Chapter 262 - 251: Deduction
After leaving Leisure Cloud Hall, Zhao Lin went straight to the main hall at the summit, passed through a hidden door, and entered the sect’s underground treasury.
The treasury stored important classic texts, Cultivation Techniques, and rare medicinal herbs. It also contained a secret escape tunnel for emergencies.
As a restricted area of the sect, it was guarded day and night by attendants on rotating shifts. Only the Sect Leader and elders were permitted to enter.
"Elder Zhao, please!"
Before Zhao Lin could even present his identification token, the four attendants guarding the treasury greeted him respectfully in turn.
The Xingyun Sect had enjoyed smooth development in recent years. Its treasury was full and its elixirs plentiful, which was largely thanks to Zhao Lin. As such, he was deeply respected by everyone in the sect.
"Thank you for your hard work."
Zhao Lin nodded slightly and stepped inside.
Although the treasury was underground, it was cleverly designed with excellent ventilation and lighting. It never felt stuffy, even after spending a long time inside.
Inside the corridor were five stone chambers, arranged in a neat row.
The yearbooks were stored in the third stone chamber, neatly arranged by year from most recent to oldest.
The two Grandmasters before Lu Yuanxiu were named Chen Tunan and Xu Yuan. Zhao Lin remembered the approximate time they left the sect and quickly found the two relevant yearbooks.
He walked to an Everlasting Lamp and began to flip through them page by page.
A moment later, he paused. Just as he expected, he found a record of a Daoist’s visit.
"A Daoist again!"
Zhao Lin’s eyes narrowed. He stared at the words on the page, thinking, ’Just as I suspected, these incidents are no coincidence!’
Unfortunately, the attendant responsible for the record must have deemed the matter unimportant, as they only mentioned it in passing. There was no record at all of the Daoist’s origins or what he had said to the Grandmaster.
"Why is it that as soon as someone reaches the Grandmaster Realm, a Daoist shows up at their door, and then the Grandmaster leaves?"
Zhao Lin muttered to himself, his mind filled with questions.
Then another thought occurred to him. ’Liang Song wasn’t a Grandmaster, so why did a Daoist seek him out too?’
Zhao Lin’s intuition told him both cases stemmed from the same reason, but he couldn’t figure out what that reason was.
Moreover, he had a faint feeling that these Daoists might not have malicious intentions.
After all, judging by their actions before they departed, both the Grandmasters and Liang Song had left of their own free will.
’What could possibly be so alluring that they would leave their homeland, family, and friends?’
...
「Yongning City. The Duke Zhen’s Mansion.」
"Duan Gui, Tao Zhuang, take some men to Xuanyue Mountain and invite the Daoists there to come see me. I wish to meet them."
Zhao Lin had summoned his two personal guard captains to give them a task.
As a duke, he was entitled to a personal guard of eight hundred soldiers, but Zhao Lin had felt that was unnecessary and only kept a hundred. They usually spent their days patrolling the streets and maintaining public order, so it was rare to use them like this.
Duan Gui was the captain of the personal guard, while Tao Zhuang was one of Zhao Lin’s former subordinates from his time as chief of constables in Qinghe County—the very same constable known as Tao Erleng.
Tao Zhuang wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed and had no one to depend on, so Zhao Lin had transferred him to Yan Province to serve as Duan Gui’s deputy.
Duan Gui’s spirits lifted at the command. He immediately cupped his fist and said, "Yes, Your Grace."
Tao Erleng craned his neck and asked, "Chief Zhao, are you asking the Daoists here to perform some ritual? My pa used to say that stuff’s all a scam."
Zhao Lin was speechless. He shot Duan Gui a look.
Duan Gui took the hint and quickly dragged Tao Zhuang out of the mansion.
"Right. Invite them. Don’t use force."
Zhao Lin added another instruction.
He silently wondered, ’It’s been over a hundred years. The original Daoist is surely long gone. I wonder if they have a successor. Does the Daoist temple even exist anymore?’
...
Xuanyue Mountain was in Yan Province, only a few hundred li from Yongning City. Duan Gui and Tao Erleng led the soldiers and rode at top speed, making the round trip in less than ten days.
The news they brought back, however, left Zhao Lin deeply disappointed.
"Reporting, Your Grace. There is no Daoist temple on Xuanyue Mountain. We questioned the folk in the surrounding villages and towns, and they said there have never been any monastics on the mountain."
After Duan Gui finished, Tao Erleng added, "Not even a Buddhist monastery or a nunnery."
Zhao Lin understood. The Daoist named Pu Yuanqing had probably just invented his origins on the spot; his name was likely fake as well.
With a sigh, he dismissed the two of them.
’Looks like it’s impossible to uncover the truth,’ he thought. ’My only option is to reach the Innate Realm myself. Perhaps then, a Daoist will come to my door.’
Over the following days, Zhao Lin holed up in his meditation chamber, burying himself in ancient texts and diligently studying the principles of martial arts.
After nearly three months, he finally devised a Body Tempering Skill.
He first created a Cultivation Technique based on the fundamental principles of martial arts and tailored to his own condition. The technique involved condensing six types of True Qi—water, fire, earth, wind, ice, and thunder—and merging them with his bloodline.
The Qi was the sovereign, the blood its minister. Bone and flesh were their aides, and the organs and meridians were their instruments.
Transforming the tendons, cleansing the marrow!
He then circulated the technique within his body, stopping just short of the critical breakthrough points. He continually refined the technique’s formula based on its performance until it was finally perfected.
He circulated the technique hundreds of times, and only when its effects perfectly matched his expectations did he consider the draft final.
In truth, although devising a Cultivation Technique was mentally and spiritually draining, every martial artist who had cultivated to the Primordial Realm was a person of outstanding talent and supreme intellect.
As long as they were willing to put in the effort, most of them could devise a Cultivation Technique to break through to the Innate Realm.
Yet, not one in a thousand martial artists in the Primordial Realm ever became a Grandmaster, and the true reason for this was age.
A martial artist’s body is at its peak around twenty-four or twenty-five. If they can break through to the Blood Realm before then, their peak can be extended for another ten or twenty years, until they are around forty.
Once past the age of forty, the body of even a Primordial Realm martial artist begins to go downhill.
The process was extremely slow, but it was unstoppable.
Reforming the physical body places immense demands on one’s physique. With each year that passed after their peak, the difficulty of breaking through increased.
However, exceedingly few could reach the Primordial Realm before forty. By the time they spent another decade cultivating to the peak of the realm, it was already impossible to break through, even if they had devised a technique.
The four Grandmasters in Xingyun Sect’s history had all been prodigies of breathtaking talent. Each had reached the peak of the Primordial Realm around the age of forty, which allowed them to break through to the Innate Realm.
Zhao Lin had broken through to the Blood Realm at nineteen and reached the peak of the Primordial Realm at thirty. This was practically unprecedented, so he had absolutely no worries about his age.
With everything in place, Zhao Lin decided to attempt his breakthrough to the Innate Realm and see what happened next.
Before attempting the breakthrough, he compiled his years of cultivation insights into a volume and also revised the wind, ice, and thunder Cultivation Techniques he had previously created.
The Xingyun Sect did not have many elemental Cultivation Techniques. Zhao Lin figured that if he failed his breakthrough attempt, he could at least leave something of value behind for the sect.
Even though he had refined the technique hundreds of times in his mind, it was still just theory. There was no guarantee that problems wouldn’t arise during the actual breakthrough.
Attempting a breakthrough from the Primordial Realm was nothing like breaking through from the Qi Realm or Blood Realm. The risks were enormous, and throughout history, many Primordial Realm martial artists had died during failed attempts.
Two days before his attempt, it was the New Year’s festival, so Zhao Lin returned to his mansion for a reunion dinner with his mother and his older brother’s family.
His father in this life had suffered from a chronic ailment acquired many years ago. His health had steadily declined, and despite being on constant medication, the situation had been irreversible. He passed away two years ago.
Once the New Year’s festival ended, Zhao Lin returned to the sect and went to the inner courtyard to discuss the matter with Yang Lin.
Lu Chaohuan happened to be there too, playing a game of Go with Yang Lin under a tree at Hongrong Pavilion.
Seeing Zhao Lin approach, Lu Chaohuan picked up a game piece and said with a beaming smile, "Guardian Zhao, I heard you’ve been holed up reading in Leisure Cloud Pavilion. To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit today?"