, breath by breath, and the octagonal pavilion sank into the night.

Within his dantian, changes gradually arose.

Pure white internal power circulated without pause, turning from insubstantial to substantial. Like a bright moon, or more like a spinning wheel, it began turning according to the Minor Formless Skill, seemingly about to weave something.

"From form to formlessness, from appearance to no appearance..."

At last, the white light dispersed like flowing water, and the phantom image of a heart-shaped leaf appeared above his dantian.

Its outline was full, its pointed tip slender.

"Is this a bodhi leaf?"

Western Xia deliberately distinguished itself from the Central Plains. It did not revere Confucianism, but greatly respected Buddhism and Daoism. Both faiths coexisted in Lingzhou, and many temples and monasteries bore decorative patterns of these bodhi leaves.

Understanding gradually dawned in Li Yu's heart.

The bodhi leaf represented foundational internal power. As long as that foundation remained intact, ordinary internal power could be replenished after being exhausted. Others could restore it through several hours of breathing exercises and meditation; with strong liquor, he could greatly accelerate the process.

"One bodhi leaf represents one year of foundational internal power."

The original owner of his body had cultivated internal power at eighteen, barely a year before now. The Wine Worm had devoured most of his cultivation during that time, but fortunately, since awakening, it no longer consumed his internal power.

His previous expenditure could be considered to have yielded a return.

"Right..."

Li Yu looked at the gourd, still more than half full of plum wine, and tipped his head back for a mouthful.

That mouthful was nearly half a jin.

The wine entered his dantian and was quickly devoured by the Wine Worm, which then spat out internal power.

"Appearance and no appearance, form and formlessness..."

Li Yu sat cross-legged on the stone table, his palms, soles, and crown facing upward. He circulated the internal power spat from the Wine Worm's little round mouth through the Minor Formless Skill. The spinning wheel began turning again, only less swiftly.

The first time, after all, it had been internal power he had cultivated himself.

This time, he was borrowing an external substance.

When the moon reached the middle of the sky, he drank a second mouthful...

The night passed. As dawn approached, three bodhi leaves floated quietly within his dantian.

Three years of foundational internal power!

Delight spread across Li Yu's face. After a brief hesitation, he raised the gourd again and took another great mouthful.

This time, the "spinning wheel" in his dantian turned only briefly before falling apart on its own. The unformed "bodhi leaf" instantly scattered... In fact, he had already felt some strain when condensing the second leaf.

"So I really have reached the limit."

Li Yu opened his eyes and looked at the gourd. Only four or five liang of plum wine remained.

Although "ten-year-aged wine" could increase foundational internal power, each kind of wine had a limited effect. One jin of plum wine could condense two or three "bodhi leaves." Drinking more was useless; it could only restore ordinary internal power.

"If I can find fifty different kinds of 'aged wine,' wouldn't that give me a hundred years of cultivation? They may be hard to find, but at least it's a way forward..."

Inside the Flower Reverence Pavilion, Li Yu clenched both fists, feeling the changes brought by the Minor Formless Skill. A confident smile appeared on his face. "I can still defeat my opponents without this bronze mirror... though, of course, having it is best!"