Chapter 1 : Chapter 1
Chapter 1: A Young Man Arrived at the Defying Heaven Sect
Ning Ri was standing in a small courtyard. Hanging above the gate was a plaque: 【Defying Heaven Sect Disciple Recruitment Office】.
He had come to apply to join the Defying Heaven Sect.
Beside him were more than a dozen other people, all waiting with him.
Not far away stood a stone stele, as well as an old man with the bearing of an immortal, his hair and beard both completely white.
The Defying Heaven Sect’s disciple recruitment process was as follows:
First, one’s spirit root would be tested. Second, one would have an interview with Elder Xun Cang, who was in charge of recruiting disciples.
As for them, they would first test their spirit roots on the examination stele, which would provide a rating.
After that, the group would speak with Elder Xun Cang beside the stele, who would decide the final recruitment result.
No one else could hear their conversation with Elder Xun Cang.
Because of that, Ning Ri had no way of guessing what Elder Xun Cang would ask, nor could he prepare for likely questions.
Still, he felt that he should be able to join the Defying Heaven Sect.
The reason was simple.
Ning Ri was different from the others.
The dozen or so people ahead of him had no cultivation at all.
But Ning Ri was already a third-level Qi Refining cultivator!
Ning Ri thought silently to himself, “After transmigrating here and struggling on my own for so long, I’m finally about to find a sect to settle down in.”
“I’ve looked into so many sects, and now that I’ve seen enough, the Defying Heaven Sect really does seem like a good choice!”
“For one thing, although it isn’t particularly famous and isn’t one of the ten great righteous sects, everyone in the territory under its rule lives in peace and contentment. From time to time, people from the sect even come down the mountain to help mortals build their cities, so it should be a good sect. For another… the other righteous sects wouldn’t take me anyway…”
However...
Every person who came out after talking with the elder of the Defying Heaven Sect wore a deeply thoughtful expression. Some of them even looked shaken.
The sight left Ning Ri utterly baffled.
What exactly was that elder of the Defying Heaven Sect talking to them about?
After waiting a little longer, only half of the dozen or so people ahead of him were admitted into the sect and left under the guidance of disciple attendants. The rest all departed the recruitment courtyard looking as though they had lost the will to live.
Seeing this, Ning Ri grew even more confused...
Was the Defying Heaven Sect really that hard to enter? He had clearly seen that some of those people had pretty good spirit roots, yet they had still been eliminated.
Then, finally, it was Ning Ri’s turn.
He stepped forward first and, copying the others, bowed to Xun Cang. “This junior, Ning Ri, greets Elder Xun Cang.”
Xun Cang smiled mildly. “Young friend Ning, there is no need to be so polite. Let me first take a look at your aptitude.”
“Yes!”
Ning Ri placed his hand against the examination stele...
When everyone else had placed a hand on the examination stele, the result had come out in no more than two breaths.
But Ning Ri was different.
A long while passed, and the examination stele still failed to produce a result...
Then, before Ning Ri could even open his mouth to ask Xun Cang what was going on, the stele suddenly stood up, transforming into a black-faced burly man who stared at Ning Ri in utter horror and cried out, “Your spirit root is incomplete?!?”
“How could your spirit root possibly be incomplete?!”
“Then where did all this cultivation of yours come from?”
The stone stele abruptly turning into a person gave Ning Ri such a fright that he jumped and hurriedly stepped back, eyes wide.
What the hell?! Wasn’t it a stone stele? Why is it a person? You were pretending to be a stele?!
And as soon as the black-faced burly man who had been masquerading as a stele spoke, Xun Cang’s expression changed as well. He had never imagined that Ning Ri’s spirit root would be incomplete.
He immediately grabbed Ning Ri’s hand.
Ning Ri instantly felt an irresistible current of spiritual power enter his meridians. After circulating through them once, Xun Cang was equally shocked. He stared at Ning Ri with his jaw hanging open.
“Oh, young friend Ning, you, you, you... this really shouldn’t be possible.”
“You are clearly just an ordinary per... no, someone with an incomplete spirit root and acupoints full of gray grime and impurities, so why are you able to enter the Qi Refining stage?”
“This makes no sense!”
Xun Cang had not had the heart to say it too bluntly.
He had never seen trash this hopeless manage to refine Qi.
Ning Ri’s spirit root was incomplete, and on top of that, his acupoints were filled with impurities...
No.
They could no longer even be called impurities.
They ought to be called stones.
Acupoints were meant to absorb spiritual energy into the body. Only by drawing Qi into the body could one refine it for one’s own use.
But...
Ning Ri’s acupoints were practically clogged to bursting. How could he possibly refine Qi like that?!
Seeing that Xun Cang had discovered his problem, Ning Ri immediately and quite naturally rubbed his nose in embarrassment and said, “Elder Xun, this junior doesn’t know what happened either. I only know that one night, by chance, I obtained a copy of 【Qi Refining Art】. I cultivated for an entire night without any result, but after I went to sleep and woke up, I had somehow successfully entered Qi Refining.”
“This junior has been puzzled ever since, so I asked around everywhere and eventually found the Defying Heaven Sect. I learned that the people of the Defying Heaven Sect are all kind-hearted seniors of great power, so I came here hoping to seek an answer.”
He knew his own 【acupoint stones】 extremely well. The other sects had rejected him precisely because of this.
That was why his lie came out so smoothly.
Xun Cang fell silent...
In truth, Ning Ri knew perfectly well what was going on with him.
He had a cheat.
And it was still turned on.
At that moment, a panel appeared before Ning Ri.
Written on it was:
【Host】: Ning Ri
【Skills】:
【Mortal Blade Arts】: 10 (Maxed Out) (Resettable)
【Qi Refining Art · Incomplete】: 3 (Maxed Out) (Resettable)
【Gale Step · Incomplete】: 3 (Maxed Out) (Resettable)
【Cooking】: 2 (Resettable)
...
Free Skill Points: 0
In his previous life, Ning Ri had been struck and sent flying by a truck, then reborn into this world in the womb. His parents had died early, and he had become an orphan. After growing up on the charity of his neighbors until the age of eighteen, he awakened this golden finger.
Although he could not cultivate immortality by normal means, every skill he came into contact with could help him obtain skill points, including cooking, running, chopping firewood, boiling water, and so on...
For example, every month he spent running would earn him one skill point.
Among all those things, he discovered that he was rather gifted in blade practice. Practicing the blade for half an hour would earn him one skill point. As a result, he had become the most skilled blade wielder in his village and made a living by that means.
Later, he happened to obtain an incomplete version of 【Qi Refining Art】.
He began cultivating it, only to discover that there was a problem with his spirit root.
Before he even had time to despair over his pitiful aptitude, he discovered that his cheat was finally useful!
He transferred all the skill points from his blade arts into the Qi Refining Art, and thus became a cultivator.
However, because the Qi Refining Art was incomplete, he had only advanced to third-level Qi Refining cultivator before he could go no farther.
In order to find new cultivation methods and techniques, he traveled everywhere. Unfortunately, he had neither connections nor channels, and though third-level Qi Refining cultivator made him stronger than ordinary mortals, in the cultivation world he was still at the very bottom of the bottom, no more than a nobody by the roadside.
So in the end, the only thing he managed to get his hands on was an incomplete movement technique.
Even with a cheat, he had no way to truly rise, so after much thought, he decided to join a sect. As long as he could get cultivation techniques, there was still hope for him.
At first, every sect he visited rejected him. In the end, he came to the Defying Heaven Sect.
According to outside rumor—
The Defying Heaven Sect!
It was a sect that walked a path defying the heavens!
The sect was home to many extraordinary people, and all manner of wondrous individuals could be found there.
Ning Ri thought that if this sect was truly so heaven-defying, then adding one more person like him should not be a problem, right?
If you can’t even take in a piece of trash like me, then what right do you have to call yourselves Defying Heaven?
If you can turn someone with aptitude like mine into a talent, that would truly prove that your sect is heaven-defying!
Moreover, in the interest of caution, Ning Ri had even lived for a time in one of the cities under the Defying Heaven Sect’s rule. There, he found that prices were stable, public order was good, and the sect would occasionally provide daily-paid work to the cities under its rule. It had both human concern and hard power...
Only then had he finally chosen to come here.
But looking at Xun Cang’s silent expression now, he still felt somewhat uneasy inside. Could he actually join the Defying Heaven Sect or not...?
If he could not, then he would have to fend for himself outside, build up connections and channels, and search for cultivation methods on his own.
And by the time he managed that, who knew how many years would have passed...