Chapter 24: Listening to the Golden Mantra by the Shore of Poyanghu

In the fifth month, the katydids move their legs; in the sixth month, the bush crickets vibrate their wings.

When Cheng Yunqi heard the bush crickets beginning to chirp, he knew it was time to set out on his journey.

On the morning of the first day of the sixth month, Cheng Yunqi strapped on a pack of suitable size, buckled his "Autumn Water" sword to his waist, and stepped out of his home.

This time, he did not sneak away; he had already informed the town in advance.

He pushed open the door. Although the sky was still only faintly lit, the entrance to the Cheng family courtyard was already crowded with people. Seeing Cheng Yunqi emerge, the crowd stirred and parted to make a path.

Cheng Yunqi smiled and waved at everyone. "I am traveling far today. I must trouble you all to look after the old house and my parents' graves."

The quiet crowd suddenly erupted into sound.

"It is only right, only right."

"Travel safely, Cheng Yunqi."

"Little Master, come back and visit often!"

"..."

Everyone spoke at once, and Cheng Yunqi nodded with a smile in response.

He walked along the path the crowd had cleared. After three or five steps, he turned back to glance at the words on the doorplate above the eaves, which read:

"The journey begins, joy and fortune arrive."

With a smile on his face, he strode away.

————

Leaving the town, he trod the familiar road to the Yulin Temple. However, Cheng Yunqi did not enter the temple this time. Like many other pilgrims, he offered three sticks of incense in the censer on the plaza before the temple gate.

As he bowed, he saw the Temple Master standing at the entrance. He lifted "Autumn Water" and waved it in the air a few times.

He had come to the temple almost every day for the past few days to discuss sword techniques with the Temple Master, and he had truly benefited immensely. Although the old Temple Master could not tell Cheng Yunqi how to walk the path ahead, he had shared the detours he himself had taken without reservation, so it would not be an exaggeration to call him Cheng Yunqi's half-master in the sword Dao.

But at this moment of parting, there were no more words to be said.

The Temple Master also wore a faint smile, watching Cheng Yunqi depart.

The young boy following the Temple Master looked up at the old man, wondering why the Temple Master seemed to have grown younger. Could it be that the Temple Master was truly an immortal?

Cheng Yunqi descended Mount Yuxiu and traveled westward. Unless he encountered insurmountable natural barriers, he did not intend to ride the clouds during this journey.

————

More than twenty days later, in the latter part of the sixth month, the summer heat grew intense.

Summer dawns are quite interesting. One moment it is pitch black, but as if in the blink of an eye, the sky turns a dark cyan, and before one knows it, it shifts to a grayish-white. The sky brightens extremely quickly.

In an unnamed mountain forest, on a not-too-high peak, stood a dead tree. Its bark was charred black, its trunk hollow, and its remaining branches leafless, looking as if it had been scorched by a lightning-induced fire.

Within a radius of several miles, this tree was the tallest, with nothing else to obstruct it.

On a thin branch at the top of the withered tree, Cheng Yunqi sat cross-legged. The summer morning breeze blew, causing both the person and the branch to sway slightly.

Last year, He Bingkun had told Cheng Yunqi that one could only be considered a beginner in meditation if one could sit still on a galloping Thunder Sparrow. At that time, Cheng Yunqi could not even stand steadily. Now, light as a leaf, he could enter deep meditation on a thin branch in the wind—all this had taken only a year.

Cheng Yunqi's eyes were slightly closed, his lips parted, leaving a small opening. As he exhaled, the turbid Qi leaked out from the small opening, and a faint "Hsu" sound could be heard. As he inhaled, wisps of wood-element spiritual energy were drawn into his nasal cavity, then into his throat, passing through the Twelve-Story Pagoda, completing a small wood-element single-phase Zhou Tian, and settling as a wisp of wood-element magic power near his liver orifice.

Suddenly, a beam of light appeared on the eastern horizon. The crimson light shone on Cheng Yunqi's eyelids, and the "Hsu" sound in his mouth naturally shifted to "He" as he inhaled the fire energy.

If Master Sukong were to enter Cheng Yunqi's inner landscape world at this moment, he would see countless crimson fireflies circling the fire palace, far more spectacular than the other four palaces. Among the four palaces, the water and earth magic powers were the heaviest, wood was next, and the gold element was the least.

The weather today was excellent, the clear sky washed clean, ten thousand miles without a cloud, and the sunlight was scorching. Encountering such good weather, Cheng Yunqi was in no hurry to travel. From the Mao hour until the Wu hour, he did not move, absorbing the sun's fire energy.

Not until after the Wu hour did Cheng Yunqi leisurely open his eyes and stop absorbing the Qi. The sun's fire energy after this time would be mixed with twilight energy, and he intended to refine it into True Yang Bing Fire; absorbing too much twilight energy would be of no benefit.

The Daoist tilted his body, dropped from the tree, picked up the pack on the ground, and prepared to set off again.

He had spent the better part of the month this way: absorbing gold energy when encountering mineral veins, wood energy in forests, water energy by rivers, fire energy under the blazing sun, and earth energy otherwise. The Daoist specifically chose to walk in deep mountains and great marshes, places rarely visited by people; in the bustling towns of the mortal world, the heaven and earth spiritual energy was simply too thin.

However, before leaving, there was one more thing to do. He drew his sword and shaved off a palm-sized piece of charred bark from the tree. He had already recognized this as a jujube tree. Jujube wood struck by lightning possessed the masculine energy of thunder and fire, which could be used to make talisman paper for thunder or fire talismans.

This item was not particularly precious, but encountering it by chance was enough to bring joy. Such things were always a case of "planting flowers intentionally, but they do not bloom; planting a willow unintentionally, and it grows into shade." If one truly wanted to seek this out one day, it would likely take quite a bit of effort. This was one of the benefits of traveling: as long as one was observant, there would always be unexpected surprises.

Cheng Yunqi did not take too much; a small piece was enough, leaving the rest for other fated people.

Putting the lightning-struck jujube bark into his pack and returning his sword to his waist, Cheng Yunqi set off again.

Walking through this not-so-large mountain forest, a rich vapor of water came with the wind, colliding head-on with the Daoist who had just emerged from the forest.

Cheng Yunqi took a deep breath, and almost subconsciously, naturally began to absorb the water energy using the "Blow" mantra.

He suddenly realized something and looked into the distance, seeing an endless great marsh to the south. The misty waves were vast, the light shimmering, and many mountain islands were dotted within it. At this moment, a flock of white cranes flew past, looking like a sacred realm of water.

He had arrived at Poyanghu.

Poyanghu, also known as Danshi Lake, was one of the five great lakes, a rare and massive lake under heaven.

Mount Sanqing was to the southeast of Poyanghu. Cheng Yunqi had been traveling west since leaving the mountain, so he should be at the southern corner of Poyanghu at this moment.

The Daoist walked toward the lakeshore. Having passed such a scenic spot, he naturally could not miss it. Cheng Yunqi intended to stay for a few days; the water vapor here was abundant, and he could accumulate quite a bit of water-element magic power. Moreover, the five great lakes each had their own elemental attributes, and Poyanghu belonged to the gold element, which was also beneficial for his gold-element cultivation. Places with gold-element properties were the rarest among the five elements, and currently, his own gold-element was the weakest.

Furthermore, Poyanghu stones were long renowned; there must be gold-water dual-element gold essence ore under the water. If he happened to find three or five pieces, it would also be accumulating "rations" for "Autumn Water." In Cheng Yunqi's own sect residence, there was a stone lamp gifted by He Bingkun, which was refined from this Poyanghu stone.

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The great lake was right before his eyes, but when Cheng Yunqi actually walked to the lakeshore, it took him over an hour with his foot speed, which showed just how vast the lake was.

Standing on the lakeshore, the afternoon lake breeze had a hint of warmth, and the shimmering waves were like floating gold foil on the lake, slightly dazzling.

Cheng Yunqi squinted as he looked, but even with all his effort, he could not see where the northern shore was. He had never seen the sea, and he thought to himself, both were infinitely vast, so what was the difference between a lake and the sea?

Cheng Yunqi looked left and right; the southern shore alone had no end in sight. He did not know where the east and west ended, only that the place where he stood was lush with vegetation, with the roars of tigers and the cries of apes in his ears, and herds of rhinoceros and crocodiles in his sight, but not a single trace of human habitation.

Cheng Yunqi looked around, walking and stopping along the southern shore. After half a quarter of an hour, he finally found a treasure land.

On the southern shore, there was a place protruding into the lake, a flat piece of land. There was nothing around to block the morning sun, and the ground was covered with tall osmanthus trees. Scattered among the osmanthus forest were several giant rocks, the largest of which was even taller than the osmanthus trees—a good place for meditation and cultivation.

Most importantly, as he absorbed Qi along the way, the gold energy here was the strongest, which was no wonder there was a forest of osmanthus trees.

Cheng Yunqi summoned his "Dragon Carriage" and rode the clouds to a high altitude, patrolling within a fifty-mile radius of this osmanthus forest. He did not find anything unusual, nor did he see any other people's cave dwellings or traces; it was a scene of wild wilderness.

Returning to the vicinity of the giant rock in the center of the osmanthus forest, Cheng Yunqi intended to build a hut here for a period of time, perhaps ten days, or a month or two, or until the osmanthus flowers bloomed and scented the air.

He took off his pack and took out a vine, on which grew nine wooden bells. Eight of them were the size of a fingernail, and one was about the size of half a palm.

This was a set of magic tools called the Eight Trigrams Mother-and-Son Bells. By placing the eight son-bells in the eight trigram directions around him while he stayed in the center, the mother-bell would ring to warn him if anything with magic power fluctuations or strong blood energy passed by.

This was one of the few magic tools Cheng Yunqi had purchased in the mountain for his journey, costing ten taels of snow-white silver.

He took down the eight son-bells and hung them on trees about three miles away from the giant rock in the eight trigram directions. As soon as these bells approached the tree trunks, the stems on their tops automatically connected to the trunks, as if they had grown there originally.

Returning to the center of the eight trigrams, he brought the vine close to an osmanthus tree, and the vine automatically climbed up, requiring no further attention.

A simple protective warning was set up. Being outside was not like being in the sect; one should not have the intention to harm others, but one must have the intention to guard against them. If he intended to stay for a long time, he still had to be prepared.

However, magic tools were ultimately dead objects. If he had a walking corpse or a spiritual pet to guard him, it would be much more convenient and safe. Cheng Yunqi currently had neither, only a motionless insect corpse in his pocket.

Cheng Yunqi scanned the giant rocks. There were four in total, each ten steps in circumference. The small one was as tall as a person, and the large one was two zhang high.

Cheng Yunqi chose the one twice the height of a person and patted it; the texture was quite hard and not brittle. He sat down on the ground against the osmanthus tree where the mother-bell hung and muttered to himself, "I hope it doesn't rain these next few days."

He took out a jade slip he kept close to his body; it was the "Guangcheng Decree Void Heart-Following Mantra."

He pressed the jade slip to his brow, and with practiced ease, he projected his thoughts inside, seeing again the forty-nine golden characters in the vast, white void. Cheng Yunqi looked at the "Split" character and, without hesitation, focused his thoughts upon it.

This time, Cheng Yunqi's thoughts were pulled into a scorching white world, like a mountain of knives and a hell of swords, a cage of sword rain. Everywhere was sharp energy, everywhere golden threads drifted, and a white tiger spanning the horizon appeared and disappeared.

Sitting cross-legged on the tiger's back was an illusory Daoist whose features could not be seen. The Daoist's left hand formed a seal, his thumb pressing on his middle and ring fingers, his index and little fingers straight, pointing directly at him.

At this moment, countless weapons between heaven and earth turned toward the direction the hand seal pointed, clanging and shrieking, responding to the syllable that burst from the Daoist's mouth:

"Split!"

The book is on the new book list, so I ask for everyone's support, votes, and welcome comments and messages.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 25 =====