Chapter 102 Yun Qing Academy

  Tianfeng Valley is the most secular place in Yunqing Mountain, located west of Yunqing Gate. This location has fewer mountains and more flat land, with streams and rivers, farmland and forests. Tianfeng Valley has over a hundred disciples.

  The disciples of Yun Qing Men who have children, those with poor qualifications can either leave the mountain and enter the mortal world or go to Tian Feng Valley to cultivate some strong physical skills. The main responsibility of Tian Feng Valley is to guard the mountain gate and purchase daily necessities from outside. They live a life free of pain and disease, with a lifespan of at least 100 years, and up to 200 years. They do not seek immortality, but only a simple life. There are over 100 people in more than 40 households who know each other well. If their descendants wish to stay in Yun Qing Men, those with good qualifications can enter the sect, while those with poor qualifications can stay in Tian Feng Valley.

  Yunqing Academy is located deep in the Tianfeng Valley, and the disciples guarding the gate are also members of the Tianfeng Valley. Of course, these are just superficial things. The outer area of Yunqing Academy is a school where young children learn to read and write. In the past, there were children who left the mountain to take the imperial examination and became high-ranking officials, only then was it renamed as an academy.

  The inner courtyard is composed of tile-roofed houses, with two disciples guarding day and night to prevent children from entering. This is the real Yunqing Academy, where the academy is arranged with formations, such as the Peach Wood Signboard, when the formation is activated, it will become the Eight Trigrams Diagram, trapping enemies inside, and the Gatekeeper Qianyu Zhenren will immediately sound the alarm, and the nearest Tianxing Sect expert will immediately set out.

  The Eight Trigrams Formation is not considered profound for cultivators, but its changes are endless. Even if someone deeply understands the Eight Trigrams Formation, after entering the formation, it would be difficult to break out within half a day. Half a day is enough time for all members of the Cloud Clear Sect to arrive. The Eight Trigrams Formation changes every three days, with the main array person randomly selected from Qingyuan Sect and arranged according to their own will. They can freely adjust the positions of the eight gates: Life, Injury, Rest, End, Scene, Death, Shock, and Open.

  Inside the Yun Qing Academy, there are four Yun Qing Sect disciples studying Daoist scriptures. Two of them are among the Four Talents, and the other two are also disciples. The sect's Daoist scriptures belong to introductory and foundational Daoist methods and texts, while the Daoist scriptures stored in the Yun Qing Academy are advanced Daoist texts. As for higher-level Daoist techniques, they cannot be recorded in texts or scrolls. Either they are passed down by masters, or one must come to understand them personally.

  Apart from the disciples who read books, there are also several old Daoists who are responsible for repairing Daoist scriptures.

  Lin Fan crossed the wooden bridge and entered the academy, where a lion's head made of cold iron was embedded at the bridgehead. The formation was still in operation, but Lin Fan held a peach wood plaque, which did not obstruct him. Inside, the layout was square outside and round inside, echoing the Taoist idea of heaven being round and earth being square. Lin Fan walked along the bookshelf and casually pulled out a book, on which was written: "Five Elements Magic - Wood Volume One".

  He sat down and opened it, inside which explained the wood system Taoist techniques from simple to complex. Lin Fan first flipped through it, then directly looked at the last few pages, finding that most of the recorded Taoist techniques were for nourishing one's essence and refining one's spirit, with no attacking techniques. Among the five elements, wood and water mostly cultivate the body and refine energy, while earth-based Taoist methods are good at defense. Fire and metal are strong attackers, with fire exceling at surface attacks and metal excelling at point attacks. Lin Fan was impartial to the five elements, but only studied fire and metal, which made him too limited against enemies. Today he wanted to look at wood and water techniques.

  Lin Fan was disappointed, and after hastily flipping through the hundred or so wooden waterway techniques, he found that less than four of them were attack-type techniques. Of these four techniques, three were recorded in his own sect's library, and the last one, Wooden Blade, was too shallow.

  Lin Fan picked up a five-line Taoist book again, and unexpectedly gained something. For example, the fire sword and fire dragon of Xie Fengzi are biased towards fire in their five elements, and they are quite familiar with fire. Later, they transformed fire into swords and dragons. This method cannot be taught, it can only be understood and used by oneself after becoming familiar with the five elements.

  Lin Fan put the book back, turned left and right, and Yuzhen was reading the strange door of Qimen Dunjia's five elements. It records how to reverse the five elements, such as if you are biased towards water and attacked by gold thunder, you can reverse it to fire, which restrains gold, and the impact of gold thunder will be greatly reduced. However, reversing the five elements has certain risks, such as when cultivating water into fire, you must first familiarize yourself with the characteristics of both water and fire, otherwise, not only will your cultivation be twice as difficult, but there is also a danger of walking into madness.

  Lin Fan had wandered to the Thunder Arts, where he found a book on the Golden Water Mixed Thunder Method. The requirements for this method were that one had to have a good grasp of both the Golden and Water elements. Lin Fan stuffed it back into his storage ring, as he had only just managed to master the Earth Fire Mixed Thunder's Flying Fire Meteor Shower, and didn't want to start all over again. Furthermore, although the mixed thunder was more powerful than the Five Elements Thunder, it lacked the special characteristics of the latter. For example, when using the Golden element, the thunder would turn into a flash of lightning that could immobilize one's opponent, while the Water element would turn into a burst of thunder that could bind and restrict one's opponent. When combined, they turned into an invisible whip, which was very fast and had considerable attacking power, but lacked the immobilizing and binding effects.

  After a while, Lin Fan unexpectedly found a yellowed book in the corner of the bookshelf, which read: "Divine Thunder". Lin Fan was overjoyed and flipped it open, only to find that it was just a description of Divine Thunder, not an instructional manual on how to cultivate it. The book recorded that Divine Thunder was also known as Heavenly Thunder, which did not belong to the Five Elements. Some people called it the condensed energy of Chaos, with the speed of Golden Lightning and the ability to cover the sky and earth like Fire Lightning. It also possessed the binding power of Water Lightning and the might of Earth Lightning. The consumption of true energy when using Divine Thunder was only equivalent to that of Wood Lightning. Wood Lightning was the closest to nature and consumed the least amount of true energy among all thunder techniques. However, for Golden Elixir cultivators, the consumption of the Five Elements' thunder, except for Fire Lightning, was negligible.

  The five elements cannot escape the yin-yang Taiji, metal is yang diminishing and yin growing, wood is yin diminishing and yang growing, water is extreme yin, fire is extreme yang, earth is yin-yang balance. All things have the five elements, only divine thunder is not among the five elements, before Pangu opened up heaven and earth, there was no heaven or earth, no time or space, a chaotic mass. The Way of Heaven refers not to immortals, immortals are also within the Way of Heaven, the writer believes that only the Way of Heaven is outside the Five Elements Taiji, so divine thunder is the thunder of chaos.

  Chaos... Wonton! Lin Fan took out a bowl of wontons and ate while reading. This book is well-written, but unfortunately, it's all theoretical knowledge. Even if I know the properties of divine lightning, where can I find it?

  Just as he was thinking, the Cloud Clear Academy's formation suddenly activated, and a blue glow enveloped the walls on all four sides. The old Daoist shouted: "Don't move, stay where you are." Apparently, it wasn't the first time the formation had been activated.

  His words were obviously one step too late, as one of the four Xiū had already activated her technique and floated to the door, ready to face the enemy. However, as soon as she touched the blue light, she vanished on the spot. The old Daoist saw that another Xiū was about to come to her rescue and hastily said, "She has entered the Eight Trigrams Formation, don't move." The Eight Trigrams Formation is not like the Nine Palaces Formation; it has a gate of death. Once you enter the gate of death, if you can't hold on until rescue arrives, there's only one path left - death.

  Lin Fan and Lao Dao were very close, asking: "Senior, why did the Eight Trigrams Diagram start?"

  "I didn't know that in the past three months, it has been activated four times." The old Daoist said: "Each time, no cause was found, and no scriptures were lost. Therefore, this time, Qingyuan Zong's sect master personally set up the Eight Arrays."

  Lin Fan asked: "They all use the Eight Trigrams formation, what's the difference in how they're arranged?"