"This is the Immortal Palace?!"
Junior Leopard's gaze was distant and full of confusion.
In front of him, there was no palace. It was an ink painting of China's ancient landscape.
The dark green mountains were endless, towering into the clouds. The mountains were surrounded by clouds and mist. Occasionally, birds flew by, passing through the mist.
Between the mountains, there was a small path passing through. A few simple pavilions were faintly discernible in the mountains. An incomparably refreshing aura blew over.
This was the Immortal Palace!
"Didn't you think of it?! The Immortal Palace is actually such a broken place! "
"Broken? I don't think so. I think it's very good! "Junior Leopard looked around, the smile on his face incomparably sincere.
They were now facing a mountain. The place where they stopped was a small village at the foot of the mountain, a small mountain village.
This small mountain village was very similar to the small mountain village at the foot of the Misty Mountain where he was born, but there were also obvious differences.
Compared to the small mountain village where he was born, this place was just as harmonious and without disputes. The difference was that the people here all knew martial arts. Although their cultivation was not very high, everyone had Internal Qi in their bodies.
For example, an old farmer carrying a bucket of manure actually had a Level Three cultivation. The big man plowing the fields had a Level Five cultivation. The farmer woman feeding pigs in the fence was actually a Level Four Bone-Forging Realm expert. What made Junior Leopard even more amazed was that this Level Four farmer woman expert actually used the Shower of Concealed Weapons technique to feed the pigs. It really made Junior Leopard gasp in amazement.
"Don't look anymore. All the villagers here have practiced martial arts since they were young. It's just that they are not like the people in the martial arts world outside who fight fiercely for the sake of strength. They just want to strengthen their bodies!"
"These are all people from the Immortal Palace!"
"Yes, they are all people from the Immortal Palace!" Jin Yuquan laughed. "The Immortal Palace, in the beginning, was this small village. Now, the people living in this village are also the relatives of the people from the Immortal Palace. I grew up here!"
Before he could finish his sentence, he heard someone call out, "Xiao Quan, why did you go out for so long this time? You didn't even come back for your Old Master's birthday. You're just waiting for your punishment!"
His tone was filled with schadenfreude. Looking towards the source of the voice, he saw that under a big tree at the entrance of the village, two wild villagers were sitting in front of a simple stone table, playing chess. They were in the midst of a fierce battle, but there was already a large group of people surrounding them to watch the battle. The one who spoke was a middle-aged wild man. He held a hoe in his hand and looked at Jin Yuquan with a smile.
Upon closer inspection, this middle-aged man's cultivation was not weak either. He had already reached the Fifth Stage.
"There are too many things to do outside. How can I be as free as you?" Golden Rooster scolded with a smile. "Is Elder Qing at home?"
"Yes, I heard that you were coming back a long time ago, so I asked Sun's daughter-in-law to kill a golden pheasant and wait for you. Hahahaha!"
A burst of laughter rang out.
Golden Rooster's face turned red and he scolded in a low voice. He did not flare up, but said to Junior Leopard awkwardly, "Ignore them. They're just a bunch of guys. None of them are good!"
Junior Leopard laughed and did not say anything. He followed behind Golden Rooster and went straight to a farmer's house in the west of the village.
This farmer's house was very ordinary, no different from the surrounding farmers. In fact, the yard was a little smaller. In the yard, there were a few chickens and ducks scattered in the yard, looking for worms to eat. When they saw Golden Rooster and Junior Leopard coming over, they were startled. A flapping sound of wings could be heard as they scattered in all directions. This alerted the people in the house.
"Is it Yuquan? Come in! "
The voice coming from the house sounded slightly old, but it was full of energy and had an unconcealable magnetism. It was very comfortable to listen to.
"Elder Qing, I've brought Zhou Bao!" Jin Yuquan said respectfully to the old man who was drinking tea and eating melon seeds after leading Junior Leopard into the house.
The old man nodded his head lightly and shifted his gaze to Junior Leopard. A satisfied smile appeared on his aged face. "Very good, young man. You have such achievements at such a young age!"
The old man's gaze was gentle and he was about 60 years old. His body was very strong, but his cultivation was surprisingly low. He was only at Level Two.
With a Level Two cultivation, even in Jianghu, he would be one of the countless people. He had no status at all. However, as a Level Seven expert, Jin Yuquan, was very respectful to him. Most importantly, when the old man swept his gaze over him, his gaze that was as calm as an abyss calmed Junior Leopard's originally curious and impatient mood. He felt much more comfortable.
His heart trembled slightly. He understood that the old man was not as useless as he thought. He quickly followed Jin Yuquan and bowed.
"You don't have to be so restrained here. Since you've chosen to join the Immortal Palace, then we're all on the same side. I'm Fang Qing. Because I'm a few years older, these guys call me Elder Qing. Of course, you can also call me Old Fang!"
"I'm Zhou Bao. Those familiar with me call me Junior Leopard. In the future, I'll need Elder Qing's guidance!" Junior Leopard said.
"Junior Leopard, Junior Leopard. Hehe, could it be that you chose Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket because there's a leopard in your name?"
"That's the reason!" Junior Leopard nodded. "Actually, I didn't think that much. I just thought that Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket was a good name!"
"According to the rules, no matter what constellation you choose, you'll get something that belongs to that constellation. In the tens of thousands of years since the establishment of the Immortal Palace, there has never been an exception!" Speaking of this, he glanced at Junior Leopard with a strange look in his eyes. "The things that belong to the constellation include secret skills, special techniques, martial arts, mental cultivation methods, and refining methods of celestial devices. Comparatively speaking, if your constellation belongs to a celestial device, the Immortal Palace will help you prepare all the important materials, but …"
"But what?" Junior Leopard asked.
"It's just that the Immortal Palace hasn't had Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket for 50,000 years, so we haven't prepared the materials to refine the Air-frozen Bead. Therefore, we can only tell you the refining method and the materials you need!"
"Ah?" Junior Leopard was stunned for a moment, and his face suddenly became bitter. Before this, Golden Rooster had told him very clearly that if the constellation he chose belonged to a celestial device, then the Immortal Palace would not only give him the method to refine the celestial device, but also prepare enough materials for him. But he did not expect to be treated like this when he arrived at the Immortal Palace. His expression immediately sank.
Similarly, Jin Yuquan's expression did not look good either. It should be known that although Junior Leopard was the candidate recommended by Wang She, after interacting with Junior Leopard twice, he also discovered that Junior Leopard had great potential. That was why he tried so hard to attract Junior Leopard to the Immortal Palace and beautify the Immortal Palace. He didn't expect to be beaten up by Junior Leopard as soon as he came back. He immediately felt ashamed, as if he had deceived Junior Leopard.
"Elder Qing, how could this be? Didn't you say …"
"I didn't expect you to know the Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket!" Elder Qing also looked very helpless. "You know that there is an unwritten rule in the Immortal Palace that the constellation belongs to the refining of celestial devices. After refining the celestial devices, if possible, we have the obligation to collect the refining materials of the constellation for future generations. However, the 28 constellations of the Immortal Palace have not been collected for more than 50,000 years, and the Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket hasn't appeared for a whole 50,000 years. The last Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket existed more than 50,000 years ago. Even if the last Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket collected all the materials, it can't be found now!"
"This …!"
This time, Golden Rooster had nothing to say. What Elder Qing said made sense. What Elder Qing said made sense. Although the Immortal Palace had been passed down for countless years, there was no guarantee that all the things from tens of thousands of years ago could be preserved. Therefore, he looked at Junior Leopard with some embarrassment. "Junior Leopard, I'm really sorry. I didn't think of this before. How about you change to another constellation?"
"Change to another one? Can I change to another one?" Junior Leopard was stunned for a moment.
"Under normal circumstances, I can't, but your situation is special. Of course, you don't have to exchange. I will give you the cultivation method of the Air-frozen Bead, and at the same time, I will give you a celestial device other than the 28 constellations, so you won't regret it!"
"Ah? How could there be such a good thing? " If Junior Leopard was very frustrated just now, after hearing Elder Qing's words, he immediately became spirited and his mood flew from the bottom of the earth to the clouds.
"You're one of the 28 constellations. Of course, you should be treated like one of them!" Elder Qing said with a smile. "The Immortal Palace has been established for tens of thousands of years. We never let our own people suffer losses. We've accumulated a lot of things over the years. It's useless to keep them here. By the way, I heard that you're a sword practitioner and you've cultivated a Flying Sword?"
"Yes, I'm a sword practitioner. But I was lucky to be able to cultivate a Flying Sword!" Junior Leopard said. He didn't hide anything. Of course, there was nothing worth hiding. He took out his Emerald Pearl Flying Sword. "This Flying Sword was originally a Genuine Weapon that had been tempered a hundred times. I accidentally found that its material had spirituality. I happened to know some Flying Sword refining methods, so I tried to refine it into a Flying Sword. I didn't expect that I would succeed!"
"It's indeed a good Flying Sword!" Elder Qing carefully looked at it and said, "In the Middle Ages, sword practitioners flourished. But it was also at that time that they mined almost all the materials in the world that could be used to refine Flying Swords. After flourishing for tens of thousands of years, they inevitably declined. I didn't expect that you could still get a Genuine Weapon forged from a material with spirituality and refine it into a Flying Sword. You're really lucky!"
"Yes, I've always been lucky!" Junior Leopard said.
"It seems that the sword practice method you got is also good. This Flying Sword was good even in the Middle Ages, let alone now!" Elder Qing smiled and glanced at Junior Leopard's Emerald Pearl Flying Sword. "When sword practitioners flourished, Flying Swords were divided into four levels: Heaven, Earth, Mysterious, and Yellow. Although your Flying Sword is a little rough, it can be regarded as a Yellow Rank Flying Sword!"
"Only Yellow Rank?!" Junior Leopard blurted out, feeling a little dissatisfied.
"Yellow Rank is already amazing. Kid, when sword practitioners flourished, there were at least 80,000 Flying Swords in the world. But less than 10,000 of them could enter the Four Levels!" Elder Qing said, "Put away your sword. I've prepared the refining method of Air-frozen Bead for you!"
"Then I'll have to trouble you!" Junior Leopard put away his Flying Sword and followed Elder Qing into the inner room with Golden Rooster.
The inner room was very simple and crude like the outside. It was a small study room. In the study room, there was a table and a stool. Behind the stool was a row of bookshelves. There were some books scattered on the bookshelves. There was nothing eye-catching. On the desk, there was an old leather scroll.
"Eh?!" Seeing the old leather scroll on the table, Junior Leopard was startled, because the style of this leather scroll was somewhat similar to the one he had obtained from Xue Wuya, which he had been unable to understand.
"This is the refining method of Air-frozen Bead!" Elder Qing didn't know what Junior Leopard was thinking. He walked to the desk, picked up the leather scroll, and handed it to Junior Leopard.
Junior Leopard took it and unfolded it. His eyes suddenly focused because the characters on the leather scroll were exactly the same as the one he got from Xue Wuya. He couldn't understand any of them.
"Elder Qing, this …!"
"It's the characters from the Middle Ages!" Elder Qing said with a smile, "Not many people can recognize it now. But don't worry. Since we've handed you the leather scroll, we'll definitely help you understand it. But it takes time. You have two choices. First, you can learn the characters from the Middle Ages. Second, we can help you change the leather scroll to the current characters. In this way, there will be one more person besides you who knows the refining method of Air-frozen Bead!"
"I'd better learn it!" Junior Leopard smiled bitterly, but in his heart, he was overjoyed. He had gotten the leather scroll for 10 years and checked a lot of information about it. But he still couldn't figure out what kind of scribbles were on it. He didn't expect that he could solve the problem that had been bothering him for 10 years when he came to the Immortal Palace.
"That's great!" Elder Qing seemed to agree with Junior Leopard's idea. "Go to the third house next door tomorrow. There's an old master who is proficient in all kinds of characters from the Middle Ages and Antiquity Times. You can learn from him. The characters look abstruse, but they're actually not complicated. With your aptitude, you should be able to understand them in three months at most!"
"Thank you, Elder Qing!"
"And this!" Elder Qing took out a piece of light green wood from his sleeve and handed it to Junior Leopard. "This is the wood core of the Eternal Peach Wood. After being struck by Heavenly Thunder for more than 1,000 times, the wood core will be formed. It's called the Eternal Peach Wood. It's so hard that even magic weapons can't damage it. It has already developed a little intelligence and contains a trace of Heavenly Thunder Genuine Essence. It's most suitable to refine Flying Swords or integrate it with a Flying Sword to improve its level. I know you're a sword practitioner and have a Flying Sword. What you practice is the Green Jade Qian Yuan Skill. If you can integrate this piece of Eternal Peach Wood into your Flying Sword, its power will be greatly enhanced and its level will definitely be upgraded to a Mysterious Rank Flying Sword. It's also possible for you to refine it into a Heaven Rank Flying Sword in the future!"
"Elder Qing, you seem to have done a lot of research on sword practice!" Junior Leopard lowered his head and asked casually.
"It's not research. I just like to read some miscellaneous books. The Inner Palace has been passed down for tens of thousands of years. Although I don't have much else, I do have a lot of books!" Elder Qing said with a faint smile.
"I see. It seems that I really want to have a good discussion with Elder Qing about the way of sword cultivation. I'm not afraid to laugh at you, but I just accidentally obtained a sword skill and this flying sword. I practiced it randomly and became a sword cultivator. However, I really don't know anything about the way of sword cultivation!"
"That's not a problem." Elder Qing said with a smile, "As far as sword cultivators are concerned, it's already beyond my expectation that you've made such a great achievement by cultivating according to the sword skills without a master. However, like you, I've only learned about sword cultivation by reading books. Therefore, I can only explain some common sense to you. As for the rest, I can't tell you anything else!"
"Common sense is enough!" Junior Leopard said. Anyway, he had never thought of being a pure sword practitioner. It was only because of the identity of Xiao, or the identity of Water Leopard of Winnowing Basket. If he was a sword practitioner, it would be safer. If he could work hard to improve under this premise, it would be even better.
However, it had been tens of thousands of years since there had been a sword practitioner in the world. It was a rare profession. Apart from the Silver Moon Sword Technique, he had to explore everything else by himself. Therefore, it was much more difficult for him to practice. Although he had made some achievements, they were not enough to make him feel proud. Now that he suddenly found that Elder Qing seemed to know a lot about the sword practitioner, he naturally wanted to get some real benefits from Elder Qing. Elder Qing's eyes lit up.
Seeing that Junior Leopard was sincerely asking for advice, Elder Qing did not refuse. He began to teach Junior Leopard the way of sword cultivation in front of Golden Rooster. Golden Rooster found it a little boring, so he excused himself and went out of the room to prepare food. Junior Leopard listened with great interest.
The way of sword practice was actually not complicated. The only difference between a sword practitioner and an ordinary practitioner was the sword skills.
In essence, flying swords were nothing more than magic tools. However, due to their simplicity of use and immense power, a group of cultivators specialized in this type of magic tool emerged. After countless generations of hard work by these cultivators, they were able to truly flourish this type of magic tool. As a result, they created a cultivation system that could compete with traditional cultivators and even surpass traditional cultivators under certain conditions.
There were two fundamentals of sword practice: sword skills and Flying Sword.
The so-called Sword Skill was not the swordsmanship. Ordinary non-sword cultivators also used swords and had extremely brilliant swordsmanship. Some non-sword cultivators' swordsmanship was even more brilliant than sword cultivators'. The Sword Skill was the method of transforming the Internal Qi cultivated by ordinary cultivators into Sword Qi and using it.
This was sword skills.
Then what was Sword Qi?
Sword Qi and Internal Qi sounded different, but they were the same. Sword Qi was a special kind of Internal Qi, just like the Nine Dragons Heavenly Fire Internal Qi, the Green Jade Qian Yuan Internal Qi, and the Bloodfire Gang practiced by Xue Wuya.
The only difference was that the Internal Qi of Sword Qi could only exert its greatest power when used with the Flying Sword. Of course, if one's cultivation reached Level Seven and refined the Sword Gang, it would be a different story. Moreover, even if one refined the Sword Gang, when facing a sword practitioner below Level Seven with a Superb Flying Sword, there would be a very embarrassing situation.
This was because the advantage of the Astral Sword lay in its offensive power. In terms of defensive power, it was far inferior to other Stellar Energies. The offensive power of a top-grade flying sword was enough to break through the Astral Sword and even other Stellar Energies.
Therefore, in a sense, half of a sword practitioner's strength was in the sword in his hand.
Therefore, a sword practitioner had a lot of things to pay attention to. What it meant to be one with the sword, what it meant to be one with the sword, what it meant to be one with the sword, what it meant to have a sword in one's heart, what it meant to have nothing in the world as a sword, and what it meant to break all kinds of methods with one sword.
After all, the essence was one word, sword!
If you didn't have a sword, you wouldn't be a sword practitioner!
It was also for this reason that sword practitioners attached great importance to celestial devices like swords. They were divided into four levels: Heaven, Earth, Mysterious, and Yellow.
The classification of the quality of the Flying Sword was mainly based on three standards. The first was the attacking power, the second was the sturdiness, and the third was the speed.
This was also the biggest advantage a sword practitioner had over an ordinary practitioner. Not only was the attacking power strong, but the speed of the Flying Sword was also extremely fast. In the Middle Ages, ordinary sword practitioners could fly on their swords when their cultivation reached Level Four of the Bone-Forging Realm. Ordinary practitioners could only have the chance to cultivate Gang when they reached Level Seven. Even if they succeeded in cultivating Gang, their flying speed was usually less than half of the flying speed of a Level Four sword practitioner. More importantly, if the opponent had a good sword, he could easily break your Gang Qis. So, what was the use of painstakingly cultivating to Level Seven?
Therefore, when there were sufficient materials to refine flying swords in the world, everyone naturally went to refine flying swords to become sword cultivators. It was not that the sword cultivators in the early Middle Ages were short-sighted, but there was really no other way. The fundamental desire of a cultivator was to refine his Qi, but once he became a cultivator, he would inevitably face endless battles. Therefore, strength was also very important. Otherwise, even if you had a lifespan of a thousand or ten thousand years, it would be very unjust if you were powerless and could be hacked to death by others. Therefore, there was no other way, it was all because of the pressure.
When the materials for refining the swords disappeared, the sword practitioners disappeared. Then, everyone was relieved. Anyway, they could still live a long life by changing to another kind of cultivation method.
Similarly, from the discussion with Elder Qing, Junior Leopard also understood how big the gap between him and the sword practitioners in the Middle Ages was. Although he had a complete set of sword practice methods and a good Flying Sword, his strength was still far behind that of the sword practitioners in the Middle Ages.
"You only use the sword technique. Even if you know the sword-reining skill, you only treat the sword as a weapon. You're just like a martial arts practitioner who practices the sword technique. You actually want the Flying Sword to be used according to the routine of the sword techniques. If you were in the school of sword practitioners in the Middle Ages, you would have been kicked out of the school long ago!"
After Junior Leopard practiced the sword-reining skill in front of Elder Qing, Elder Qing laughed. "Junior Leopard, you have to remember that swordsmanship can only be used when the sword is in your hand. Once the Flying Sword is out of your hand, it needs to be fast, accurate, and ruthless. When two sword practitioners encounter each other, they will use the Flying Sword to fight with swordsmanship only when their strength, speed, and power are similar. Otherwise, it's impossible to fight with swordsmanship!"
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
