Chapter 40: Who Could Have Thought a Master Could Also Misjudge?

After receiving a promise from Yazi to immediately ship goods from Gangdu, Feng Xue locked the door, returned to the study he had deliberately cleared out, and took from his Hutian Bag a small table, incense, and candles to prepare the altar.

But this time, he finally began setting up a proper ritual framework.

The ritual framework sounds mysterious, but in reality it is merely an external processing and guidance of one's own Qi, making it easier to produce corresponding transformations.

This external guidance broadly consists of two parts—

【Ritual】 and 【Trajectory】.

【Ritual】 refers to ceremony: a fixed behavioral template.

【Trajectory】 refers to path: the process of Qi transformation.

Using chemistry as a metaphor—

【Ritual】 is the experimental procedure: heating potassium permanganate yields oxygen; mixing hydrogen and oxygen in proportion and igniting them produces steam. Even if you don't know why, as long as you complete the procedure, you get the result.

【Trajectory】 is the chemical equation: the theoretical foundation of the process. Once you fully understand the theory, you can achieve the same result through other means without relying on ritual.

For example, the 【Ritual】 of the Call Fire Spell is to fuse Qi with flame, endowing Qi with heat and combustion properties. Thus, novices often need to hold a candle or torch when casting it, appearing like frauds who pretend to spit fire by holding cornstarch in their mouths.

But the 【Trajectory】 is the process of Qi transformation itself: once you master the steps of heating, accelerating, and shaping Qi, you can turn Qi into flame directly, even without fire as a medium.

When learning a new spell, one usually begins with 【Ritual】: using fixed forms to force Qi into transformation, then studying the details of how Qi changes during the process to summarize the 【Trajectory】. Once you can complete the spell's 【Trajectory】 without relying on ritual, you can cast spells barehanded, even engraving your summarized 【Trajectory】 onto objects to create artifacts or talismans that automatically activate upon inputting Qi.

The 【Ritual】 of the Jade-Nourishing Spell consists of a pinch of jade powder, a fine piece of jade, and a stubborn stone. Place the jade to be nourished at the center of the triangle formed by these three, first channel Qi into the jade powder, allowing it to slowly transform toward the essence of jade. After completing this step, divide the Qi into three parts and inject them into the stubborn stone, the fine jade, and the ordinary jade respectively, using the stubborn stone and fine jade as benchmarks to adjust the structure and meridians of the nourished jade.

It sounds simple: a comparative experiment, removing the parts resembling the stubborn stone and rearranging them into the structure of fine jade.

But actually doing it…

Feng Xue was even stuck at the first step—he couldn't even transform his Qi into 【Jade】 attribute.

After all, this was an advanced technique derived from the Call Lightning Spell. Compared to active properties like fire or lightning, 【Jade】 is far more dense and still: Qi moves, it does not coagulate; Qi is still, it does not change. Even with jade powder as a reference, it was like asking a complete beginner to sketch a plaster statue—getting even a crooked shape would count as talent.

"This thing is clearly not meant for someone at my level! Is that old man scamming me? How could a normal newbie have this much Qi to waste?"

As Feng Xue controlled the flow of Qi, he muttered inwardly. Only his prior practice of the Spirit-Infusing Spell had given him some insight into Qi stability; otherwise, he might not even have managed to keep his released Qi lingering in the jade powder.

In truth, Feng Xue had misunderstood. The Jade-Unlocking Method was indeed not meant for newcomers, and the old man clearly didn't hand out Cultivation Techniques to just anyone.

He gave it to Feng Xue because he noticed the Jade Seal on him.

Normally, before entering the Dao, an Xuan Xiu's Qi is extremely scarce; refining their Core Artifact requires painstaking, slow work. To reach the completion level of Feng Xue's Jade Seal would take decades of relentless polishing to make the Qi on it appear as fresh and vivid as if just infused.

To the elder's eyes, since Feng Xue could forge such an artifact and had mastered the Spirit-Infusing Spell to such a "skillful" level, even without entering the Dao, he was already close enough. At his age, achieving such mastery in both Core Artifact and Soul Realm, the elder had developed some appreciation for his talent. Moreover, since Feng Xue's Jade Seal was of low quality, the elder offered him this opportunity to prevent his decades of painstakingly refined Core Artifact from being limited by its base material.

And this wasn't merely a favor: by learning the Jade-Unlocking Method, even without becoming a disciple, Feng Xue would interact more with jade and minerals. After a hundred years (post-death), when his soul returned to the Underworld, he'd find it easier to join the elder's sect for employment.

But who could have expected that this Feng Xue was purely brute force plus cheating—he'd poured into the jade an amount of Qi that ordinary Xuan Xiu would take six decades to accumulate?

Yet Feng Xue was clearly unaware of the elder's thoughts. He only figured that since the elder could see his shallow cultivation (in the elder's eyes, anyone not entered into the Dao was shallow), he must also see his Soul Realm strength—and wouldn't give him a technique he couldn't possibly practice. So his stubborn nature clashed with the Jade-Nourishing Spell: when his Qi ran out, he drained his lifespan to extract vital energy, refined it into Qi, and kept fighting.

Fortunately, his practice of the Spirit-Infusing Spell had accumulated extensive experience in Qi manipulation. By late night, a new term finally appeared above Feng Xue's head—

【Post-Transformation Method: Transform Qi into 【Jade】 attribute possessing solidity, density, purity, and stability.】

"Got it!" Feng Xue's eyes lit up. The breath he'd forced himself to hold released, and he immediately felt exhausted and hungry. He yanked off his ring and tossed it aside:

"You look like a person! Go make something to eat!"

"Oh!" Liu Yunxi had not yet touched the ground when she transformed into human form. Hearing Feng Xue's order, she said nothing—she was hungry too, no less than him!

After all, her cultivation had been ruined by Feng Xue; now, she couldn't abstain from food.

…

While Liu Yunxi cooked, Feng Xue locked the 【Post-Transformation Method】 term and experimented with this Qi. Though only a small part of the entire Jade-Nourishing Spell, this skill could be independently extracted—it was no different from the Call Lightning Spell, Call Fire Spell, or the yet-unlearned Jin Shen Zhou. But unlike fire, lightning, or Jin Shen Zhou, whose names immediately conjure their applications, this Qi radiating a lustrous glow was far more abstract.

Recalling how the Call Lightning Spell and Call Fire Spell applied transformed Qi, Feng Xue pointed two fingers like a sword at the stubborn stone on the altar. A soft white light shot from his fingertip—but it wobbled crookedly. Even with his utmost control, at barely half a meter, it only grazed the stone's edge.

"Snap!"

The soft sound made Feng Xue pause in thought. The 【Jade】 attribute Qi was clearly denser than ordinary Qi, which was lighter than a breeze, and possessed some physical impact—but its power was no greater than throwing a stone, and even less accurate.

"So this kind of Qi isn't suited for long-range attacks like Call Lightning Spell or Call Fire Spell. It should be used like Jin Shen Zhou—covering the body to enhance defense, or hardening fists or weapons to inflict greater physical damage?"

Regarding the system: because of the existence of the Underworld, the overall system here is Yin. Human Xuan Xiu are Lesser Yin (cultivating Yin Spirit with Yang Qi); ghosts are Old Yin (absorbing Yang Qi, cultivating Yin Body); and demons are Supreme Yin (Supreme Yin lunar essence).

Of course, Yang systems exist too—such as demonic beasts and Wu Xiu—but, well, system development depends on environment.

In this world, when humans die, they become ghosts, and Xuan Xiu can seamlessly switch to Yin cultivation. This results in a vast number of Yin-system cultivators lingering in the Underworld. Even if a Yang-system cultivator occasionally emerges—a peerless martial genius who dominates the age—he'll live at most a few centuries. After death, his entire cultivation dissipates, and he still must switch to Yin cultivation.

Moreover, there's the problem of transmission difficulty. In a great disaster, Yang-system lineages easily break. But Yin-system lineages have Laozu below; summon them up, and the transmission resumes.

Thus, in this world, Yin-system dominance is inevitable.

And some ask: if demons have such large numbers, why haven't they built a civilization?

I've already complained about this countless times—you can't lump all demons together just because they're called "yao," just as you can't treat all foreigners as one group because they're called "foreigners."

Demons are numerous, but the probability of gaining spiritual awareness is tiny, and their cultivation time is long. Without receiving a title or falling into demonic corruption, even a gifted one takes five hundred years to take human form, a thousand years to become a great demon. In that time, humans can produce dozens of generations of comparable masters.

Even with the Emperor's Flowing Dew, which causes a demonic surge every sixty years, even those who awaken early merely live longer—they're still manageable by ordinary humans, and thus pose little threat to humanity as a whole.



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(End of Chapter)