Chapter Ninety-Two: Qin Hongxiu's Character Card

The Eastern Peak Mountain Range stretches across the middle of Tayang Province and Demon Mountain.

One step forward lies the territory of the Heavenly Demon Sect; one step back, the lands of humankind. This position destined the cultivators of Eastern Peak to forge an unbreakable barrier with the swords in their hands.

Not everyone dared, as Qin Hongxiu did, to burst into Demon Mountain at the slightest disagreement, behead a great demon, and still withdraw unscathed. Most cultivators treated the mysterious Demon Mountain with caution and wary distance.

Likewise, the Heavenly Demon Sect could not discern how many unrivaled masters of cultivation were concealed within Eastern Peak’s vast mountain range.

Under such circumstances, the great demons had inexplicably begun cooperating with the outer-sect competition of Eastern Peak Sect.

"Cooperating?" A trace of surprise showed in Lin Ze’s eyes.

"That’s right." Qin Hongxiu gazed toward the north, her expression deep and unreadable. "Strange, isn’t it?"

"A little." Lin Ze nodded.

Every time Eastern Peak Sect held its outer-sect competition, the demon beasts would, as if by common understanding, surge toward Tayang Province, and each time they did so with perfect timing, leaving those cultivators exactly two days to prepare.

Seen this way, crossing the Eastern Peak Mountain Range clearly was not their true purpose.

"Don’t be too tense. They’re merely probing one another’s foundations." Qin Hongxiu withdrew her gaze and suddenly smiled. "Of course, if we lose, those beasts won’t mind making it real."

"Fortunately, we haven’t lost once in nearly three hundred years."

Within that casually spoken line lay a confidence fierce beyond measure.

Lin Ze turned his head to glance at her and asked, "When is it?"

"Three days from now. Right, you’d best bring everyone from the mountain with you. What matters is the number of demons slain. The Southern Hall won’t give you extra credit just because Little Green Mountain has fewer people."

After ending the topic, Qin Hongxiu stretched lazily and took out a key from her storage pouch.

"Here."

Lin Ze took it without even asking.

"You really are something. At least be polite about it." Qin Hongxiu pouted.

"It was mine to begin with," Lin Ze said righteously, putting the key into the cloth bag.

Each mountain peak had its own foundation-bearing methods, yet he had always relied on skill cards extracted from others.

It was not that he looked down on Little Green Mountain. When he first took charge here, the first place Lin Ze searched was the scripture pavilion.

Unfortunately, there was no trace of any cultivation art inside. It seemed the place had long since been stripped bare. Only in one corner sat a box of exceptionally hard material, one even sword qi could not break open.

The answer was obvious: Qin Hongxiu had never truly regarded him as one of her own.

Only after he had passed the first threshold did she finally feel at ease returning these things to him.

Compared with the seal, cultivation arts were the true foundation of Little Green Mountain. It was only at this point that Qin Hongxiu could be said to have truly acknowledged his status as the lord of the mountain.

"Yours, yours. They’re all yours."

The sword immortal let out a helpless sigh. She was baffled as to why Lin Ze seemed to possess such an obsession with Little Green Mountain’s ownership, lacking in the easy freedom and breadth of a true cultivator.

The two of them sat by the cliff a while longer before she rose and departed upon her heavy sword.

Once her figure vanished into the heavens, a smile finally surfaced on Lin Ze’s face as he quietly looked at the panel before him.

At some unknown point, a card dense with purple radiance had appeared there.

Character Card: Qin Hongxiu

Total Rating: Eighty-Nine

Only one point away, and the card would transform into brilliant gold.

The trust level was not high, only barely reaching the threshold for extraction, but that was enough to stir Lin Ze’s excitement.

For beneath the character card, three skill cards were arranged in neat order.

Spirit-Rank Skill Card: Eastern Peak Sword Canon

Spirit-Rank Skill Card: Nine Tribulations Sword Body

High-Rank Skill Card: Pure Spirit-Calming Art

Lin Ze discovered that the number of skill cards that could be broken down seemed to be related to trust as well.

A dignified Golden Core Sword Immortal could hardly have only three cultivation arts.

Still, he was not the greedy sort. Even whether he could digest these existing ones was another matter entirely.

Just so happened that he still had a little time left today, so Lin Ze decisively opened the simulator.

Add Host Card: Lin Ze

Add Skill Card: Eastern Peak Sword Canon

Simulation Duration: Three Years

...

...

He had already simulated himself too many times, and Lin Ze smoothly switched to first-person view.

Following the daoist as he opened his eyes, an intricate and obscure sword canon suddenly appeared in his mind.

In truth, Lin Ze had already touched upon this cultivation art before.

The Eastern Peak Breathing Technique had evolved from this sword canon; only a tiny, insignificant fragment of it, yet it still reached the middle rank.

As expected, when the daoist flipped open the scripture in his mind, the familiar lines immediately restored quite a bit of Lin Ze’s confidence.

However, once he passed the section on the breathing technique, his heart sank to the bottom in an instant.

He could understand each word individually, but when joined together they became an unreadable heavenly book. The feeling was rather dispiriting.

As the genius spoken of by the True Immortal Yellow Dragon, Elder Lin sat gloomily by the cliff.

The daoist strained to comprehend the mysteries within, looking exactly like a child who had just memorized a primer and was now trying to write a flowery essay.

"Not right."

After remaining there for three days, and seeing that the daoist was still pondering the meaning of the very first sentence,

Lin Ze frowned and simply gave up on the simulation. The Eastern Peak Sword Canon clearly was not the sort of thing that could be cultivated through brute force alone.

But that did not mean every spirit-rank cultivation art was like this. Take the innate art from before, for instance: he had not felt the slightest difficulty with it at all.

"Try the Nine Tribulations Sword Body."

From these three skill cards alone, Qin Hongxiu’s cultivation path was plain to see.

Centered on the sword, with a few supplementary methods added on top—not as varied as other cultivators’ arts, but she had driven this path to the extreme.

The Nine Tribulations Sword Body, from its name, should be a cultivation art for bodily defense.

As for the Pure Spirit-Calming Art, it seemed more like something to resist mental and heart-devouring techniques.

Lin Ze summed it up in the language of his past life: this was a swordsman with extremely high magic resistance and armor, a single-minded fighting style, and very few weaknesses.

He had no need to imitate it slavishly; he only needed to take the essence.

Compared with one sword breaking all laws, his advantage was that he could use the simulator to gather the strengths of many schools. Only by amplifying strengths and avoiding weaknesses could he make up for his lack of talent.

Calming his thoughts, he opened the simulator again.

To save attempts, Lin Ze placed the remaining two skill cards in together.

...

At the summit of Green Mountain.

The daoist opened his eyes once more and, with great concentration, began reading the additional cultivation arts in his mind.

Lin Ze quietly sensed his experience.

This time was clearly much better than before.

Truly, this character card, modeled after himself, was worthy of its form. Though his aptitude was poor, his patience and perseverance in study were no match for ordinary people.

Before long, another three days had slipped by.

The daoist lifted his head to glance at the sky. Just as Lin Ze thought he was about to go and join the demon-slaying campaign, the other calmly withdrew his gaze, as if nothing had happened at all.

"..."

In his heart, everything unrelated to his own strength was meaningless.

The daoist might risk his life to break through a境界, but he would never risk even a shred for anything else, such as intercepting a demon disaster.

But Little Green Mountain could not simply hide away. If he did not go, then the matter would naturally fall to Wang Yao or Su Bailu.

Lin Ze helplessly took back what he had just said.

That damned thing was truly impossible to like.