Chapter 18: The Nature of Cultivation

“What do you want to say?” Qin Ran asked in a flat tone as he glanced at Li Shiyin and took a sip of the ice soda on the table.

“Tian Wenjin has built a foundation.” Li Shiyin said.

“So?”

“What am I doing?” Li Shiyin asked.

“You want to refine pills.” Qin Ran gave Li Shiyin the answer, “You worshiped Dan Peak and wanted to refine pills, but you have no talent for refining pills. Other people know from the start that they want to practice swords.”

Li Shiyin was silent for a while, but still asked, “Am I doing this now so that I can make pills?”

In fact, she knew that alchemy did not require daily practice of swordsmanship, daily digging of lakes to exercise the body, and daily soaking in medicinal baths to strengthen the physical body.

“Can’t.” Qin Ran answered her truthfully.

What she was made to do was not so that she could make pills, but so that she could learn to practice with a sword.

“I came to Dan Peak to learn alchemy.” Li Shiyin said, “You should go to Sword Peak to learn sword.”

Silly disciple is after all a silly disciple, and with these words of hers, Qin Ran could smoothly send her to Sword Peak without having to take any responsibility, and then come back and continue to live his own free and liberal immortal cultivation life.

But …… Qin Ran was silent and did not speak, he was torn, examining his own heart, the water in the cup was drunk by him, and he was still sucking the straw hard.

The air was frozen for a while, he suddenly figured out that it was useless for him to dwell on it, the melon that is twisted by force is never sweet, and how the road of others is to be taken, the person concerned still has to choose for himself.

He took out four books from his Qiankun bag and placed them one by one on the table in front of Li Shiyin.

“This is four basic techniques, the first one, is a metallic alchemy technique ……,” he tried his best to keep his tone flat and without ups and downs, “the second book, is called ‘Daxian Sword Decision’, a very good sword technique, but only the first two weights; the third book, named ‘Gengjin Flying Sword Technique’, majoring in flying swords; the fourth book, named ‘Heavenly Sword’.

“One alchemy technique and three sword practicing techniques. You can choose one to keep, or ……

He looked toward the mud pit that Li Shiyin had dug out in front of him and said, “I’ll send you to Sword Peak.”

Li Shiyin lowered her eyes and reached out to turn over the pages of the book, on which the handwriting was brand new, as if it had just been written down not long after ……

No, it wasn’t as if, she suddenly remembered that Master stayed up late into the night every day, and that this might actually be something Master had just written down.

“Metallic Alchemy Technique ……” The first technique didn’t have a name, so she asked out loud, “What’s the name of this one?”

“Haven’t gotten around to naming it yet.”

Her hand turning the pages of the book paused and raised her eyes to look at Qin Ran. But Qin Ran looked at the mud pit and only acted as if he didn’t know.

“Master has created a new technique for me?” She looked at Qin Ran, her pupils trembling slightly.

After a while, she closed the pages and said, “I’m not going to Sword Peak.”

Qin Ran turned back to look at her.

“May I be at the Master’s disposal.

“When Qin Ran didn’t speak, she continued, “As for the gong method, I still have to think about it, I don’t know about alchemy and sword practice ……”

Qin Ran reached out and pressed his hand on the parcel of clothes on the table, looking at Li Shiyin, pondering, for a while, and then suddenly asked, “Do you still remember what I told you, what is the purpose of cultivation?”

“Master said that some people cultivate for longevity, while others cultivate for power.”

“Right.” Qin Ran expressed his slight relief that his foolish disciple, although foolish, had taken his words to heart in the end, he then asked, “Then do you know what the essence of cultivation is?”

“Master didn’t say.”

Sure enough, it’s still a silly disciple, Qin Ran thought and answered, “The essence of cultivation is to take the aura floating in the heavens and earth for oneself. Reiki is a kind of mayfly energy, and cultivators plunder this energy from the hands of the heavens and the earth through their feats to make themselves powerful.”

Li Shiyin listened quietly.

“If I tell you something about cultivation being anti-entropy, where energy is forced to flow from low to high, but the more energy an object has, the more unstable it is, you definitely won’t understand.” Qin Ran said, “But if I tell you that the state of mind must precede the realm of cultivation, you’ll probably be able to understand.

“Cultivation will give an otherwise ordinary person the possibility of being infinitely powerful; in other words, an ordinary person will suddenly have incomparable power. What will happen to this?”

Li Shiyin understood a little bit, knowing that Master was explaining to herself why Tian Wenjin had built his foundation and she hadn’t.

“There is a saying in my hometown that if you are armed with a sharp weapon, your killing heart will rise up.” Qin Ran continued, “So in the process of Immortal Cultivation, cultivating the heart is more important than cultivation. If the mind can’t keep up with the cultivation, too much power can easily make one go off the deep end.”

Where exactly is Master from? How could there be so many arcane words in his hometown? Li Shiyin’s heart wondered.

“From this aspect, the better the talent, the faster the cultivation advancement, the easier it is to go off the deep end.” Qin Ran looked at Li Shiyin and said, “By the same token, using pills to grow one’s cultivation is also very easy to go off the rails.”

“Having said so much ……,” he concluded, “it is to tell you that to practice, you can’t be in a hurry.”

Li Shiyin understood.

She nodded and asked again, “Then how did Tian Wenjin build her foundation so quickly? Didn’t her master tell her this?”

“Cultivation philosophies are different, Sword Cultivators, have always believed in going forward and being confident that they can master power.” Qin Ran explained, “Moreover, she took the elixir.”

Speaking of this, he sighed, ”I warned her before to try not to take the pills, but she took them anyway.

“Once a person is able to obtain a benefit through simpler means, he is no longer willing to go through more difficult means to obtain it. This is another of the dangers of elixirs, even more so than the former, and it is not too much to call them poisonous.”

Li Shiyin had long ago turned into a naive look, and at this time, she nodded her head obediently.

Speaking of which, Qin Ran

Taking out two porcelain bottles from his Qiankun bag, he also placed them on the table as he looked at the elixirs and said, “These two bottles of elixirs, one is a Foundation Building Dan and one is a Spirit Gathering Dan, both of which are of top quality. The Foundation Establishment Pill can massively increase the success rate of Foundation Establishment, and the Spirit Gathering Pill can rapidly increase your cultivation. If you want to build your foundation earlier, you can take the pills to build your foundation now. But ……”

He raised his head to look at Li Shiyin and stared into her eyes, “If you want to take it, then take these two bottles of pills and go down the mountain.”

Li Shiyin lowered her head and thought to herself, Master seems to be very rich, and he can also create his own kung fu, and talented and rich, such a master ……

She bit her lip.

Seeing her appearance, Qin Ran took a deep breath and didn’t take back the elixir, letting the two bottles of top-grade elixir lay there, then suddenly chided, “What are you still waiting for here? Don’t you continue digging the lake yet, do you want to dig until the monkey years and months?”

“Oh!” Li Shiyin nodded her head and turned around, jumping down into the mud pit with a loud thud.

While Qin Ran and Li Shiyin were confronting each other, Huang Feiyu looked at Tian Wenjin, who was staring at her, and roughly guessed what she was thinking, and asked out loud, “What do you think of Li Shiyin?”

“Pity.” Tian Wenjin returned.

“How?” Huang Feiyu asked this even though she knew exactly what Tian Wenjin was thinking.

“Too stupid and a waste of talent.” Tian Wenjin shook her head and said, “A top-tier Golden Spirit Root, yet she wants to learn alchemy, both getting in other people’s way and holding herself back. It would have been a good opponent, but she gave herself up early.”

“Is that what you think?” Huang Feiyu pursued.

“I do.”

“I, on the other hand, don’t think so.” Huang Feiyu said.

Tian Wenjin looked at him, wondering what he thought.

“I think she will definitely be your strongest opponent.” Huang Feiyu said.

“On the road of cultivation, a hundred barges compete, one step ahead, one step ahead, I’ve already built my foundation first, while hers is still a long way off.” Tian Wenjin returned, “I don’t believe it.”

“In the path of cultivation, the foundation is the most important thing.” Huang Feiyu said, “Why don’t we make a bet ……”

“A top spirit root is more important than any foundation!” Tian Wenjin was quite confident, only she obviously didn’t understand what Huang Feiyu was talking about with the foundation, she asked, “Say, what’s the bet?”

“In the Questioning Conference three years from now, Li Shiyin will definitely be ranked higher than you.” Huang Feiyu said.

“What about the bet?”

“You win, I’ll give you the Green Destiny Sword.” Huang Feiyu said, the Green Underworld Sword was a treasure that he had spent countless efforts to obtain, and all the disciples of Sword Peak knew that it was a YuanYing stage cultivator’s native sword, a top-grade magic weapon.

“What if I lose?”

“From now on, no more cultivation growth pills shall be taken!” Huang Feiyu said.

Tian Wenjin looked at Huang Feiyu, and the two of them locked eyes in the air before she nodded heavily, “Deal!!!”