Wang Lin stared at the spot Zhang Hu had just been standing in. After a long time, he let out a sigh while holding the yellow paper in his hand. After coming to the Heng Yue Sect, Zhang Hu was his first friend, but now this happened.
“This immortal talisman is the cause of this disaster!” Wang Lin stared at the talisman. His eyes suddenly changed as he noticed what was different about it. Although this yellow talisman looked just like the talismans disciples get when they go to visit their families, the amount of spiritual energy in it was much higher than the other ones. In addition, there was a sense of danger coming from the talisman. Wang Lin was surprised. Although he didn’t know what it was, he knew that it was a treasure.
Hesitating slightly, Wang Lin put away the yellow paper. Looking at the corpse on the ground, he let out a sigh. If this corpse wasn’t taken care of, with Zhang Hu’s speed, he wouldn’t be able to escape the Sect.
Luckily, there was enough room in the bag of holding to hold the corpse. Wang Lin then organized the room and wiped away the blood. He quietly went into the mountain and disposed of the body, then carefully made his way back to his room.
After lamenting about what happened, he decided to not think about Zhang Hu anymore. He took out the immortal talisman and began to study it.
On the first look, the talisman looked exactly like the ones disciples used when visiting home, but upon closer inspection, one could tell from the material and the ink that it was vastly superior than the talismans disciples used to go home.
Wang Lin squeezed the immortal talisman. He pondered a little. He wasn’t sure of the exact usage of this talisman. Since the day that he had almost died from drinking the dew, he had been very careful about things belonging to immortals. He didn’t dare to carelessly use them.
Plus, the characters on the talisman revealed a hint of danger, causing him to be even more cautious. After hesitating for a bit, he put away the talisman. He decided to study it later.
After doing all of this, he took out the mysterious bead and entered the dream space.
This time, he didn’t focus all his time on cultivation, but spent some learning the Attraction Force Technique.
He felt that the Attraction Force Technique was very useful after using it on brother Liu. That was why he was so determined to practice it.
He first used the gourd as a target. He tried using the Attraction Force to grab the gourd. After numerous tries, he finally succeeded. He immediately stopped using the Attraction Force and started from the beginning.
Wang Lin’s thought process was very simple. He felt that he must be able to freely use the Attraction Force. If he tried to use it 10 times, it must succeed 10 times, or else, no matter how strong it was, it couldn’t be used in key moments.
He calculated a bit. Given his current condition, he could succeed 3 out of 10 times. With only 4 successes so far, it was far from measuring up to his own standards.
The time spent in the dream flew by. Without Wang Lin realizing, the feeling of being torn apart came. After coming back to reality, he wasted no time at all. As he opened his eyes, he drank more spring water and started to cultivate. When there was sufficient spiritual energy in his body, he took a deep breath as the contents of the Three Stages of Qi Condensation appeared in his head.
Aside from the laws for each of the three stages of Qi Condensation, there were also two very important chants.
These chants were the real core of Qi Condensation. There were 15 layers of Qi Condensation. Aside from the first layer, which one could obtain by themself, all the other 14 layers required a chant to enter the next layer.
For example, if he had already completed the first layer, and even mastered the second layer’s cultivation method, he could only stay in the first layer if he didn’t succeed the second layer’s chant.
Wang Lin muttered the chant in his mind. The spiritual energy in his body started to change. At first, the change was small, but soon, it felt like boiling water was flowing through his body.
It seemed that there wasn’t enough spiritual energy as it intermittently spread throughout his body, causing soreness, numbness, itchiness, pain, and the like all over his body. He also had an illusion that his body was full of holes. All of this was caused by the spiritual energy.
There was a very prominent line in Three Stages of Qi Condensation; the opening chant for each layer won’t always succeed.
Talent, spiritual energy, and chance all played key roles. Some people would be able succeed in one try, while some people would need ten or hundreds of tries.
After a long time, the feeling in his body slowly dissipated. Wang Lin was covered in sweat, and the spiritual energy in his body was all gone. But Wang Ling knew from the book that the lack of spiritual energy was only temporary and would recover after meditating for a while. He failed to open the second layer, but Wang Lin was not discouraged. This time, he was just testing it out. It just showed that he didn’t have enough spiritual energy at that moment to enter the second layer.
After all, he had just achieved the first layer. There was no rush. He still had the spring water with him, so he could just cultivate until he reached the limit of the first layer before attempting to reach the second layer again. That would increase his chances greatly.
With this plan, Wang Lin started to cultivate night and day. The spiritual energy in his body started to slowly accumulate, and his mastery of the Attraction Force Technique also increased.
He tried the chant for the second layer many times, but all of them ended in failure.
In reality, half a month had passed, but three months had passed in the dream space. Today, Wang Lin was cultivating, waiting for the time to enter the dream space again. He saw that it was still early. He hesitated for a bit, then started the chant for the second layer to experience it again.
He couldn’t even remember how many times he had experienced it. Every time, it ended with him being worn out and all the spiritual energy in his body gone without success.
Two hours later, Wang Lin raised his head. He was worn out again, and all he spiritual energy was gone from his body. He muttered to himself with a wry smile, “Failed again. Entering the second layer is too hard!” Suddenly, his eyes darted toward the door.
A cold voice came through the door. “Apprentice-brother Wang, come out to see me.”
The voice sounded familiar. Wang Lin got up and opened the door to see a 27 or 28 year old youth in black standing outside with a cold air about him.
“Black clothes!” Wang Lin’s heart tightened. He recognized that he was the same person that brought him, Wang Zhuo, and Wang Hao to the Heng Yue Sect, and also the person who brought his father to find him near the cliff.
But Wang Lin remembered that he was wearing white clothes back then. Now, after a few short months, he had risen up to black clothes! He suddenly remembered the day when they were testing at the foot of the mountain. The person who took Wang Hao as a helper said that the man in front of Wang Lin now had reached a critical point in their cultivation, and took over as the examiner to avoid distracting him.
Among purple, black, white, and red, black represented a really high cultivation. Wang Lin couldn’t see through his cultivation, so he respectfully said, “Wang Lin greets brother Zhang. Congratulations to senior on reaching black clothes.”
The black clad youth looked at Wang Lin and slowly said, “Me successfully breaking into the fifth layer of Qi Condensation does relate a bit to you. If I hadn’t found that cave while looking for you, I wouldn’t have broken through so quickly.”
Wang Lin was stunned and asked, “Brother Zhang, that hole with the suction force in the cave could help cultivation?”
The black clad youth nodded and said, “When you reach the peak of the fourth layer and need to use the chant to enter the fifth layer, go there yourself and you will see the effect.“ He glanced at Wang Lin and said, “Brother Wang, it can’t be helped since your talent is mediocre, but since you are a disciple now, you must cultivate diligently. I see that you have no spiritual energy in you at all. You haven’t even reached the first layer of Qi Condensation. I’m afraid that out of all the inner disciples, you are the only one.”
Wang Lin was stunned but wryly smiled, “I’ll take Apprentice-brother’s advice to heart. I will double my effort in cultivation.” He suddenly changed the subject and asked, “Brother Zhang, what is the reason you’re here today?”
The black clad youth chuckled and said, “It’s nothing serious. The honorary disciple in charge of the chore house disappeared. Someone saw you go there that day, so I came here to ask you about it.”
Wang Lin’s expression remained normal and laughed, “I have an inkling of what happened. Normally, I don’t go near the chore house, but half a month ago, I passed by it and an honorary disciple was talking behind my back, so I taught him a lesson. Maybe he got scared of me and left the sect.”
Brother Zhang nodded his head, half laughing. He looked at Wang Lin and said, “A disgusting honorary disciple is not important. Today, I came to you because the elders have decided that an honorary disciple shouldn’t be in charge of the chore house, so they wanted an inner disciple to take over. But no inner disciple wants to go, they are all busy cultivating.”
Wang Lin wryly smiled, “I understand. It seems the task has been assigned to me.”
Brother Zhang smiled slightly and said, “Pack your things and head there today. Right now, the chore house is really messy. You have to get it back in order.”
He cusped his hands at Wang Lin, took a step, and a sword appeared under his feet. The sword emitted rainbow colors as he rode it away.
Wang Lin revealed a frustrated expression. He didn’t want to go to the chore house. The people there were too nosey; it would be too easy for his secret to be exposed. Also, there would be a lot of work that would disrupt his cultivation. But now, he couldn’t not go. With a belly filled with anger, he packed his things and arrived at the chore house.
After arriving there, he reached a decision in his heart. He couldn’t stay in the chore house for too long. He had to mess up everything in the chore house so that every honorary disciple would go to the elders to ask for a replacement.
With this idea in mind, Wang Lin cleaned up disciple Liu’s room. Besides the bed and the table, everything that was useless was thrown outside.
While he was doing this, a few disciples arrived at the chore house. They had learned that Wang Lin was now in charge of assigning chores, so many of them were nervous. The faces of the few that ridiculed Wang Lin the most were pale and their hearts pounded.
Some had intentions of helping Wang Lin clean up, but after being glared at, they all obediently stood in the yard.
After he finished cleaning, Wang Lin casually sat down on a chair. He coldly looked at the 100 plus honorary disciples before him. He knew that the Heng Yue Sect had a lot of honorary disciples. This was only a fraction of them. In the next few days, there would be more honorary disciples coming back to report on their work.
“You will now chop 500 pounds of firewood!” Wang Lin casually pointed at a person. He remembered that that person had secretly ridiculed him.
That person was stunned. He immediately cried, “Brother Wang I … I used to work in the kitchen. I don’t know how to chop wood.”
Wang Lin rolled his eyes. He snorted, “Now it’s 1000 pounds a day!”
The boy suddenly kneeled to the ground and started crying. “Brother Wang, you are a good person. I shouldn’t have ridiculed you back then. But please, don’t be so vindictive I … I … I can’t possibly do 1000 pounds, how about 500 pounds?”
The surrounding people all looked at each other. They all knew Wang Lin would make things difficult, but this was clearly revenge.
There were a few honorary disciples in the crowd that shouted in discontent. “Everyone, don’t listen to him. Let’s go find an elder and have them carry out justice. Wang Lin is too overbearing.”
“Correct. Let us go find the elders to get another inner disciple to be in charge of this place. If they don’t listen to us, we will kneel and never get up.”
“True. Let’s go, everyone. Don’t stay here. This Wang Lin has a villainous look. He doesn’t even remember that he entered the Sect by trying to commit suicide. Such a disgrace.”
The sound the dissatisfied voices grew louder and louder. Soon, everyone left the yard while shouting insults. They all had looks of grievance as they went toward the courtyard, all shouting things like, “Wang Lin doesn’t want us to live anymore.”
Wang Lin was relaxed in his heart. He didn’t stop them and hoped that they would succeed. This way, the elders would get mad and make someone else take over so he can concentrate on cultivation.
The remaining ten or so people were hesitating. They wanted to leave, but if this thing failed, wouldn’t it mean that they had completely disrespected Wang Lin?
Wang Lin wasn’t in a rush. He waited for the result from the main courtyard. A moment later, all the honorary disciples gloomily came back, one by one. This time, they were no longer shouting, but had eyes filled with despair and silence.
Wang Lin saw their expressions and knew that they had failed. He was very disappointed in his heart. It seemed he had to make an even bigger commotion. Thinking about it, he scanned the people here and said, “All of you who secretly mocked me, listen to me. I am here today to get revenge. If you’re dissatisfied, go to the elders. If you can get me removed from this position, I will have to thank you.”
One of the disciples begged, “Brother Wang, you are a great person. Please forgive us.”
“Yes, Brother Wang, we were blind back then. Please give us a break. I … I’ll kowtow to you.”
“Brother Wang, they all mocked you back then, but I never did. I even defended you. I …”
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