Chapter 26: Pushed to the Point of Giving Birth to a Spiritual Root!
Wang Zijia checked everything once again, finding no other issues, then quickly began searching the room.
This was a cultivation chamber, the most likely place to hide things.
He first examined the bookshelf, finding it stocked with ordinary books. However, many of them were biographies and miscellaneous records from the cultivation world, providing some scholarly value and broadening Wang Zijia's knowledge.
Without immediate success, he continued his search.
Luckily, the room's layout was simple, and after a moment, he had thoroughly searched it. Finally, in one corner, he discovered a hidden compartment. Expecting a secret chamber, he found instead a small cloth bag, about the size of a palm, reminiscent of a sachet.
"Could this be a storage bag?"
Wang Zijia's face lit up with surprise. Even his father had only heard of such things but never seen one. None of the servants in the entire Wan Yu Pavilion, at least openly, possessed such an item.
Carefully taking the bag, filled with anticipation, he exhaled his true qi lightly. A space of about five cubic meters appeared in Wang Zijia's perception.
Inside were various items, but nothing of great value.
Some spiritual rice, a few talismans, assorted low-grade spiritual materials, probably worth around two to three hundred spirit coins.
A small pile of spirit coins, perhaps a hundred or so. Some were in dire straits!
It seemed that the demonic cultivator who had exploded before leaving had taken quite a few things with him. At least the contents of this bag didn't match the wealth of a peak-level Ritual Master.
Or perhaps these were belongings of the two individuals in the room. If that were the case, they were still relatively wealthy.
After searching for a moment, Wang Zijia's excitement peaked when he discovered two manuals tucked away in a corner of the storage bag.
"Shaping Spiritual Qi" and "Clay Manipulation."
Both were high-level first-grade techniques!
However, judging from the manuals, they seemed somewhat odd. They didn't appear to be techniques for attack, escape, or defense. They didn't even seem like standalone cultivation methods. Unfortunately, he hadn't acquired the complete inheritance of that demonic cultivator.
Seeing the manuals, Wang Zijia couldn't help but feel regret once again.
He carefully stored away the items, then turned to stuff the shelves with books related to cultivation, regardless of their condition, including several volumes of dual cultivation techniques.
Immediately, Wang Zijia resumed his search of the other courtyards, combing through them for the better part of the night, thoroughly inspecting the mansion, but found nothing else.
"That's it then. If there are any oversights, I can only say it's not meant to be!" Wang Zijia muttered to himself, preparing to leave.
Just as he took a few steps away, he turned back.
Several days had passed, and no one from the sect had arrived, indicating a lack of concern from the higher-ups. It seemed they intended to let the city guards handle the matter on their own. However, tonight's incident involved the sinister domain, and Wang Zijia wasn't sure if it was considered significant.
Even though he had fortuitously dispelled the sinister domain, he believed it should be made known rather than ignored until the city guards stumbled upon it and dismissed it as a routine occurrence.
Though the possibility was slim, he needed to be cautious. After all, the sin origins of those deceased individuals had been extracted by him, turning them into ordinary corpses.
Returning to the cultivation chamber, which had now become foul-smelling, with most of the flesh decomposed and the blood oozing thick and viscous, Wang Zijia's true qi surged. He used a bit of the blood cautiously. Mimicking the tactics of the experts in this realm, he wrote on the floor:
"Freely wandering in delight, reveling in drunkenness.
Acting on behalf of Shu Mountain Sect, passing through esteemed faction, extinguishing a sinister domain, slaying evil as a remembrance, do not dwell!
Due to the sinister and ominous nature of the matter, it must not be taken lightly, lest there be great terror."
Of course, with several days passing and still no one coming, the level of importance goes without saying.
Even if a fourth realm expert were to come to deduce fate or investigate, Wang Zijia would be honored to try to curry favor!
Seeing the gradually drying black blood characters on the ground, Wang Zijia nodded and floated away.
He didn't purposely create any disturbances. After all, even if there were few patrols here, someone would notice the corpse of the gatekeeper on the street tomorrow during the day!
....
After making sure no one was tailing him, Wang Zijia quietly drifted back to the courtyard.
After changing into a fresh outfit, he entered the secret chamber in the study and eagerly unearthed a small wooden box, taking out the book titled "Fundamental Technique of Wan Yu."
Taking a deep breath, he began to peruse its contents.
Sure enough, as he flipped through, the words in the book began to come alive, flying into his mind one by one. By the time he finished reading, the book in his hand had turned into a bound volume of parchment, devoid of any characters or brilliance.
However, Wang Zijia's mind now contained a new cultivation technique.
He took a deep breath and luxuriously pulled out two spirit coins, grasping them in his hand as he began his first cultivation session.
Perhaps it was because the original owner had spent several years in comprehension, coupled with over a decade of pre-training. Or maybe it was the influence of his innate realm and six hundred years of cultivation, but he easily managed to settle into a meditative state.
About a quarter of an hour later, a faint strand of Qi emerged within his meridians. It trembled weakly, as if on the verge of dissipating.
With a mixture of excitement and concern, Wang Zijia, fearing its disappearance, didn't wait for it to enter his dantian but instead plunged it into his sea of consciousness.
As expected, a tiny weighty point of light emerged.
Without hesitation, Wang Zijia waved his hand, seizing it and then, with another wave, split his martial cultivation weight into two: one worth ten points and the other over six hundred.
The ten-point one needed to be kept, as losing it would cause his martial realm to plummet, regressing to that of a postnatal warrior. With it retained, he would still be a innate warrior, albeit with only ten years of cultivation.
"Cultivation exchange!" Wang Zijia quickly commanded.
With a rustle, as per his command, he felt the innate true qi within him rapidly compress into strands of Qi(cultivation qi), while his dao cultivation swiftly increased.
At the same time, he noticed that the spiritual root, which had been fluctuating due to pollution, finally underwent its ultimate transformation as qi was born alongside his cultivation progress.
To Wang Zijia's surprise, two new items suddenly appeared in his sea of consciousness.
One was a golden rune, formed of countless lines, appearing almost tangible.
Corresponding to this rune was a silver weight, but it was peculiar, displaying no value points, seemingly ineligible for exchange.
Weight: Demonic Seeding From Spiritual Root
Category: Talent
Introduction: The extraordinary characteristic of a sinful spiritual root is its erosion and contamination. You have stripped away its pollution, but what does it have to be extraordinary without it? Desperate, the spiritual root itself gives birth to a talent to satisfy its intrinsic contaminating characteristic.
It can force the spiritual root to give birth to offspring. You're quite a clever little devil. Fortunately, it was originally a top-grade spiritual root, theoretically capable of manifesting talents; otherwise, it would have been quite a predicament.
Effect: Special talent, can seed demonic essence in others' spiritual roots, using one's own thoughts to act as a demon, polluting others' spiritual roots, controlling others' foundational dao arts, and even their life and death. However, the degree of pollution depends on one's own abilities as well as factors such as the target's willpower and cultivation level.
Note: This technique has limited effectiveness against ordinary people without spiritual roots!
With the birth of this golden rune talent technique, his spiritual root also underwent a transformation.
Weight: Mutated Earth Spiritual Root
Grade: Inferior Spiritual Root
Value: 3000
Introduction: After being deprived of pollution, the spiritual root automatically harmonizes, returning to its original nature. Due to its special circumstances, the cultivation of blood and flesh curse dao techniques will also receive minor enhancements.
Looking at his transformed spiritual root and the demonic seeding weight represented by the golden rune, Wang Zijia had a heap of untranslated information in his mind. It took him a moment to carefully sort through it before understanding the principle.
The spiritual root itself is an extraordinary characteristic, representing the extraordinary nature of a certain direction, hence its name.
The special characteristic of a sinful spiritual root is contamination and erosion.
However, for the sake of equivalence, the spiritual root is a concept, and contamination is another concept. Therefore, there are two weights, and the contamination was removed by Wang Zijia through exchange.
A sinful spiritual root loses its characteristic, so what's so extraordinary about it?
Originally, it should have collapsed, but the equivalent scale suppressed and locked its normal operation. It's still a spiritual root, so it should function!
And so, by chance, this mutated earth spiritual root was born. As for the talent, it replaces the sinister aura to exert its contaminating effect.
However, this contamination is a conceptual matter. In reality, it's one's consciousness taking the place of pollution, infiltrating and dominating others' bodies or spiritual roots.
Using one's own thoughts, replacing demonic thoughts, polluting others' dao foundations, and even controlling their life and death.
(End of this chapter)