Chapter 8

Under normal circumstances, the Moon Beast Worm's body length ranges from one cun to three cun, its head pointed and slender, body elongated, entirely snow-white, hairless, with fine scale armor. But this worm before us, although its appearance resembles the Moon Beast Worm, its length reaches six cun, its skin gleams with a yellow-bronze metallic luster, like a small snake.

The worm captured by Man Niu immediately caught the attention of Hong Le, steward of the Herb Garden.

The Moon Beast Worm itself is also a spirit beast, but due to its low intelligence it cannot be tamed. In fact, the Moon Beast Worm's attack capability is extremely formidable; it can easily burrow through rock, metal, and even low-grade magical robes, let alone human or most animals' skin. If this worm could be tamed, it would greatly help increase the sect's strength.

The giant Moon Beast Worm before us is clearly different from those seen before; according to Hong Le's observation, it seems smarter than previous worms. Of course, this must be judged by the beast trainers of the Spirit Beast Hall; they are the experts.

In the morning, Wei Yuning went to the outpost of the Transmission Hall on Medicine Peak. Today, the instructor of the Transmission Hall is a senior of the Tai generation, Dao name Tai Chong, who is the senior generation of Hong Le and them, and also a great master at the late Integration stage.

The Transmission Hall is the core of the sect; they are not responsible for teaching everyday techniques, only imparting courses on each realm, that is, the knowledge of cultivating the Dao.

The sect leader of Cloud Hidden Sect places great importance on disciples' cultivation of the Dao, so the instructors of the Transmission Hall are all cultivators profoundly versed in the Dao, basically semi-retired elders from each hall. They do not teach often, only at a fixed time each month, but every new disciple's first lesson is definitely given by them.

Wei Yuning's luck is better; Tai Chong is a great master of late Integration stage, and normally only inner-door disciples receive his instruction, but today he merely happened to come to the outpost of the Medicine Hall.

In a sealed room, Wei Yuning and Tai Chong sat cross-legged facing each other.

"Hmm, wood-type spiritual root, your aptitude is not bad! Have you looked at the introductory cultivation method?" Although his body is nourished by spiritual energy, Tai Chong's appearance still looks like he is in his fifties or sixties; a cultivator at the Integration stage has a lifespan of three hundred years, so from this we can infer his age is at least over two hundred.

"I have."

"Any insights?" Tai Chong stroked his goat beard and asked.

"No insights?" Wei Yuning said frankly.

"Huh? Don't you have any ideas at all?" Tai Chong said with slight displeasure, his expression exactly like that of a middle school teacher who once scolded Wei Yuning for being hopeless.

Bad memories surged; Wei Yuning shuddered, immediately perking up: "Yes, yes, um, I'm not too familiar with the form of the spirit butterfly; can I change the object of my visualization?"

"What did you say?" Tai Chong's face showed extreme surprise.

"I didn't say anything?"

"Repeat the last thing you just said!" Tai Chong exclaimed excitedly.

Wei Yuning thought for a moment and said: "I… can I change the object of my visualization? Is that what I said?"

Tai Chong nodded vigorously, his gaze toward Wei Yuning turning strange.

"Then, what do you want to use for visualization?" Soon Tai Chong regained his calm demeanor and continued asking.

"I… I haven't decided yet!" Wei Yuning said frankly; this idea was merely a sudden inspiration, with no concrete plan.

Tai Chong did not look down on Wei Yuning for this; he slowly nodded and said: "Just having this idea is already remarkable! People in the sect mostly follow the rules, which is disappointing! Cloud Hidden Sect, forced to retreat to a corner, ought to have striven for strength, yet instead each generation is worse than the last; if we cannot change, the expectations of the founding ancestor may never be fulfilled."

Wei Yuning had no interface, and he also didn't know how to respond to this topic.

"Actually, I've had this idea too, but only in recent years. I've also made some attempts, discovering many problems; because of this, my cultivation hasn't progressed but actually regressed; otherwise, I might have already entered the Golden Core stage!"

"However, I have no regrets. The founding ancestor long ago ceased to concern himself with worldly affairs; the sect's heavy responsibility naturally falls on us juniors. Take out your introductory cultivation manual." Tai Chong said to Wei Yuning.

Wei Yuning took out the cultivation manual from his bosom. Tai Chong flicked his finger in the air; the manual vanished from Wei Yuning's hand and then "whoosh" appeared in Tai Chong's hand.

"What cultivation method is this?" Wei Yuning asked eagerly. When he saw the teleportation array yesterday, he had become greatly interested in this strange spatial crossing technique, but since he had just arrived yesterday and Qing Wu was not friendly either, he dared not ask.

"The minor teleportation method is not something you can learn now; wait until you reach the Integration stage to talk about it!" Tai Chong waved his hand.

Tai Chong opened the thin cultivation manual, flipped directly to the back page, infused a strand of spiritual energy into the butterfly illustration on the page, and a lifelike butterfly appeared in midair before the two.

The butterfly was palm-sized, entirely golden, emitting a soft glow; its appearance differed little from an ordinary butterfly, except that the two antennae on its head were especially long, more than twice its body length.

"Visualization methods are not limited to a specific object; different sects have different visualization objects, which can be tangible, intangible, or even oneself. However, our sect, due to the nature of its cultivation method, has always required disciples to use the golden spirit butterfly as the visualization object. Regardless of what the object is, the color must be positive—for example, white, red, gold, green, cyan, blue, etc. —these colors must be bright and luminous, because as living beings, we need brightness to increase our vital energy." Tai Chong explained leisurely.

"Master, what are the negative colors? And what does bright color mean?" Wei Yuning asked. As a former college student who had undergone countless exams, Tai Chong's words were actually quite superficial, but a student who asks many questions is a good student; Wei Yuning, having been a student for many years, deeply understood the subtleties.

By logic, those attending the Transmission Hall's lectures should address the instructor as 'teacher', since 'teacher' and 'master' have completely different meanings. However, with no one around, Wei Yuning called him that, and Elder Tai Chong never bothered to correct him on such a minor matter.

In fact, Tai Chong secretly felt a bit pleased that this unconventional odd-job disciple addressed him as 'master'. As a senior elder of the Tai generation with deep seniority, it had been a long time since any disciple called him 'master'; his few disciples were all unremarkable, the best among them having only reached the Heartbeat Stage before departing decades ago.

"Naturally, purple and black. Since you've raised this point, I might as well add: aside from white and black, perhaps purple from the negative colors could be added; other colors do not have an absolute positive/negative distinction, the criterion for judging whether they are positive or negative is whether they are bright or dark. For example, the green of the wood element, you might think it is a positive color, but dark green is just as evil as pure black."

"Because our sect's visualization object is only the golden spirit butterfly, many introductory disciples often fail to grasp this distinction. Well, in short, a practitioner's visualization object must be a bright color; white is naturally best for cultivation, but cultivators inevitably contend with people, beasts, and heaven and earth, so strength is vital; only by preserving the physical body can one speak of the great Dao. Therefore our sect chose bright gold, second only to white, whose positive energy is not inferior to white's, and possesses a sharp qi; it not only suppresses illusory evil entities, but also provides an attack aid against corporeal evil entities that white energy lacks, making it an excellent color for visualization."

"Having said all this, what are your own thoughts on the visualization object?" Seeing Wei Yuning listening intently, Tai Chong thought the youngster was teachable, and finally asked.

Wei Yuning thought, since he was an odd-job worker in the Herb Garden, it was natural to choose something related; the visualization object could be flowers and grasses, but their size is too small, not matching his tall stature; he should think of something larger, yet size alone isn't enough—hardness also matters. In his knowledge reserves, the hardest thing is naturally the iron tree, but he reconsidered, having never seen an iron tree, unable to visualize it, and the term 'iron tree' sounded lowbrow, like a village nickname 'Tie Dan'; at that moment, a sudden inspiration struck, an image appeared in his mind, and he said: 'May my visualization object be a Southern Mountain Immortal Pine?'