Chapter 64

Chapter 64: What Lin Dao Left Behind

Half a month flew by in a blink.

Rong Shu no longer knew how many times she had swung a blade within the valley, nor how many times both her arms had ached past all feeling.

During that stretch, her wind-element cultivation broke through to Qi Refining seven. Fire and wood, because of alchemy, also advanced in turn.

All Rong Shu’s eyes could see was her blade work, improving at a pace visible to the naked eye—more familiar, then more practiced—until even in sleep her hands would unconsciously close around some imagined hilt.

On the day before she was to enter the sect’s secret realm, Rong Shu went to the forbidden valley as always, first cooking for the madman, then going to practice.

When she saw the new blade scars on the cliff, she took them in stride, treating them as the day’s new lesson and setting about to learn the fresh forms.

When she grew tired, Rong Shu stopped to rest and took one Spirit Gathering Pill and one Vitality Restoration Pill.

This time, as she rested, she did not study the cliff. Her thoughts drifted back through her eight months in Heaven’s Evolution Sect.

She had been in Heaven’s Evolution Sect for eight months now.

In those eight months she had stepped onto the path of cultivation. Because her dantian was abnormal, she could cultivate multiple spiritual roots. At present—

Wind: Qi Refining seven.

Darkness: Qi Refining four.

Fire and wood: Qi Refining three.

When she had first entered the sect, Rong Shu had not dared to spend a single Spirit Stone, counting every use. Now she had 16,910 Spirit Stones on hand and 300 contribution points.

At the Alchemists’ Branch in Scarlet Sun City, she had gone from a novice who knew nothing of pillcraft to passing six exams in succession to become an intern alchemist. At present, she could skillfully refine more than a dozen types of pills and was not far from the threshold of a first-rank alchemist.

Lastly, there were the blade arts into which she had poured her heart. She had basically mastered the fundamentals of dual-blade work.

Only…

Rong Shu’s slight relaxation tightened again between her brows.

The stabbing pain that flared in her dantian from time to time, the rollercoaster rises and drops in her cultivation—she had found no solution to either, nor even the cause.

The threat from her fellow disciple Feng Lin hung like a guillotine always about to fall, able to take her life with ease.

Her auxiliary bow arts had seen no effective practice due to limits of time, space, and bow materials.

[Set a small goal first: within half a year, reach great perfection at the tenth layer of the Qi Refining Stage; then prepare for Foundation Establishment.]

[As long as I climb high and far enough, every problem will resolve.]

Once rested, Rong Shu rose and resumed her blade training.

Dusk sank westward.

Vast strands of gold set half the sky’s clouds ablaze, like a surging sea of fire, magnificent and dazzling.

After cooking the evening meal, Rong Shu prepared to leave the valley.

Once she left, it would be at least two months before she might return, after the secret realm expedition ended.

She thought for a moment, then walked a little closer and offered her farewell to the madman’s back: “Respected senior, I will be away for a time. The sect’s secret realm is opening. I will train inside for two months and then come back.”

Without realizing it herself, she sounded like an excited child about to set off and roam, bidding farewell to the elder at home.

Seeing that the madman still sat with his back to her, unmoving, Rong Shu added: “Respected senior, remember to eat well. See you in two months.”

Though they had never truly spoken heart to heart, the blade scars engraved on the cliff were like silent words and teachings, long since etched into Rong Shu’s mind and held in her heart.

At last she lifted her hands, bowed with joined fists, and then knelt to knock her head to the ground before the filthy, unkempt madman with a solemn, respectful expression: she performed the disciple’s rite of gratitude to one’s master.

One bow to thank a master’s grace.

A gift as light as a feather; a kindness as weighty as a mountain.

After leaving the forbidden ground, Rong Shu went to the Task Pavilion’s storeroom to retrieve her belongings and settle her task reward.

The back mountain assignment had ended the previous night. After leaving the Task Pavilion, Rong Shu hesitated, then chose to return to Limitless Peak for the night.

After more than two months, Rong Shu stepped once more into her little courtyard on Limitless Peak.

The courtyard formation was still running normally. The small “traps” she had set had not been triggered. No one had come in.

Because no one had lived there for some time, weeds had grown up in front and back.

Rong Shu hooked a finger, conjuring wind blades to “trim” the tall weeds, then burned them all to ash with a flicker of fire.

Inside the house, she tossed out a cleansing spell, and the rooms were immediately fresh and new.

“Senior Brother Lin Dao left me a Storage Pouch before he departed, and said to open it when the secret realm was near… I should find it first,” she murmured, beginning to search.

Rong Shu was no longer the brand-new disciple who rejoiced to receive a Storage Pouch from someone else. With Spirit Stones to spare, she had bought several pouches and sorted different items into each.

“Found it.”

From a pile of Storage Pouches she picked out the one Senior Brother Lin Dao had left before leaving, then emptied it to examine the contents.

“This is… a Voice Changing Pill? A Disguise Pill? And a treasure that alters body shape and bearing… a wristguard?”

When she finished taking stock of the Storage Pouch, Rong Shu was genuinely astonished.

The items Senior Brother Lin Dao had said were for her use in the secret realm… were actually these?

Seventh-rank Voice Changing Pills and Disguise Pills. In the Southern Wilderness there had not been a native seventh-rank alchemist in hundreds of years; at best there were sixth-rank alchemists.

Yet Senior Brother Lin Dao not only had such pills, he had given her a whole bottle of each—just enough to last Rong Shu for the two months inside the secret realm.

As for the wristguard, Senior Brother Lin Dao had left a note: it was an artifact that could alter one’s build and posture, a single-use consumable. Its effect would last two months; after that, the wristguard would become scrap metal.

Looking at the three items before her, Rong Shu felt something she could not quite name.

In every respect, Senior Brother Lin Dao had thought ahead for her.

“Voice Changing Pill, Disguise Pill…” A thought flashed through her mind; for an instant her eyes grew deep, and then became calm again.

With these three things, she would need to revise the plans she had made for the secret realm expedition. In action, she could afford to be a little bolder.

And with this opportunity, Rong Shu intended to test just how much real strength she had accumulated in these eight months.