Tale of an Ordinary Cultivator

"So, you are telling me that this happened because it has been especially windy today?" Gu Qiansi felt the corner of her lips twitch. "Seriously?"

"Let's not harp on something as trivial as grass – it will grow back in no time anyway. What's most important now is our practice!" Zhao Yunxiao quickly changed the topic. "Let's hurry up and start; we only have two nights left!"

Gu Qiansi narrowed her eyes at him.

"Junior Martial Sister Lu, feast your eyes on my latest treasure!" Zhao Yunxiao hurriedly pulled out the Window of Tunes.

"Oh? Is that the flute that Elder Feng gave you?" Lu Zhiying's eyes lit up immediately. "Can I take a look?"

"So, this is the famous treasure flute?"

"Wow! It really is emitting energy on its own!"

It was not just Lu Zhiying. The appearance of the Window of Tunes immediately drew the attention of Bo Fei, Huang An, and Nie Hanchang as well, all of them crowding over to take a closer look.

Word had already spread about by now. Just about the entire outer sect now knew of how unlucky Zhao Yunxiao had been at the Armed Ape Tower's Zodiac Tree, and how he eventually managed to gain even more out of it due to Elder Feng Wanjia's kindness.

The members of the Flying Shell Performance Group knew about Zhao Yunxiao passing the Tribulation of Combat, but he had neglected to tell them about the two treasures that he received. Therefore, this was still the first time that they were seeing the Window of Tunes.

"Feels heavy," Lu Zhiying tried lifting it with two hands. "I thought that the wind energy would provide a bit of buoyancy. Guess not."

"Lucky bastard! You really got your big break!" Bo Fei caught Zhao Yunxiao in a headlock.

"It's not luck! Senior Martial Brother Zhao earned it!" Huang An said excitedly.

Nie Hanchang only held it for a few moments to feel the wind aura before putting it back in Zhao Yunxiao's palm.

"How about it? Want to take a look as well?" Zhao Yunxiao extended the black-tinted flute towards Gu Qiansi.

Gu Qiansi let out a helpless sigh before taking the flute.

Seeing how carefree the group was, she knew better than to keep dwelling on the issue with the grass. There was no helping it, she would just have to patch it up tomorrow morning.

After the initial excitement over the treasure flute died down, the group finally began practice proper.

They might not have performed together for a while, but it did not take long before they regained their usual chemistry. After just one round of practice, their performance was already no different from that during the New Year celebration.

Nevertheless, they continued to practise late into the night, not daring to get overconfident. It also helped that watching Lu Zhiying's beautiful dances under the moonlight was nothing short of intoxicating.

A beautiful scene like this accompanying the melodious sound of music – it would be difficult to get tired no matter how many times they practised!

Or at least, that was what they believed. Only one person among them knew that the actual reason for their lack of exhaustion was something entirely different.

While everyone was focusing on the performance, Zhao Yunxiao was also carefully observing how everyone was reacting to the rejuvenating wind of the Window of Tunes. And judging from the outcome, he could only admit that the Window of Tunes truly lived up to its name as an Origin Core realm treasure.

With it in his hands, they might just be able to keep going for eternity!

All right, perhaps that was a bit of a stretch.

As he kept practising, Zhao Yunxiao quickly realised that the greater the number of people within the range of the rejuvenating winds, the less effect it would have on each person. If he wanted to maintain the same degree of rejuvenation, he would then have to inject more energy into the treasure flute.

At a certain point, the energy output began to exceed the rate at which the rejuvenating winds were restoring his own energy level. So, once he ran out of energy, this seemingly never-ending performance would still have to come to an end.

But at the same time, this also allowed him to control the rejuvenation effect that each person was feeling by adjusting the amount of essence energy that he was injecting into the Window of Tunes.

With that discovery, this practice session was no longer just about the performance itself.

As the group continued with their practice, Zhao Yunxiao simultaneously continued to refine his control of the treasure flute, slowly improving his mastery of the rejuvenating wind.

As the group continued with their practice, Nie Hanchang was given the role of observing their performance from the perspective of an audience. Unfortunately, they quickly came to regret that decision.

Nie Hanchang was not exactly someone who had been into the arts. So, even after watching them for the entire night, he had absolutely no constructive comments whatsoever.

Upon noticing the awkward looks on everyone's faces, Nie Hanchang seemed to have realised just how lacking he was in this aspect as well, so he could only ease the embarrassment by hurriedly promising to handle other administrative matters for the group in the future instead.

By the time the group retired for the night, there were already few others who were out and about.

Back at his residence, Zhao Yunxiao diligently practised his usual techniques before bringing out the spatial items of the two Origin Core realm cultivators.

He had already taken stock of the valuables in the possession earlier. This time, he took a closer look at the other, less obvious, items. Judging from the technique manuals in their possession, he could, at least to a certain extent, deduce the cultivation paths of the duo.

From the looks of it, Shao Chen was no ordinary body strengthening cultivator. Instead, he took a rather uncommon path by practising a self-sacrificial technique that focused on dealing damage to himself in order to increase the damage that he could mete out on others.

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Zhao Yunxiao shook his head in disapproval.

As its name suggested, the body strengthening system focused on building up the physical body as its foundation.

For one to damage the body on their own volition just for quick gains in the form of more explosive power in combat, was this not going against the essence of the body strengthening system?

Shao Chen might be an Origin Core realm senior, but Zhao Yunxiao simply could not bring himself to agree with such an approach to power.

He did not know just how valuable or how powerful this technique was, but he would still read through them for reference. Even if nothing else, it could also prepare him for the day when he had to face someone who cultivated a similar technique.

On the other hand, the frail-looking member of the Scarlet Leaf Sect had a core technique that greatly interested Zhao Yunxiao.

Silent Breath – a technique that granted the ability to conceal one's presence from the spirit sense of cultivators.

Reading through the technique manual, Zhao Yunxiao was reminded of the day when the Righteous Coalition struck at the Scarlet Leaf Sect based at Blueflag Mountain. Back then, this frail-looking member of the Scarlet Leaf Sect had somehow completely evaded everyone's detection to skip past the main strike force, allowing him to directly target the trailing group.

It would be great if Zhao Yunxiao could learn this for himself. But even if he failed to do so, it would be good if he could at least comprehend the underlying concepts, so that he would be able to better guard against users of the same technique in the future.

Either way, this was not something that could be achieved in the span of a single night.

After reading through the two techniques to gain a basic level of understanding, Zhao Yunxiao popped a Winterwarmth Pill to end the night with his daily meditation.

The next day was a busy day for many disciples of the sect, though it was even more so for those in the inner sect.

There was only a day left before Kang Fuping's open invitation to all core and inner disciples. Even for the inner disciples, many of them had never had the opportunity to watch the Sentient Light Performance Group, so they could not help but be filled with anticipation.

Just like how Zhao Yunxiao had suggested that the Flying Shell Performance Group practise their repertoire in preparation, many of the inner disciples similarly prepared performances of their own, hoping that they would have a chance to show off in front of the famous performers.

Who knew?

Perhaps they might even be able to catch the eye of one of the performers, marking the start of their relationship with a celebrity!

That said, the majority of them were not actual performers of the arts, so what they prepared to show off were mainly all sorts of auxiliary and combat techniques.

Then again, even if they were actual performers, few would think of showing off in front of Sentient Light. That would be akin to trying to show off one's beginner skills in front of a true master!

In fact, Zhao Yunxiao was slightly worried about this as well. Unfortunately, he had no other choice, especially considering how Kang Fuping had invited them only because of their performance during the New Year celebration.

He could only hope that their group would not be called upon to perform in the end. That would save them the comparison, allowing them to actually enjoy the performance in peace.

But should they end up being called upon, they had to at least make sure that their performance was not too far beneath that of the Sentient Light Performance Group. That was the only way they could avoid embarrassing the prime disciple.

Of course, there were also disciples who were not as interested in the Sentient Light Performance Group. Yet even for these people, there was another reason for them to be busy practising – the upcoming Meeting of the Great Symbols.

This was an annual event for the Four Great Symbol Sects, as well as their subordinate sects and guest visitors. Its main purpose was to provide an opportunity for friendly exchange of pointers and networking, as well as to exchange intelligence and formulate a plan prior to the Duyuan Martial Meet.

Not only did it allow elders to assess the disciples selected from the Four Symbols Mystic Realm, but it also provided a great opportunity for the disciples of each sect to show off their talents in front of everyone.

In fact, the preparation for this event had already been ongoing for a while. It was just that with the event quickly creeping up on them, most disciples – both inner and outer disciples – were now ramping up their efforts as a final sprint.

This was also why Kang Fuping had arranged for the performance by the Sentient Light Performance Group – so that the inner disciples could take this chance to relax a little. It was just a pity that there were not enough seats to include the outer disciples as well.

While everyone was out getting busy, Zhao Yunxiao quietly arrived at the Sect Library.

Yesterday was a day of getting used to the Window of Tunes. Today, he had another objective in mind. After greeting the administrative deacon and his other colleagues, Zhao Yunxiao headed straight for the section on arrays.

Back at Blueflag Mountain, Zhao Yunxiao had come into contact with the grand array of the Scarlet Leaf Sect – one that sacrificed blood and life energy to summon forth the strong aura of corruption that had accumulated on the mountain, amplifying it further before drawing it into a sword to create a weapon imbued with the power of blood and corruption.

It was a brutal array that would be scorned by all orthodox cultivators, but Zhao Yunxiao could not help but be interested by the concept behind it.

Perhaps not blood and life energy, but it would be great if he could mirror this concept by creating an array that summoned forth world origin energy or energy of any other element, using it to imbue a weapon of his own!

That was the main trigger that brought him here to the Sect Library – to research on ways to do exactly that.

In addition, Zhao Yunxiao also wanted to research on the arrays that he had encountered in the hidden space created by the Untethered Sage, but he was far less hopeful in this regard. After all, those were ancient arrays – a concept that he had never come across until his encounter with Cha.

Despite the vast trove of records available in the Sect Library, none mentioned anything whatsoever about this topic. At least, that was the case for the records that he had gone through in the past.

If he could find some direct information on this topic, that would naturally be for the best. But if he could not, then he would just have to extrapolate information based on what he understood of both ancient and contemporary array concepts, using that to forge his own path ahead!

With that decided, Zhao Yunxiao began diving into the world of arrays.