Shameless and Desperate
In a small grove, Liu Yi and Qian Duoduo stood facing each other, silent for a moment.
Qian Duoduo lived up to his name. With his astonishing talent for business and the protection of his older brother in the inner sect, he had made a fortune in Spirit Stone fragments by lending them to outer sect disciples.
At that moment, his shrewd eyes made no attempt to conceal the pressure of a creditor demanding payment.
"Grandpa, you're my very own grandpa!"
Qian Duoduo lunged forward, clung tightly to Liu Yi's leg, and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Surely it's time you paid me back those 100 Spirit Stone fragments you owe me!"
"You've owed me that debt for a full 30 years! I finally made it to the Qi Refining Ninth Layer, and I'm about to break through to the Foundation Establishment Realm. I need a huge number of Spirit Stone fragments to buy a Foundation Establishment Pill!"
Liu Yi's whole body went rigid. He had always known Qian Duoduo paid little attention to formalities, but he had never expected him to have so little shame.
"If you want Spirit Stone fragments, I don't have any. If you want my life, it's yours."
He sighed helplessly. "It's not that I don't want to pay you back. My pockets are just too empty. I can't come up with a single Spirit Stone fragment."
Far from letting go, Qian Duoduo hugged his leg even tighter, disbelief written all over his face:
"You've even stopped working overtime to earn Spirit Stone fragments. Didn't you come into a windfall? Hurry up and pay me back."
"And you'd better get a move on! If you still haven't broken through to the Foundation Establishment Realm by next year, you'll be kicked out of the Heavenly Revelation Sect!"
"Overtime? I'm never working overtime again in this life." Liu Yi shook his head with a bitter smile.
"I nearly worked myself to death three days ago. Even if I earned Spirit Stone fragments, what good would they do me if I wasn't alive to spend them?"
"Besides, the few Spirit Stone fragments I earn from overtime are just a cup of water on a burning cart of firewood. At only 12 fragments a year, breaking through to the Foundation Establishment Realm would be a fool's dream."
Only then did Qian Duoduo let go. He stood up and brushed the dust off his clothes, his eyes full of bewilderment.
"Then what are you going to do? You can't just sit here and wait."
"You're already 145. If you can't reach Foundation Establishment within a year, you'll be expelled from the sect. You probably won't last more than a few years after that. Are you really going to wait for death in despair?"
"I still want to cultivate and become an immortal! I stopped working overtime so I could find a way!" Liu Yi curled his lip and replied irritably.
Qian Duoduo frowned and rubbed his chin, speaking with certainty. "If you want to break through to the Foundation Establishment Realm, there's no other way to do it quickly except with a massive number of Spirit Stones and a Foundation Establishment Pill."
Suddenly, his eyes widened, and he stared at Liu Yi in shock. "Don't tell me you found a rich woman in the Heavenly Revelation Sect to keep you?"
"I admit you're handsome and dashing, with an extraordinary bearing, but you're already 145."
"Your immortal cultivation technique keeps you looking young, but you're really a piece of old cured meat. Can your body take it?"
Liu Yi looked at Qian Duoduo's gossip-hungry face, and black lines instantly covered his forehead. "Who are you calling old cured meat? What nonsense are you imagining? How could I possibly do something like that?"
Yet he couldn't help considering it. That really is an option. Immortal cultivators are generally good-looking, so selling my body might not be out of the question.
As soon as the thought arose, he hurriedly shook his head and suppressed the fantasy. Forget it! Forget it! My body definitely couldn't take it. Besides, if I become an immortal someday, this would be a black mark on my past. How embarrassing would it be if word got out!
Seeing Liu Yi's upright and righteous expression, Qian Duoduo gradually put his doubts aside.
After pondering for a moment, he reached into his robes, pulled out five Spirit Stone fragments, and handed them over. "Brother Yi, take these five Spirit Stone fragments and use them for now. Pay me back when you've made it."
A smile curved Liu Yi's lips as he took the fragments. "Don't worry. When I've made it, I'll definitely pay you back."
"I'll remember that!" Qian Duoduo waved, turned, and strode away.
As he watched the figure recede into the distance, warmth rose in Liu Yi's heart.
Given how shrewd Qian Duoduo was, how could he not understand that these Spirit Stone fragments were sure to be lent out and never returned?
Rather than a loan, it was more like bringing charcoal in the snow.
At that thought, he couldn't help reflecting that his predecessor's luck hadn't been all that bad.
When Qian Duoduo had first joined the outer sect, Liu Yi, as his senior, had merely helped him out in passing, yet it had earned him this friendship.
He gathered his thoughts, turned, and left the grove, walking briskly toward the Scripture Pavilion.
He was eager to read the books there and gain a deeper understanding of this world, while also looking for cultivation techniques to lay the foundation for creating his own someday.
The Heavenly Revelation Sect's Scripture Pavilion was magnificent and imposing, with nine floors in all.
The first floor held Qi Refinement Stage cultivation techniques, basic theories on formations, alchemy, and artifact refinement, as well as martial arts manuals from the mortal world's jianghu.
Any one of those martial arts manuals, if it found its way into the jianghu, could stir up a bloody storm.
According to sect rules, the first floor of the Scripture Pavilion was open to all disciples free of charge; entry to the second floor cost 10 Spirit Stone fragments a day; and access to the third floor and above had to be purchased with sect contribution points.
Liu Yi entered the Scripture Pavilion. The vast first floor seemed especially empty. More than a hundred thousand books were neatly arranged on rows of shelves, but only a handful of ten people were bent over them.
Without the slightest hesitation, he went straight to the Qi Refinement Stage cultivation technique section and found the shelf holding techniques for those with Five Elements Spirit Roots.
There were only a little over thirty manuals on the shelf.
He picked one at random and began reading it quickly.
Thanks to his photographic memory, he committed everything in the book to memory in a short time.
He immediately moved on to the other manuals, soaking up knowledge like a starving man.
Ten days later, he had finished reading all the Qi Refinement Stage manuals of different attributes in the Scripture Pavilion.
All that reading gave him a new idea for creating his own technique. He planned to improve the Five Elements Qi Refining Instruction he was already cultivating, incorporating the essence of the various manuals into it.
His goal was to absorb and refine Spiritual Qi faster. That way, he could accumulate spiritual power more quickly and break through to the next realm.
But he also remembered reading in novels in his previous life that opening and using all the acupoints in one's body would greatly increase both cultivation speed and potential.
As it happened, he discovered that all 129,600 of his acupoints were open. He didn't know whether it was a benefit of transmigration.
An opportunity like this couldn't be missed!
If he missed it, heaven ought to strike him with lightning!
Without further hesitation, he immediately brought his powerful deduction ability to bear, frantically working through possibilities in his mind.
In an instant, countless cultivation techniques flashed through his mind. He sifted out their essence, discarded the dross, and incorporated it bit by bit into the Five Elements Qi Refining Instruction.
Another ten days passed before he opened his weary eyes.
The new technique was complete!
But he had also discovered that his deduction ability still had major limitations.
He lacked computing power. Although his deduction ability was fairly strong now, it was still hard to meet the demands of deducing a cultivation technique in a short time.
For those ten days, he had worked his job and deduced the technique, and had nearly died from overwork again.
Such high-intensity deduction was far too dangerous. He had nearly worked his brain to the point of smoking. If only he could increase his deduction computing power.
For now, he could think of only two ways to do that.
He could either strengthen his soul or refine an external brain to assist with deduction, like a computer from his previous life, and increase his computing power.
But he had no way to strengthen his soul, and he knew nothing about artifact refinement, so he couldn't refine an external brain.
For now, he could only put those ideas aside.
Liu Yi studied the Five Elements Qi Refining Instruction 2.0 he had created, his heart filled with complicated feelings.
The new technique was indeed unimaginably powerful, but the dangers hidden within it were just as chilling.
After all, it was a brand-new cultivation method born entirely from deduction. No one had ever cultivated it before, and the slightest mistake could cost him his life.
His expression shifting, he remained silent for a long time before finally gritting his teeth and deciding to cultivate it.
Cultivating it wouldn't necessarily kill him, but not cultivating it certainly would. The only difference was whether he died sooner or later.
Since he would die either way, he might as well stake everything on it.
This immortal cultivation world was already unhinged and mad enough.
If he wanted to live, he had to be even more unhinged and mad than they were.
With that thought, he sat down cross-legged, took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and carefully began circulating the technique.