Chapter One: Heaven's First Floor

  In the twelve years of Shen Shi's life so far, this journey to the southern coastal state to find a master and cultivate himself was absolutely the most painful days he had ever remembered.

  For seven whole days, he had to follow the butcher into the transmission array at least three times a day, sometimes even more. The butcher said it clearly: Ling Xiao Sect was a renowned and ancient sect with strict rules and regulations. It only opened its mountain gate to recruit disciples once every five years, and those who were lucky enough to be accepted had to arrive on a specific date at a designated location, where they would be greeted by the sect's internal masters. If they delayed, this hard-won opportunity for spiritual enlightenment would be lost.

  "This year happens to be the year of recruitment, otherwise I think you wouldn't have such good luck to get a spot to join the Ling Xiao Sect for cultivation. However, they've already set the date for receiving new disciples on April 10th, do you want us to hurry up and head there?"

  Shen Shi, who had already been traumatized by the teleportation array, was left speechless after hearing these words. Despite his pain, he gritted his teeth and nodded in agreement, following Butcher into the teleportation array once again, enduring the excruciating agony that was almost unbearable for someone of his age.

  On the 29th of March, they arrived at Kuroki Castle in Ranzou. There were only a little more than ten days left until the scheduled meeting with Ling Xiao Sect. Time was already extremely pressing and Shen Shi couldn't afford to delay any further. However, for seven consecutive days, every day he suffered from three or more ant bites, which made him feel utterly miserable.

  With his physical strength, three times a day, at most four times, he had already reached the limit, almost to the point where he couldn't even walk on the road, and even the butcher didn't dare force him to continue. Anyway, counting the time, they could barely make it, so the two of them walked and stopped along the way, passing the days like this.

  Even so, even if Shen Shi was given time to rest and recover along the way, but when Butcher and Shen Shi finally arrived in Haizhou through the last transmission array seven days later, Shen Shi looked like he had been seriously ill, weak and feeble, as if he would fall down at any moment.

  The butcher looked at Shen Shi's appearance and was also worried, so he quickly took Shen Shi to a quiet house to rest for two days. This made the young man's face gradually regain some color, no longer looking like a dead man as he did when he first arrived.

  When he had somewhat recovered his spirits, Shen Shi still remembered the matter of visiting his master to practice, and asked Butcher in detail about the situation. He learned that today was April 8th, and there were two more days before the day of Ling Xuan Sect's introduction. As for the location of the introduction, it was a place called "Bai Xian Rock", which was located outside Haizhou Liu Yun City, by the sea, and could be reached within an hour.

  Knowing this, Shen Shi's heart finally felt a sense of relief. He thought that after going through countless difficulties, he had finally struggled to get here. Thinking that in just two more days, he might be able to join the most renowned and prestigious cultivation sect in the world, Shen Shi's heart couldn't help but burn with passion and longing.

  Eagerly, Shen Shi asked the butcher about the current situation in Haizhou and Liuyun City while chatting with him. The butcher was straightforward and told him what he knew. As for Haizhou, it is one of the most famous states among the 90 states under the jurisdiction of Hongmeng, and its area alone surpasses that of Yinzhou and Lanzhou combined, earning it the reputation as the "Number One State in the South" on the Hongmeng Continent.

  Hai State is a major hub for cultivating the truth in the Hongmeng world, with unparalleled prosperity and numerous blessed lands. There are countless cultivation sects within its borders, among which the most renowned and prestigious one is undoubtedly the Ling Xiao Sect, one of the Four Righteous Sects under the heavens, with a mighty reputation that shakes the world.

  At present, the Flowing Cloud City where they are located is situated on the shores of the Blue Ocean and is the largest city in Haizhou. The city is grand in scale, prosperous and thriving, with countless cultivators passing through like fish crossing a river. Moreover, there are nine transmission arrays within the city, making it even more magnificent. Cultivators from all over the world can be seen everywhere.

  "Even if you look at the entire Hongmeng continent, apart from the unparalleled Tianhong City, Liuyun City is also considered a first-rate prosperous place." In the end, the butcher used this sentence to give a verdict on their Liuyun City.

  The next day, on April 9th, Shen Shi woke up early and got out of bed. After stretching his body, he felt refreshed and seemed to have fully recovered from the pain caused by the ant bites. His spirits had also lifted significantly.

  He and the butcher now live in a mansion that appears to be an ordinary residence on the surface, but is actually also a private villa secretly set up by the gods with great powers in Yunyun City. There are not many people coming over every day, but all kinds of things in the house are quite complete. Shen Shi casually looked around in the bedroom and soon found pen, ink, paper and inkstone without much effort. After a slight hesitation, he ground the ink and took up his brush, and according to the habit of these years, began to draw those ten talisman characters of yin-yang five elements on the white paper.

  Since fleeing from Xiluo City in a flurry on that day, he had been like a homeless dog all along the way, restless and unable to end his days. He had neither the mood nor the condition to insist on this habit of several years every day until now in Liuyun City, Shen Shi seemed to have felt a little long-lost peace.

  The ink is evenly light and smooth, the strokes are soft and gentle. Although it has been more than half a month since he last practiced, his years of consistent habit have given him a deep instinct. The yin-yang symbols drawn on the white paper are complete as ever, without any mistakes.

  After filling up five sheets of white paper, Shen Shi put down his brush and a hint of satisfaction appeared on his face. He let out a deep breath, rubbed his wrists, and couldn't help but think of his missing father again. However, since things had come to this point, thinking too much wouldn't do any good. After sitting in silence for a while, he stood up and left the room.

  At this time, the sky had already brightened up, and outside the house, in the courtyard, the butcher was standing there, facing the direction of sunrise, with his hands clasped together, his eyes gleaming brightly, taking deep breaths, and a faint, dull red glow emanating from all over his body, clearly practicing some sort of Taoist technique.

  Shen Shi's eyes were sharp, and he looked towards the butcher's palm. Indeed, he saw that the butcher was grasping a Ling crystal in his right palm, with rays of light flashing and fine threads of faint light being continuously drawn out from the crystal and absorbed into the butcher's skin.

  Because of his birth as an outer disciple of the Xuan Yin Gate, and with many Xuan Yin Gate disciples also present in the Tian Yi Building, Shen Shi had seen similar scenes since he was young. He knew that this was a butcher absorbing spiritual energy from the crystal to cultivate. As for this method, it looked completely different from what the Xuan Yin Gate disciples used to practice, but there was nothing strange about it. Under the sky, there are countless Daoist methods, and no two are alike; each sect has its own unique cultivation methods that differ greatly from one another.

  I wonder what kind of cultivation method will be in Ling Xiao Sect?

  Shen Shi stood by, not disturbing the butcher's cultivation, and quietly watched. The butcher maintained this posture for about a quarter of an hour before stopping, taking a deep breath, and only then did his bones make a faint cracking sound, his muscles bulging, looking terrifyingly powerful.

  After a moment, the momentum slowly dissipated, and the butcher shook his neck, looking quite comfortable after his cultivation. Standing there for a moment, he seemed to be filled with excitement, stretched out his right hand, and made a grasping motion with his five fingers. A moment later, a low, muffled sound echoed from his palm, and a ball of flame suddenly condensed into existence.

  Shen Shi's eyes narrowed, staring at the fireball, a thought flashed through his mind, and he said in a low voice: "Fireball Technique..."

  Since the Great War of the Demons, the human cultivation of the Immortal Dao has undergone a development of ten thousand years, and in this era, it has entered an extremely prosperous age. There are countless magical methods, but roughly speaking, there are only two types of cultivation: the cultivation of divine abilities and the cultivation of the Five Elements.

  People who cultivate various spiritual Taoist methods are commonly known as practitioners today, and they are the absolute mainstream in this world. The five-element technique is a method of manipulating the spiritual power of the five elements of heaven and earth, divided into the five systems of gold, wood, water, fire, and earth. Through complex techniques, various spells are cast, which can also be considered as a very profound school of learning.

  The Five Elements Technique is indeed too profound and complicated for the vast majority of people. Even the lowest level of the Five Elements Technique requires a tremendous amount of energy to cultivate, far surpassing that of ordinary divine technique cultivators. And yet, the power of this Five Elements Technique is actually somewhat weaker. For ordinary people, a fireball technique is naturally intimidating and frightening, capable of incinerating a person with just one hit. However, for cultivators who have practiced divine techniques, their physical bodies are robust and resilient. A fireball hitting them would at most only cause minor injuries to low-level Qi Refining Realm cultivators, and would be almost completely ineffective against high-level Yuan Condensation Realm cultivators.

  Its power is not great, and its cultivation is difficult. As time went on, the Five Elements technique, which had once flourished for a while in the Hongmeng world, gradually weakened and declined. By now, the Five Elements technique has become a method that cultivators look down upon, completely becoming an auxiliary to the mainstream cultivation of divine abilities and Daoist techniques.

  Generally, it is the masters who have a personal interest in these five elements techniques during their spare time from cultivation. They will randomly pick up a few relatively simple five elements techniques to cultivate, among which the majority are low-level Qi Refining Realm cultivators. This is because the cultivation of the Qi Refining Realm is relatively simple, and basically only involves the most basic steps of absorbing spiritual energy into the body, solidifying the primordial spirit, and various divine abilities. Most people don't start cultivating these techniques until they reach the Condensing Primordial Spirit Realm. Therefore, among cultivators at this level, there are quite a few who will choose one or two five elements techniques as a form of self-defense.

  However, this cannot change the decline of the five elements technique. Even if it is said that in the distant past, the five elements technique was once prosperous, and those high-ranking and high-quality five elements techniques were said to be incredibly powerful, shaking heaven and earth. Nevertheless, for many years, no one has seen such a scene again.

  As for the fireball technique that Butcher Xing has just demonstrated, it is actually the lowest level of the Five Elements Technique, and also one of the most common first-level fire techniques. Along with the water-based "Water Arrow Technique" and the earth-based "Rock Thorn Technique", they are known as the three major low-level spells of the Five Elements Technique, which are the simplest and most commonly used.

  The talismans that Shen Shi Ping practices every day are actually a small Taoist school that specializes in the five elements, simply put, it is to combine various five-element techniques into different talisman patterns with yin and yang five elements ten kinds of symbols, painted on special talisman paper, and then through a process commonly known as "注灵" (infusing spirit) inject spiritual energy into the talisman paper, thus creating a complete talisman.

  Masters who have learned a five-element technique can use the same technique to manipulate spiritual energy and control talismans of the same class, allowing them to activate a complete technique with only 20% of their spiritual energy. The speed of casting is also significantly increased, which can be said to save time and effort. However, there are also drawbacks, as the power of techniques cast through talismans will be greatly reduced.

  It was because Shen Shi's cultivation of the Symbolic Way had a great deal to do with the Five Elements technique, so he also had some understanding of the Five Elements technique. At this moment, when he suddenly saw Butcher display this technique, at first glance, he recognized that it was the most common fireball technique.

  The butcher seemed to have heard the commotion over here, turned his eyes and saw Shen Shi standing on one side of the courtyard, staring intently at the fireball in his hand. Suddenly, he shook his palm, and the fireball suddenly brightened up, spinning rapidly a few times before it suddenly left the butcher's palm, making a whistling sound as it rushed towards Shen Shi.

  Even from a distance, a scorching heat wave had already rushed towards him. Shen Shi was stunned and stood frozen in place for a moment, unsure of what to do, his eyes wide open as he stared at the fireball rushing towards him. The heat scorched his skin, as if it were about to ignite.