Chapter Ninety-Six: Preparations Before Departure

After all that was done, Lin Ze went alone into the study.

It was the smallest wooden hut on Green Mountain, containing only four or five bookcases. On them were stored scrolls recording the mountain’s old affairs, all of which were now thickly coated in dust.

As for the empty spaces, they had likely once held the cultivation manuals.

He walked straight to the corner of the wall and stopped before a small chest that was only knee-high. Bending down, he unlocked it with the key in his hand.

At the bottom lay a layer of yellowed ancient books, taking up more than half the chest’s space. These were low-grade manuals; a rough glance suggested there were twenty or thirty of them.

Lying neatly atop the old books was a pile of jade slips, each no bigger than a palm. Lin Ze counted them: eight in all.

Taken together, these were the thousand-year legacy of the Little Green Mountain lineage.

He sat down against the wall, picked them up one by one, then quickly set them aside again.

Prompts began flashing rapidly across the panel.

Mid-grade skill card: Demon-Seeing

Mid-grade skill card: Turn Stone into Soldiers

Mid-grade skill card: Wind-and-Fire Divine Movement Art

...

Lin Ze sifted through them and deleted the excess skill cards. For instance, he already had a superior-grade Twin Moon Light Body Art, so naturally he no longer needed anything similar.

Only then did he realize that the ten card slots were starting to feel tight. After excluding the ones that could not be removed, only four remained.

Nearly three months had passed since the simulator’s last upgrade. He had simulated ten times a day, and the total number had long since broken four digits, yet there was still no sign of an upgrade.

“Could there be some other condition?”

Helpless, he could only choose a few things that would be of the greatest help at present.

Like Green Breeze Mountain, Little Green Mountain also possessed a superior-grade manual. In the past, it was probably a precious treasure that only elders and direct disciples were qualified to cultivate.

Superior-grade skill card: Mountain-Moving Demon-Subduing Art

As the name implied, the emphasis of this technique lay in the word subdue.

“Moving mountains” did not literally mean uprooting a whole mountain. Rather, it meant summoning the spirit of the mountain to suppress an enemy’s soul, making it an extremely domineering art.

In addition, Lin Ze chose a gaze technique called Demon-Seeing, as well as two decent body-protecting methods. All of these could be classed as techniques; once learned in the simulator and slightly familiarized, they would be immediately useful.

Click.

He locked the chest again.

The rest could wait until he returned from Demon Mountain.

Feeling the surging weariness in his mind, Lin Ze staggered back to the wooden hut and, the moment he brushed against the edge of the bed, fell straight into a deep sleep.

No one knew what he had endured over those three days.

Sword qi that could easily sever the arm of a Foundation Establishment cultivator had pierced without pause toward every acupoint in his body, and with the violent medicinal power raging within him as well, the two forces made his body the battlefield of their savage war. For Lin Ze, it was nothing short of an inhuman torture.

Fortunately, he still held on in the end.

He had done better than expected. With foreknowledge of the ordeal, at the very least he had not developed the madness seen in the daoist within the simulator. But his mentality had inevitably changed somewhat, and it would take at least several days to fully settle back.

The streak of sword intent he had obtained while simulating Su Bai Lu, further catalyzed into frost sword qi after passing through Qin Hongxiu’s Eight Questions Sword Formation, had now completely fused with Lin Ze. His body was stronger than a three-foot green blade; in fact, every movement he made seemed like a swing of sword qi itself.

The Nine Tribulations Sword Body had successfully reached the fourth tribulation. Compared with other techniques, that could barely be considered a minor attainment.

If he wanted to continue cultivating it, besides elixirs, there were also stringent requirements regarding the sword tribulations he had experienced. Ordinary sword qi could no longer satisfy the stimulation needed by his body and acupoints.

By Lin Ze’s estimation, if anyone wanted to injure him now, at the very least they would need sword qi comprehended from a superior-grade manual... of course, if he were fortunate enough to obtain a streak of sword brilliance, the effect would be even better.

But that thing was something even Golden Core cultivators dreaded deeply. It could only be called a chance encounter, something to be sought but not found.

If he could merge sword brilliance into his body, he would become a truly walking humanoid killing weapon. And by then, he would still only be at the seventh tribulation. This Dharma Body truly deserved the name of a spirit-grade technique.

...

...

By evening.

“Master.”

Su Bai Lu stood by the bed holding a warm cloth and called softly.

“...”

Lin Ze reluctantly moved his head off the pillow, sat there blankly for a while, then took the cloth and absently wiped his face twice.

Seeing the bloodshot eyes in his face, Su Bai Lu felt a trace of worry. She had never seen her master so exhausted before, and could not help but look again.

A flicker of surprise passed through her eyes.

She had not noticed it before, but now she realized that her master’s appearance had changed again. That fair, delicate skin made even her feel a little envious.

He sat sideways on the edge of the bed, his brows lightly furrowed beneath slightly disheveled hair, gazing silently into the distance as if lost in thought. A faint chill seemed to emanate from him. If one ignored those reddened eyes, he almost looked like an exiled immortal fallen into the mortal world.

Lin Ze suddenly clicked his tongue, shattering the serene atmosphere completely.

He rubbed his hair hard twice, yawned, and got up to head out the door. “Bring me willow twigs and fine salt. I’ve slept too long, and my mouth tastes off.”

“Oh.” Su Bai Lu shrugged helplessly.

Standing at the doorway, now a little more awake, Lin Ze finally had the mind to examine this frost sword body again. He moved his limbs idly, then turned to look into the distance.

There he saw that the white fox had somehow already changed into a black hooded robe, somewhat similar to the one Qin Hongxiu often wore.

With the hood on, a few strands of silvery-white hair still slipped down from either side. The loose robe could not fully conceal her alluring curves, but that did not matter. So long as those pair of pointed ears were hidden, that was enough.

She pinched the fabric at her collar and complained with displeasure, “It’s too small!”

Su Bai Lu gave an awkward squeeze of her hand. The other’s identity was not suited to traveling down the mountain, so this had been bought from the South Hall according to her own size...

Yu Huan stood nearby with her hands at her sides, dressed in a fitted black short jacket and carrying two short blades at her waist.

Beneath her dark hair, her little face was full of indifference. If that expression appeared on the white fox, she would have been a textbook ice beauty, but set against her small frame it looked somewhat mismatched, instead giving off an oddly charming sense of contrast.

“Everything ready?” Lin Ze wiped the corners of his mouth clean.

Xiao Bao and Yang Mu crouched gloomily at the entrance to the kitchen. The former was parting with his master for the first time; the latter could not understand what was so special about that little girl that made her better than himself.

Feeling Yang Mu’s envious gaze, Yu Huan looked back at him quietly, a trace of mockery appearing at the corners of her mouth. What an ungrateful fool, blessed yet unable to recognize it.

She was no idiot, and naturally understood what Lin Ze meant.

If she wanted to gain any benefits from him, she first had to show enough value.

For example, right now, she was probably being used as a substitute for these people, coldly cast by the daoist into danger.

Yet precisely because of that, Yu Huan could calm down a little.

She did not fear being used. What she feared was being so worthless that she was not even worth using. She never believed in kindness without reason.

If this was a transaction, Yu Huan chose to accept it.