Starting My Cultivation With Time Management

“What kind of Ah Jing does she have to help her!” Qiu Changtian said angrily. “She just can’t bear to fall too far behind me, so she is pushing herself into a corner in a desperate attempt to catch up! Such a foolish girl!”

“Indeed,” the Kunlun Mirror sighed. “And why did you have to provoke her on purpose?”

“Isn’t that setting a goal for her? Five years,” Qiu Changtian explained patiently. “With the Pure Yuan Qi Pill and the Seven Orifices Exquisite Heart, if she really buckles down on her cultivation, there is still hope in five years.”

“Even if five years isn’t enough, there’s still the sixth year, or the seventh year.”

“Who could have imagined she would cut it down to two years? If I hadn’t stopped her in time, she would have made a poisonous oath on her Daoist Heart!”

“You’ve really brought disaster upon her,” the Kunlun Mirror said with a sigh.

“I haven’t… how have I brought disaster upon her?” Qiu Changtian retorted discontentedly. “If it weren’t for the Daoist Heart Clarity you gave me, which corresponds to the Invincible Character Setting, would I have to pretend to be this ungratifying toughie of a Chief Disciple?”

“It’s not my fault the template for the Invincible Character Setting was designed that way!” the Kunlun Mirror erupted in anger. “Besides, why must you always provoke her? Don’t you have other junior brothers and sisters?”

“Other junior brothers and sisters just aren’t as adorable as Junior Sister Xu,” Qiu Changtian said helplessly. “The same rhetoric, when spoken in front of them, would only be seen as normal by them, and the contribution of the Synchronization Value would be less.”

“But Junior Sister Xu would react in all kinds of shocked ways. In terms of contributing Synchronization Value, she alone is worth all those other junior brothers and sisters combined.”

The Kunlun Mirror was at a loss for words for a moment.

How could it not know what Qiu Changtian was talking about?

It simply subconsciously thought that “a gentleman should have things he does not do.”

“In the past, when it was possible to go out for trials, although the other fellow disciples didn’t give as much Synchronization Value as Junior Sister Xu, there were more of them after all, so the total amount wasn’t falling behind,” Qiu Changtian continued with a sigh. “Now that I’m wanted by the Demon Cult and it’s inconvenient to go out for trials, and without any other excuse to organize the disciples to show off, I have to rely on Junior Sister Xu alone, don’t I?”

He clenched his teeth fiercely and continued, “The maintenance of the Mirror Flower Water Moon cannot be given up lightly. At worst, I just need to study Junior Sister’s character and temperament more carefully and try not to let her be affected by the Heart Demon in the process of gathering Synchronization Value!”

“This is not a long-term solution either,” the Kunlun Mirror said, then suddenly inspiration struck, “Right, I’ve stumbled upon a clue to the fourth fragment of the Heaven-Mending Stone.”

“Oh?” Qiu Changtian raised an eyebrow. “Are you opening a fourth alt account? Tell me, where’s the location?”

“There’s no specific location this time,” the Kunlun Mirror admitted. “By screening the future timelines, I discovered that a fragment of the Heaven-Mending Stone seems to have ended up in the hands of the Hell Path of the Intercepting Cult.”

“The Hell Path?” Qiu Changtian asked in surprise. “Is it the branch created in seclusion by the No Worries Holy Mother, who inherited the teachings of the Intercepting Cult after its downfall in ancient times?”

“Exactly,” the Kunlun Mirror confirmed gravely. “After the final battle between the Clarify and Intercept sects, the Myriad Immortals Formation of the Intercept Cult was broken, resulting in their overwhelming defeat.”

“Knowing there was no hope left, Tongtian allowed his Direct Disciple, the No Worries Holy Mother, to leave the formation early to preserve the lineage of the Intercept Cult.”

“After her departure, to prevent the Clarify Cult from coveting and pursuing her, she hid from the world and broke off all karma with everything, thus shielding any divination attempts.”

“Since then, over ten thousand years have passed, and her direct teaching sect has gradually evolved into ‘the Hell Path’. The No Worries Holy Mother is revered as the ‘Holy Mother No Worries’, and the Sect Residence is hidden in the ‘Home of the Void’. They have always adhered to the principle of ‘hiding from the mundane and cutting off karma’ so secretive that today nobody knows where the Hell Path is or how many disciples walk the Mortal World.”

“Given that, how are we supposed to find it?” Qiu Changtian frowned. “If even the karma has been shielded and divination is not possible, how are we to search?”

“I suggest you first find a way to infiltrate the Demon Cult, and then slowly look for clues about the whereabouts of the Hell Path,” Kunlun Mirror advised him. “Among the Six Paths of the Demon Cult, the Mortal Life Path is the most extensive and complex, encompassing all sorts of beliefs from the Three Cults.”

“Didn’t you previously obtain the legacy of Tai Yi from the Intercepting Cult, the ‘Five Elements Severing Demons Profound Spirit Scripture’? Isn’t this the perfect opportunity to use it as a stepping stone to go to the Mortal Life Path and inquire about the whereabouts of the ‘Tong Xuan Gate’ he founded?”

“If you can successfully join the Tong Xuan Gate, you will have a foundation to then pursue the Hell Path.”

“It turns out it’s still a gradual process, right?” Qiu Changtian said with a vacant look. “Honestly, nearly ten thousand years have passed, and I really doubt whether this Tong Xuan Gate still exists.”

“No problem, you can first confirm it,” Kunlun Mirror said as it pulled out the character template from Mirror Flower Water Moon. “How do you like this talent?”

“This is…” Qiu Changtian looked closely, “Chaotic Demon Body? What kind of cultivation talent is this?”

“Since Pangu created heaven and earth, the pure qi rose to form heaven, and the murky qi sank to form the earth,” explained Kunlun Mirror. “Humans walk on the ground, so their bodies contain more murky qi, about seventy percent.”

“And because they breathe air, they have thirty percent pure qi. The phrase ‘all things carry yin and embrace yang,’ with murky qi being yin and pure qi being yang, refers to this.”

“Since pure qi is nimble and murky qi is heavy, most paths of cultivation are about refining the murky to the pure. Even when undergoing the Feather Transformation to ascend as an immortal, whether one becomes an Earth Immortal, Heavenly Immortal, or Golden Immortal, it also depends on the residual murky qi in their body.”

“As for the Chaotic Demon Body, it is a constitution even rarer than ‘Daoist Heart Clarity.’ Its carrier’s murky qi can flow freely just like pure qi, so there’s no need to refine the murky into pure.”

“One could even reverse the process and refine the pure into murky, using the pure murky qi to condense and solidify True Yuan, which has unique effects not possessed by pure qi True Yuan.”

Qiu Changtian listened with wide eyes: Using murky qi to condense True Yuan, is that even possible?

You should know, the Qi Refining Rank involves refining the murky qi in the Dantian and meridians, and the Marrow Cleansing Rank is about purifying the residual murky qi in the marrow… This murky qi is something that many low-rank cultivators detest deeply, and most people avoid food and water altogether after Fasting, fearing they might contaminate themselves with even a hint of murky qi.

But on closer thought, it seems only the Orthodox Sects are so averse to murky qi.

To my knowledge, although the cultivators of the Six Paths of the Demon Cult still base their cultivation on pure qi, they also refine murky qi into Demonic Qi, mainly storing it in Magic Artifacts and Flying Swords, to have unique methods of attack.

For example, befouling Divine Sense and tarnishing Magical Treasures are things that pure qi cannot achieve.

Now Ah Jing says, with a “Chaotic Demon Body” constitution, one can use murky qi as the foundation of cultivation, which could significantly expand one’s array of tricks.

Thinking of this made Qiu Changtian’s heart race, like a collector who had just seen an extremely rare artifact.

“It’s just that…” he hesitated, “although cultivation talents can be switched, the body is still the same.”

“If I accommodate too much Demonic Qi while in the Chaotic Demon Body state, could it affect my body when I switch back to other character settings?”

“Generally speaking, it definitely would,” Kunlun Mirror said earnestly. “Once you lose the Chaotic Demon Body, the murky qi in your body will slowly become inert, stubbornly remaining in the meridians and Qi Sea.”

“But don’t you have the ‘Five Elements Severing Demons Profound Spirit Scripture’?”

Qiu Changtian: ?

Right! The ‘Five Elements Severing Demons Profound Spirit Scripture’ can transform the pure qi and murky qi in the body into each other!

As long as I convert all the active Demonic Qi into Daoist Spiritual Energy while in the state of the Chaotic Demon Body, and then switch back to another character setting, wouldn’t that resolve the issue?