Chapter 83: Visiting the Elders

After accepting Senior Sister Shen’s assistance mission to draw talismans, Chen Luo left the main peak without lingering and returned to the cemetery early.

The Mansion Guard-shixiong had drunk too much last night and remained asleep inside his room all day, snoring loudly enough to deafen anyone who passed by.

Chen Luo had already asked him yesterday: after this year, he planned to descend the mountain. He’d persevered for five years on the mountain, yet still hadn’t managed to break through to late-stage Qi Refinement. As his age continued to increase, he eventually gave up on any fanciful dreams of success.

Night fell.

Chen Luo turned off the lights in his own thatched hut and quietly made his way to the cemetery.

“The third row from the southwest, ninth grave.”

Chen Luo recalled the location his Mansion Guard-shixiong had told him the previous evening.

He had scouted out the area last night.

Aside from the Mansion Guard-shixiong, no one else visited the cemetery at night, and even birds didn’t make appearances during these hours.

Soon, Chen Luo found the grave his shixiong had described, hidden amidst a low mound of weeds.

The tombstone was broken and battered, with even a piece missing; the words carved on it were illegible due to erosion from rainwater. Who knew how many years this person had been dead? No wonder no one came to visit. The grave mound itself was overgrown with weeds, and some of the soil had washed away, making it look nothing like a burial mound. If not for his Mansion Guard-shixiong’s reminder, Chen Luo might have thought this place was just an abandoned dirt pile.

As he brushed aside the wild grasses, Chen Luo couldn’t help but sigh. Time truly is the most merciless force. Even Foundation Establishment cultivators would be forgotten after death, and in a hundred years, when his Mansion Guard-shixiong was long gone, who would remember that this place buried a Foundation Establishment immortal cultivator?

“I never imagined I’d end up doing what I used to do back home after joining an immortal sect.”

After confirming that he had found the right spot, Chen Luo took out the tools he prepared earlier in the day along with the deer-hide gloves he brought from the Yue Tomb.

After determining the approximate location of the corpse, he swung the shovel and began digging.

Huff, huff.

A dull thud made Chen Luo pause his movements.

When he poked through the dirt, he found that his shovel had hit bone. A Foundation Establishment cultivator, so important, yet without even a coffin.

His shovel was digging right into the skull—the Foundation Establishment cultivators’ skulls were harder than others, otherwise this shovel would’ve smashed straight through them.

‘There’s no poison.’

The experience of grave diggers he’d learned from Third Uncle proved useful once again.

Chen Luo prodded the skull with his shovel, confirming it posed no danger, then put on his special deer-hide gloves.

He reached out to grab the skull.

[Contacting dead person’s brain waves, Degradation Rate 96 percent. Read now?]

Familiar information appeared before him, and Chen Luo’s spirits lifted. Without another word, he chose to read.

“Read!”

A familiar set of brainwaves flooded into his body through his palm.

“Indeed, I can do it!”

Chen Luo’s spirits soared as he looked at the skull in his hand, overwhelmed by emotion. He hadn’t expected his plan to go so smoothly, nor did he expect to be able to obtain the brain of a Foundation Establishment cultivator for free.

“Shidi?” A voice suddenly sounded.

Chen Luo, who had been immersed in joy, froze instantly. When he turned around, he discovered that Mansion Guard-shixiong had appeared behind him at some point, holding a fresh wild chicken in his hands.

Hadn’t he been sleeping inside his room just moments ago?

“You’re paying your respects to the elder this way!”

The Mansion Guard-shixiong, who had just returned from hunting, was stunned as he stared at Chen Luo holding the elder’s skull.

He thought he’d gotten an obedient and well-behaved shidi, but it turned out that his new disciple was of like mind! No wonder he’d chosen to accept the gravekeeping quest. With interests such as these, without the cover provided by the quest, Chen Luo would have undoubtedly been chopped into pieces by the Disciplinary Disciple Corps.

“Senior Brother, I actually wanted to give the elder a bath,” Chen Luo said. “Can you believe it? He’s buried down there all alone for so many years, helpless and impoverished.” Even Chen Luo hadn’t expected his Mansion Guard-shixiong to appear quite so coincidentally, right when he dug up the grave.

Was this guy a night owl normally?

“I believe you!” The Mansion Guard-shixiong nodded seriously. However, no matter how one looked at his expression, something seemed off—his face practically screamed ‘you think I’m dumb’.

“Though Shidi, don’t set your hopes too high; both elders were very poor.”

‘How do you know that?!’

Chen Luo stared blankly.

The expression on Mansion Guard-shixiong’s face instantly changed.

“Never mind, keep weeding,” he said, patting Chen Luo’s shoulder with that of an experienced elder’s air. Then he grabbed the roast chicken they had brought and left, humming a tune as he went, seemingly in high spirits.

Chen Luo breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t expected his senior brother to react this way, but now he could work without restraint. As long as he finished filling the grave mound before dawn broke, everything would be fine.

Having confirmed there was no danger, Chen Luo stopped acting so surreptitiously; even swinging the shovel became faster than before.

Soon, he reached the second elder’s tomb, just like the first Foundation Establishment elder, this one too lacked a coffin for burial.

Chen Luo pressed his hand over the skull, absorbing the brain waves, then filled it back in with ease. Two brains from two Foundation Establishment elders within one night gave Chen Luo a full feeling, like he’d eaten a satisfying meal. Rubbing his slightly woozy head, he discarded those brains devoid of aptitude, then began another round of digging.

With the Foundation Establishment elder gone, even Qi Refinement disciples were not spared.

“Junior Brother Chen is even more dedicated than I was back then, digging up even the graves of Qi Refinement disciples,” the Mansion Guard-shixiong said with a sigh as he watched Junior Brother Chen diligently excavating from inside his boiling hotpot.

Late at night, Chen Luo continued to swing his shovel over there on the other side.

This level of dedication to his grave-digging career far exceeded his own past efforts.

Time passed swiftly by, and half a month flashed by in the blink of an eye.

During this half a month, Chen Luo practiced cultivation during the day, helped Senior Sister Shen draw talismans in the afternoon, and dug up graves at night to supplement his external brain.

With no reservations left, Chen Luo’s actions grew increasingly bold; after all, aside from himself, only Mansion Guard-shixiong frequented the back hills. With his senior brother’s tacit permission, Chen Luo dug without restraint.

At last, through his unwavering diligence, the external brain attached to his body underwent a major upgrade. Aside from the Royal Family Brain and Nineteenth Prince’s brain, every other traveler’s brain had been replaced—including that of the zongshi who had protected Nineteenth Prince.

With the assistance of nearly thirty brains from late-stage Qi Refinement practitioners and two Foundation Establishment cultivators, his comprehension of cultivation in the Qi Refinement realm advanced rapidly each day.

Problems once difficult were now incomparably simple.

On the sixteenth day of guarding the cemetery, Chen Luo successfully broke through to cultivation base advancement and reached Qi Refinement Third Layer.

This was a breakthrough achieved without relying on any spirit stones or external resources, purely through his own understanding and comprehension.

With this breakthrough, the number of external brains he could control increased again. As it just so happened that Chen Luo was stationed at the cemetery, he took the opportunity to replenish himself with a fresh batch of Qi Refinement disciples’ graves, filling all the empty slots.

Within the room, Chen Luo cultivated using the Comprehending Spirit Art, refining spiritual energy within his body as he settled firmly into the realm of Qi Refinement Third Layer.

In recent days, he hadn’t dug up many graves. The weeds around the cemetery had already been cleared, and the entire place looked brand-new, with fresh soil beneath its surface.

“Qi Refinement Stage Three is almost complete; I’m sure no one in the Divine Lake Immortal Sect has mastered the refinement of spiritual energy faster.”

Opening his eyes, Chen Luo sensed the changes within his body.

With the assistance of those numerous external brains, his cultivation speed had reached its peak. The first three levels of the Comprehending Spirit Art were like having practiced hundreds of times before, each new insight echoing in his mind. With his omnidirectional intuition, he had cultivated Qi Refinement Third Layer to perfection.

At this stage, he had to begin preparing for the breakthrough to mid-Qi Refinement.

One was technique; the other was cultivation resources. In Divine Lake Immortal Sect, it was mid-Qi Refinement disciples who formed the mainstream.

During their first few months as new disciples, people split into two groups: those with superior spiritual roots, whose talents were aided by abundant resources, and those with average spiritual roots, who entered the third level of Qi Refinement. Those with inferior spiritual roots remained at the first level, while those willing to spend money advanced to the second level, but still had a long way to go before reaching the third level, much less mid-Qi Refinement.

This disparity would only widen over time.

“Spiritual roots and cultivation resources!”

Chen Luo took a deep breath and began his rest period.

The Mansion Guard-shixiong next door had already fallen asleep, snoring away. The Mansion Guard-shixiong’s life after full horizontal alignment could be described as carefree—he said that once he endured through this trial, he’d descend the mountain, return to his ancestral home, become a local tycoon, marry hundreds of wives, and strive to produce descendants with superior spiritual roots.

In the Divine Lake Immortal Sect, the Mansion Guard-shixiong’s status as a mid-Qi Refinement disciple was unremarkable. But if one considered the entire lower Three Kingdoms region, being mid-Qi Refinement was an absolute powerhouse position.

Even though the number of cultivators couldn’t compare to the population of the Three Kingdoms, the numbers remained significant enough that the overall trend wouldn’t be affected even if a handful of disciples ascended or descended every year.

Within the Divine Lake Immortal Sect, the Mansion Guard-shixiong was unremarkable for someone at the middle stage of Qi Refinement. But if he were placed among the cultivators of the three neighboring countries, he would be considered a towering figure of immense renown.

The number of cultivators paled in comparison to the population of those countries. Even with disciples coming and going every year, it made no significant impact on the overall numbers.

The next day, after Chen Luo completed his tomb-sweeping duties, he went to the platform up front where a small gathering took place each morning. The attendees were all seniors from Wu Dao Peak, who exchanged information about their experiences in cultivation, thus providing a unique form of social interaction.

Ten days ago, he had finished the task assigned by Shen-shijie, which involved drawing talismans. Recently, using the rewards from various missions, he purchased some materials and drew two simple spiritual talismans: Dust-Removal Talismans!

These were the simplest kind of talisman, and he’d learned how to draw them while working with Shen-shijie, essentially bypassing the cost of learning from a master talisman artist.

Chen Luo sat in a corner, placing the two dust-removal talismans before him.

Only two remained; he couldn’t afford any more than that.

He had only five sets of dust-removing talisman materials from his reward points, so producing two already exceeded expectations—success rates among official talisman masters were even lower than his.

“Is Senior Brother selling talismans?”

Three shadows blocked Chen Luo’s path as he looked up to see Huang Ying and Fu An, along with a few others. Unlike before, one person was missing; whether they’d left the group or met some misfortune, or perhaps just passed away, no one knew.

“One spirit stone per talisman,” Chen Luo replied with a price.

“I’ll take them!” Huang Ying immediately produced two spirit stones and purchased the two talismans.

This generous act stunned Chen Luo for a moment. He hadn’t expected anyone to buy without haggling over the price first.

“You drew these yourself, didn’t you?” asked Huang Ying.

“Yes.”

Chen Luo neither denied nor confirmed this.

When he put his talismans up for sale, he never intended to hide their origin. Since he didn’t wish to go down the mountain on missions but needed to quickly accumulate resources, selling was the only option available to him. Amongst the skills he currently possessed, creating spiritual talismans was the most straightforward method by which to generate income. The remaining three required more theoretical knowledge, which wasn’t easy to experiment with at present.

“Where did you learn to inscribe spirit symbols?” Fu An asked Huang Ying.

After so long as an apprentice, neither of them were novices anymore. They understood better than anyone the value of the four skills of immortal cultivation—especially among independent cultivators scattered across the three kingdoms, any one of the four could incite war if wielded carelessly. The same went for talisman magic; anyone could learn how to draw talismans, acquire resources, or even cultivate talent, but the true difficulty lay in the legacy passed down through generations.

The technique of imbuing spirits was thus at the core of talisman magic.

“I have nothing to add,” Chen Luo replied, glancing at Fu An and ignoring the question.

Chen Luo had developed his own method of imbuing spirits using the knowledge of immortal script he’d learned from Changqing Daoist, which he himself refined over time. Back when Changqing Daoist taught him the basics of immortal script, he had explained that immortal script could convert spiritual energy into practical power, useful for creating talismans, formations, and equipment, opening up boundless possibilities.