Chapter 16
Chapter 16: Spiritual Qi Is the Key?
Whether Myriad Immortals Sect charging fees was fair or not was one matter.
But an event that drew cultivators together from across the region—that was huge.
Song Jiu Lai couldn’t hide her interest. “Can someone in Qi Refining Stage go too?”
Su Huan Li nodded. “Of course. As long as you’re a cultivator, you can go. Even if you can’t afford anything, it’s still worth it to broaden your horizons.”
She tilted her head, thinking. “And didn’t you ask me about obscure cultivator books? Those gatherings are exactly where you might stumble on one or two.”
Song Jiu Lai looked even more tempted.
Even without money, it was worth it to see the world. Besides, there was still about a month.
And later… events like this could be opened to players too.
But for now, probably not.
“Can we sell things there?” Song Jiu Lai asked.
Su Huan Li looked genuinely surprised. “You want to trade? Sure. Of course you can.”
What she didn’t say was simple: What could Longevity Sect possibly have worth trading?
Still, Song Jiu Lai had only just become Sect Master. Su Huan Li wasn’t about to stab her pride for no reason.
“I’m only here to tell you,” Su Huan Li said, already turning away. “I’ll come find you when I’m back.”
She pulled out a kite-shaped flying treasure.
It wasn’t an attack artifact. It wasn’t a grand spiritual weapon. It did one thing: it flew fast.
Cultivators on the Yun Zhou Continent came in all kinds. Many could fly on their own, but it constantly consumed spiritual qi, and for someone at Qi Refining Stage, sustained flight was difficult.
A flying treasure like this was the most common solution. You fed it a single spirit stone to activate it, and it could carry you for a long time with minimal spiritual qi drain.
Cultivators were competitive too. It wasn’t just “sword flight” out of legend—flying treasures came in all shapes and styles.
Artifact Refining Sect, in particular, excelled at such things.
The higher your realm, the more the competition shifted. It stopped being about appearance and started being about safety and reliability.
Like modern carmakers—speed mattered, but safety sold.
When Su Huan Li departed, a lot of players saw it.
Only after she vanished into the distance did the gossip explode.
“What item was that? A kite that can fly?”
“Flying treasure, I guess…”
“Forget what it is—why can’t I fly? I’ve got spiritual qi now!”
“Holy shit, I can’t understand the cultivation manual in my head. What do I do? Don’t tell me I was a loser student in real life and I’m still a loser here!”
They had awakened spiritual roots. They’d even started cultivating. But using it—actually using it—felt like grasping smoke.
They didn’t dare pester the Sect Master, so they rushed to bother the sect’s only Senior Brother: A Wu.
A Wu could only explain it the simplest way he knew.
“If you want to cultivate, you have to practice the matching technique chants,” he said seriously. “Each chant is like one move.”
He gave examples: fire wielding. water control.
Then, right there, he taught them a basic chant.
“Remember it,” A Wu said. “If you remember the chant, it’s like you learned the switch.”
The most basic step was refining the elements of heaven and earth.
“Traditionally, techniques are divided into metal, wood, water, fire, and earth,” A Wu said, pointing at the ground. “But in truth, as long as the element exists, a cultivator can use it.”
He stretched out his hand.
A clump of soil rose into the air as if seized by an invisible grip.
It scattered—then gathered—then compressed into a tight ball of mud.
“This is the foundation,” A Wu said. “First, try using the natural elements that already exist.”
He hesitated, then added carefully, “If there is no earth, and you want to create earth yourself… that involves deeper technique chants.”
“With techniques, you can cast spells. Like fire wielding. Like water control.”
As he spoke, he formed a fist-sized fireball out of thin air.
Two players stared as if they’d just seen the sun held in a palm.
A Wu scratched his head, embarrassed. “Senior Brother can only do this much. Even if you can use the chants, everyone’s power is different. It depends on how familiar you are with the chant.”
“So generally, you only cultivate a few techniques. You can’t master everything. Higher-level techniques need manuals, and those get complicated.”
Wu Da Hu and Ma Little Bird—two proud academic disasters—listened in a daze.
But then someone suddenly snapped awake.
“Wait… isn’t this just matter conversion? Middle school science!”
“Right! Spiritual qi is the key to converting matter—and now we have the key?”
“At low levels we can’t convert fully, so we rely on chants and only do basic shape changes?”
They were all products of mandatory schooling. Even if they weren’t good at it, they’d heard of the theory.
Talking about it made it sound easy.
Actually doing it was another story.
There was a reason they were slackers.
If spiritual qi was a key, then how did you turn it?
The chant was the ignition.
Without the basic chant, you couldn’t turn the key at all.
Someone made the connection, half-awed, half-terrified: “So the chant is basically a formula…”
And the ancient question returned with a vengeance.
If knowing the formula meant you could do it, then why did slackers still exist?
By the time they logged off, most of the players had only barely grasped the concept of “using spiritual qi.” If they wanted to control it smoothly—like A Wu casually lifting dirt—they would have to spend real time grinding.
This wasn’t what they imagined cultivation would be.
Wasn’t it supposed to be: cultivate the manual, memorize the chant, and immediately start calling wind and rain?
Why did this game feel exactly like school pressure?
Of course, school and cultivation weren’t the same.
In school, you could try your best and still fail.
But cultivation?
You had to try.
Even if you couldn’t become the strongest cultivator, you still had to learn to call wind and rain.
Sadly, the fun never lasted long. Players couldn’t stay online twenty-four hours a day.
Plenty of them still had work in the morning.
Wu Da Hu even set an alarm. He’d played too late already—if he didn’t sleep, he’d oversleep, and being late meant losing money.
But who could ever get bored of a game like this?
Wu Da Hu didn’t want to log off. In that moment, he felt with absolute clarity that going to work was suffering—and a dangerous thought rose in him: What if I just quit and play for a few months?
Then reality answered: his bank account didn’t support delusion.
So he logged off anyway.
At the same moment, Zhou Xiao’s time arrived.
She was ready to log in.
She sent Wu Da Hu a message: [I’m so pissed off. That Philanthropist crowd can’t play, so they’re acting sour and insisting we took money to run ads for merchants.]
Wu Da Hu sent back a wall of question marks in spirit.
Then he typed: “Huh? How much would a game company have to pay to get big shot Jing Bao Tian to show up?”