Chapter 3 : Chapter 3
Chapter 3: Testing Your Learning Ability
No sooner had the voice from outside fallen than Li Cheng walked in, leading someone with him.
Ning Ri immediately opened with a greeting. “Greetings, Elder Zhou! Greetings, Senior Brother Stele!”
Li Cheng smiled and nodded at Ning Ri, then went off to one side and turned himself into a testing stele again, falling silent and motionless. Clearly, he had started pretending to be a stele again...
At the same time, Zhou Heng laughed and said, “No need for so much courtesy.”
After greeting Zhou Heng, Ning Ri took a closer look at him.
Zhou Heng wore a gray robe. He was tall and powerfully built, with an imposing presence. On his face, Ning Ri could vaguely make out a line of words—
“This is way too heaven-defying!”
Ning Ri: “?”
What is that?
Seeing Ning Ri’s slightly blank stare, Zhou Heng immediately realized something, raised a hand, and wiped his face. The line, “This is way too heaven-defying!” vanished at once.
Zhou Heng laughed and said, “Do not be alarmed, young friend. I use that when teaching. Some of the Outer Sect disciples do not hear very well, so I cast the contents of my lecture onto my face with a spell, so those disciples know what I am saying.”
So he’s basically a one-man subtitle team, Ning Ri thought. In his previous life, he had always respected subtitle makers the most, and he could not help feeling a sense of admiration. “Elder Zhou truly has the benevolent heart of a teacher. This junior is deeply impressed!”
That said, now that they were cultivators, could someone’s hearing still be bad?
Zhou Heng waved his hand and continued, “All right, let me take a look at your acupoints and spirit root. Would you mind?”
Ning Ri shook his head to show that he did not mind.
After Zhou Heng’s spiritual power made a circuit through his body, Ning Ri saw a look of astonishment appear on his face. “Your acupoints truly are blocked, and your spirit root truly is incomplete. However, I can see why you are able to cultivate.”
Ning Ri immediately asked, “Elder Zhou, why is that?!”
Zhou Heng said, “I believe the impurities in your acupoints gave you a helping hand.”
Ning Ri froze. “Huh?”
Zhou Heng patiently explained, “Cultivation requires the use of the spirit root, the acupoints, and the meridians.”
“The spirit root’s function lies in absorbing spiritual energy and refining it. The acupoints and meridians serve as the entryways, exits, and pathways for spiritual energy.”
“The spiritual energy of the outside world enters the body through the acupoints, flows through the meridians to the spirit root in the dantian, and is then refined by the spirit root.”
“After that, the refined spiritual energy becomes part of the body, while the waste produced during the refining process is automatically expelled through the acupoints.”
“Although your spirit root is incomplete and cannot refine spiritual energy normally, you do not lack a spirit root altogether.”
“So the functions of your spirit root are still there. It can still draw in spiritual energy, and it can still refine spiritual energy. It is only very slow because it is incomplete.”
“Under normal circumstances, because your refining speed is so slow, your spiritual energy would immediately slip away. But who would have thought that the impurities in your acupoints would just so happen to make up for the problem of your incomplete spirit root? They block that spiritual energy inside the acupoints. It enters slowly, and it also leaves slowly. In the end, that gave rise to this wondrous physique unlike any seen across all ages...”
“Marvelous, marvelous. It seems you were born to enter our Defying Heaven Sect!”
“It would not even be excessive to call you an Innate Sacred Cultivation Physique!”
Ning Ri: “...”
No, wait a second.
How did I suddenly get turned into some Innate Sacred Cultivation Physique?
Zhou Heng continued, “However, if you want to participate in the disciple trial, you must still prove one ability to me.”
“What ability?”
“Your ability to learn.” Zhou Heng said, “Have you studied any spells before?”
Ning Ri shook his head. “No.”
Both Gale Step and Iron Bones Art of the Crocodile Turtle were incomplete versions.
How could that count as having studied them?
So give me a new spell, my beloved Elder Subtitle Team Leader!
Zhou Heng took out a jade slip. “In that case, take a look at this spell. With your third-level Qi Refining cultivator cultivation, it will be enough for you to use it. After half an hour, circulate it in front of me, and I will see what level you can reach.”
“Yes!”
Ning Ri immediately accepted the jade slip.
Then Zhou Heng closed his eyes and waited off to the side.
The spell Zhou Heng had given him was called 【Spirit Absorption Art】.
It was a Qi Refining spell used to accelerate the absorption of spiritual energy. The specific method was to control each acupoint and increase the pressure, causing the spiritual energy of the outside world to flow into the body faster.
This spell that Zhou Heng had given him was clearly chosen with Ning Ri in mind.
Ning Ri could not help but feel moved.
The spell explained that every person’s body had thirteen hundred acupoints.
Back when Ning Ri had first begun refining Qi, that number had shocked him. He could tell that these acupoints were obviously different from the ones in his previous life. There were so many that it was almost frightening.
And the first thing this Spirit Absorption Art wanted Ning Ri to cultivate was the seven apertures.
The eyes, the nose, the mouth, and the ears!
As for the remaining 1,293 acupoints, the spell did not mention them for the time being.
Clearly, that was not something a third-level Qi Refining cultivator like him could come into contact with yet.
Next, Ning Ri opened his panel and looked at his skills—
【Mortal Blade Arts】: 10 (Maxed Out) (Resettable)
With his mind, Ning Ri selected the 【Resettable】 option on 【Mortal Blade Arts】, and a prompt immediately popped up:
“Does the host wish to reset points?”
【Yes】
【No】
Ning Ri chose 【Yes】.
Whoosh!
As his body shuddered, a strange sensation of being pulled away surged through him. Ning Ri felt as though something inside his mind had disappeared.
He still understood 【Mortal Blade Arts】, but if someone told him to pick up a blade right now, everything would feel extremely unfamiliar.
This was what it meant for one’s hands to go rusty.
Ning Ri had felt this in his previous life as well.
A few years after the college entrance exam, when he opened one of his senior-year math papers again, he had experienced that same feeling of, I clearly learned this before, so why can’t I understand it now...?
At that moment, his Free Skill Points became 10.
After resetting his points, Ning Ri stood there with his eyes closed, not moving at all.
To satisfy the half-hour limit Zhou Heng had given him, he pretended to ponder the spell for half an hour...
Of course.
He had actually pondered it for real, and he had even followed the jade slip’s instructions by inhaling with force—
But unfortunately, it had no effect.
In Ning Ri’s current condition, he could not make it work by himself.
After that, he summoned the panel again.
Looking at Spirit Absorption Art, he had originally intended to go all in on it right then and there.
But on second thought, even if he was an Innate Sacred Cultivation Physique, he could not be too high-profile.
So he only lightly added three points to 【Spirit Absorption Art】.
The panel then displayed:
【Spirit Absorption Art】: 3
As his body gave another shudder, Ning Ri immediately felt as though he had entered a state of [Sudden Enlightenment]. It was as if his entire body and mind had stepped into some profound and mysterious realm...
Then—
He opened his eyes.
At that moment, Zhou Heng looked over and smiled. “Half an hour is up. How do you feel?”
Ning Ri said in a deep voice, “Elder Zhou, I feel as though I already have some ideas.”
Zhou Heng walked up in front of Ning Ri. “Oh? Then give it a try!”
“Yes!”
After answering, Ning Ri immediately circulated 【Spirit Absorption Art】...
The mature experience brought by 【Spirit Absorption Art: 3】 flowed through Ning Ri’s heart. The thin spiritual energy in his dantian finally had a use. Without hesitation, it rushed to the area around his nose. Following the knowledge now embedded in his body, Ning Ri immediately inhaled sharply through his nose—
Whoosh—
It was as though Ning Ri’s nose had been fitted with a pressure pump. All the spiritual energy in front of him rushed straight into his nose...
Seeing this, Zhou Heng’s eyes first lit up, then his expression changed drastically.
“Why are you sucking the spiritual energy out of my body?!”