Hearing Zhou Qingmu's suggestion—he couldn't tell whether she was teasing or serious—Gu Chengming felt a flush of embarrassment, and quickly turned it down with some suitably proper excuse.
A trace of regret crossed Zhou Qingmu's face, but she didn't press the matter.
And so, for the moment, the offer to live together was quietly set aside.
The chaos at the very heart of the Tianque Secret Realm had, with that rule of "Peace Under Heaven" carved into heaven and earth, finally drawn to a close.
Her forced merging with the Dharma-Station had failed, and she had suffered both the Dharma-Station's backlash and the Filth Tide's corrosion; Zhou Qingmu's wounds, never fully healed to begin with, had grown worse. She urgently needed somewhere safe to seal herself away and recover.
On the other side, Shen Ganqiu, the sect head of the Wenjian Sect who had just avenged the ambush of years past at the outer edge of the altar, was likewise drained and in need of quiet recuperation.
With every openly acknowledged Fifth Realm cultivator now withdrawn from the field, the rogue cultivators and the parties of small and middling sects lost the nerve to keep crowding toward the core region.
Everyone understood the truth well enough. Zhou Qingmu and Shen Ganqiu might both be nursing wounds, but Fifth Realm was Fifth Realm—a starved camel is still bigger than a horse.
So, with remarkable tacit agreement, cultivators from every faction set to cleaning up the battlefield around Tianque, scavenging odds and ends of spirit-herbs and ore. With the rule of "seizing fortune" gone, Tianque had turned eerily peaceful.
During this stretch, the Great Qian court and the parties of the great orthodox sects at last found a rare chance to rest and regroup.
Deep within a certain stone grotto, a campfire flickered.
Gu Chengming was poking at the flames with a twig, the firelight playing across his clean, handsome features and lending him an air of calm.
Seated across from him was his master, Ren Wencai, an elder of the Wenjian Sect.
The old man held a rough wine gourd in his hands, though he didn't drink. He only stared into the dancing flames, his gaze touched with feeling—and with a measure of release and complicated emotion.
"Chengming," Ren Wencai said suddenly.
"Yes, Master?" Gu Chengming lifted his head, his hand going still over the fire.
Ren Wencai raised the gourd, took a small sip, and sighed. "I always used to think these old bones of mine had only a few days left. Taking on a disciple as gifted as you—that's a blessing for the Wenjian Sect, and a blessing for me, Ren Wencai. But a blessing too great can weigh a man down."
Gu Chengming listened in silence, not interrupting.
"I once thought that if I could just be lucky enough to rise to the Fifth Realm, I'd win myself a good many more years. The cultivation world is treacherous. Steady as your temperament is, you have a way of acting where no one expects—easy to invite trouble. I always feared I'd go too soon and fail to keep you safe."
Here the old man turned his head. "But looking at things now, I suppose there'll be no need for that."
Gu Chengming smiled and offered comfort. "You jest, Master. However high my cultivation may climb one day, I'll still be a disciple of the Wenjian Sect, and I'll still need you standing behind me to hold the line."
Master and disciple chatted idly by the fire for a long while. Gu Chengming could tell that although Ren Wencai kept saying, "Seems I won't have to rush off and gamble my life away," there was still some regret buried in his heart.
Tianque held no shortage of fortune, but how brutally hard was it to rise from the Fourth Realm to the Fifth?
One careless slip and all prior effort was undone. To find within Tianque a spirit-object that could help him break through—that would be the ideal.
But now, with Shen Ganqiu resting his wounds, there was no one to help seize such a fortune, and no word of any fortune to be had.
Even if he truly wanted to make the attempt, he had nowhere to direct his strength.
Yet perhaps heaven simply delights in this sort of joke.
A lead, from who-knew-where, suddenly began to circulate.
Rumor had it that within a spatial fold somewhere along Tianque's outer rim lay hidden the cave-dwelling of an ancient Sixth Realm great cultivator. Because the spot was remote, and because the great powers had all been busy contesting for the core Dharma-Station, that dwelling had gone untouched to this day. And the rumor mentioned that within it, a peculiar spirit-object was being nurtured.
That spirit-object was neither weapon nor artifact, neither pill nor talisman, but a rare marvel that could help a cultivator comb through the foundations of their Dao and shatter the shackles of their mental state.
For Ren Wencai, stuck at the peak of the Fourth Realm for years and unable to so much as glimpse the threshold of the Fifth, it was a breakthrough-token tailor-made for him.
Gu Chengming relayed the news to Ren Wencai just as he'd heard it.
The old man waved a hand once he'd heard it out, affecting an air of breezy indifference, muttering, "To gain it is my fortune, to lose it is my fate; I'll not force the matter." But he was plainly very interested indeed.
Giving up on staking his life to fight a Fifth Realm cultivator didn't mean Ren Wencai had no wish to break through. If such a gentle, perfectly suited spirit-object truly existed, what old cultivator wedged at a bottleneck for decades could resist the temptation?
As night fell, the starry sky over Tianque seemed especially high and remote.
The old man rose without a sound, smoothed his robes, and—not daring even to let out his body-protecting qi—crept toward the coordinates of that cave-dwelling.
He had his own reasons.
His disciple had just come through a string of great battles, badly drained, and needed rest right now.
Since the dwelling had been left by a Sixth Realm great cultivator, even its outskirts were bound to bristle with peril, and he didn't want to drag Gu Chengming into the risk again.
A master ought to be the one to gamble. Perhaps he might even find in there some treasure of real benefit to Gu Chengming.
By the moonlight Ren Wencai melted his form into the shadows, certain he'd done it without a seam showing.
"Master—out for a stroll at this hour of the night, are we?"
A clear, bright voice rang out abruptly at the mouth of the grotto.
Ren Wencai froze mid-stride. There stood Gu Chengming—he had no idea when—leaning against the stone wall at the cave mouth, arms folded, watching him with a grin.
The moonlight spilled over Gu Chengming, stretching his shadow out long across the ground.
"Cheng—Chengming, when did you wake?" Ren Wencai coughed awkwardly, trying to cover the embarrassment of being caught red-handed.
"The moment you started pretending to sleep," Gu Chengming said, mercilessly exposing the old man's clumsy performance.
Ren Wencai's aged face reddened. He sighed. "Since you've guessed it, don't stop me. The situation in that dwelling is unclear. I'll go scout the way—if there's real danger, it's easier for one man alone to slip free."
"Master, weren't you just saying the cultivation world is treacherous and you feared you couldn't protect me? Now that there's something good, you want to go eat it all alone? That doesn't square with Wenjian Sect rules. Besides, for a little danger like that, your disciple tagging along might even lend a hand."
Hearing this, Ren Wencai knew he'd never win against this disciple. Moved and conflicted, he could only heave a long sigh and yield. "Fine, fine, fine. Since you're set on going, we'll go together. But remember—every move follows my command. No reckless action."
Gu Chengming cupped his hands in agreement.
Under cover of night, master and disciple raced toward that hidden set of coordinates.
With the "Peace Under Heaven" rule mending it, the spatial structure of the Tianque Secret Realm had steadied, and the two encountered no rifts along the way. The journey went smoothly.
An hour later, the two halted before an unremarkable cliff face.
It was blanketed in moss, but under Gu Chengming's probing, one could faintly sense a layer of extremely masterful concealment formation.
It took the pair some effort to break the formation open, revealing an entrance just wide enough for one person. The dwelling within was not dark; luminous night-pearls set into the stone walls on either side gave off a soft glow.
A faint fragrance of grass and wood hung in the air, without a trace of the oppressive aura one usually found in an ancient cultivator's dwelling.
And on a warm, smooth piece of jade beside a spirit-spring, something lay sprawled.
That was the target of their trip.
The instant Ren Wencai saw it, he froze where he stood.
Not only him—even Gu Chengming, who had come mentally prepared, was rather taken aback.
At the center of the stone chamber stood a raised platform, and upon that platform sprawled something round and fluffy.
Hearing footsteps, the thing whipped its head around. It was a super-sized orange tabby "cat."
Calling it a cat was fitting, for its shape matched every feature of one—pointed ears, long tail, round face—yet it was no creature of true flesh and blood. It was a heaven-and-earth treasure materialized from spiritual energy of the purest, densest kind.
Seeming to sense the presence of strangers, the "orange tabby" on the jade jolted awake. Its lazy posture vanished in an instant—all four limbs braced, its back arching high, every strand of fur on its tail bristling upright.
It turned its head, a pair of vertical pupils congealed from spiritual energy fixed dead on the two of them, and its mouth split open.
"Hssss—!"
One look at this cat and Gu Chengming went blank.
—Good grief, it has the bearing of an old acquaintance!
And there's a round-headed-old-cat angle to this too?
[The Hundred Bones Resonance flies into a fury: It dares hiss at Heavenly Emperor Gu? Truly tired of living! Heavenly Emperor Gu, quickly use the Hundred Bones Resonance to aid me!]
—That's a bit much, Hundred Emperor.
"By the look of it, quite the temper," Ren Wencai said, rolling up his sleeves. "Let me have a go at it."
With that, true essence circulated through him, the cultivation of a Fourth Realm peak laid bare. His hands wove a seal and unleashed an exquisite seizing art—an invisible great hand that grasped toward the cat on the jade.
Hakimi versus the Invisible Hand!
At Ren Wencai's level, the grab looked casual, but in truth it sealed off every avenue of Retreat on all four sides.
Never mind a mere fruit—even a demon-beast of the same realm would find it nearly impossible to dodge.
And yet, the moment the invisible hand was about to touch the cat-fruit, the "orange tabby's" body underwent an incredible change. Its bones seemed to vanish all at once, its whole body shifting into a strange state somewhere between solid and liquid.
Like a puddle of orange water, it slithered out through the gaps between the invisible hand's fingers with a slurp.
Free of the grip, the cat-fruit reformed in midair and landed squarely atop a stone pillar several yards away. Looking down at Ren Wencai from on high, it opened its mouth once more.
"Hssss—!"
Ren Wencai's old face couldn't quite hold. A dignified Fourth Realm peak cultivator, unable to catch a single spirit-object, and losing face in front of his disciple no less.
"You little wretch, and you dare mock me!"
This time Ren Wencai got serious. He unleashed several far more intricate spell-arts in succession, and spirit-light blazed through the dwelling. Chains of spiritual power wove into a net from every direction, dropping down over the cat-fruit on the pillar.
The cat-fruit gave a light kick off the pillar, twisting its body into an absurdly exaggerated corkscrew in midair, and slipped through a gap in the chain-net by a hair's breadth.
It landed without a sound, then rebounded in an instant, shooting up to an inverted stalactite hanging from the ceiling of the dwelling.
"Hssss—!"
Dangling upside-down from the stalactite, it went right on hissing at Ren Wencai.
Ren Wencai threw everything he had into it—seizing arts, sealing arts, binding arts, one after another. But the cat-fruit was simply too uncanny. Not only was it freakishly fast; more crucially, its body defied every ordinary rule.
Ren Wencai was wary of hurling stones for fear of the vase—he knew full well how precious this spirit-object was, and dared not use any high-powered, destructive spell, terrified of ruining it by accident.
Bound hand and foot this way, he not only failed to touch a single strand of the cat-fruit's fur but wore himself out until he was gasping for breath.
Gu Chengming stood off to the side, having watched for a good while now.
He looked at the cat-fruit dangling from the stalactite, still not forgetting to hiss at them, and his mind began racing.
This thing might be a plant, but its behavior, its stress responses—even that infuriatingly punchable hiss—perfectly replicated the traits of a feline.
It seemed that Sixth Realm great cultivator had not only bred its outward form but carried over some of a cat's nature as well.
Gu Chengming mulled it over. If that was so, he thought, had the thing carried over Hakimi's underlying source code too?
He explained his idea to Ren Wencai, who looked doubtful. Would that really work?
But there was no other option at the moment, so he could only let Gu Chengming try first.
Keeping his seat, Gu Chengming drew from his storage pouch a spirit-herb he'd fished out from who-knew-where.
The herb was slender and soft, with a tuft of fluffy tassels at its tip.
He gripped one end of the herb and lightly dragged the tasseled end across the ground.
Scratch, scratch. Scratch, scratch.
The cat-fruit's gaze locked entirely onto the tassels of that herb.
It squirmed restlessly on the stalactite, front paws kneading back and forth, going through the motions of a hunter about to strike.
Then it sprang from the stalactite, righted its posture in midair, and touched down on all four paws without the faintest sound.
Lowering its body, using the surrounding flowers and grass for cover, it crept step by step toward that stone.
Ren Wencai watched from the side, questioning his whole life. He'd worn himself to death and not even gotten close, yet this boy had lured the troublesome spirit-object down with a mere blade of grass?
The cat-fruit had reached the edge of the stone. Its haunches swayed faintly as it calculated the distance and angle of its pounce.
Now!
Its hind legs snapped taut, and it lunged at the half-exposed tassels.
But in the instant it leaped airborne, Gu Chengming's wrist flipped with blinding speed. Rather than pulling the herb away, he flicked it straight at the cat's face.
That threw its hunting rhythm into complete disarray. The cat-fruit tried to twist its body in midair, its whole frame contorting into an utterly awkward posture, its belly fully exposed.
Gu Chengming's hand scooped up in the same motion. The cat-fruit felt an irresistible resistance against its stomach, and before it could react it was cradled securely in his hand.
It realized at once it had been fooled, hind legs kicking frantically as it tried to wrench free of those hands. "Hssss—!!!"
Ripples of water even began to spread across the surface of its spirit-body, as it prepared to unleash that liquefaction-escape trick again.
Ren Wencai's stomach clenched at the sight. "Careful, it's getting away!" he shouted.
Gu Chengming's expression didn't change. Cradling its back, he pressed his right index and middle fingers together, tracked the arc of its madly kicking hind legs, and gave a light flick under its chin—shifting the angle of its head and the position of its chin at precisely the right moment.
That heavy, driving hind-leg kick of the cat-fruit landed solidly on its own chin.
The blow was no gentle thing—it kicked itself dizzy.
But in its underlying logic, the chin had come under attack, and the system instantly ruled: enemy assault!
Who's attacking me? Within its field of view, there was only that hind leg nearest the chin.
And so the cat-fruit's defense system produced the most direct response of all: counterattack!
Its two front paws swiftly seized the hind leg that had "assaulted" its chin, opened its mouth, and without hesitation bit down.
"Meowrrr!"
The hind leg was bitten, the pain signal shooting straight back to the brain.
Hind leg under attack! Hakimi ruled: enemy assault!
Who's attacking the hind leg?
Within its field of view, there were only those two front paws clamped fast around it.
Hind leg, counterattack again!
And so that hind leg, gripped by the front paws, erupted with even fiercer force, kicking savagely at the front paws—and landing another heavy blow on the chin for good measure.
The chin took fresh damage, the front paws received their orders and bit and clawed all the harder.
The hind leg felt the pain sharpen, and the frequency and force of its kicking spiked.
Front paws attacking hind leg; hind leg, under attack, attacking front paws in turn. The chin played the perpetual victim throughout, further inflaming the whole system's counterattack mechanism.
Under this flawless closed loop of logical conflict, the cat-fruit's left brain and right brain plunged into all-out civil war. Its front half and rear half became, in effect, two independent individuals locked as mortal enemies, sinking deeper and deeper into a life-or-death struggle.
It forgot Gu Chengming's existence entirely, forgot to unleash its liquefaction-escape—it simply balled up into a fluffy sphere and kicked at itself in his hand.
Gu Chengming held up this violently self-consuming ball of fur and quietly savored the splendid spectacle of left brain battling right.
Sure enough, after some dozens of rounds of frenzied self-attrition, the cat-fruit's movements grew slower and its force weaker.
At last its motions jerked to a halt, front paws still clutching the hind leg, hind leg still suspended in midair.
Its vertical pupils dilated, its gaze went slack, and the whole fruit seemed to have lost its soul.
Gu Chengming looked at the spirit-object in his hand, which had utterly given up on thinking, and gave a satisfied nod.
He reached out his right hand, pinched the soft flesh at the scruff of the cat-fruit's neck, and lifted it up.
As he hoisted it, the cat-fruit's body went instantly limp, limbs dangling naturally, tail curling between its two hind legs, without the slightest sign of resistance.
Ren Wencai stood by, having witnessed this textbook-grade subjugation of a spirit-object from beginning to end.
He looked at the cat-fruit sprawled senseless on the jade, then at Gu Chengming standing there utterly composed, and the old man's whole worldview took a tremendous jolt.
Could his disciple truly be a master of the spirit-object arts?
Ren Wencai didn't voice any of this, but from the look on his master's face, Gu Chengming could roughly guess what he was thinking.
No master of the spirit-object arts, he thought to himself—just a master of the Hakimi arts.
He carefully placed the cat-fruit into a specially made spirit-wood casket and handed it to Ren Wencai.
"Master, I did not fail the charge. The thing's docile now. Once we're back, you may refine it in peace."
Ren Wencai took the wooden casket solemnly and tucked it against his body.
"Chengming, thank you. Your master…"
"There you go being distant again, Master." Gu Chengming cut in with a smile. "Between master and disciple, what need is there for such words? Now that we're here—since this dwelling was left by a Sixth Realm great cultivator, there must be other relics inside besides this cat-fruit. Shall we go take a look?"
Ren Wencai nodded again and again, calming his stirred emotions.
With this cat-fruit, his ascent to the Fifth Realm was that much more assured. Looking at this dwelling now, he found everything about it pleasing to the eye.
The two left the spirit-spring and pressed deeper along a hidden passage at the rear of the dwelling.
At the passage's end stood a heavy ancient door cast from bronze.
There was no intricate formation upon it, only a vast totem of ten thousand beasts carved into its surface. Gu Chengming stepped forward, set both hands against the door, and pushed with a little force.
With a low grinding groan, the ancient bronze door swung slowly open to either side.
An aura older and deeper than the one outside rushed to meet them.
The space beyond the door was lit by several enormous night-pearls, and the interior of the dwelling was laid bare before master and disciple, holding nothing back.
This was the true core living quarters and treasure-vault of that Sixth Realm great cultivator.
Shoulder to shoulder, Gu Chengming and Ren Wencai stepped over the threshold, into the inner dwelling of a Sixth Realm great cultivator sealed for several thousand years.
Contrary to their expectations, the interior was not the glittering splendor the outside world imagined, nor were there any artifacts to be seen.
The whole space was rather spare and plain. Several enormous night-pearls were set into the vaulted ceiling, casting down a cold, clear glow that lit every furnishing in the room with perfect clarity.
At the very center stood a broad writing desk carved from a single block of white jade. To its left were several rosewood curio shelves standing against the wall; to its right, a bluestone cloud-couch for sitting in meditation and rest. Beyond these there was not a single superfluous ornament.
Gu Chengming's gaze fell on the desk at the center.
Upon it, arranged neatly, sat several jade vials of a lustrous sheen, and beside them a thick, heavy volume bound in the hide of some unknown beast.
He walked over, first taking up a jade vial to study it for a moment. Inside seemed to be some long-lost pill; the vial had preserved its medicinal fragrance intact, not a wisp of it escaped. Setting the vial back where it lay, Gu Chengming turned his eyes to that hide-bound book.
There was no title on the cover, only the worn frays at its corners to prove its owner had thumbed through it often.
Gu Chengming opened to the first page.
He had assumed it would be a manual recording some world-shaking cultivation art, or perhaps a treasure-book in which a Sixth Realm great cultivator set down his life's insights. But when he made out the words upon it, his expression grew rather colorful.
This was no inherited technique, and its style was nothing like the profound inscrutability one expected of a Sixth Realm great cultivator.
This thing was more like a diary.
Or rather, a wholly unrestrained personal memoir.
Gu Chengming steadied himself and, by the light of the night-pearls, began to read what was written within.
[Joined the sect today. The Sect Master says I have a rare constitution, and the elders of all the great peaks scrambled to take me in.]
Gu Chengming nodded slightly. A rare constitution, fought over by all the Grand Elders—that fit the script of many a cultivation-world great one in his youth. He read on.
[To win me, they argued in the main hall until they were red in the face, quarreling for six full hours. I stood off to one side, curious, and asked: I've long heard sword cultivators are the most lethal killers in the world, while a body cultivator's defense is unrivaled under heaven. Since all the elders happen to be present today, I wonder which is truly superior?]
Reading this, Gu Chengming's brows rose.
[The moment the elders heard my words, they all fell silent as one, then argued more fiercely than ever. In the end, the Sword Peak elder and the Bedrock Peak elder, to prove which of their respective Daos was superior, dueled on the spot outside the main hall—fighting until sky and earth went dark, neither able to best the other… I later heard that several elders returned to their peaks to recuperate for a good long while on account of that match.]
[In the end I chose to join Sword Peak, because it felt to me like everyone's guard against sword cultivators was so low—looked like an easy place to coast.]
Gu Chengming's face went very subtle at these few lines.
This senior—his character in youth seemed a touch wicked?
No—perhaps it was merely the arrogance of youth, childish talk with no malice.
Gu Chengming found the senior a way down off the ledge in his own mind and turned to the next page.
[Today during his lecture, Master said the sword is a sword cultivator's very life—sword present, man present; sword destroyed, man dead. Why does everyone say this? As if the moment he's parted from his sword, a sword cultivator becomes a mortal too weak to truss a chicken, no threat to anyone at all.]
[I've noticed that when disciples of other peaks duel sword cultivators, they always scheme to knock away the sword, or use all sorts of special spirit artifacts to try and confiscate the flying sword. I think there's a serious problem with their reasoning.]
Gu Chengming nodded in deep agreement. Sword cultivators' over-reliance on the flying sword was indeed a stereotype widespread in the cultivation world. That this senior had recognized it so early spoke to an exceedingly high aptitude.
Then Gu Chengming read the next line.
[To prove their thinking wrong, I strapped my flying sword all over with detonation talismans.]
[At the sect grand tournament, I steered the flying sword straight at Senior Sister, and sure enough she brought out the artifact made specially to seize flying swords.]
[I made Senior Sister cry.]
Gu Chengming stared at the page, wordless for a long moment.
Fine. No need to find any ledge to climb down from.
This senior really did seem a touch wicked in character.
In silence, Gu Chengming turned to a new page.
[Senior Brother's Pure Yang Sword Art hit a bottleneck; for several months he made not an inch of progress. I heard Master sigh that this Pure Yang Sword Art was fiercely overbearing, demanding much of the cultivator's mental state—the heavier the yang energy within the body, the stronger the sword art.]
[As his fellow disciple, I decided to help Senior Brother out.]
[I requested leave from Master and slipped quietly down the mountain to the Harmonious Joy Sect. Outside the Harmonious Joy Sect's gate I openly recruited female disciples. I told them there was a top-grade Pure Yang sword cultivator here willing to offer Dual Cultivation free of charge—the one condition being that they could seduce the other party by their own ability. Anyone whose looks were too poor or whose methods too clumsy needn't bother coming to embarrass themselves.]
[Collected two thousand spirit stones in entry fees. Turns out Senior Brother was this popular?]
—So there's a Harmonious Joy Sect angle to this too?
[Senior Brother's Pure Yang Sword Art broke through, sure enough. The first thing he did upon leaving seclusion was come to thank me, sword in hand, specially.]
[But thanks aside—why was he grinding his teeth the whole time he spoke?]
[I returned every one of those two thousand spirit stones in entry fees to the Harmonious Joy Sect, along with a letter, telling the Harmonious Joy Sect elders that their younger generation of disciples was so mediocre after all—so many came, laid siege for a full half-month, and not one succeeded. Truly disappointing.]
[Senior Brother's Pure Yang Sword Art broke through again.]
The dozen-odd pages that followed were, one and all, a grand exhibition of this senior's rotten deeds.
Gu Chengming read on in a cold sweat, thinking that for this senior to have lived to the Sixth Realm, heaven must have been blind—no, wrong, heaven must have showered him with sheer dumb luck.
At last the memoir reached the point after this senior had ascended to the Sixth Realm.
The handwriting on the pages grew considerably more upright.
[Came out of seclusion today, a little hungry. While wandering the back mountain, I saw an orange tabby with superb fur pounce and kill a spirit-crane of the back mountain.]
[Looked plump and delicious.]
[I accidentally roasted and ate it. The taste was actually so-so—the meat a bit sour.]
[After I'd finished, Junior Sister came crying to my door, asking whether I'd seen the demon-beast she'd just adopted. I truly had no idea it was hers.]
Gu Chengming's eyelid twitched wildly.
[I spent several days, wore out every kind word I had, and finally soothed Junior Sister.]
[But what Junior Sister said hurt me greatly—though she knew I hadn't meant to, she was still shocked that I'd actually eaten a cat.]
On the next line of the memoir, the handwriting grew enormous, as though the writer had sunk into profound bafflement as he set brush to page.
[Why can't cats be eaten?]
[I drew on the Dharma-Station power of a Sixth Realm great cultivator, expended countless rare spirit-materials, extracted a single strand of the source aura left in that orange tabby, and crafted a one-of-a-kind spirit-object.]
[This spirit-object can vastly raise the odds of a Fourth Realm peak cultivator breaking through—a supreme treasure rare in all the world.]
[I deliberately made it in the shape of a cat—form, fur, even instinct, all identical to a real one.]
"?"
A question mark surfaced over Gu Chengming's head.
He turned to look at Ren Wencai a short way off—carefully cradling the spirit-wood casket, gazing with a face full of tenderness at the "cat-fruit" inside.
So that was where the cat-fruit came from?!
[All my life I have acted without convention, and the world has much misunderstood me.]
[Yet my Dao lies wholly within the several techniques below. This is the work of my heart's blood, created through the toil of a lifetime. Should a junior of later years come this far, treasure it and hold it dear, and carry on my mantle.]
At last, a technique appeared before Gu Chengming.
[The Free and Unfettered Art!]
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