Edited by Ea

  Endless wood.

  The “Southern Wilderness Sutra” in the《Mystical Sutra》contains a record of this: “There are volcanoes outside the Southern Wilderness, in which an endless wood burns day and night. The flames are not fierce even when fanned by ferocious storms, and the heavy rain will not extinguish the flames.”

  Fire has always restrained wood. However, this wood was born in a raging fire, yet it will not burn out, so it is called “Endless Wood”.

  The reason why it can burn forever is that this kind of wood is a rare item that gathers spiritual power.

  In the Academy, the immortal mist is dense, and every droplet contains a touch of spiritual power. The disciples live and cultivate in this mist all the year round and benefit immensely. However, although the immortal mist contains spiritual energy, the amount is very small after all. The amount of spiritual energy that endless wood possesses is far, far beyond it.

  Endless wood, Worriless wood, and Three Mulberry wood are the three legendary sacred trees, and it is hard to find one tree in all nine prefectures, which shows that it is rare.

  Among them, Endless Wood is the most famous for its outstanding ability to gather spiritual energy.

  The length of the zither was between three and four chi long. Its body was slender, the color was dark, and there were seven snow-white strings on it. Although he doesn’t know how many years it has been stored in the treasure house, there is no dust on the body of the instrument, and it even emits a faint glow that was imperceptible.

  Lin Shu held the heavy cat in one hand, and pressed his other hand on the strings. He felt that the spiritual power was surging and almost breaking out of the zither.

  He tapped his left hand on the string.

  There was a clear sound on the zither, as clear as ice and snow. The spiritual power contained in the zither finally found its way out, and the ripples spread out rapidly. The stone wall on which the zither was placed was even hit by spiritual power and vibrated slightly, which showed how strong the spiritual power was.

  After releasing such a blast of spiritual power, the spiritual power in the zither did not seem to decrease at all. It is conceivable that if one wanted to fully consume the spiritual power contained in the zither, countless pieces of music would have to be played.

  Lin Shu could play the zither. According to his sect’s theory, one must clear their heart before learning the sword, and to clear the heart, one must learn music. When he first came to this world, he once taught Mr. Zhou to play “Warding Off Evil Spirits” to repel the living corpses. However, in the absence of spiritual power, even if the tune was played out, the effect would be limited. But once he had such a zither with tremendous spiritual power, the situation would be very different. As long as he could play different music scores, the spiritual power contained in the sound of the zither could be used for oneself. It would be very useful to advance and attack, retreat and defend.

  Ling Xiao asked, “Do you want this?”

  Lin Shu nodded.

  He took a closer look at the zither’s body again, and finally found two characters written in seal script “Ice Strings” at the right end.

  Since it was engraved on the instrument, it must be the name of the zither.

  At this time, Ling Xiao also found this zither in the treasure book of the treasure house.

  It reads: “The zither ‘Ice Strings’ is made of endless wood as its body, Kirin horn as the core, and clear ice silk as the strings. Its sound is very beautiful.”

  But he was holding the cat, and the cat kept purring softly and rubbing from time to time, with no intention of leaving his arms. Its status was noble and couldn’t be defied. Lin Shu couldn’t make a move. Therefore he didn’t take the zither now, but turned to other places, planning to find a second treasure.

  But when he took a closer look at the entire Tianzi Library, his vision was widened and he could see a lot of things, but he didn’t find another object that suited him like the ‘Ice String’ zither.

  When Lin Shu came to the area where the secret books were stored, and was about to start looking for any crooked methods that could allow one to use Taoist arts even without meridians, the young man said, “Junior Martial Brother Lin, look at this.”

  Lin Shu walked over and took a fist sized jade bottle from the young man.

  The three words “Spirit Gathering Pill” are written on the jade bottle.

  The young man pointed to the “Spirit Gathering Pill” page under the Pills topic on the treasure book and showed it to Lin Shu.

  Compared with the simple introduction of “Ice Strings” zither, the introduction of this bottle of pill was a lot more. It was said to be refined from a hundred kinds of spiritual leaves, spiritual fruits, spiritual dew, and spiritual bones on the barren mountains in the south. With the vicissitudes of time, the southern barren mountain no longer exists, and there was also no way to refine the Spirit Gathering Pill, so it was included in the Tianzi Library despite its mediocre effect.

  \r \r \r

  But its mediocre effect was very impressive to Lin Shu.

  There was no other reason other than the fact that this medicine was specially refined by a legendary alchemist in order to study the principles behind the generation of spiritual power. The effect was just like its name. After taking it, the body will produce plentiful spiritual power, which will dissipate on its own after a quarter of an hour.

  The treasure book also said that this pill must be taken with caution, because after taking it, the body will have to bear the burden of having immense spiritual power, causing unbearable pain and thus damaging the meridians.

  Lin Shu wanted it.

  He had no way to use spiritual power, because his meridians were blocked, so he could not introduce spiritual energy into his body, nor could he control the spiritual power around his body. But this pill could make the spiritual power emanate from the body. Although the effect was only an hour, it was enough.

  As for the damage to the meridians-his meridians are already the worst, so he is not afraid of any damage.

  He was holding the jade bottle and was about to put it in the brocade bag, but it was held down by Ling Xiao.

  Ling Xiao repeated the record in the treasure book: “The pain of taking it is unbearable, and it will only disappear in three days; it will also damage the meridians, so take it with caution.”

  Lin Shu immediately had an ominous premonition.

  Cousin took the jade bottle out of his hand and put it back on the shelf expressionlessly.

  He said, “Having this kind of idea again, huh?”

  Lin Shu recognized the cruel fact that he was dominated by the temporary owner and obediently averted his gaze from the ‘Spirit Gathering Pill’.

  The teenager beside them, however, said softly: “Found it!”

  They saw that he took a small crimson jade bottle and studied it carefully.

  The jade bottle was engraved with “Pill of Life and Creation”.

  When looking through the treasure book, Lin Shu saw the name of this pill. It was a holy medicine for tempering the body. After taking it, the whole body would be remodeled. The flesh, bones and muscles would be reshaped, and he could possess the so-called “Indestructible” body.

  People who cultivate immortality pay most attention to the state of mind, followed by martial arts. Those who practice martial arts diligently will not have poor physical constitutions, so they don’t need to look for body refining skills and pills. However, this was someone else’s business, so Lin Shu didn’t show an interest in it.

  He went back to read the secret scripts.

  There were two kinds of secret scripts– one with a blue cover, which was a script book of the immortal path, and the other with a dark red cover, which was a demonic cultivation skill.

  As long as one could find their own path and reach a certain realm, they could all ascend no matter whether they cultivated the immortal or demonic path, so there was no sectarian bias between the two. It’s just that the Immortal Dao foundation in the Southern Xia Dynasty was rich, so most of the disciples chose to cultivate immortality.

  This cat has a spirit. Seeing that Lin Shu came to the secret scripts, its eyes turned to Ling Xiao, and let out a long “meow”.

  Ling Xiao understood, took the cat into his hand, hugged it, and scratched the smooth fur.

  Lin Shu finally freed his hands to look through the treasure book, which recorded the name of each secret script, the author, and the general introduction of the skills.

  There were many skills and methods. Just by looking at the introduction, he knew that it was not suitable for himself.

  Ling Xiao had leisurely picked up a book of 《Nine Unique Thunder Blades》 with one hand, while Lin Shu was still reading the treasure book.

  The young man who came with them got his desired pill and was currently happily studying other rare and exotic treasures to increase his knowledge. He almost finished studying one wall, but Lin Shu was still reading the treasure book.

  The result was that none of the secret scripts in the Immortal Dao was feasible, and three-quarters of the scripts he had been looking over in the Demonic Dao were also not feasible.

  According to probability, it was unlikely that he would find what he wanted from the remaining one-eighth of the secret books.

  Lin Shu was a little annoyed, but continued to look through the scripts.

  As he kept flipping through books, he felt that Ling Xiao was looking at himself.

  He raised his head and ran into his cousin’s slightly smiling eyes.

  Lin Shu: “.……”

  This is a mockery.

  He was more upset now.

  Then he rummaged through the next one.

  Flipping through, he felt that his cousin walked behind him and pressed his right hand on the page.

  He stopped his action.

  Ling Xiao said: “It was rumored that the Qing Ming Demon Lord is an ancient great demon, and his meridians were crippled by the people of the Immortal path…… but he still traversed the demon realm undefeated for over ten years.”

  At this moment, he was standing behind Lin Shu. He was very close to him because of flipping the book, and his voice seemed to ring in his ears.

  Lin Shu had difficulty breathing, and looked in the direction Ling Xiao pointed to.

  All the records on this page were the works of this “Qing Ming Demon Lord”.

  What 《Dark Flame Profound Classic》, 《Yama Secret Arts》, 《Sword Art of Seven Kills》, 《Limitless Illustrated Records》.……They could be said to be ghostly and evil.

  Lin Shu couldn’t use the meditation technique, and same with the sword techniques. The array catalogue could be viewed, but it was not very useful.

  But according to Ling Xiao, this Demon Lord could still traverse the Demon Realm even after his meridians were completely crippled, so he must have some unique skills.

  The arrangement of the treasure books were very organized. They were arranged according to the distance of time. That is to say, the secret scripts of later periods will appear in the back.

  Lin Shu turned a few pages and came to the end of Qingming Demon Lord’s works.

  The last book was called 《Extinction》. The introduction was very short, only three words.

  “Practice with caution.”

  According to the above index, Lin Shu found the book named 《Extinction》 in the bookcase.

  He opened the first page, and written there were just two short lines.

  These two lines had the same approach as “If you wish to cultivate this divine skill, first castrate yourself.”

  It wrote: “He who studies this must first shatter his own meridians.”

  Lin Shu’s heart moved.

  There is hope.

  He continued to flip through.

  Foremost on the list, is the cause and effect of Qing Ming Demon Lord’s creation of this skill.

  Yuehua, that bandit, crippled my meridians. I must cripple this scoundrel’s meridians in the future as revenge.

  My meridians have already been destroyed. I want to rebuild them, but I feel hate and resentment every time I think about that scum Yuehua’s mouth and face. I only wish to cripple Yuehua’s meridians using my crippled body. I will be exceedingly happy to see the scoundrel’s shocked expression.

  The day this skill reached perfection, I went out of East Mountain to look for Yuehua and make fun of the scum. My disciple reported: “Congratulations to Master! Three years ago, Yuehua Immortal Lord fell into the trap of the Twelve Heavenly Demons, and died in battle! How gratifying!”

  I was surprised and killed the disciple in anger, then I slaughtered the Twelve Heavenly Demons. I wished to find Yuehua’s skeletal remains but failed. It must have been eaten by wild beasts.

  To think that a pure and innocent Immortal Lord was defeated by dirty tricks and was buried in the belly of wild dogs. I actually cried with grief in the middle of the night, my heart ached as though it was being twisted.

  Hate! Hate! Hate!