Chapter 299

There are few bargains in the world that can be taken for no reason; everything has a price.

As a forbidden book sealed by the Heavenly Emperor, how precious was the Nine Heavens Secret Method? Yet Yuan Gong, who was responsible for guarding the Heavenly Book, generously taught the Heavenly Stems Department Divine Wandering Heavenly Book to Xu Qing.

If there were no tricks in this, then it could only be said that Xu Qing had misunderstood the monkey; it turned out there were honest monkeys among them too.

Xu Qing had initially harbored a fluke, thinking that Yuan Gong had stolen the Heavenly Book and the Heavenly Emperor had punished him to suffer the tribulations of wood harm, fire burning, earth burial, metal injury, and water drowning—the Five Elements Tribulations.

In these five immortal tribulations, Yuan Gong had relied on his own strength to survive four of them, only to be suppressed in the Moonlit Stream during the final water tribulation, unable to flip over.

And Xu Qing, in an age of great catastrophe where the path to heaven was broken, had extended a helping hand, pulled the old monkey, and rescued Yuan Gong from the final tribulation, helping him achieve perfect merit.

This was a great favor; it was not impossible that the old monkey was grateful and thus taught him the Divine Wandering Heavenly Book, which even the Celestial Fox envied and could not obtain.

Gratitude and repayment are originally a fine story in the world.

But how could Xu Qing have imagined that this old monkey was so calculating, calculating every account for him clearly.

Even the teaching of the Sword Pellet Secret Method to Xuanyu was to make Xuanyu also fall into the Bai Yun Cave trap.

Xu Qing could not refuse the temptation of the Divine Wandering Heavenly Book. According to Yuan Gong, when this escape technique was cultivated to perfection, one would arrive instantly as soon as the thought occurred.

It was much more powerful than shrinking the earth into an inch, the golden light of traversing the earth, or even the Five Elements Escape Techniques!

Xu Qing had vaguely felt something was wrong at the time, but he thought to himself, with this escape technique, even if there were things he couldn't handle waiting for him, couldn't he just run away?

As a result, after practicing the Divine Wandering Heavenly Book, he realized that this escape technique, which was like a ten-thousand-foot-high building, required a cloud ladder of equal length to match.

And his magic power was perhaps only a foot long.

Being unable to fully exert the supernatural power of the Heavenly Book meant he couldn't escape the Celestial Fox's hateful pursuit.

"I fell for the old monkey's big trap!"

For two consecutive days, Xu Qing sat on the threshold of the mortuary shop, looking worried.

Xuanyu saw that he had something on his mind, so he came over and asked him what was wrong.

Xu Qing shook his head and said nothing.

Xuanyu said with a serious face: "I have formed a bond with Immortal Xu to cultivate, so we should support each other. If Immortal Xu has any matters, you can tell Xuanyu. As an Immortal Hall Master who has survived the thunder disaster and possesses five hundred years of cultivation, I can still share the worries for Immortal Xu."

A glimmer of hope seemed to appear in Xu Qing's sorrowful eyes. He looked at Xuanyu and said: "The Celestial Fox in Bai Yun Cave will break free in twelve years and seek revenge on you and me. Xuanyu must have a way to defeat that old demon fox, right?"

"."

Just like that, in front of the mortuary shop, there was one more monster with a sorrowful face, full of worries.

Xu Qing looked at the occasional passersby, and even his enthusiasm for going up to distribute flyers and promote his business had diminished a bit.

After sitting blankly for most of the day, Xu Qing finally let out a long breath.

After thinking, he finally came up with a method to deal with the Celestial Fox's emergence.

According to Yuan Gong, most of the Earthly Branches Department techniques in the Nine Heavens Secret Method were evil arts and strange techniques that violated the harmony of heaven, such as bean-men and paper-horses, ghost knives, and demon swords.

And these kinds of heterodox arts feared righteous supernatural powers the most. In terms of righteous methods, Xu Qing had the Blood Lake Dharma Realm to protect his body. As long as there was enough incense for the Blood Lake, the Wish-Fulfilling Protector, the Mother Qi Bottle, and even the Living Person Scripture nurtured by the Blood Lake in his hands could all serve as protective magic treasures to resist the Celestial Fox's demon arts.

It was just that the strength of the Life-Preserving Temple system was linked to incense. If Xu Qing wanted to possess enough Blood Lake magic power to resist the Celestial Fox's evil arts within twelve years, he had to break the two obstacles of the Celestial Master's Mansion and Emperor Jingxing, and let the Conservation Manual be spread to the world as soon as possible.

Righteous methods were only for self-protection, but they might not eliminate hidden dangers. If Xu Qing wanted to completely eradicate the Celestial Fox threat, he also needed the Heavenly Stems supernatural powers that restrained the Earthly Branches.

Although the Divine Wandering Heavenly Book was a Heavenly Stems Department supernatural power, it was an escape technique and of no use for subduing demons. After thinking it over, Xu Qing only had the Heavenly Stems Axe Technique that possessed the ability to slay the Celestial Fox.

But by the same token, if the Thirty-Six Heavenly Stems Axes wanted to be cultivated to a level that could threaten the Celestial Fox, they had to be comprehended to at least the twenty-fifth level within twelve years.

Although Xu Qing could practice the Heavenly Stems Axe Technique to the nineteenth level, and it had taken him less than ten years, Xu Qing knew that since he first came into contact with the Heavenly Stems Axe Technique, he had been able to use the cultivation of a Silver-Armored Corpse to perform the ninth-level axe technique.

But after the ninth level, the difficulty of each level of the Heavenly Stems Axe Technique was greater than the previous nine levels combined.

Only after cultivating to a Golden-Armored Corpse and even the Three Transformations of the Prostrate Corpse could Xu Qing push the Heavenly Stems Axe Technique to the eighteenth level with all his might.

After the eighteenth level, the difficulty of each level was comparable to the sum of the previous eighteen levels.

It was only because Xu Qing had condensed a complete Unchanging Bone that he could use the qualitative change in power of the Unchanging Bone to barely superimpose the Heavenly Stems Axe to the nineteenth level.

Going further was extremely difficult!

However, supernatural powers were different from incense; they were the most fundamental things for a practitioner, and only by constantly piling them up bit by bit could one build a ten-thousand-foot-high platform.

"What limits the Heavenly Stems Axe Technique is not the supernatural power itself, but my realm."

Xu Qing had a clear self-awareness. If he wanted to cultivate the Heavenly Stems Axe Technique to above the twenty-fifth level, he would at least need the Unchanging Bone to reach great completion, touch the threshold of a Flying Zombie, and possess a thousand years of cultivation to have a possibility.

So how to improve cultivation? At present, besides swallowing moonlight and yin qi, the fastest way to improve was to transcend corpses and use the Yin Yuan Pills or Corpse-Nurturing Pills occasionally condensed by the Scripture of Transcending People to aid his cultivation.

But the vast majority of corpses would not condense these kinds of pills.

Xu Qing counted his experience of transcending over ten thousand corpses and vaguely figured out some patterns.

Corpse-Nurturing Pills were rare and hard to find, mostly coming from zombies or practitioners of the Yin Corpse Sect; although the Yin Yuan Pill had the word "pill" in its name, it was more like a creation after the yin qi of the deceased was purified.

It was like a mass of pure yin qi, mostly produced from heterodox practitioners who cultivated evil arts, or from skeletons and yin ghosts.

There were also distinctions within this; for example, the skeleton ghosts in the Yin River Ancient Path that naturally possessed rich yin qi could almost always be transcended to produce Yin Yuan Pills.

So where were the most skeleton ghosts?

Xu Qing subconsciously thought of his old neighbor, the Duo'e Ghost King.

"Twelve years..."

Xu Qing's eyes flickered. In twelve years, even if Zuo Zixiong and the Eight Banners Marshals couldn't determine a winner with the Duo'e Ghost King and the Yin-Erosion Dharma King, it would be enough for his old neighbor to be severely injured.

During this period, how many skeleton ghosts would have died in the Ghost King's Mausoleum?

Those skeleton frames were all white, shiny corpses!

And they were corpses that could provide a steady supply of Yin Yuan Pills for Xu Qing.

"Xuanyu! I've thought of a way!"

With the moon on the treetops, Xu Qing turned his head with a face full of joy.