Youdu Token, Evil Spirit Materials

One second, he had been sitting on the not particularly expensive but very comfortable sofa in his own home.

The next, he suddenly landed on his backside in an unfamiliar grassy wilderness.

When Chu Tianshu looked up, he saw leafy trees all around him and a pale, hazy sky.

The sky should only have looked like this close to morning.

Yet when he had been at home moments ago, night had clearly only just fallen outside.

He had finally experienced for himself the difference between day and night he had only heard about in films and television.

"Where the hell did it send me? Am I even still in the country?"

Chu Tianshu focused and opened his senses, carefully feeling out his surroundings. There was no obvious sinister presence nearby.

Was this the great opportunity from that pendant token?

Could it be like those webnovels said, with a blessed little space of its own, and he had now entered the space inside the pendant?

Just as he thought of the token, a screen suddenly unfolded before his eyes.

The translucent screen was a foot square and floated in midair, with the token's unfamiliar beast-face pattern forming its background.

A great many characters swam and rearranged themselves across the screen. At first, they were in a script Chu Tianshu did not recognize, but they soon changed into Chinese characters he knew.

[Profound and mysterious, patrolling all worlds]

Those eight large characters alone sat at the top of the screen. Everything below was in a smaller font.

"The Youdu Edict has awakened. A new generation's edict master has been confirmed."

"This edict's divine powers: turn evil to righteous service, devour wickedness to forge martial arts, gather all things, and derive techniques and skills!"

Chu Tianshu read through the whole thing. Much of it was written in a mixture of classical and vernacular language.

Put simply, he had become the token's new master. When the edict master slew evil spirits, the token would automatically collect their characteristics as materials.

Once he had enough, it could use the edict master's existing martial arts and cultivation methods, along with the evil spirits' characteristics, to perform targeted derivations and optimizations, creating a new martial art better suited to him.

The lower half of the screen held two progress bars.

One was labeled materials, and the other fortune.

The materials section showed that there was a certain amount in stock, enough for one derivation.

The fortune section, however, was completely empty.

"All worlds?"

Chu Tianshu froze for a moment and could not help taking another look around.

The meaning between the lines was clear enough. He had not gone abroad; it was more likely that he had ended up in another world.

The key to crossing worlds was probably that empty fortune section.

Perhaps because of his grandfather's teaching and example, Chu Tianshu was a bit of a homebody.

Or rather, he preferred to be somewhere familiar, with at least a few familiar faces around. That familiar territory could expand bit by bit, day by day, but preferably not in one huge leap.

In his twenty-odd years, he had never even left his home province. Now he had suddenly arrived in another world, and the unfamiliarity was off the charts.

So his first thought was, What a hassle!

But the token's displayed abilities exceeded his expectations, and he could not help feeling his chest fill with surprise and delight.

The anticipation and unease that followed made for an immensely complicated feeling.

"Crossing worlds, deriving cultivation methods-it even has those functions. If what it says is true, it can definitely cure the root of the nightmare affliction I've had for twenty years, right?!"

Chu Tianshu stared at the progress bar displaying the materials and reached out to touch it, but his hand passed right through the screen.

The screen was not tangible. Once summoned, it followed his field of vision, and only he could see it.

To interact with it, he did not need to move his body. He only had to focus a little attention.

Chu Tianshu took a deep breath, calmed himself, and concentrated. The materials section on the screen glowed faintly, then expanded into a lengthy description.

[The cultivation method materials are as follows.

"Qi Family Old Tongbei": amid bounding leaps and nimble shifts, long arms strike like iron whips; sweeping sleeves unite with sword techniques, while footwork is marvelous and unsteady.

Note: those with natural courage from childhood may learn it. It loosens the shoulders and back and nourishes the sinews and bones. At great mastery, one's arms may grow three inches longer, and a swing of the arm can deliver a thousand jin of force.]

[The evil spirit materials are as follows.

Beauty in the Skin: dreamed of being admired by all, cut and carved her face and bones with needles and knives, underwent cosmetic surgery thirty times, and died before finding fame. Characteristic: a pounce at the face leaves the victim's face painless, causing them to cut and carve it in a daze, unaware of their blood loss.

Dormitory Pen Spirit: hated and envied her roommates, poisoned them but drank the poison herself by mistake, died with her eyes open, became trapped in the room, spied on others' secrets, and bewitched younger students. Characteristic: seven full nights of whispering in a person's ear can chill the blood in their body without a breath of wind.

Black-Mouthed Scholar: licked ink for ten thousand days, repeatedly failed the examinations, was trained like a dog, endured humiliation until his death, and, his belly full of sour foulness, served as the tiger's ghost. Characteristic: the sour ink in his belly eats flesh and corrodes bone.

Note: evil spirits have different characteristics. Please select one, refine the evil spirits together first, and then proceed with the derivation.]

"There's only one cultivation method material? No Annotations on Ghost Gate Witch Medicine?"

Chu Tianshu pondered it. The token had said it derived martial arts, and it really had listed only a martial art as material.

Annotations on Ghost Gate Witch Medicine also contained plenty of recipes for strengthening the body and preserving health. How could those not count as a kind of martial knowledge?

Unfortunately, he did not know how the token determined whether a cultivation method qualified as a "martial art," much less how to change the criteria.

As for the evil spirit materials, he remembered all three spirits. They were exorcism cases he had handled in the past two years.

He had handled other cases more than two years ago, not to mention the evil spirits his grandfather and those predecessors had exorcised. It seemed the token had not been sufficiently awake back then and had collected nothing.

The characteristics of Beauty in the Skin and the Pen Spirit were both rather like chicken ribs.

When Chu Tianshu had exorcised them, he had judged both to be fairly weak as well.

Especially the Pen Spirit.

Although the people living in that dormitory had played the pen spirit game and were prone to hearing her mutterings, they all liked to stay up late.

To begin with, they spent little time asleep each night, so they did not listen to her for long.

And since the school had holidays, the Pen Spirit never had a chance to whisper for seven full nights.

Only one unlucky person had kept a regular schedule for a while. After five consecutive days of whispering, that person developed health problems.

After Chu Tianshu completed the exorcism, the patient took medicine for just a week and made a full recovery.

Of the three evil spirits, the ghost scholar stood out like a general picked from among dwarfs.

But how could the characteristic of having sour ink in the stomach and mouth be combined with Tongbei Fist?

Chu Tianshu could not quite figure it out and gave the matter some thought.

A minimum quantity of evil spirit materials was needed for a derivation, but having more would do no harm, and the results would be better.

Should he proceed with the derivation now, or delay it and try his luck, seeing whether he could encounter an evil spirit he could deal with and that would also be more useful, before...

Chu Tianshu made his decision within three seconds.

Derive it now!

Back home, he might have chosen to wait, but in this unfamiliar world, hesitating for three seconds already counted as careful deliberation.

Chu Tianshu first activated "evil spirit refinement" on the token's display.

The three evil spirit materials merged. Their total quantity barely changed, and only the Black-Mouthed Scholar's characteristic remained.

Then he combined them with Qi Family Old Tongbei and began deriving a specific cultivation method.

[Derivation complete.

"Gluttonous Tongbei Fist": macaques eat fruit, savage apes eat flesh; hands and feet strike together, tearing jackals and wolves apart; long arms lash out with palms that shatter ox heads.

Opening one's senses through this fist art greatly develops the stomach and intestines, stretches the sinews and strengthens the body. One may swallow flesh and gulp down bones, with strength increasing by the day. At great mastery, one's limbs become as hard as wood and stone when exerting force, and one's fingers and claws become firm and sharp enough to pierce an ox's belly.

Even those with weak constitutions can practice it. If they can train a hundred times a day and endure the pain and itching of flesh and bone growing as though being steamed, they can advance with great vigor.]

After reading the words on the screen, Chu Tianshu felt as though something had appeared in his mind.

With a little recollection, he found passage after passage of text from a fist manual, along with diagrams of human figures. It was precisely the fist art that had just been derived.

Every detail was vivid, as though he had read it thousands upon thousands of times and knew it by heart.

Chu Tianshu felt a powerful urge. He immediately took a stance on the grass and began practicing according to the manual in his mind.

When psychics and martial artists first opened their senses, the results seemed much the same: their senses became sharper, and their ability to track movement improved greatly.

But in fact, the difference in the direction each took had already been determined at that first opening.

When psychics opened their senses, their mental and physical vigor radiated outward. Their observation was more like an extremely sharpened spiritual sixth sense producing a result, which their other five senses then broke down into forms more readily accepted by ordinary people, allowing them to understand it.

When martial artists opened their senses, they truly focused on the potential of their bodily organs, developing their vigor inward. Because organs such as the eyes, ears, and nose were strengthened, their observations of the outside world all became clearer and more detailed, and the wonder of the final combined result far surpassed the norm.

A person's first opening was their initial impression of the extraordinary. Whichever direction it favored, their instincts would reinforce that direction afterward, and no matter how determined they were to change, it was difficult to overcome those instincts.

Some compared practicing both paths to making a person born blind understand a person born deaf.

The actual difficulty might not have been quite so outrageous.

But Chu Tianshu, a psychic prodigy who had opened his senses at five, had indeed failed to experience even a trace of what it felt like for a martial artist to open his senses during all those days he had trained hard at fist arts.

Now this Gluttonous Tongbei Fist was said to be tailored for the edict master and emphasized that even those with weak constitutions could practice it. He truly wanted to try.

"Whew!"

Chu Tianshu adjusted his stance, planted his left foot, and drew a semicircle to the side with his right. The sole of his shoe stayed close to the ground, pressing down a broad patch of wild grass, bending and breaking the stems and leaving some lying flat.

He moved very slowly, but the instant his right foot finally settled, his whole body sped up.

First came a wide, expansive movement. Both arms chopped forward, and then his body surged after them. As he sprang ahead, both chopping palms reached his waist. His right hand arrived first, and by the time his left caught up, his right arm had already turned and gathered force, just in time to punch forward.

This was not a straight thrusting punch but a whipping strike. His arm was like a heavy towel soaked in water, his fist the tip. He twisted his arm and whipped it forward, and the tip struck the air.

Though he had the strength of an ordinary person, the punch drew his sleeve along with it and produced a faint rush of wind.

In the blink of an eye, he sank at the waist and hips, stepped backward, turned with the motion, and swung his left arm in a clawing strike behind him.

Bounding and charging, he pulled back slightly after each great, reckless stride forward. By the time he had charged twenty or thirty steps, his feet had unwittingly traced most of a large semicircle.

Meanwhile, his hands repeated three movements-chop, whip, and claw-far more frequently than his feet moved.

Because every strike and every leap of his feet used all his strength, sweat soon appeared on Chu Tianshu's forehead, but his eyes shone brightly.

The more he practiced the fist art, the more he realized that his mind held more than the words and diagrams of the manual. There also seemed to be a "correct feeling."

He had a general idea in his head of what movements were truly standard and how to exert force to truly meet the detailed requirements in the manual.

Words were often pale things. Even the most accomplished fist master would struggle to convey to a disciple the personal experience of the moment he got a technique exactly right.

Besides, even when told the same thing, disciples might not understand it in the same way.

The token had transmitted its derived knowledge of the fist art directly into Chu Tianshu's mind. It was as though he had a master teacher who knew exactly how to explain everything.

That way, if any movement or application of force was not quite right, he could feel it immediately and find a way to correct it.

His fists and feet swung through what looked like repeated movements, but he actually made adjustments every time.

The experience of knowing he was drawing closer to "correct" was immensely fulfilling.

As he practiced, he even forgot about trying to open his senses, thinking only about how to make his next punch as perfect as possible.

Chop, whip, claw! Chop, whip, claw!

More and more sweat beaded on him, and his gaze grew purer and purer.

As Chu Tianshu delivered another chopping palm, his hand suddenly produced a light pop in the air.

Whether it was the sound of his palm striking the air, his sleeve, or some other factor-

None of it mattered at that moment.

Deep in Chu Tianshu's pupils, pinpricks of light naturally sprang to life.

Behind him, some of the hardier blades of grass he had trampled were slowly rising again.

Branches on either side swayed gently in the early-morning breeze, scattering the dew from their tips.

In the air ahead, yellowish leaves spun as they drifted down.

This power of observation was much like a psychic's opening of the senses.

But when he had opened his senses as a psychic before, he had never felt the presence of his own flesh and bones so clearly. Every muscle and every layer of skin, it turned out, enclosed such living warmth.

Chu Tianshu breathed out warm air and stared at the fingertips of his extended palm, desperately wanting to remember this first experience of opening his senses as a martial artist.

"Ha, hahahaha! Good stuff, I really can train in it!!"

He could not help laughing aloud, but forced his mouth shut and eagerly began practicing again.

The first opening was basically a flash of inspiration. He had entered that state when he delivered the chopping palm just now, but he would soon slip out of it again.

He had to strike while the iron was hot. If he could enter that state another two or three times in the next stage, even if each time lasted only an instant, it would be good.

Once he could open his senses steadily and sustain that state on the martial path, his total vitality could grow stronger.

By then, he could withstand the nightmares' effects on his heart and brain, and the sharp blade that had drawn ever closer above Chu Tianshu's head over the past two years could finally be pushed farther away again.

He did not laugh aloud again, but the muscles in his cheeks tensed and the corners of his mouth rose. That bright, delighted expression never faded.

He could be excited, but the fist art had to be coordinated with his breathing. Laughing out loud would disrupt that rhythm, so he had to restrain himself.

Practice! Practice! Practice!

He did not know how long he had practiced.

By the time he came back to himself, the sun had risen. The intense hunger in his belly brought him to his senses, and he stopped practicing.

The surrounding grass had been trampled into a mess, and some branches had been broken by the sweeps of his arms.

In the light of the morning sun, birds flew from their nests, hopping lightly on the branches and chirping.

Chu Tianshu wiped the sweat from his face and panted. His whole body felt unburdened, but he was so hungry that his stomach had begun to turn a little sour.

He looked at the little birds on the branches and pulled a silver needle from his trouser pocket.

At this distance, he was fully confident he could knock one down as emergency rations.

But after some thought, he held off for the moment.

If he could find a settlement, he would not have to consider finding a way to build a fire in the mountains and roasting a tit himself.

After judging the lay of the land, Chu Tianshu walked toward higher ground for a while, looking around.

A long while later, in a place where the trees were sparse, he came to a large rock and stopped.

Beyond the mountains, the morning sun was just rising. In one direction below lay vast stretches of farmland, extending toward densely packed houses.

Looking down from here, he could see orderly streets and homes, small but not shabby, and people moving like ants. It was clearly a lively town.