Chapter 1411: Inner Disciple
The cultivators were all dumbfounded. Li Qingshan shrugged. “Just kidding. I’m not the spirit reverend.”
Everyone laughed aloud. In the Myriad sect, only the Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance possessed that kind of ability.
“Please continue with what you were doing. I’ve left in too much of a hurry every single time. I want to take a proper look around here this time.”
He declined a certain female cultivator’s intentions to guide him around and strolled through the forest of bookshelves alone. His finger swept past the spines of the books gently. He did not take out a single book, as if he really was just looking around.
However, no one noticed the slight glow from the tip of his finger, as well as the jade slip in his other hand.
Searching, collecting, recording… He did not let a single book slip past him.
With his identity as a formal disciple, he could read all the books on this floor without paying any bookmarks.
Only a small portion had to do with cultivation and the level was limited, so they were not of much help to him. The rest were a miscellaneous mix of novels, stories, and books on culture and geography, which would instead widen his horizons.
However, every single book here had been chosen by the Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance. Even when they were extremely low-level cultivation methods, they were ingenious and concise, encompassing all categories possible. It was a part of the Myriad sect’s heritage that had been built up over countless years. There was not a single sect in the trichiliocosm that could rival it.
It was enough to give the cultivation community of the World of the Five Continents an extremely firm foundation. Even those novels and stories could be given to the novelists to increase their writing standards. That way, he could earn a little more bookmarks and contribution next time.
Of course, there was the most important part—all of this was free. As his status increased, even more free books would become available to him, enough for him to create an extremely complete cultivation system in the World of the Five Continents. He could completely destroy the monopoly that sects and clans possessed. All living creatures would be able to find their own paths.
In the past, his motto had been, “Martial arts for everyone.” Now, it had become, “Cultivation for everyone.”
Even he was unable to imagine what kind of world that would be like. In short, it would definitely be very interesting. He could not help but grin. Just that reason was enough.
The only issue now was would the Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance stop him?
As someone who also possessed the bloodline of the spirit turtle, he could imagine that the Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance was currently looking at him, carrying out extremely complicated calculations and deductions in an attempt to analyse the consequences involved and predict the effects in the future.
Time trickled by. Li Qingshan made his way past over a hundred bookshelves. He recorded several tens of thousand books in the jade slip, but no one came to stop him.
He smiled. This was probably the limitation of spirit turtles. Something like fate could not be calculated or predicted at the end of the day, which was why it was always safer for them to hide in Ruin’s End.
When Li Qingshan emerged from the Pavilion of Heavenly Tomes, several days had already passed. He felt like his head was splitting open as stars spun around his head.
He shook his head forcefully. He had still ended up underestimating the amount of knowledge within the Pavilion of Heavenly Tomes. Senior brother Pi was probably running out of patience with him, so he made his way towards the Department of Heavenly Dwellings.
In the Pavilion of Heavenly Tomes, the Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance watched his figure and felt a little perturbed. As the master of the Pavilion of Heavenly Tomes, he obviously noticed everything that Li Qingshan did. There was nothing strange about that. As someone who possessed the bloodline of the spirit turtle, he would almost instinctively gather all the information within his grasp before storing and analysing it.
What truly perturbed him was when he tried to predict the effects of his actions, his predictions would collapse as soon as he tried to calculate it every single time. It was not because it was not too complicated—he could not even analyse the complexity yet—but because it was far too tremendous.
Many years ago, when he roamed through the ocean, a colossal shadow had swum past beneath him. Only after a very long time did he realise it was a kun. Back then, he did not feel shocked. Instead, he was unable to comprehend it. His thoughts had come to a standstill.
It was no different right now. They were only some miscellaneous books of an extremely low level, so how could they produce such a great effect?
As a result, just like last time, he chose to remain exactly where he was, without moving, waiting for fate to reveal the truth.
On the highest floor of the Department of Heavenly Dwellings, Pi Yangqiu grabbed Li Qingshan by the collar. “Kid, how dare you make me wait so long!?” A mighty direct disciple like him was summoning a formal disciple to give him tremendous benefits, yet he had ended up waiting for so many days. It was a little too disrespectful.
“Forgive me, senior brother! The spirit reverend insisted on discussing the Heavenly Tome of Liberty with me. I couldn’t get away either!”
“You really think you can scare me with the spirit reverend? Do you really think I don’t know what you were doing in the Pavilion of Heavenly Tomes?” Pi Yangqiu said furiously.
Li Qingshan had spent his time strolling through the bottom floors of the Pavilion of Heavenly Tomes. Who knew how many people had seen him, so how could he escape his monitoring?
Li Qingshan smiled. “I’m just giving you a way out of this situation, letting you feel a little better inside.”
Even Pi Yangqiu felt a little powerless over him. A person who dared to confront the angered first senior sister definitely could not be frightened by him, let alone the fact that he had already undergone the fourth heavenly tribulation. He was definitely even more fearless now. His anger suddenly vanished.
“Junior brother Li, I currently have a piece of good news and a piece of bad news for you. Which one would you like to hear first?”
Li Qingshan raised his hand. “I know, senior brother. The good news is you managed to get the Xuanming dwelling. The bad news is I have a dragon I need to face.”
“You can see that from a mile away. You can’t call that a ‘surprise’!” Pi Yangqiu stressed the words ‘surprise’ without any good intentions.
Li Qingshan grinned. “I love surprises. So what’s the good news?”
“Congratulations on becoming an inner disciple.”
Pi Yangqiu patted Li Qingshan on the shoulder, and the badge on his chest suddenly lit up, shining even brighter than when he offered up his cultivation experiences with the Heavenly Tome of Liberty.
On the Myriad rankings, Li Qingshan’s name abruptly broke through the limits of formal disciples, immediately becoming an inner disciple of the Myriad sect. It left everyone below tongue-tied.
Li Qingshan was stunned as well. “What’s the meaning of this?”
Pi Yangqiu smiled. “Because of your wonderful suggestion, this is the reward that the Department of Heavenly Dwellings has given to you.”
“This… isn’t cheating, right?” Li Qingshan sensed that something was amiss. His so-called wonderful suggestion was only a few words, and the size of his merit was highly variable. It probably was not worth such a large sum of contribution.
“Yes and no.”
“Please take it back then, senior brother! I don’t need to cheat, and I can still become a direct disciple. Why must you make me liable?”
“It’s exactly because you’ll definitely become a direct disciple that I have to give you this contribution. Otherwise, do you really think the Department of Heavenly Dwellings is a charity organisation?”
“Why?” Li Qingshan felt even more surprised.
Pi Yangqiu stifled his voice and pulled him in by the shoulder. “Tell me first, has junior sister Ruan been helping you to cheat?”
“Of course not!” Li Qingshan denied it firmly. He had truly made great contributions to the Hundred Herbs garden, and Ruan Yaozhu really was quite inflexible when it came to this aspect.
Pi Yangqiu stared at Li Qingshan for quite a while. “I trust junior sister Ruan’s character. She’s not the kind to defy her own principles for the sake of a pretty face, but that’s probably not what others think.”
“Who’s the pretty face?” Li Qingshan was very discontent. “And who are the others?”
“The other direct disciples. The people standing on the other side of the gambling table. With the rate at which you gather contribution, becoming a direct disciple in thirty years definitely won’t be a problem. Even worse, you’re in a place like the Hundred Herbs garden, so you’re basically in no danger of dying.”
Li Qingshan understood now. “So they will come for me? Aren’t these direct disciples a little too crooked?”
Pi Yangqiu shook his head. “Who can help the fact that you cheated?”
_ Support us at hosted novel _
“When did I cheat? Anyone is welcome to inspect the work I do in the Hundred Herbs garden.”
Pi Yangqiu smiled. “I’m referring to just then.”
“Pi Yangqiu, you’ve screwed me over!” Li Qingshan said furiously as he pointed at Pi Yangqiu’s face.
Pi Yangqiu moved his finger aside gently. “Please watch yourself. Even if you’ve become an inner disciple, I’m still your senior brother.”
“Aren’t you gambling that I’ll win? Why are you screwing me over?”
“The issue with this is not whether you’ve actually cheated or not. It’s enough as long as they think you’ve cheated. No one will admit defeat willingly, especially when the gamble has just begun. That’s basically like a slap in the face. However, they won’t inspect your work in the Hundred Herbs garden, nor will they question whether you deserve the contribution that I just gave you. If they do that, that’s completely offending me and junior sister Ruan. Instead, they’ll come directly for you!”
Pi Yangqiu prodded Li Qingshan in the chest heavily.
“As a result, you need to take them by surprise and become an inner disciple quickly.”
“It’s true. It’s far too easy for a direct disciple to deal with a formal disciple. They don’t even need to come up with an excuse for that. Not all direct disciples respect the gamble like Le Tian or are as direct as Chao Tianjiao. There are also a lot of bad people like me.” Pi Yangqiu patted his chest without the slightest sense of shame.
Li Qingshan rolled his eyes. “And they need to be more careful with inner disciples instead?”
“Yes, they need an excuse, any excuse.”
“What’s the difference then!?”
“There’s a big difference, as well as no difference. Just like Le Tian said, you can never walk away from the gambling table with everything easily, so the bad news is they’ve probably been infuriated by me now. As soon as you set foot out of the Department of Heavenly Dwellings, you will encounter a lot of trouble. I hope you are mentally prepared.” Pi Yangqiu straightened out Li Qingshan’s clothes and shoved an item into his hand.
“This is?” Li Qingshan’s eyes lit up. He had already guessed what it was.
