Chương 118: 1.114 In which Ning loves being a quest-giver Npc~

By the time Ning followed Xiao Fan back to his residence, the sun had already begun its slow descent toward the western mountains. Xiao Fan lived on Cloudrise Peak, one of the larger residential peaks scattered throughout the inner sect. Over generations, many of these peaks had developed their own character as disciples of similar professions naturally gathered together.

Farming Peak was populated mostly by spiritual farmers, while other peaks were dominated by alchemists, formation masters, artifact refiners, beast tamers, and practitioners of other established professions. Cloudrise Peak was what happened to everyone else. As the largest general residential peak, it was home to disciples who either had no secondary profession or simply had no interest in pursuing one.

Many came from cultivation clans or wealthy families and possessed enough resources to devote themselves almost entirely to cultivation. Looking at the residences scattered across the mountainside, Ning suddenly understood something. Maybe this is why Xiao Fan keeps getting challenged by people. There's no shortage of arrogant young masters on this peak.

Compared to Farming Peak, where everyone was too busy worrying about their harvests, Cloudrise had an unusually high concentration of young cultivators with too much money, too much pride, and considerably too much free time. Xiao Fan's tendency to attract challenges suddenly seemed a little less mysterious. Of course, Xiao Fan technically had a secondary profession now, and a rather absurd one at that.

The Art of Seals he had inherited from the Heavenly Origin Tower was hardly some minor profession, but everyone who knew about it was keeping their mouths firmly shut. As far as the disciples of Cloudrise Peak were concerned, Xiao Fan was still just Xiao Fan. Admittedly, that alone seemed more than sufficient to cause problems. They eventually reached his residence, where a familiar white shape was lying beneath the shade of a tree near the courtyard.

Bai raised her head when they approached, glanced briefly at Xiao Fan, and then immediately shifted her attention toward Ning. More specifically, toward Ning's storage bag.

"You're getting frighteningly predictable." Bai's ears twitched. Ning reached inside and pulled out one of the frozen spiritual fruit treats he had prepared earlier. Bai rose with considerably more dignity than necessary, walked over, accepted the offering, and apparently decided the transaction had concluded satisfactorily before returning to her spot beneath the tree. Xiao Fan watched the entire exchange with a complicated expression.

"She doesn't even greet me like that."

"Have you tried bringing tribute?" Ning had long since learned something about raising intelligent spiritual beasts. Cultivators might technically be their masters, but when they were responsible for feeding them, protecting them, finding their cultivation resources, and generally taking care of their every need, one had to wonder who was actually raising whom. Xiao Fan raised an eyebrow.

"I feed her. Isn't that enough?"

"That's your first mistake. Food is an obligation. Snacks are bribery. There is a difference between the two." As if to support Ning's argument, Bai bit into the frozen treat with a satisfied crunch. Xiao Fan shook his head and opened the door. His residence was about what Ning had expected. It was clean enough to prove Xiao Fan wasn't a complete slob, but that cleanliness did little to hide the sheer amount of stuff packed inside.

Boxes were stacked against the walls, miscellaneous objects occupied shelves and tables, and several items had apparently been placed wherever there happened to be enough room.

"Watch where you step," Xiao Fan warned as they entered.

"I somehow keep ending up with more and more useless stuff." Ning naturally understood where most of it had come from. Xiao Fan had been fighting people, exploring dangerous places, stumbling into inheritances, and looting enemies for years. Apparently, the inevitable consequence of being a protagonist wasn't merely accumulating opportunities but also accumulating an unreasonable amount of junk. Ning looked around at the assorted treasures, materials, weapons, and objects whose purposes he couldn't even guess.

They found their way to the table and sat opposite each other while Xiao Fan poured them both a cup of tea. Then he proceeded to say absolutely nothing. Ning waited for a while as Xiao Fan stared at the tabletop, apparently trying to organize his thoughts. When the silence stretched on long enough that Xiao Fan simply picked up his tea and started drinking instead, Ning finally sighed.

"So, what did you want to talk about? We don't exactly have the whole day." Xiao Fan gave him an annoyed look, but the interruption at least seemed to push him into speaking.

"You know how I can take abilities from demonic beast bloodlines?" Ning raised an eyebrow.

"It's pretty hard to forget something like that."

"There seems to be a problem with it." That immediately wiped the amusement from Ning's face. Over the next several minutes, Xiao Fan explained what had happened, confirming something Ning had already vaguely suspected from the changes in his qi. Every demonic beast bloodline absorbed through the Demon Subduing Sutra brought more than just its useful characteristics.

The scripture could suppress and refine most of the foreign essence, but traces were inevitably left behind—demonic aura, bloodline characteristics, and even faint instincts that gradually accumulated within Xiao Fan's cultivation. While his qi had still been entirely gaseous, those remnants had been troublesome but manageable. The problem became considerably more serious when he attempted to reach the Seventh Stage.

Liquefaction required compressing a portion of that gaseous qi until the first drops of spiritual liquid could form, and the foreign traces mixed throughout his cultivation were naturally compressed along with it. What had previously been thinly scattered through a much larger volume of qi became increasingly concentrated as the qi condensed, bringing demonic aura and characteristics from several different bloodlines into much closer contact. Individually, the remnants weren't enough to cause much trouble.

Once concentrated within those first forming drops, however, characteristics that had remained relatively harmless while diluted began conflicting with one another, repeatedly destabilizing the liquefaction process before it could properly settle. Hearing this, Ning finally understood why Xiao Fan hadn't broken through during the Heavenly Origin Tower incident despite everything that had happened.

"You must have had quite a bit of trouble reaching the Seventh Stage, then. Your spiritual root was already making things difficult, and you had this problem on top of it." Xiao Fan nodded.

"Yeah. I only managed to break through because I got lucky during a mission with my master."

"Oh?" Ning's interest was immediately piqued.

"You went on a mission with your master? From what I've heard, he's rather elusive."

"Elusive?" Xiao Fan laughed.

"He's only elusive when he isn't trying to take some of my hard-earned resources. This time, he needed someone to do the dirty work while searching for a way to treat the Great Spirit Willow, so naturally he remembered he had a disciple." Ning had always been rather curious about Xiao Fan's master. From everything he'd heard about Long Xiao so far, the man practically had hidden master written all over him. Xiao Fan went on to explain what had happened.

The mission itself had apparently involved considerably more trouble than either of them had expected, including several fights, an unexpected betrayal, and enough complications that Ning decided the full story could wait for another day. What caught his attention was the Great Spirit Willow.

"The elders had already managed to suppress most of it, but getting rid of what remained was difficult," Xiao Fan explained.

"Master eventually found a method, but it required preparing a special cleansing liquid and getting the Great Spirit Willow to absorb it through its roots." Ning nodded.

"And somehow that helped you too." Xiao Fan gave him a strange look.

"How did you know?"

"Well, it's rather obvious, isn't it?"

"... Fair." As it turned out, while helping prepare the treatment, Xiao Fan had noticed that the cleansing liquid reacted to the foreign residue accumulated within his own cultivation. The two forms of contamination weren't identical, but both involved foreign spiritual influences that had become mixed with something they didn't originally belong to.

"So you drank it?" Ning asked.

"Only after Master checked that it wouldn't kill me." That was much more responsible than Ning had expected.

"And?" Ning asked.

"It tasted horrible." Xiao Fan made a disgusted face. Ning stared at him.

"I meant, what did it do?"

"Oh." Xiao Fan coughed.

"It worked." The cleansing liquid had helped loosen and purge some of the foreign residue accumulated from Xiao Fan's demonic beast bloodlines, while the Demon Subduing Sutra allowed him to refine and suppress what remained. It wasn't enough to permanently solve the problem, but with enough of the conflicting contamination removed, Xiao Fan had finally managed to condense the first traces of liquid qi without the different bloodline remnants destabilizing the process.

He had taken advantage of the opportunity immediately and broken through to the Seventh Stage.

"So you went there to help cure the Great Spirit Willow and ended up curing yourself along the way." Ning shook his head.

"Of course you did." Xiao Fan shrugged.

"I wouldn't call it cured. It'll accumulate again if I keep absorbing bloodlines."

"Right." Still, Ning was more interested in something else Xiao Fan had mentioned.

"You went there specifically to treat it, so is the Guardian Tree safe now?" Xiao Fan hesitated.

"Um... physically, the contamination has been cleared." Ning immediately caught the wording.

"Physically?" Xiao Fan scratched his cheek.

"From what I heard, there's still some contamination remaining in its soul." Ning's eyes narrowed. Xiao Fan continued, "Anyway, that's actually why I came to you. Do you have any Cleansing Pills? You are an alchemist, right?" Ning paused before remembering the reward the sect had given disciples who reached the Fourth Stage within their first year. Among the rewards was a Cleansing Pill meant to purge impurities accumulated during the early stages of cultivation. Xiao Fan had received one too.

Now that Ning thought about it, that particular reward had fit him suspiciously well. Of everyone in their batch, the disciple secretly stuffing himself with demonic beast bloodlines just happened to receive a pill for clearing accumulated impurities. Well, protagonist luck was protagonist luck.

"First of all, being an alchemist doesn't mean I always have every kind of pill lying around," Ning corrected.

"So you don't have one?"

"I do." Xiao Fan glared at him. Ning ignored it.

"But Cleansing Pills are only First-Tier. There are stronger medicines like Marrow-Washing Pills and Pure Meridian Pills, while a high-rank Second-Tier Clear Spirit Pill would probably be more useful for foreign spiritual residue. There are even Third-Tier purification pills that can cleanse the body and qi together."

"I see." Xiao Fan nodded, feeling that coming to Ning had been the right choice. At least with Ning, there was little chance he'd have to fight someone just to get information. He still remembered the last time he'd gone to an alchemist's shop to buy a pill and somehow ended up fighting the owner. The man's connections with the local alchemists had made buying pills considerably harder afterward. Ning thought about it for a moment before shaking his head.

"But stronger might not actually be better for you. You're deliberately refining demonic beast bloodlines into your body. We don't know whether a stronger purification pill would only remove the residue or start interfering with the parts you've already made your own." Xiao Fan frowned.

"So Cleansing Pills are still the safest?"

"For now. At least we already know they don't cause problems." Ning reached into his storage bag and began searching through the bottles inside.

"We can look into the other pills and cleansing methods later and see which ones actually suit your situation. Medicinal baths or purification formations might work too."

"All right." Ning eventually found a small porcelain bottle and placed it on the table. Xiao Fan reached for it, only to stop halfway when his attention shifted to the storage bag hanging from Ning's waist. He stared at it for a moment.

"Wait. Isn't that my sister's storage bag?" Ning's hand paused.

"... yes?" Xiao Fan frowned.

"Why do you have it?"

"She gave it to me when you sent her to return my things, remember? My old storage bag was destroyed, and she noticed I didn't have another suitable one." Ning answered naturally. There was nothing for him to fumble over in the first place. Recognition appeared on Xiao Fan's face.

"Oh, right. She's quite sweet like that." Ning laughed hollowly.

"Yes. Let's say sweet." Xiao Fan narrowed his eyes.

"... What does that mean?"

"Nothing." Xiao Fan stared at him for another moment before taking the Cleansing Pills and putting them away. He counted out the spirit stones Ning asked for and placed them on the table. Ning wasn't hypocritical enough to refuse the payment for appearances' sake. He accepted the spirit stones without complaint and began counting them. A brief silence settled over the table before Xiao Fan finally spoke.

"... Well, did you complete that Infinite Circle thing? I saw something about it in your notes when I was cleaning up." He paused before adding, "It just happened to open to that page when I was turning them over." Ning slowly raised his eyes from the spirit stones. Why was he not surprised? Well, as long as the matter of his novels hadn't somehow spread along with everything else, he could tolerate this much. From the way Xiao Fan had described looking through his things, he shouldn't have found that part.

As for how Xiao Qing knew about it, that wasn't difficult to guess. She clearly had no such moral boundaries when it came to her dear brother, so naturally, she wouldn't let such a convenient way to learn more about him slip by.

"Ignoring the violation of my privacy for now." Ning met Xiao Fan's gaze, causing the latter to look away sheepishly. So even he knows that was wrong, huh?

"What do you think? Though, considering how thoroughly you went through my things, I'm sure you remember the purple-gold light from the Tower trial." Normally, Xiao Fan wouldn't have let such a passive-aggressive remark pass without immediately biting back, but the revelation had surprised him enough to overlook it.

"Y-You really did it? Especially after seeing your notes, I thought those were just the ramblings of a madman. Seriously." Ning blinked in surprise. Xiao Fan had actually stuttered; he really was surprised. Still...

"You know, it's quite rude to call someone's hard work the ramblings of a madman."

"No, those were much worse than a madman's ramblings." Xiao Fan still remembered those pages far too clearly. There weren't just notes about circulation, accumulation, and circles; there were strange symbols, overlapping diagrams, crossed-out routes, arrows pointing everywhere, and annotations that seemed to become progressively more unhinged the further he read.

"Even the premise itself was ridiculous. I thought my Final Star Break was out there, but you take the cake."

"Ah, you praise me too much." Ning smiled and rubbed the back of his head.

"That wasn't praise..." Xiao Fan glared at the smiling bastard before reluctantly adding, "Well, not entirely." Ning chuckled and finished counting the spirit stones.

"So, what did you actually want to talk about regarding Infinite Circle?" Xiao Fan considered it for a moment.

"I liked the idea." Ning's eyebrows rose. That was interesting.

"Do you want it?" Xiao Fan blinked.

"I can give you a copy." Ning smiled.

"In exchange, teach me sealing." The complicated expression that immediately appeared on Xiao Fan's face gave Ning his answer before he even spoke.

"I can't." Xiao Fan tapped one finger against the table.

"The inheritance isn't like a normal technique where I can copy what I remember onto a jade slip. Most of it is still sealed inside the inheritance itself, and I only gain access to more as I understand it. If I want to properly transmit any part of it to someone else, I need enough control over the inheritance first." Ning nodded slowly. That made sense. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"Well, if you ever need help figuring out how to access it properly, tell me." Ning was genuinely interested in how the inheritance worked, too.

"I'd still like to take a crack at sealing." Xiao Fan thought about it for a moment before nodding.

"Okay." For a few moments, neither of them spoke. Xiao Fan took a sip of tea, opened his mouth as though he wanted to say something, then apparently thought better of it and took another sip instead. Ning watched the entire process before a laugh finally escaped him. Xiao Fan frowned.

"What?"

"Brother Xiao, you truly are awkward."

"Shut up."

"You really aren't very good at keeping a conversation going, are you?"

"Shut up," Xiao Fan repeated before adding somewhat defensively, "It's not my fault most people don't talk to me much. Besides Fatty Li and Sun Jing, those two usually do enough talking for everyone."

"Fine, fine." Ning took pity on him and set down his cup.

"Let's talk about something easier. Your bloodline abilities. I'm curious about what you can actually do. Maybe we can figure out a few new ways to use them." Xiao Fan hesitated. Normally, he wouldn't explain the details of his abilities so readily, but Ning already knew about the Demon Subduing Sutra, and he had also been the one to discover Fatty Li's hidden spiritual body when nobody else had noticed anything unusual.

After considering it for a moment, Xiao Fan began explaining the bloodline abilities he had accumulated so far, though he quietly left out Nine Lives. The more Ning heard, the more serious his expression became. By the time Xiao Fan finished, Ning had to admit that the collection was impressive.

"These are actually quite good," Ning said. Xiao Fan raised an eyebrow.

"Think about it. You already fight aggressively, and you're difficult to put down. Battlebody rewards you for taking damage, while Spirit Devouring helps you keep fighting after someone else would have exhausted their qi. Rendering Force gives all that physical strength a way to threaten opponents who would otherwise rely on their defenses." Ning nodded thoughtfully.

"These bloodline abilities fit your style surprisingly well." Xiao Fan looked rather pleased with that assessment.

"So what do you think? Is there any room for improvement?"

"There is always room for improvement," Ning answered as if it were a fact.

"Let me ask you something. When you obtained these bloodlines, did you specifically search for demonic beasts with abilities you wanted, or did you just take useful ones whenever you happened to encounter them?"

"The second one." Ning wasn't surprised in the slightest.

"Brother Xiao, think about what you're actually capable of doing. You don't need a beast because the beast itself is powerful. You need a beast because a particular characteristic of its bloodline is useful to you. There is a difference between them." He began counting on his fingers.

"If you want regeneration, deliberately search for beasts whose entire survival strategy revolves around regenerating injuries. If you want mobility, find something specialized in explosive speed or movement. If you want stronger senses, don't hunt some enormous tiger just because it looks impressive. Find the strange little nocturnal creature that can detect prey through three mountains of stone." Xiao Fan's expression slowly changed as Ning continued.

"You already have Battlebody, which makes you stronger as you're injured. Pair that with regeneration, and suddenly the same injuries increasing your strength become much less dangerous. Spirit Devouring helps replenish your spiritual energy, which might even support the regeneration depending on how it works, while Rendering Force already gives you a way to turn physical strength into something that can bypass conventional defenses." Xiao Fan had gone completely still.

"Then there's force accumulation. Imagine a beast capable of storing part of the impact it receives. Someone hits you, Battlebody benefits from the damage, another bloodline preserves some of that force, and then you return it through Rendering Force. Or find something that adapts to repeated damage so you become increasingly difficult to hurt the longer a fight lasts." Ning leaned forward slightly as more possibilities occurred to him.

"Perception, poison resistance, concealment, flight, underwater movement, spiritual recovery... There are probably dozens of useful traits that come from beasts nobody would normally consider particularly impressive." He paused as another possibility occurred to him.

"And elemental affinity." Xiao Fan blinked.

"What?"

"Some demonic beasts don't merely use elemental techniques. Their bodies are naturally aligned with an element. If you can preserve useful bloodline characteristics, then depending on exactly how the inheritance works, you might be able to acquire an affinity toward fire, ice, lightning, earth, or something stranger without originally possessing that affinity yourself." Xiao Fan slowly looked down at his own hand. Ning could almost see the realization dawning on him.

The more he thought about it, the stranger Xiao Fan's expression became, until eventually he looked like someone who had just realized he could simply turn his pillow over to the cool side when it was hot. It was obvious in hindsight. He had simply been too blindsided by everything else to think of it.

"Heavens." Xiao Fan remained silent for several seconds before rubbing his forehead. Ning smiled.

"Those were just off the top of my head." That did not seem to make Xiao Fan feel any better. He leaned back and stared toward the ceiling, evidently reconsidering every bloodline decision he had made since obtaining the Demon Subduing Sutra. Eventually, he looked back at Ning.

"If I find several beasts I'm considering..." Xiao Fan paused briefly, as though the rest of the sentence had suddenly become much harder.

"... you could look at them." There it was. Ning narrowed his eyes.

"Of course." Apparently satisfied with that answer, Xiao Fan nodded. Ning, however, found himself thinking more seriously about the implications. The Demon Subduing Sutra was far more frightening than he had initially given it credit for. Xiao Fan's current collection of bloodline abilities was already impressive, yet most of them had been obtained through circumstance rather than deliberate planning.

If he began selecting future bloodlines according to what his cultivation actually lacked, every new inheritance could fill a weakness or strengthen an existing advantage. And if there was no strict upper limit to how many compatible characteristics he could eventually refine... Someone who had once been looked down upon for possessing a low-grade spiritual root might eventually accumulate one acquired talent after another until his original lack of talent barely mattered.

From having almost no talent to possessing more talents than he knew what to do with. Ning could already picture the future. There was something strangely fitting about that. It was also absolutely terrifying.

"Actually," Ning said, "if you're going to start choosing deliberately, I already have a few recommendations." Xiao Fan immediately looked suspicious.

"You do?"

"Yes." Ning nodded.

"The Heaven-Mending Silkworm, the Jade Marrow Antler Deer, and the Root-Nourishing Earth Dragon." Xiao Fan frowned as he searched his memory.

"I've heard of the Jade Marrow Antler Deer. What do any of those have to do with combat?"

"Nothing at all." Xiao Fan, who had been waiting for Ning to reveal some ingenious idea, slowly turned his head toward him. Was this guy messing with him?

"The Heaven-Mending Silkworm produces Heaven-Mending Silk only a few times during its life. When properly refined, the essence contained within that silk can repair deficiencies in a cultivator's spiritual root and, with enough accumulation, even improve its grade." Xiao Fan's expression shifted slightly.

"The Jade Marrow Antler Deer is similar. Every few years, a mature specimen sheds its antlers, leaving behind a small amount of Jade Marrow Essence. It's one of the few natural treasures known to directly nourish and strengthen spiritual roots."

"As for the Root-Nourishing Earth Dragon, it slowly accumulates Root Essence within its core by absorbing spiritual energy from the earth. When properly refined, that essence can strengthen a cultivator's spiritual root and potentially raise its quality." Xiao Fan was surprised. Ning smiled.

"See where I'm going? I want to know whether the characteristics that allow their bodies to produce those materials can be inherited through the Demon Subduing Sutra." That was the important distinction. Their bodies naturally produced substances capable of improving spiritual roots. If the Demon Subduing Sutra could extract whatever bloodline characteristics made that possible, then perhaps Xiao Fan could gain something far more valuable than a single dose of spiritual-root medicine.

Spiritual roots were only one measure of cultivation talent. Spiritual bodies, unusual meridians, bloodlines, constitutions, affinities, and countless other factors could allow someone with an inferior root to outperform a supposedly more talented cultivator. Even so, spiritual roots remained one of the foundations of cultivation, and annoyingly, one of the hardest to improve.

Ning had been keeping an eye out for anything related to improving his own Mid-grade spiritual root for quite some time, even though there was no immediate urgency. His current root was sufficient to carry him through Foundation Building, and the limitations that truly mattered were still far in the future. Waiting until he slammed face-first into that wall before looking for a solution, however, seemed unnecessarily shortsighted.

Xiao Fan already possessed the perfect ability for experimenting with an entirely different approach. If the Demon Subduing Sutra could inherit the characteristic responsible for producing Heaven-Mending Silk, Jade Marrow Essence, or Root Essence, there was a chance Xiao Fan's own body could reproduce some version of the same effect. Whether that meant directly nourishing his spiritual root, gradually improving its quality, or producing some usable essence of his own was impossible to know without trying.

Even failure would tell them something.

"Wait." Xiao Fan's eyes narrowed.

"Is it a coincidence that every beast you just named produces something that can also be used to improve someone else's spiritual root?" Ning's smile widened.

"Brother Xiao, surely you've felt how troublesome your low-grade spiritual root can be. If one of those bloodlines gives you a characteristic that naturally produces something capable of nourishing spiritual roots, you might be able to improve the problem at its source instead of compensating for it forever."

"Right..."

"And naturally, if the beast happens to leave behind some useful silk, antler marrow, blood, a core, or anything else after you're finished..." Xiao Fan stared at him. Ning coughed.

"I wouldn't mind a little."

"I knew it." Xiao Fan looked thoroughly unsurprised.

"You started this entire conversation because you want spiritual-root materials."

"That's an incredibly cynical interpretation of my sincere concern for your cultivation, Brother Xiao. You wound me." Ning looked genuinely hurt by the mistrust. Xiao Fan's expression said exactly what he thought of that. There was, admittedly, one rather significant problem with Ning's brilliant plan.

"Those beasts are ridiculously rare," Xiao Fan pointed out.

"I think the Heaven-Mending Silkworm is considered nearly extinct, and I've only ever heard of the Jade Marrow Antler Deer appearing in ancient records. You might as well ask me to find a dragon or phoenix."

"Those are just minor details." Ning waved a hand dismissively. Tomato, tomahto, it was all the same.

"Those are fairly important details." Xiao Fan was beginning to wonder how Ning had somehow become known as the reasonable one between them.

"You'll manage." Ning considered the problem for a moment before suddenly brightening.

"Actually, let's make it a mission."

"A what?" Xiao Fan blinked.

"A long-term mission." Ning leaned forward, increasingly pleased with the idea.

"If you encounter any demonic beast whose bloodline might strengthen spiritual roots, improve cultivation talent, produce talent-enhancing materials, or do anything similar, investigate it. If you can inherit the relevant characteristic and bring me either a usable method or enough materials to study, I'll compensate you." Xiao Fan considered that.

"With what?" Ning thought about the Hundredfold Broken Origin Scripture and the absurd amount of resources Xiao Fan was likely to burn through if he seriously intended to cultivate it.

"Demonic beast cores, pills, spiritual food, cultivation resources-whatever is useful to you. I can also help process any materials you bring back. We can work out the exact exchange depending on what you find." Xiao Fan stared at him as though Ning had just casually assigned him a mission that could take several decades. Which, to be fair, he had.

"Don't worry about doing it immediately. I said it's a long-term mission." And Ning meant it. He didn't expect Xiao Fan to walk outside tomorrow and trip over a Heaven-Mending Silkworm. Still, there was no harm in starting early. Problems were considerably easier to solve when you started searching for solutions before they actually became problems. Xiao Fan remained silent for a while before finally asking the obvious question.

"Why do you think I'm going to find any of those?" Ning smiled.

"It's all about trust, Brother Xiao." Xiao Fan immediately looked wary. Ning placed one hand over his chest with complete sincerity.

"Believe in me who believes in you. You'll find one." The courtyard fell silent except for the loud crunch of Bai finishing the last piece of her frozen treat outside. Xiao Fan stared at Ning for several long seconds before sighing.

"I don't know why I expected a serious answer." Ning merely continued smiling. Some things were difficult to explain. Protagonist luck was one of them.... After another round of spiritual sense training with Ling Yinran, Ning returned home. Fenghuang had remained behind to guard the farm, and the moment Ning entered the courtyard, the White Flame Raven flew down from his usual perch and landed beside him.

"Caw."

"Everything fine?" Fenghuang gave a proud nod, apparently satisfied that the farm had successfully survived several hours under his protection. He was about to return to his perch when he suddenly paused. His head tilted, and after staring at Ning for a moment, he hopped closer and sniffed at his robes.

"Caw?" Ning blinked before realizing what had caught his attention.

"Oh, I just met Bai."

"Caw." Fenghuang evidently recognized the scent of Xiao Fan's fox. That reminded Ning once again that Xiao Fan had named a snow-white fox Bai, which literally meant White. He had found that funny ever since learning her name. It was the sort of naming scheme that required either remarkable simplicity or a complete unwillingness to spend more than five seconds thinking about it. That did give Ning an interesting idea. If he ever had a daughter, what if he gave her an unmistakably masculine name?

Or an unmistakably feminine one if he had a son? Then whenever someone heard their name alongside their spouse's without meeting either of them, they would naturally assume the wrong one. Ning's lips slowly curled upward as he imagined the confusion. The idea was completely pointless and benefited absolutely no one, which somehow made it even funnier.

"Caw?" Ning looked down to find Fenghuang staring at him suspiciously.

"It's nothing. Just a small matter. You don't need to worry about it." The raven's stare didn't change.

"Go practice your flame control." Ning waved him toward the training ground.

"I've already put up a mission for a White Sun Flame Crystal. Once someone finds one, we can start preparing for you to advance into the Late Stage." Fenghuang immediately perked up.

"Caw!" He flew toward the training ground and landed with his wings spread wide. White flames rose around his feathers, gathering into a thin layer as he began practicing his control. Naturally, within moments, what should have been ordinary training somehow turned into posing. Fenghuang raised his head, angled one wing toward the sky, and carefully maintained the white flames around himself as though expecting an audience to appear at any moment.

Ning watched him for a few seconds before shaking his head with a smile. Maybe showing Fenghuang that aura farming could double as cultivation training had been a mistake. Oh well. At least he was having fun. Leaving Fenghuang to his training, Ning returned inside and made his way to the cultivation room, where he sat cross-legged on the meditation cushion.

Although he had already studied the technique while choosing his new cultivation method, there was a considerable difference between understanding what a technique did and comprehending the principles necessary to actually cultivate it. Ning pressed the jade slip against his forehead and sank his consciousness within. A stream of information unfolded through his mind. Pure Qi returns to Origin; Origin gives rise to one. Qi may fill a hundred rivers, yet all rivers return to the same sea.

Refine the impure, settle the turbulent, gather the scattered, and return all things to their source. The first Fold lies within qi. When a hundred streams share one nature, movement follows thought, and qi returns without obstruction. Ning remained motionless as the accompanying circulation method appeared alongside the scripture. The language was considerably more obscure than the Pure Qi Sutra. That was hardly surprising.

The Pure Qi Sutra had been designed so that even a newly initiated cultivator could practice it safely, while the Sevenfold Pure Origin Art was intended for cultivators who had already crossed the first six stages of Qi Condensation. Its verses no longer explained every step plainly; principles, circulation routes, and intent were woven together, leaving the cultivator to comprehend the relationship between them. Fortunately, with Know Thyself, Ning had a considerably better starting point than most.

He closed his eyes and began circulating his qi. Changing cultivation techniques was normally a troublesome process. Different techniques could refine spiritual energy toward entirely different qualities, open different meridians, or demand circulation patterns incompatible with the cultivator's existing foundation. At best, changing midway required a period of adjustment. At worst, a cultivator might need to slowly disperse portions of their old cultivation before rebuilding them under the new method.

Ning encountered none of those problems. The moment the Sevenfold Pure Origin Art began circulating, his qi responded almost naturally, and the reason was simple. The Pure Qi Sutra established the foundation, while the Sevenfold Pure Origin Art was one of the paths built directly upon it. The same pure and neutral qi flowed through many of the same meridians, and even where the circulation diverged, it did so by extending routes Ning had already cultivated rather than overturning them.

If the Pure Qi Sutra had brought him to the end of a road, the Sevenfold Pure Origin Art simply continued paving beyond it. Ning followed the new circulation carefully. Qi flowed from his dantian and entered his meridians. It passed through one circuit, turned through another, then folded back across channels it had already traversed before finally returning toward the dantian. Ning repeated the circulation several times, gradually losing track of the passage of time.

At first, he had regarded the repeated circulation as a method of refinement, but that interpretation soon began to feel incomplete. Qi may fill a hundred rivers, yet all rivers return to the same sea. The verse surfaced again in Ning's thoughts. At first, he had assumed the hundred rivers referred to his meridians, but as he continued circulating and observing himself through Know Thyself, another interpretation gradually emerged. His qi had all originated from the Pure Qi Sutra, yet it wasn't perfectly identical.

Some had been refined days ago, some only recently, while the first traces of liquid qi forming within his dantian were denser still. Individually, those differences were insignificant. Together, however, they were the hundred rivers. Ning's breathing gradually slowed. Refine the impure, settle the turbulent, gather the scattered, and return all things to their source. The repeated circulation wasn't merely refining his qi.

It was gradually removing the differences between each portion and bringing them toward a common state. Each passage through the prescribed meridians adjusted the qi by an almost imperceptible amount. Faster currents slowed, denser portions dispersed among thinner ones, and scattered fluctuations gradually disappeared. When the qi finally returned to his dantian, the distinction between one stream and another had become slightly harder to perceive. Ning circulated it again.

This time, he no longer blindly followed the route recorded in the jade slip. He understood why the qi turned where it did, why certain meridians were traversed repeatedly, and why the scripture emphasized returning to the source rather than simply refining spiritual energy. The First Fold was not about possessing purer qi at all, like the Pure Qi Sutra. It was about possessing one qi.

When all the qi within his dantian shared the same nature, responded to the same intent, and circulated without conflicting currents, the First Fold would be complete. As the realization settled into place, Ning adjusted his circulation accordingly. For a brief moment, the circulation that had required his careful guidance became noticeably smoother. The qi passed through his meridians and returned to his dantian in one continuous current, carrying fewer of the minute disturbances he had been observing earlier.

Ning didn't rush to push further. Instead, he continued circulating according to his newfound understanding, gradually becoming more familiar with the First Fold. Some time later, he finally felt that he had gained enough from the session.

"So that's Pure Origin." The name made much more sense now. Beginning from the pure foundation created by the Pure Qi Sutra, the Sevenfold Pure Origin Art sought to bring the cultivator's increasingly complicated cultivation back toward a single harmonious origin. From what Ning understood of the later Folds, that harmony would eventually extend beyond qi to the meridians, dantian, flesh, spiritual sense, and finally the Spirit Sea.

Ning was still far from completing even the First Fold, but the technique had successfully taken root. More importantly, the transition from the Pure Qi Sutra had barely disturbed his existing foundation. Even then, he didn't immediately open his eyes. His attention instead shifted toward the Infinite Circle. This was one of the reasons he had chosen the Sevenfold Pure Origin Art in the first place. Ning had been thinking about automated cultivation for quite some time.

Stripped of all the profound terminology surrounding it, cultivation involved a great deal of repetition: draw in spiritual energy, circulate it according to the technique, refine it into qi, return it to the dantian, and repeat. There were only so many hours in a day, and Ning already had far too many things he wanted to do. Farming, alchemy, body cultivation, martial techniques, spells, formations, reading, experiments—the list only seemed to grow.

His long-term idea was to use Infinite Circle as the foundation for a stable, self-sustaining cultivation cycle, one that could eventually continue without his constant attention. The Sevenfold Pure Origin Art's emphasis on gradually bringing every part of one's cultivation into harmony had made it particularly attractive for that purpose. At least, that had been the theory. Now that he had actually cultivated the First Fold, he could finally begin testing whether the idea had any merit.

Ning compared its circulation route with the structure of Infinite Circle and quickly discovered that the two didn't fit together nearly as neatly as he had hoped. That wasn't particularly surprising. Infinite Circle was its own technique, while whoever created the Sevenfold Pure Origin Art had presumably never considered whether a strange disciple centuries later might try using it to cultivate while asleep. Still, there were similarities worth exploring.

The First Fold was already performed through repeated circulation, which at least gave Ning somewhere to start. Qi left the dantian, passed through the prescribed meridians, underwent refinement and harmonization, then returned. The problem was finding a way to make the end of one circulation naturally initiate the next without Ning consciously guiding the transition, all while preserving the First Fold's intended effect. He began with a small amount of qi.

On his first attempt, Ning tried feeding the returning current directly into the beginning of another circulation. The two currents interfered almost immediately, forcing him to stop and examine the failure through Know Thyself. Changing where they connected produced a slightly better result, but the circulation soon drifted away from the route required by the First Fold.

Another configuration preserved the route but weakened the harmonizing effect, while several others worked only as long as Ning continued guiding them himself. One arrangement even seemed capable of carrying the returning qi toward another circulation, only for Ning to discover that it produced practically none of the First Fold's intended effect. Ning stared at the result.

"Impressive. I've automated doing nothing." That one was discarded. He continued experimenting, changing one part at a time and comparing the resulting qi against what he produced through normal cultivation. Ning wasn't expecting to create automated cultivation in a single afternoon; he had barely begun practicing the First Fold, and most of his understanding of the remaining six was still theoretical.

For now, he only wanted to see whether Infinite Circle and the Sevenfold Pure Origin Art could be made compatible at all. After several more failures, Ning tried another arrangement. He completed the First Fold's circulation normally and adjusted the returning current according to the principles of Infinite Circle. As the qi approached his dantian, he gradually reduced his control and watched closely through Know Thyself. For the briefest moment, something changed.

Instead of immediately settling or losing its structure, part of the returning current continued along the path Ning had prepared for it. It began turning toward the opening section of the next circulation almost on its own. Then the balance collapsed as the current dispersed before it could properly begin another cycle, and Ning immediately regained control before the disturbance could spread. He remained still for a moment, carefully examining what had happened. It could have been momentum.

It could have been an accidental consequence of the way he had released his control, or perhaps the circulation had only appeared self-sustaining because Ning had unconsciously influenced it. There were too many possibilities to call it a success, but the qi had moved farther than it should have. Ning repeated the same arrangement several times, yet none reproduced the result exactly. One came close before collapsing even earlier, while the others simply failed. Oddly enough, that only made him more interested.

Something in that particular arrangement had briefly allowed the circulation to behave differently, and even if Ning didn't yet understand what it was, the result was worth investigating. Ning opened his eyes and began recording everything he could remember about the attempt: the circulation route, the speed of the returning current, where he had reduced his control, and the changes he had observed through Know Thyself. He had proven nothing today. At most, he had found a hint that the idea might not be impossible.

For a first experiment, Ning was satisfied with that. There was still an enormous amount he didn't understand. Ning hadn't even completed the First Fold, and whatever he learned while progressing through it would undoubtedly change how he approached Infinite Circle. Even making the circulation repeat reliably was only the first problem; drawing in and refining spiritual energy without conscious guidance would come much later.

For now, he would cultivate normally and continue experimenting with Infinite Circle on the side. There was no reason to rush. Perhaps one day, Infinite Circle really could become the foundation of a cultivation cycle that never stopped, whether Ning was meditating, farming, practicing alchemy, eating, or sleeping. Ning's eyes brightened at the thought.

"Now that would truly be perpetual cultivation."... Thanks for reading~