Chapter 235: Formatting Immortal Techniques

"You're just going to let Zheng Fa run wild?"

Uncle Huang asked, turning toward Senior Sister Zhang.

Her gaze drifted to the courtyard's skylight. Senior Sister Zhang was a person who prized neatness above all else, and she loved water. Even though this was only a temporary residence, she had still arranged it with care.

The skylight had originally held a small lake, and the plants along its edge were trimmed in perfect order.

In the past, the sight had been a balm to the spirit.

Now, however, a few things had been set down that thoroughly ruined the view — a coffin, and two square tables.

Zheng Fa took out his storage bag, opened its mouth, and mud from within poured onto the tables, dust swirling through the courtyard.

Uncle Huang felt it sting his eyes and turned to look at his own disciple.

Senior Sister Zhang's expression was unchanged, as if she hadn't caught the disdain in her master's tone. She asked back, "How is it running wild?"

Uncle Huang pursed her lips, pointed at the bones in the coffin, and said with distaste, "There's not a trace of spiritual energy in these bones. If there were, would it be your turn to pick them up?"

Senior Sister Yuan nodded at the side.

The origins of these bones were no small matter. The cultivators who had come treasure-hunting had surely turned them over in their minds, and plenty of them had probably dreamed of stumbling onto a hidden gem.

If they hadn't failed to see any value in them, the bones wouldn't have ended up in Zheng Fa's hands.

Zheng Fa heard Uncle Huang's words too, but he didn't take them to heart —

In all of Xuanwei Realm, the person who could understand his thinking now might be Senior Sister Zhang alone.

Or rather, Senior Sister Zhang might even harbor some doubts of her own, yet she still gave him enough trust to let him act freely.

Uncle Huang was different.

Even among the three Nascent Soul cultivators of Jiushan Sect, she was the one who had spent the least time with Zheng Fa.

He could feel it — Uncle Huang didn't have much feeling toward him. It wasn't dislike, exactly; it was more that this uncle of his simply didn't care much about him.

Zheng Fa even had the sense that, in all of Jiushan Sect, the only person Uncle Huang cared about might be Senior Sister Zhang alone.

It was only natural for her to be puzzled by his unorthodox behavior.

Zheng Fa arranged the mud he had taken from the secret realm, then turned and produced a white porcelain plate. He said softly toward the bones in the coffin, "Senior, forgive the intrusion!"

Having spoken, a Frost Blade talisman flew out from his dantian and sliced off a layer of bone wafer-thin from the skeleton's finger, dropping it into the porcelain plate in his hand.

"What are you doing?"

Uncle Huang asked. Senior Sister Zhang watched Zheng Fa's movements and shook her head as well — clearly she hadn't figured it out either.

Zheng Fa didn't answer either of their questions. Instead, a silver light flared in his eyes as he looked at the bone wafer.

Under the vision of the Hollow Dong Xu Ling Yan, the bone wafer was magnified many times over.

This bone wafer had long since lost every trace of spiritual energy, and with it, its mighty power. It couldn't even withstand a small Frost Blade talisman. Precisely because of this, others had only seen it as an ordinary object.

But in Zheng Fa's eyes, this bone wafer was far from ordinary — based on his understanding of today's immortal techniques, or as Senior Sister Zhang had put it, from Soul Transformation onward, the physical body becomes nourishment and ceases to matter to a cultivator.

In other words, cultivators above Soul Transformation most likely have no true physical body at all.

Yet these bones had endured for hundreds of thousands of years, and even after all that time could still deliver a single strike.

In Zheng Fa's mind, this was surely the work of the Tianhe new method.

The magnified bone wafer showed nothing particularly special.

Under the magnified view of the Hollow Dong Xu Ling Yan, this slice of bone looked just like an ordinary person's bone — a great deal of bone matrix, scattered bone cells, probably because the person was already dead, so all the structures within the cells had ceased their activity.

But this very ordinariness was deeply abnormal!

For one thing, could an ordinary person live that many years?

Could an ordinary person kill five Nascent Soul cultivators with a single sword?

At this thought, the silver light in Zheng Fa's eyes flared three times brighter as he focused on the bone slice.

He really did find something different!

Within every bone cell, there seemed to be a vacancy, as though something had once been there.

He couldn't help but think of the cell structure in his own body that looked like a spiritual talisman.

Did this person also have a special Dao Body?

"Junior Brother Zheng, did you find something?"

Senior Sister Zhang asked when she saw him look up.

Zheng Fa shook his head and said, "No conclusion yet."

He took out paper and a brush and drew the structural diagram of those few bone cells on the paper. After carefully depicting that vacancy in particular, he walked over to the mud beside him.

The composition of the mud was far more complex.

Apart from the mud itself.

There were also the fragments of magical treasures and human bodies.

"Senior Sister Zhang…" Zheng Fa looked at her. He didn't even need to finish the sentence before she nodded and said, "What do you want me to do?"

"Every different fragment — we need to record its shape and sort it into categories."

Zheng Fa explained his idea.

Senior Sister Zhang nodded, activated the Hollow Dong Xu Ling Yan as well, and began recording alongside Zheng Fa.

Off to the side.

Uncle Huang and Senior Sister Yuan exchanged a glance, both shook their heads involuntarily, looking oddly of one mind, and walked out of the courtyard together.

"Uncle, do you understand what they're doing?"

"Doing what?" Uncle Huang sighed softly. "It's the little romance between the young couple — isn't it normal for outsiders not to understand?"

"…"

The substances in the mud were far too many and varied. Even though both Senior Sister Zhang and Zheng Fa were cultivators, and Senior Sister Zhang was at Nascent Soul stage, it still took the two of them a full three days and nights to roughly sort everything out.

"Done playing?"

Uncle Huang watched the two of them pack away the coffin and the square table this day and couldn't help but ask.

"It's over."

Uncle Huang glanced at Zheng Fa and Shijie Zhang, seeing their expressions calm with nothing unusual: "Found nothing?"

"Yes, a small discovery."

"That's not bad either." Uncle Huang nodded as he listened, "At least your Shijie didn't follow you for a futile effort."

"Shidi, this discovery... is not small!" Who knew Shijie Zhang suddenly spoke up.

"Hmm?"

"We probably know what Tianhe Zunzhe's new method is about!"

"Ah?"

Uncle Huang froze.

"Just based on that bone? That pile of mud?"

Zheng Fa nodded.

"Wait, the people of Tianhe Sect hid this for hundreds of thousands of years, the inheritance of the Tianhe new method has been severed for an epoch, and you discovered it based on just these two things?"

"Not exactly." Zheng Fa shook his head and said, "We still don't know what the cultivation technique created by Tianhe Zunzhe is like; we only have some guesses, so we called it a small discovery."

"Then what did you know?"

"Probably... the train of thought behind the Tianhe new method?"

"..."

Zheng Fa picked up those blueprints and began to explain:

"Uncle, look, in the bone cells of that disciple of Tianhe Zunzhe, oh, in this circle, there is a gap."

"Later, we also found some residual blood in the mud, uh, cells, which also had the same small gap inside."

"I didn't know what this gap was before, but later I found a kind of metal particle carrying Qi in the mud, and coincidentally—the shapes of these two match perfectly! We suspect these particles should come from the bronze sword he originally held."

Uncle Huang blinked his eyes.

Zheng Fa, at the Foundation Establishment stage, was speaking, yet why did I, at the Nascent Soul stage, not quite understand?

"Master, what Zheng Fa means is that the general train of thought of the Tianhe new method is to practice sword into the body, to merge man and sword as one, and to strengthen the flesh with the power of the magical treasure."

"So, the particles of that bronze sword matched the cells so well."

"That cultivator was able to survive for so long, probably also because of that bronze sword."

It was Shijie Zhang who explained.

Hearing this, Uncle Huang understood; she frowned and said, "Tianhe Zunzhe created the method of a life-bound treasure; the core idea of the new Tianhe method after Soul Transformation is to merge the life-bound treasure with oneself?"

"Yes, Zheng Fa and I guessed this."

"This train of thought..." Uncle Huang said thoughtfully, "I seem to have heard it somewhere."

"Sword Cultivators!" Shijie Zhang stated directly, "I have seen records in the classics; in the last epoch, a type of cultivator appeared who had nothing but the sword! Moreover, Tianhe Zunzhe was famous for the sword."

Uncle Huang nodded repeatedly: "Practicing the sword into the body is the essence of the Tianhe new method?"

"No, having nothing else is." Zheng Fa and Shijie Zhang exchanged a glance, their faces much heavier than before, and spoke: "Uncle, you should know our theory of the Three Talisman Characters?"

Uncle Huang nodded slightly.

"Simply put, we believe the rules of Qi in this world were written by some great powers. That is why the Divine Name Talisman Characters exist."

"I know this."

"But we discovered—the Tianhe new method should be able to fundamentally clear these rules."

"Clear?" Uncle Huang was stunned, "What do you mean?"

"In these mud particles, many come from the flesh and magical treasures of those cultivators—but when we used the 'Void-Piercing Spiritual Eye' to look, the Qi trajectories within showed no trace of the Divine Name Talisman Characters."

"You mean..."

"Tianhe Zunzhe mastered at least one means to alter, oh, I should say, cleanse the Qi rules—I suspect it is that 'Zhu Xian' technique."

"And the reason those Nascent Souls and Jin Dan died so quickly was also because the Qi rules within their bodies were altered..."

Zheng Fa said this while shaking his head again: "Of course, this is also a guess between Shijie and me, but from the observed situation, this explanation is relatively reasonable."

Shijie Zhang beside him was also nodding.

"This also makes sense why the Tianhe new method and the old method are almost like fire and water—for the old method, this Tianhe Zunzhe could probably be called the Dharma-Extinguishing Zunzhe; if all Sword Cultivators are like this, then... it is truly a bit terrifying."

Uncle Huang stood frozen in place for a while, seemingly digesting all the logic within.

Her mouth open, she turned her head, looking at the coffin and the mud, frowning, her expression seeming even more puzzled.

"Shizun? Is there anything you still don't understand?"

Shijie Zhang asked softly.

"I understand what you mean..." Uncle Huang waved her hand and said, "I just still find it hard to believe; from just these two things, you can see so many things?"

Modern times.

Tang Lingwu and Old Man Bai listened to Zheng Fa's introduction about the Tianhe new method; after a long while, Tang Lingwu seemed to understand and spoke:

"So the Tianhe new method is just formatting the Qi?"

... That description makes a lot of sense!

(End of this chapter)