Vol 2 Chapter 6: Mastering Tools
“What’s with that expression?” Lin Jing asked, noticing the Fire Carp squinting smugly.
“Bloop!”
The Fire Carp clenched its fins confidently, as if declaring that it could now defeat that green-robed ape from earlier in the day.
Next time, it would be its turn!
Squirrel Devours the Dragon? What nonsense. It should be Carp Devours the Dragon instead!
“Dragons have always been proud and arrogant. Its awakened bloodline is indeed showing its true nature,” Shen Song remarked via voice transmission.
“Well…” Lin Jing chuckled. It didn’t bother him.
As long as it had the strength to back it up, pride and arrogance weren’t necessarily bad traits!
Seeing the Fire Carp in such high spirits, Lin Jing was already eager to advance to the Foundation Establishment stage and form a contract with it.With this supreme beast fire, refining pills in the future would undoubtedly be much easier.
Moreover, once the Fire Carp, possessing the Fire Qilin bloodline, evolved into a dragon, it would likely be capable of counterbalancing the power of the Ice Soul Gu.
As for the Ice Soul Gu’s power… Lin Jing would soon be able to control it as well!
“By the way, Senior Shen Song, why are you still here?” Lin Jing asked.
Shen Song replied, “I said I didn’t want to stay in Hidden Dragon Academy, not that I was leaving Hidden Dragon City!”
“So, you also saw us defeat that Foundation Establishment cultivator in style?”
“Defeat a mere wood-element Foundation Establishment cultivator? What’s there to brag about? You wouldn’t have succeeded without the three months of training I put you through with my wooden constructs. Try challenging a fire-element Foundation Establishment cultivator next time.”
“Senior, you’re such a killjoy,” Lin Jing said with a shake of his head.
“Killjoy or not, I don’t care. But if you don’t put out that fire, you’ll be sweeping up ashes in a moment,” Shen Song warned.
The Fire Carp, in its excitement, had accidentally let its beast fire spill out, setting the wooden hut ablaze. Flames roared into the night sky.
“What’s going on? Someone’s setting fires in Hidden Dragon City!”
A patrolling Foundation Establishment night watchman quickly flew over, shouting angrily. After all, they’d been announcing “Dry weather, be cautious with fire!” for weeks. He’d assumed it was routine. Who’d have thought someone would actually dare ignite a blaze at night?
The next day, after proving his identity and paying a fine of five spirit stones, Lin Jing returned to Hidden Dragon Academy.
He had learned from his inquiries the previous day that the academy rarely held classes. Sometimes, months would pass without a single lecture, and whether or not lessons were held depended entirely on the mood of the instructors. ȑÁƝȯβËṧ
Other than the occasional lecture, students spent most of their time either cultivating in seclusion or finding ways to make waves and garner fame.
This time, Lin Jing entered the academy with a specific goal: to obtain a Foundation Establishment technique from the library!
The Academy Library
At the library entrance, an elderly man stood guard. After briefly inspecting Lin Jing’s Hidden Dragon Seal, he allowed him to pass.
Had this been the Beast Taming Sect, the guard might have been a wise old ape, turtle, or bird instead.
“Found it!”
The library was silent, with Lin Jing as its sole occupant at this time.
Inside, he discovered that the shelves were not stocked with conventional techniques. Instead, they were filled with books on alchemy, artifact crafting, geomancy, medicine, and agriculture.
These were not beginner-level texts; the content was profound. A wandering cultivator lucky enough to obtain even one of these books and fully comprehend it could rise to become a master in the respective field.
However, Lin Jing wasn’t here for these today.
Walking quickly, he reached for a particular book: “Wood Spirit Foundation Establishment Technique.”
One of Lin Jing’s primary objectives in coming to Hidden Dragon Academy was to find a superior Foundation Establishment method!
The Beast Taming Sect had very few Foundation Establishment techniques. Most disciples relied on Foundation Establishment Pills to break through. However, this method often resulted in a flawed Dao foundation, making it extremely difficult to form a Core later. For those with average talent, reaching Foundation Establishment often meant being stuck there for life unless they encountered extraordinary opportunities.
The best method in the Beast Taming Sect was the Demonic Dao Foundation Pill, refined using Monster Cores. This pill was exceedingly difficult to produce, as it required rare and specific Monster Cores. Generally, only true disciples were deemed worthy of the sect’s resources to create such a special pill.
Even so, the Demonic Dao Foundation Pill, while the best available in the Beast Taming Sect, was considered a low-grade technique in the broader Ancient Celestial Kingdom.
Truly superior Foundation Establishment methods could grant cultivators with mortal constitutions an Acquired Spiritual Body after breaking through. Such methods greatly increased the chances of forming a Core and even provided a slim possibility of reaching the Nascent Soul stage!
For example, the Flower Pavilion Master of Snow Moon City had achieved the Acquired Fire Spirit Body through a special Foundation Establishment technique.
Of course, cultivators with Innate Spiritual Bodies or special constitutions didn’t need such complex methods. They could establish their foundation directly and still possess extraordinary potential.
Lin Jing’s visit to Hidden Dragon Academy wasn’t to seek an Acquired Spiritual Body for himself. Ordinarily, without unique circumstances, a cultivator could only possess one body constitution and cultivate one set of techniques. Trying otherwise would disrupt the balance of spiritual energy within the body, leading to Qi deviation.
He already had the Longevity Body. Without a fortuitous encounter, it was nearly impossible for him to cultivate a second constitution.
Though Lin Jing had dreams of becoming like the “Three-Body Cultivator” Ancient Imperial Prince, mastering multiple constitutions, he knew it was an improbable goal. Without immense luck or powerful backing, it wasn’t even worth considering.
The Foundation Establishment method he sought today wasn’t for himself—it was for the Pine Leaf Mouse. At his current level, merely the seventh stage of Qi Refinement, Foundation Establishment was still a distant goal.
"Wood Spirit Foundation Establishment Technique"
Lin Jing read through the details:
- Post-Breakthrough Effects: Cultivators could form an Acquired Wood Spirit Body, gaining heightened affinity with plants and trees and dramatically enhancing their cultivation of wood-element techniques.
- Requirements:
- Mastery of a wood-element technique at the ninth stage of Qi Refinement.
- Specific materials, including hundred-year-old Wood Lingzhi, Laurel Leaves, Heart of Ten Thousand Trees, and Primal Wood Essence Ore, among others.
- The final step involved refining the materials into a Wood Spirit Foundation Pill using a wood-elemental special flame.
- The pill had to be consumed at a Gui Water blessed land to achieve the transformation into an Acquired Wood Spirit Body.
- Potential Success Factors: The likelihood of forming the Wood Spirit Body depended on the quality of the Foundation Pill and the cultivator’s spiritual power.
Limitations: This method could only be used by mortal-body cultivators.
“Useless,” Lin Jing muttered.
He discovered that the first floor of the library contained numerous Foundation Establishment techniques for forming Acquired Spiritual Bodies. These superior methods, nearly impossible to find in the outside sects, were freely available here.
Yet, even if someone acquired these methods, meeting all the conditions without the help of senior cultivators would be exceptionally difficult.
Lin Jing continued to browse. Most of the techniques he found were either:
- Superior methods for forming Acquired Spiritual Bodies.
- Slightly lesser techniques that offered benefits such as immense strength post-breakthrough, purer spiritual essence, or an extra ten years of lifespan.
Some were outright bizarre, allowing practitioners to change their gender or drastically alter their physical appearance post-breakthrough. Lin Jing wondered who such methods were even designed for.
“Nothing suitable for me, the Pine Leaf Mouse, or the Fire Carp,” Lin Jing concluded.
“With my current level of the Hidden Dragon Arts, I can’t ascend to the second floor yet.”
He sighed. “Never mind. I’ll start with an alchemy book. If there’s nothing on the second or third floor suitable for the Pine Leaf Mouse, I’ll stick to my original plan: create a unique Longevity Foundation Pill using blood refinement, tailored to the Everlasting Emperor’s Longevity Art, to help it establish its foundation!”
Lin Jing grabbed an alchemy book and began studying. This plan would have been challenging in the Beast Taming Sect, but with the Hidden Dragon Arts’ Spell Evolution ability, it was now akin to having a rudimentary Bodhi Cavern Heaven. As long as he continued to gain fame, creating such a specialized pill might not be impossible.
As he flipped through the book, someone else entered the library—a cultivator at the ninth stage of Qi Refinement, dressed in a scholar’s robe.
Lin Jing glanced at him and paused, slightly surprised. The newcomer, upon seeing Lin Jing, immediately scowled.
"Tang Sanzang... no, wait—Beast Taming Sect's Lin Jing!"
Lin Jing recognized the other person as well. "You're the scholar from Bodhi Heaven who couldn't snatch the Bodhi Tree."
"You haven’t reached Foundation Establishment yet?" Lin Jing asked. Though he hadn’t cultivated any appraisal techniques, his strong spiritual sense—comparable to that of a Foundation Establishment cultivator with spiritual perception—made it easy to judge the scholar’s realm, especially since the latter hadn’t concealed his aura.
"What of it?" Xu Zhizhi retorted, glaring at Lin Jing with a sour expression. "So, you really did come to Hidden Dragon Academy. I still remember what happened in the Cavern Heaven. Back then, you relied on your mechanical constructs to dominate. But outside, those things are nothing special."
Lin Jing chuckled lightly. "No need to get so worked up. Didn’t the Snow Plains Cultivator save you in the end? Besides, yesterday, I beat a Foundation Establishment cultivator from the academy—without using any mechanical constructs."
Xu Zhizhi scoffed. "Fang Shilin, the son of Everlasting Spring Valley's Valley Master, is only in the academy thanks to the preferential admission policy for heirs of major forces. Without it, someone of his talent wouldn’t have been accepted at all. Defeating him means nothing!"
He added, "If I used the cultural Dao treasure gifted by my teacher, I could have defeated him across realms as well!"
Sensing Xu Zhizhi’s lack of confidence despite his bold words, Lin Jing smirked. "So, by your logic, us special-recruit disciples are the true elites of the academy?"
Xu Zhizhi hesitated before nodding. "Naturally! What are you planning?"
"So, you, that Violet Flame Alchemist from the Pill Cauldron Sect, and the little swordsman from the Heavenly Sword Gate are already gaining some fame?" Lin Jing mused. "You’re right! My Mechanical Bamboo Rifle may not be as useful as before. Its momentary fame from duels is fleeting. If I want my name to endure, I need an artifact to carry my legacy."
He continued with a gleam in his eye, "I’m planning to mass-produce Mechanical Bamboo Rifles and auction them at the Lotus Pavilion. Imagine a device that doesn’t require cultivation—anyone can pick it up and suppress Qi Refinement cultivators. It’ll be a hit!"
Lin Jing grinned. "Of course, to market it effectively, I’ll tie it to your defeats. Using your losses as advertising material and binding our fame together. Surely there’s no concept of ‘reputation rights’ here, right?"
He clapped his hands as though inspired. "Picture it: someone uses the rifle, and onlookers remember, ‘Oh, this was made by the genius mechanic Lin Jing, who once crushed academy elites like Xu Zhizhi in the Cavern Heaven.’"
Xu Zhizhi: ???
"You conniving scoundrel!!!" Xu Zhizhi’s eyes widened with fury.
"Don’t be upset, Brother Xu. Losing to me is no shame at all. Once I ascend to the Genius Rankings, this will elevate your reputation. People will say, ‘Xu Zhizhi once contended with Lin Jing.’"
"I’m going to kill you!" Xu Zhizhi roared.
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