Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
An Lin and Xu Xiaolan slowly made their way backstage amidst the applause.
The audience stared at their receding figures, their eyes filled with burning passion and reluctance to see them depart.
The audience began to come to their senses, all of them extremely animated.
“I’ve been completely won over by this song.”
“I couldn’t understand the lyrics, but at the same time, I seemed to be able to understand it in a sense. This is a truly wonderful feeling, words fail to describe what I’ve just experienced…”
“It really was very good. The rhythm remains clear in my mind, even now.”
“Very good doesn’t do the song justice, I’ve never listened to such exquisite music in my life!”
“I’m not sure if this is a pure placebo effect, but I feel like my whole body is at ease after hearing this song…”
“The singer’s name is An Lin, right? From this day forth, he’s my second idol! I have to look up his profile on Qiandu [1. A play on the Chinese search engine, Baidu]!” Some people had already begun to research An Lin on their phones.
“Although I feel bad for Dongfang Xue, An Lin now shares a spot with her in my heart as my idol!”
“The girl playing the guqin was also very good, anyone have her details?”
“Hmph, he was saying that he was going to sing without accompaniment, but there was clearly a guqin as accompaniment. But seeing as the guqin complemented the music so well, I guess I can forgive An Lin just this once…”
“To be introduced personally by Dongfang Xue, this singer sure is out of the ordinary.”
“This really was a pleasant surprise, an extremely pleasant surprise!”
The reaction from the audience was resounding, none of them were sparing with their words of praise.
An Lin’s ‘Daoist Scripture’ had undoubtedly won over the whole audience!
It had also earned him a bunch of fans as well!
…
“Ding Dong!”
“System notification: Mission successfully completed!
“Officially received: Divine Inspection Technique!”
An Lin was ecstatic upon receiving the Divine Inspection Technique. This technique was extremely practical.
The Divine Inspection Technique had a huge number of uses, its effects akin to that of opening the Heavenly Eye.
He could use the Divine Inspection Technique on objects to determine their origin and material.
He could also use the Divine Inspection Technique on other cultivators during battle, thereby determining the properties of their cultivation techniques and even find flaws or weak points.
He could even use the Divine Inspection Technique on spell formations. The origin, conclusion, center, and all its weaknesses would then be as clear as day to him!
This Divine Inspection Technique was just like a life-hack!
It was no wonder that the consequence of failure was to become a fairy. The risks and rewards were indeed balanced.
Now, An Lin had two cultivation techniques on his cultivation interface.
Aside from the Divine Inspection Technique, he also had that Divine Might Technique.
The Divine Might Technique was a technique with a potential for growth, the stronger the cultivation base, the more power the technique would have.
As for its effect… well, it was actually just to release pressure.
As An Lin was now, he would be able to make a cultivator lower than the Fifth Stage Dao Body faint from the pressure released by the Divine Might Technique alone.
It could also make any cultivator under the Tenth Stage Dao Body experience a strong sense of pressure.
To put it more simply, it was a technique that allowed you to flex whilst taking care of small fry.
The technique was not very practical for An Lin at the moment, but the flexing effects would be much more effective when his cultivation base progressed in the future.
Speaking of cultivation base progression, there was a new requirement for progression to the Spirit Nurturing Initial Stage on An Lin’s God of War System interface.
“Spirit Nurturing Initial Stage—Condition: Consume three beast cores.”
Even ignoring why consuming beast cores was a requirement in the first place, An Lin had to consider whether beast cores were even edible.
Simply obtaining three beast cores was a very difficult task in itself.
Beast cores only formed within spirit beasts, whose combat strength would be comparable to cultivators in the Spirit Nurturing Stage.
To obtain a complete beast core, one had to crush the spirit beast with overwhelming strength.
There was no telling what could happen in an evenly-matched fight. Even if you were to slay the spirit beast in combat, it would all come to no avail if the beast core was damaged in the process.
Hence, special methods had to be used to quickly extract the beast core from the spirit beast’s body, thereby ensuring a complete beast core can be obtained.
But this was not something that An Lin could do at his level yet.
He could only rely on Xuanyuan Cheng to execute his beast core extraction expertise when he encountered spirit beasts.
Spirit beasts were extremely rare on Earth, so progressing to the Spirit Nurturing Initial Stage had to wait until he returned to the Tai Chu Continent.
An Lin calmed his emotions and set his thoughts aside for now.
He looked toward Xu Xiaolan with a smile. “Your sudden appearance was a huge surprise! How did you do it?”
A smile appeared on Xu Xiaolan’s perfect features. “I was at the concert venue anyway because I wanted to hear the singing of the most popular singer in the mortal world. Who would have thought that the next singer she introduced to take the stage would be you? Haha, I was actually quite surprised too.
“However, after discovering that you were going to perform ‘Daoist Scripture’…
“How can this song be performed without accompaniment? Hence, I decided to stage an appearance and help you in your performance.”
Xu Xiaolan said with a smile on her face.
An Lin was extremely touched. If he were to perform the song without accompaniment, he only had a chance of drawing the audience in.
However, with the accompaniment of Xu Xiaolan’s guqin, the combination of the two worked in perfect harmony, perfectly expressing the qualities of ‘Daoist Scripture’.
And it was exactly because of this that his performance was such a resounding success.
It was no exaggeration to say that Xu Xiaolan had protected his dignity as a man as well as preserving his male bits. This was akin to giving him a second life!
Upon returning backstage, An Lin caught sight of Dongfang Xue and Tian Lingling.
Tian Lingling’s impression of An Lin had once again been completely flipped on its head. She immediately latched onto An Lin’s arm with admiration in her eyes. “Big Brother An, could you teach me how to sing…”
“What? Not gonna call me Fake Daoist Priest anymore?”
An Lin smiled coldly, a look of scorn akin to that worn by a proud monarch appearing on his face.
But Tian Lingling was completely oblivious to this, continuing to maintain a stranglehold on An Lin’s arm.
Dongfang Xue also made her way toward An Lin, shock written all over her face. “Mr. An, what song did you just perform? Why do I feel like my cultivation base has progressed slightly after hearing it…”
She was quite skeptical about whether she had just heard a fake concert.
The feeling An Lin’s singing gave her was like listening to a mighty cultivator in person instructing others in the way of the Dao.
Regardless of whether it was the lyrics or the rhythm, all of it was saturated with a type of Daoist mantra, making listeners involuntarily develop a deeper understanding of Dao.
An Lin produced a hardcover Heavenly Court copy of the ‘Daoist Scripture’ before handing it to Dongfang Xue with a smile on his face.
“Read this book whilst circulating your vital energy and you’ll be able to experience the rhythm and mantra of Dao present in the book.”
This was a book that everyone in The United University of Cultivation had a copy of. Frequent reading of the book was beneficial in helping students achieve a deeper understanding of Dao. It could also be performed as a song, thereby allowing listeners to also experience the benefits of the book.
An Lin and Xu Xiaolan had read the book countless times and already knew it back to front.
It was exactly because of this that they could work together so harmoniously on the stage.
“Thank you, An Lin.”
Dongfang Xue gladly accepted the copy of ‘Daoist Scripture’, cradling the book in her chest as if it was some sort of valuable treasure.
Tian Lingling’s objective for nagging An Lin was simply to get him to teach her how to sing ‘Daoist Scripture’.
Now that Dongfang Xue had a copy of the book, she immediately shifted targets, diving onto Dongfang Xue’s lap. “Big Sister Dongfang, let’s go and read!”
“Sure.” Dongfang Xue smiled sweetly and rubbed Tian Lingling’s short brown hair before leading her to a room down the back.
“Bye-bye, Fake Daoist Priest!”
Tian Lingling made a face to An Lin, then walked away with Dongfang Xue without even turning her head.
An Lin could only look at Tian Lingling speechlessly. The rate at which she switched targets was truly astounding!
Lastly, he and Xu Xiaolan merged into the audience and listened to the rest of Dongfang Xue’s concert together.
…
That night.
The scene of the white sea of glow sticks at the concert venue, coupled with Dongfang Xue’s beautiful singing was engraved deeply into his heart.
Performing together on stage with Xu Xiaolan also became a treasured memory.
