Cultivation

The next morning, before Du Qing had even woken up from her nap, Jin Shilun woke her up and rushed her to Kang Dabao's bedroom.

"Junior Brother Du Qing, you've been working hard lately," Sect Leader Kang Da politely, offering a word of comfort.

"Sect Leader, you flatter me. Du Qing doesn't feel tired doing things for the sect." Du Qing deliberately raised his head to make the wound on his neck more conspicuous before continuing to sing his praises.

Although he didn't manage to gain anything while escorting the caravan this time, he almost had his head chopped off by the Evil Cultivator blocking his way.

Before Du Qing came, he had already thought it through. If this Chongming Sect continued to ignore him as before, he would rather find an opportunity to take his family and run away, and continue to be a rogue Rogue Cultivator in another place.

"Haha, Junior Brother, your humility and self-restraint are truly those of a gentleman." Kang Dabao first praised Du Qing, deliberately avoiding looking at his somewhat gruesome wounds. Since nice words didn't cost Spirit Stone, he was happy to say them.

"You flatter me, Sect Leader," Du Qing replied calmly, displaying a truly unpretentious demeanor, a stark contrast to his previous disheveled and distraught appearance.

Kang Dabao understood immediately. "Over the years, you've developed a temper. These old fogies are all good at pretending. If you don't offer them some real benefits, they'll just go through the motions."

"Even if you're poor, you should travel with extra care. Take this Law Artifact and these Spirit Stones, Junior Brother, for now. If you need anything later, just come find me." Sect Leader Kang Da smiled and took out a decent low-grade magic Law Artifact and thirty Spirit Stone. This was a reward for Du Qing's hard work.

"Thank you, Senior Brother Sect Leader!" The amount of things Kang Dabao took out may not seem like much, but it would take Du Qing at least a dozen years to accumulate such a sum.

This immediately made Du Qing overjoyed, and he bowed deeply, his movements so vigorous that blood seeped through the gauze wrapped around his neck.

Kang Dabao nodded and offered a few more words of encouragement, then sent Jin Shilun to see Du Qing out.

After Du Qing left, Kang Dabao was able to suppress his discomfort. This was the reason why Chongming Sect was in such dire straits in previous years and still refused to recruit Rogue Cultivator.

Logically, once you've joined a sect, you should treat them like family. However, newly initiated Rogue Cultivator only have their eyes on profit. If you treat them with genuine affection, they'll think you're just being stingy with your Spirit Stone and trying to make empty promises.

In this way, even family members are forced to interact only based on self-interest, and ultimately become outsiders.

"Sigh, we still need to wait for the younger generation to grow up quickly before they can share some responsibilities. These people are hard to tame," thought Sect Leader Kang Da.

A few days later, Sect Leader Kang Da and He Dezong saw off the younger member of the He Household. The latter left Kang Dabao some bad news. "I think I saw Gui Xiang in Han City. He was dressed as a retainer of the Yue Household."

"Gui Xiang, a retainer of the Yue Household." Kang Dabao read it for a while, then suppressed his thoughts and gave some more instructions to Zhou Xinran and Jin Shilun before returning to the Chongming Sect.

The old cultivator Ji Wuwu was on guard at the gate. He had been through a fierce battle and was injured. After returning to the Chongming Sect, Kang Dabao did not send him out to work, but instead arranged for him to spend several months in Chongming City indulging in debauchery with his concubines.

After Ji Wuwu recovered from his injuries, Kang Dabao did not rush to let him go. Instead, he let him stay in the sect to cultivate for a while, pending further arrangements.

After Ji Wuwu and a questioning of his fellow disciples about recent events, Kang Dabao turned and went into his cloud room.

Recently, three bad things happened: he was severely beaten by Ge Yangfeng, he was appointed as the Pingrong County, Gui Xiang became a retainer of the Yue Household. The first one in particular made Sect Leader Kang Da feel a serious sense of crisis.

This feeling of insecurity was unbearable, and Kang Dabao desperately wanted to improve his strength in every aspect.

Based on Kang Dabao's thinking, given the actions of the Immortal Dynasty in recent years, the probability of them conscripting more men and waging war again is not small.

Unfortunately, being a county magistrate is an unfortunate job, mainly responsible for military affairs. In the future, he will likely be ordered by his superiors to serve him.

If that's the case, then we'll probably have to pick up the art of battle formations again. Yes, "pick up," not "learn."

Patriarch Zhang founder of the Chongming Sect, came from a military background. In the army that pacified the barbarians, he not only obtained the fortuitous opportunity to Foundation Establishment, but also rose through the ranks to become a deputy lieutenant of the Principal Seventh Rank, commanding a battalion of three hundred armored soldiers. He could barely be considered a mid-level military officer.

This is a military rank in the Imperial Guard of the Immortal Dynasty, which is much more valuable than the same rank in border states like Cloud Horn Prefecture.

Having experienced countless deaths and bloodshed, Patriarch Zhang grew weary of military affairs and sought a place to cultivate in peace. He also took the opportunity to relocate his close relatives from the sect.

Only after pacifying the barbarians did he obtain the favor of establishing a sect in Pingrong County from Steward Shen Lingfeng.

Later, as the Chongming Sect declined generation after generation, the successive sect leaders were still able to maintain the Chongming Sect's name and prevent it from collapsing. Apart from an inexplicable element of luck, the most important reason for this was that the Double Brightness disciples of each generation had studied the art of battle.

As the current sect leader, Kang Dabao had been studying the fundamental principles of the Chongming Sect since childhood under the tutelage of his master. In his youth, he had also participated in a battle against a large group of bandit cultivators under the guidance of his sect's masters.

At that time, Sect Leader Kang Da was only at the Qi Refining Second Layer of Qi Refining and was also young, so it was not his turn to be a main force. He was just a cog in the machine under the cover of his elders and threw a few hammers.

On that occasion, under the leadership of their masters, Chongming Sect faced an enemy three times their size. Even with high-level cultivators at a disadvantage, they nearly wiped out the invading enemy by virtue of their battle formation.

It is particularly worth mentioning that Sect Leader Kang Da, did not capture any heads, but Pei Yi and Yuan Jin each took one head.

Therefore, the battle formation techniques passed down by Patriarch Zhang are still worth learning.

When he was young Sect Leader Kang Da only learned some things superficially. He did memorize them, but he never had a chance to use them. Over the years, he has forgotten a lot of them. Now he needs to review them all.

Another factor is his own strength. Thinking of this, Kang Dabao gathered spiritual energy in his eyes, and his pupils gradually turned golden.

Kang Dabao's Delusion-Breaking Golden Eyes had clearly matured considerably, and its power was now far greater than when he was in dire straits with the Four Ghosts of the Liu Household.

However, he was still unable to achieve anything against powerful figures like Ge Yangfeng and Tie Xishui who were at the Qi Refinement stage, which exposed the drawback of his limited methods.

The Delusion-Breaking Golden Eyes is undoubtedly a powerful technique, and it is also exceptionally well-suited to the Sect Leader Kang Da. To be able to cultivate Zhou Grade pupil technique to the Minor Accomplishment Realm would likely be the envy of many Foundation Establishment True Cultivator.

The reason why he couldn't deal with the likes of Ge Yangfeng and Tie Xishui was simply that Kang Dabao's cultivation level was too low.

Having just entered the Sixth Layer of Qi Refining, he could probably kill some late-stage cultivators with shallow lineages without any problem, thanks to his Delusion-Breaking Golden Eyes.

However, when facing Foundation Establishment True Disciple like Ge Yangfeng, who possesses outstanding Law Artifact and extraordinary Cultivation Method, it becomes quite difficult. Let alone winning, even escaping would be a miserable experience.

However, if one wishes to continue cultivating after reaching the Minor Accomplishment Realm of the Delusion-Breaking Golden Eyes, one will need to use the Moon Fern mentioned in Patriarch Zhang's notes.

Unfortunately, Kang Dabao still hasn't found the spiritual herb, so he can only temporarily put aside his cultivation of the Delusion-Breaking Golden Eyes, at most improving his attack speed a bit.

In addition, the Sect Leader Kang Da's cultivation level was still far from reaching the threshold for breakthrough, so he chose to place his hopes on the "Guo Mountain Corpse Refining Method" he obtained from the Ghost Horse Owls Zhao Gu.

Although Zhao Gu's refined corpse had been severely injured by Yuan Jin, Kang Dabao had found it a decent place to nurture its body and buried it under a large locust tree for about half a year. Now, the refined corpse's vitality has recovered considerably.

Sect Leader Kang Da has been practicing the unorthodox Cultivation Method "Guo Mountain Corpse Refining Method" for almost a year now. To his surprise, he seems to have a real talent for refining zombies.

According to the "Guo Mountain Corpse Refining Method", even a beginner with excellent Higher Vehicle would need at least one or two years to be able to control a First-Tier Superior-Grade corpse.

However, Sect Leader Kang Da was different. He only spent three months before he couldn't resist trying it out once, and he actually managed to control this First-Tier Superior-Grade body with ease on the spot.

This led him to believe that he was a genius who had chosen the wrong path; he should have sought out a demonic sect to become an apprentice, and perhaps he would be a holy son of some sect by now.

Unfortunately, when he tried to learn a basic demonic Technique Method, the Heart-Eating Heart-Devouring Incantation, with this idea in mind, he easily overturned his own assumption in just three days.

After the hope of becoming a demonic genius was extinguished, Kang Dabao began to honestly go into seclusion to Qi Refinement inner energy through elixirs.

Because he has drunk the spiritual dew, his cultivation speed is only slightly slower than that of an ordinary cultivator with Triple Spirit Root. He also doesn't lack pills, so his cultivation progress is not slow.

Cultivation for monks is actually a rather tedious and boring thing.

In the quiet room, you can only feel the spiritual energy from the outside world being absorbed through your pores and flowing through your meridians. At this time, you must concentrate and regulate the spiritual energy to circulate in your body according to the natural flow of the universe.

Each time a cultivator completes a full cycle of spiritual energy circulation, they can extract the most refined portion and store it in their Dantian to nourish themselves. This process is repeated continuously, involving both focused concentration and the extraction of spiritual energy.

The amount of spiritual energy a cultivator can acquire each time depends primarily on how much spiritual energy the cultivator can absorb from the outside world.

Generally speaking, the superior the Spirit Root, the more spiritual energy one can absorb. When it comes to the same amount of effort in circulating one cycle of energy, a cultivator with Heavenly Spirit Root can absorb nearly twenty times more spiritual energy than a cultivator with Five Spirit Roots.

This means that cultivators with Five Spirit Roots have to work twenty times harder to reach the most ordinary cultivation speed of cultivators with Heavenly Spirit Root.

It's no surprise that among the cultivators in this world, there are quite a few who are disheartened and content with just getting by.

The truth is, the way of Heavenly Dao is inherently unfair, and everyone feels that their efforts are futile.

"Isn't it good to live a life of luxury in a mortal fortress? Why bother to suffer such hardship?" This idea was widespread among low-level cultivators.

There's nothing we can do about it; the road ahead is just too rugged, and the way back is too tempting.

The hardships of the path to immortality lie not only in the thorns encountered by cultivators along the way, but also in the alluring tenderness behind them.

Unlike those with Heavenly Spirit Root who were fortunate enough to have their Dao Path cut off, or those with Five Spirit Roots who were nearly cut off from their cultivation, Sect Leader Kang Da nevertheless held onto that hope and that yearning for the Dao.

He felt another wisp of pure spiritual energy remain in his Dantian, and the spiritual energy in his Dantian became even thicker.

When the spiritual energy in the Dantian is full and complete, and there are faint signs of spiritual energy liquefying, one will have the initial qualifications to break through to the Foundation Establishment. However, this is a height that many cultivators have never reached in their entire lives.

Of course, Sect Leader Kang Da was still far from reaching that point. He could only hold onto the belief that "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and a great river is formed from countless small streams." So, Kang Dabao devoted himself to cultivation for two months.

Following the Grain Avoidance Pill Pei Yi had given him, he hadn't left his room for the past two months, spending his time practicing martial arts, Qi Refinement qi, learning spells, and practicing formations.

However, this peaceful and uneventful life did not last long. At noon that day, a communication talisman suddenly entered the cloud room of Sect Leader Kang Da, interrupting his long-awaited peaceful cultivation.

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