Strongest Scammer: Scamming The World, One Death At A Time

To transfer complex information properly required immense mental training for the cultivator doing it.

One needed both memory and visualization skills sharpened to a fine edge. It was akin to the discipline of an artist who had spent years honing their ability to recreate what they saw in precise detail. The higher one's cultivation, the more the brain and spirit sense grew refined, which made the process easier.

But even then, without practice, mistakes were common.

Han Yu remembered trying it in his early times as a disciple. He had nearly collapsed after spending a day attempting to record a single illustrated chapter of herb identification. The herbs were similar in appearance, and by the end, he had mixed up the vein patterns on two different leaves.

His instructor, Lin Mei had looked at the result and simply sighed before handing him another blank slip to try again.

The true challenge was not only accuracy but also the sheer time involved. To copy even a short book into a jade slip meant reading every line carefully. If it took three hours to finish reading a book, then that was how long the process of transferring it would take.

There was no shortcut, no trick to bypass the steady labor. On top of that, the process consumed Qi. The longer the copying went on, the more Qi one spent, leaving the disciple drained both mentally and physically.

That was why sects and large organizations often had people dedicated solely to such work.

Copyists, archivists, and scribes were always in demand. Even cultivators with little talent for battle could earn steady merit by taking missions to copy documents into jade slips. It was one of the most common and accessible tasks in any sect, for there was never a shortage of records that needed to be preserved each day.

Han Yu smiled faintly at the thought.

If the elders had asked him to record everything from the repository by hand into slips, he and his companions would still be in that underground hall, hunched over with throbbing headaches.

The fact that he could transfer it all with a simple touch now was a blessing.

The glow between the two slips began to fade. Han Yu lifted his hands and checked the new slip with a brush of his spirit sense. He felt the contents stir in his mind, and in the next moment, the information unfolded within his consciousness. The texts, diagrams, and techniques were all intact, each one clear and without error.

"Good," he said softly. "That saves me much trouble."

With the first one done, he began working on the other four jade slips, and in about an hour he had finished copying them all.

With the work done, he placed the copied slip aside carefully and reached for the second new one he had bought. This slip would not hold information from the repository. Instead, it would contain his own notes, thoughts, and learnings.

Han Yu believed in the discipline of recording progress. Cultivation was a vast journey, filled with insights that could be fleeting if not captured. Many disciples forgot the small lessons that came during meditation or training, only to regret later when those same insights could have helped them overcome bottlenecks.

He held the second slip in his hand, channeling Qi into it.

Unlike the copying, this was a direct recording from his spirit sense.

He began with a title: "Personal Learnings and Notes, Repository Expedition."

Slowly, he recorded the key points of what he had seen in the chambers, his observations of the traps, and the way the cauldrons had formed a part of the array. He noted down Elder Qing's reactions, the behavior of the disciples, and even small details like the way the preservation containers had been handled.

Writing into jade slips this way felt different than copying.

Here, his mind was free to order the thoughts however he wished, and the slip faithfully recorded them. He made sure to mark his suspicions about who might have set up the repository in such a strange manner, and also left space for more insights when he had time to reflect further.

Hours seemed to pass quickly as Han Yu worked.

When he finally leaned back, the camp outside had grown quieter. The sounds of disciples eating and chatting had faded, replaced by the softer rhythms of the night. He placed both slips carefully in his sleeve and exhaled.

The knowledge was safe now, and so were his reflections. That was enough for today.

The sky above the camp had already deepened into a cloak of night, the faint shimmer of stars breaking through the haze of drifting campfire smoke. Han Yu stepped out of the tent, stretching lightly after his long task of copying jade slips and recording his own reflections.

Rumble

His stomach gave a small growl of protest, reminding him that he had gone far too long without a proper meal.

"Mm... Time to eat..." Han Yu muttered.

Just as he was about to head toward the nearest firepit where food was being served, a loud shout rang out behind him.

"Food! I need food!" Fatty Kui cried, jerking awake from his sprawled position inside the tent.

His voice was so loud it could have woken even the most exhausted disciple in the camp.

Wu Shuan, who was now properly sleeping in his side of the tent, startled violently at the shout.

"Enemy?!"

His hands darted for his weapon, and his eyes flashed as though an enemy ambush had fallen upon them in their sleep. His spirit Qi stirred, forming the beginnings of a defensive stance.

Seeing only Fatty Kui clutching his stomach and rolling about like a starved beast, Wu Shuan froze. Then, with a long exhale, he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I thought the Mist Eye Sect had come again," he muttered. "Turns out it is only Fatty Kui dreaming about food."

Seeing this Han Yu wondered if Wu Shuan preferred such an alarm or the Sect Instructors waking them for training early in the morning.