Sixth-grade Cultivation Method Book

Inside an inn in Loulan City, Tang Yuan sipped tea with his head held high.

Huang You'er, dressed in yellow, and Hu Mei'er, who had taken the form of a woman in red, knelt on one knee.

Tang Yuan took out the restriction Jade Slip and squeezed. It instantly crumbled to powder, and the shackle around Hu Mei'er's neck fell to the floor.

"Master, what are you..." Hu Mei'er looked at Tang Yuan in confusion, her eyes full of charm.

"When I employ someone, I don't doubt them. If I doubt them, I don't employ them.

"Since you've acknowledged me as your master, I'll cherish and look after both of you." Tang Yuan smiled and stood up.

"We swear to serve Master faithfully unto death." Hu Mei'er and Huang You'er were overwhelmed with excitement as they cupped their hands in salute.

"Since we're all family now, we should be honest with one another." Tang Yuan nodded in satisfaction, formed a hand seal with his right hand, and revealed his true form: a black nine-faced snake half a zhang long.

"That's wonderful! Master is a Demon Beast just like us!" Huang You'er clapped her hands in delight.

"My master is an immortal monkey. He has resolved to revive the Demon Race.

"I'm not usually in Loulan City, and I have things to attend to, so I need you two to gather more information on how members of the Demon Race can quickly raise their cultivation after taking human form, as well as intelligence about Loulan City, including information about this world.

"First, look for information about Dragon Skeleton Jade Mud." Tang Yuan held his head high and watched Hu Mei'er out of the corner of his eye.

Hu Mei'er merely frowned slightly and said nothing.

It seems the time hasn't come yet. Hu Mei'er still doesn't quite trust me, Tang Yuan thought. He continued, "Second, take your time looking for immortal mountains and spirit caves. See where we could establish a sect and revive the Demon Race."

"Master, I'm only at the Qi Refining First Layer, and Sister is only at the Qi Refining Second Layer. It would be a little dangerous for us to leave Loulan City blindly.

"And...

"And gathering information, keeping ourselves fed and our horses in fodder, takes money too.

"Sister and I really are short of funds..." Huang You'er pouted and looked pitifully at Tang Yuan.

"If I'm asking you to do things, I'll certainly give you money for expenses." Tang Yuan smiled, immediately took human form, and reached for the Storage Bag on the table.

But when he held out the Spirit Stones to Hu Mei'er, she lowered her head and didn't take them.

"What, you won't take the Spirit Stones? You don't want to work for me?" Tang Yuan frowned slightly.

"No... Sister is certainly willing to work for Master with all her heart, but..." Huang You'er covered her face with both hands and peered at Tang Yuan through her fingers,

"It's just that Sister hasn't quite adjusted to Master's special predilection yet."

?

What special predilection do I have?

Tang Yuan frowned and looked down, and his ears immediately reddened a little. He still wasn't practiced at transforming from a Demon Beast into a human and couldn't conjure clothes directly, so he was naked.

"Since you're my master, I, Hu Mei'er, can accept anything." Hu Mei'er raised her head, looked at Tang Yuan, and reached for the Spirit Stones. Without thinking, she exclaimed, "Ah, Master really is so big...hearted..."

"No... no... no, you've misunderstood." Tang Yuan immediately twitched his fingers and put on clothes.

"I don't have some strange fondness for being naked. I'm just not very practiced at taking human form yet."...

...After giving Hu Mei'er and Huang You'er two hundred Spirit Stones and four bottles of pills, Tang Yuan arranged for them to rent a residence in Loulan City that had Spiritual Qi and was suitable for cultivation. Then, with a thought, he returned to the Human Realm.

Human Realm, Ten Thousand Snakes Island.

At home, Tang Yuan wrote and drew as he worked out his plans.

Today was March 16, 4024 of the Human Realm's New Immortal Calendar. Tang Yuan was exactly twenty-four years old and was now at the Meridian Opening Fifth Layer.

In the Human Realm, immortality was cultivated through Qi Ingestion, and cultivation was divided into Meridian Opening, Qi Refinement, Foundation Establishment, Purple Mansion, Golden Core, and Lodge Transformation.

The Meridian Opening Realm was divided into eight layers and required the ingestion and absorption of at least eight strands of Spiritual Qi. To attempt Qi Refinement, even setting pills and Cultivation Methods aside, the eight strands of Spiritual Qi alone cost at least one hundred Spirit Stones.

The Qi Refinement Realm was divided into ten layers. One had to ingest at least eleven strands of Spiritual Qi before attempting Foundation Establishment. Buying fifth-grade Spiritual Qi alone cost at least three thousand Spirit Stones. The Spiritual Qi needed to break through from the Qi Refinement Third Layer to the Qi Refining Fourth Layer was particularly important.

Only if that strand was fourth-grade Spiritual Qi could one hope to reach Foundation Establishment. Otherwise, one could advance no further than the Qi Refinement Great Perfection.

That strand of Spiritual Qi also concerned one's future Dao foundation and Dao lineage.

He wasn't familiar with the Demon Realm yet, so for now it was better to go there less often.

His first priority at present was to raise his cultivation in the Human Realm.

Second, he needed to learn the Qi-forging method and basic pill refinement, especially Qi forging, which would be a source of Spirit Stones in the future.

Third, the money-making opportunity he could see at present was reselling red spirit eels between the Human and Demon Realms.

Once he had settled on his goals, Tang Yuan had a good night's sleep. Early the next morning, he stepped onto his bamboo-leaf flying boat and flew northeast to the Xuan Dou Cultivator Market.

This world was divided into three continents: the Eastern Heaven Purple Mother Continent in the east, the Western Heaven Mystic Spirit Continent in the west, and the Northern Heaven Nether Cold Continent in the north.

The Purple Mother Continent, Mystic Spirit Continent, and Nether Cold Continent partly encircled a vast, boundless ocean.

Legend had it that another mysterious continent lay at the center of the ocean, called the Central Heaven Dao Origin Continent.

As for the far south, it was called the Southern Heaven Chaotic Sea Island Domain because legend said it contained thousands upon thousands of islands.

In the seas west of the Western Heaven Mystic Spirit Continent lay an archipelago called the Western Spirit Ten Thousand Islands Region.

The Western Spirit Ten Thousand Islands Region contained more than ten thousand islands of various sizes, belonging to eighteen Foundation Establishment and Qi Refinement cultivation Lineages.

The Xi Household, for which Tang Yuan worked as a spirit fisherman, was one of the eighteen cultivation Lineages in the Western Spirit Ten Thousand Islands Region, and a Foundation Establishment Lineage.

But the Xi Household's only Foundation Establishment great cultivator had not appeared for decades, and whether that cultivator was alive or dead was unknown. Xi Haichang, the Xi Household patriarch who occasionally showed himself, was only at the Qi Refinement Great Perfection.

The Xuan Dou Cultivator Market had been jointly established by the eighteen cultivation Lineages two hundred years ago. The cultivators who did business there included not only members of those eighteen Lineages but also Rogue Cultivators from all over.

In the Human Realm, where immortality was cultivated through Qi Ingestion, Spiritual Qi was thin and Cultivation Methods were hard to find, so most cultivators' cultivation was not very high. A doggerel verse passed among the cultivators of this world proved it:

Meridian Opening cultivators were immortals among mortals, but in truth they were all penniless paupers.

Early Qi Refinement cultivators roamed to the ends of the earth; Late-stage Qi Refinement cultivators swaggered wherever they pleased.

At Qi Refinement's great perfection, one ruled a region; at the mention of Foundation Establishment, one fled in high spirits.

Foundation Establishment High Persons stood above all under heaven; before Purple Mansion, they were all like ants.

Ten Thousand Snakes Island was less than a thousand li from Xuandou Island, where the Xuan Dou Cultivator Market was located. As long as Tang Yuan, at the Meridian Opening Fifth Layer, didn't act recklessly and was careful, he had no need to worry about being robbed on the road. After all, few people were willing to risk offending the somewhat well-known Xi Household to rob a penniless cultivator of the Meridian Opening Realm.

Upon arriving at the Xuan Dou Cultivator Market, Tang Yuan put on the Wall God Robe, changed his appearance, and donned a bamboo hat, then went straight to a money house.

That was right. The Wall God Robe was the invisibility robe his junior brother, the gecko from the Demon Realm, had given him.

After testing it many times, he found that the invisibility robe could not only temporarily conceal his form and presence but also provide defense and alter his appearance. So Tang Yuan simply called this invisibility robe made from gecko skin the Wall God Robe.

Spirit Stones varied slightly across the Human Realm, so cultivator money houses specialized in exchanging them for Spirit Stones that were more widely accepted: the standard, universally used Spirit Stones issued by the Southern Spirit Sword Sect.

Naturally, Tang Yuan needed to exchange the Spirit Stones he had obtained in the Demon Realm for the universally used ones.

After making the exchange, Tang Yuan had a total of seven hundred and sixty Spirit Stones on hand.

He spent ninety Spirit Stones on three strands of lower-tier fifth-grade metal-attribute Spiritual Qi, Gold in Gravel. They were for him to ingest and absorb to reach the Meridian Opening Eighth Layer.

He spent ten Spirit Stones on a somewhat damaged Storage Bag.

He spent twenty Spirit Stones on a seventh-grade spirit sword.

He spent eighty Spirit Stones on a somewhat damaged seventh-grade Pill Furnace.

He spent twenty-five Spirit Stones on a piece of Spirit-Floating Paulownia Wood two zhang long and half a zhang thick, and a black iron chain a hundred zhang long.

He also bought some talismans, leaving him with five hundred Spirit Stones.

Tang Yuan was currently at the Meridian Opening stage and had learned the Heavenly Cycle Meridian Opening Formula, which was very common in the Western Spirit Ten Thousand Islands Region.

But once Tang Yuan reached the Essence Sustaining Realm at the Meridian Opening Eighth Layer, he would have to start cultivating a Qi Refining Stage Cultivation Method.

Tang Yuan's Spirit Roots were metal, fire, water, and lightning, with metal being the strongest. A metal-attribute Cultivation Method would be best for him, but the Xi Household's methods were all water-attribute. Once he reached the Meridian Opening Eighth Layer, he could apply to learn the Xi Household's Mountain Stream Spirit Art.

A Cultivation Method determined a cultivator's cultivation speed and, even more importantly, the upper limit of their future cultivation.

First-grade Cultivation Methods were the best, and seventh-grade methods were the worst.

Of course, first-, second-, and third-grade Cultivation Methods were the stuff of legend. It was said that only the immortal manors and sects of High Antiquity had them. The highest-grade methods still in existence were merely upper-tier fourth-grade methods.

As far as Tang Yuan knew, with a seventh-grade Cultivation Method, a cultivator could advance no further than the Middle Stage of Qi Refinement.

With a sixth-grade Cultivation Method, a cultivator could advance no further than late-stage Qi Refinement.

Only by cultivating a fifth-grade Cultivation Method could one hope to reach Foundation Establishment in the future. Only by cultivating a fourth-grade method could one attempt Foundation Establishment and gaze from afar toward Purple Mansion or even Golden Core.

In the Human Realm, Spiritual Qi was thin, and Cultivation Methods were even scarcer. High-grade methods were treasures passed down through cultivation Lineages and even cultivation sects; outsiders had no access to them at all.

The Mountain Stream Spirit Art was an upper-tier seventh-grade Cultivation Method. As for fifth- and sixth-grade water-attribute methods, only members of the Xi Household itself could learn those.

Now that he could resell red spirit eels between the Human and Demon Realms, and could forge Qi and resell Spiritual Qi in the future, he naturally wanted to learn a metal-attribute Cultivation Method above seventh grade.

There were plenty of spell books in the Xuan Dou Cultivator Market, but Cultivation Method books were not only few and far between, their prices were also staggering. The market only had books for sixth-grade and lower methods, and a single lower-tier sixth-grade metal-attribute Cultivation Method book cost fifteen hundred Spirit Stones.

Looks like I'll have to resell more red spirit eels as soon as possible before I can afford a lower-tier sixth-grade Cultivation Method book. Having made up his mind, Tang Yuan left the market, stepped onto his flying shuttle, and headed west...