Chapter 43: The签筒

“Return immediately.”

As these gray words appeared, the fire sticks lighting up the secret passage extinguished themselves without wind, and thick darkness re-covered the area. Even with Meng Qi’s current senses, he couldn’t hear any sound or see his own palms.

Light shone, revealing a white jade plaza resembling a fairyland to everyone’s view.

“The main mission is completed. Free treatment begins.”

The solemn and indifferent voice of the Sixfold Cycle Sovereign sounded, as streams of milky-white light wrapped Meng Qi and others separately.

Wounds twitched, and a cool sensation spread through the internal organs. Meng Qi’s accumulated injuries, gained repeatedly through trading injuries, healed visibly at a visible speed. The Iron Shirt skill, damaged by Tang Shun’s palm strike, also recovered rapidly, and his skin and muscles regained their thick and solid feeling.

As the healing light disappeared, Meng Qi moved his limbs slightly, feeling refreshed all over, with inexhaustible strength. He secretly sighed, “If not for the Sixfold Cycle Sovereign’s healing, my strategy of trading injuries would eventually accumulate into irreparable hidden injuries.”

During this period, Meng Qi had browsed the legends and stories about the Iron Shirt and other external martial arts skills in the lower two levels of the scripture pavilion. He discovered that most martial artists who practiced these skills died in pain during their old age, with only a few managing to break through to the Qi-opening stage.

The reason lay in the lack of profound cultivation techniques for recovery in external martial arts. During battles, practitioners would definitely choose to trade minor injuries for major ones. Although these minor injuries weren’t severe under the protection of skills like Iron Shirt and could heal quickly, they didn’t threaten life or reduce abilities. However, the human body is precious and sometimes particularly fragile. If one entered battle again before fully recovering, these minor injuries would accumulate, eventually leaving hidden injuries that, over time, became irreversible hidden dangers and aftereffects.

Therefore, Meng Qi was quite concerned about his current fighting style. Fortunately, the Sixfold Cycle Sovereign’s healing ability, even more terrifying than that of high-level experts, served as his backing.

Among the four, Meng Qi was the least injured. After stretching his arms and legs, he noticed that Jiang Zhiwei, Zhang Yuanshan, and others were still wrapped in milky-white light, so his thoughts drifted to the strange stone door at the end of the secret passage.

“‘Kindness and righteousness, do not enter this door’… It sounds like a place not meant for the good… The secret passage in the main world should lead to where demons and monsters are sealed. What about here? This world probably doesn’t have demons and monsters…”

Meng Qi knew that with his current strength, he absolutely shouldn’t attempt to push open that stone door, as even touching it with his right hand gave him a feeling of sinking into a hellish prison with no escape.

“Only after stepping into the Exteriors should I go behind the stone door to ‘take a look’…” After having this thought, Meng Qi opened the jade tablet before him and indeed found that if he paid a price of one hundred Virtuous Points and an item called the “Cycle Talisman,” he could choose to return to a previously experienced cycle world for a month. The more Virtuous Points he paid, the longer he could stay.

As for the “Cycle Talisman,” it wasn’t available on the exchange list and could only be obtained through cycle missions or directly rewarded when the mission evaluation reached “Excellent.”

“The mission evaluation: Zhang Yuanshan, Jiang Zhiwei, and Qi Zhengyan received ‘Medium,’ each rewarded with twenty Virtuous Points. Zhen Ding received ‘Good,’ rewarded with thirty Virtuous Points and also given the chance to draw a lottery. The lottery range includes all things below the Exteriors.”

At this time, Jiang Zhiwei and others had also completed their healing. The Sixfold Cycle Sovereign announced the mission evaluations.

Meng Qi raised his eyebrows. As expected, exploring secrets was one of the important criteria for mission evaluations.

“A lottery draw?” Hearing that Meng Qi could participate in this new activity, Jiang Zhiwei approached with great interest.

Meng Qi felt a bit excited and deliberately rubbed his hands: “All things below the Exteriors? That range is too broad. If I draw something like Arhat Fist or an ordinary iron sword, I’ll be disappointed.”

Seeing white smoke rising in front of Meng Qi and lifting a dusty lottery box, Jiang Zhiwei smiled lightly: “What’s there to fear? After all, it’s unexpected fortune.”

The inside of the lottery box was dark and deep, revealing nothing.

Zhang Yuanshan and Qi Zhengyan also approached, watching Meng Qi’s “lottery draw” with great interest. Especially Zhang Yuanshan, who encouragingly said with a smile: “Brother Zhen Ding, you’re a monk. Drawing lots is your specialty. You should be able to draw something good.”

Meng Qi’s face twitched slightly. You’re overestimating me. From childhood to adulthood, I’ve never won a prize, not even a consolation prize, except for a few five-yuan notes scratched from invoices.

He picked up the lottery box, shook it vigorously, and a screen of light covered the mouth of the box. Various phantom images of objects kept changing and flickering, but with Meng Qi’s current eyesight, it was hard to see clearly what they were.

After shaking for a while, Meng Qi noticed Jiang Zhiwei also shaking her head, indicating she couldn’t see clearly. So he gave the box a few hard shakes and placed it on the white smoke in front of him as if it were a solid.

The images turned and slowed down gradually. Meng Qi first saw a cold, shining long sword, and his heart immediately rejoiced. This might be a weapon of the superior class, but it eventually turned slowly away, revealing a dusty manual titled “Thirteen Deadly Sword Techniques.”

“This is a good thing!” Meng Qi was delighted, but the manual “Thirteen Deadly Sword Techniques” eventually disappeared at a snail’s pace into the mouth of the bottle, revealing three pale porcelain bottles.

“Ginseng Qi Nourishing Pills…” Qi Zhengyan recognized them immediately as the pills he had once exchanged.

Meng Qi exhaled, neither disappointed nor particularly happy. This result was quite ordinary. Although it couldn’t compare to the “Thirteen Deadly Sword Techniques” or a superior-class long sword, if not for the lottery draw, he would have chosen to exchange for these pills himself because this time, he didn’t want to rely on the Sixfold Cycle Sovereign to enhance his power again, since cultivating his dantian had already depended on it, leading to an unstable foundation. Doing it again might cause serious hidden dangers.

Therefore, before refining his dantian again, Meng Qi reluctantly chose to use pills to help him quickly reach the peak of Qi Accumulation.

The “Ginseng Qi Nourishing Pill” was one of the best pills for the Qi Accumulation stage. It could replace food and vegetables in generating true energy, with fewer innate impurities, making it very convenient for absorption and breathing, and capable of increasing internal energy at the fastest speed.

The lottery box vanished, the white mist disappeared, and three pale porcelain bottles were left in their place. Meng Qi bent down to pick them up, opened one of the bottles, and saw twelve lotus-like pills inside. A fragrant aroma filled his nose, making him feel refreshed and his body lighter.

“Truly excellent pills,” Meng Qi praised, sealed the bottle, and put it into his robe, deciding to take one pill every five days to reach the peak sooner.

Seeing this, Jiang Zhiwei smiled sweetly and said, “Little monk, you’ve saved thirty Virtuous Points. You’re getting richer and richer.”

She guessed that Meng Qi had originally planned to exchange for the “Ginseng Qi Nourishing Pills.”

“Of course. If you borrow Virtuous Points again, it won’t be nine for thirteen. Hmm, maybe ten for twelve,” Meng Qi joked.

He had earned fifty Virtuous Points from the first main mission, twenty from participating in the killing of the “Versatile Scholar,” fifty from participating in the killing of “Palm of Heaven and Earth,” one hundred from completing the second main mission, and thirty from the mission evaluation reward, totaling two hundred and fifty Virtuous Points.

Jiang Zhiwei chuckled, “I have more Virtuous Points than you. If anyone is going to borrow, it should be you borrowing from me.”

She had earned fifty Virtuous Points from the first main mission, thirty from participating in the killing of the “Versatile Scholar,” twenty from participating in the killing of “Palm of Heaven and Earth,” one hundred from participating in the killing of General Dorchad, one hundred from the second main mission reward, and twenty from the mission evaluation reward, totaling three hundred and twenty Virtuous Points.

Meng Qi thought to himself that the “True Intent Inheritance” was extremely valuable, although he couldn’t currently reproduce it to exchange with the Sixfold Cycle Sovereign.

He looked at Zhang Yuanshan and Qi Zhengyan and happily said, “Brother Zhang, Brother Qi, you probably have more Virtuous Points than me.”

After Qi Zhengyan’s injuries healed, his usual serious state returned, and he slightly nodded his head, “I earned two hundred and sixty Virtuous Points. With what I had left before, it totals two hundred and eighty.”

After exchanging for the “Mother-and-Child Soul-Separating Dart,” he had twenty Virtuous Points left. In this mission, he earned fifty from the first main mission, ten from participating in the killing of the “Versatile Scholar,” eighty from participating in the killing of “Palm of Heaven and Earth,” one hundred from the second main mission, and twenty from the mission evaluation reward.

“I’m probably the one with the most Virtuous Points, especially since twenty of Jiang’s are mine,” Zhang Yuanshan humorously said, “I currently have three hundred and ten Virtuous Points.”

He earned one hundred and fifty Virtuous Points from the main missions, fifty from killing “River-Controlling” Gu Haoran, fifty from participating in the killing of General Dorchad, twenty from participating in the killing of the “Versatile Scholar,” twenty from participating in the killing of “Palm of Heaven and Earth,” and twenty from the mission evaluation reward.

After everyone honestly shared their Virtuous Points, Zhang Yuanshan stopped smiling and spoke seriously, “We need to discuss what to exchange next. The next mission might not have a helper like Master Xinji, and it’s unlikely to have someone like Gu Xiaosang who entered mysteriously. So we should rely on ourselves as much as possible.”

“First, I need to repair the ‘White Rainbow Through the Sun Sword,’ or I won’t be able to explain,” Jiang Zhiwei said, stroking her beloved sword.

It had been cracked into many small fractures by General Dorchad’s palm strike.

Meng Qi and others nodded slightly, showing no intention of interfering with Jiang Zhiwei’s decision. Saying that everyone would discuss together was just a way to exchange opinions, not a binding decision. Moreover, Jiang Zhiwei was a natural sword hero, and a good treasure sword could make her even more powerful. Prioritizing the repair of the sword was completely reasonable.

“My sword was also rendered unusable by Tang Shun’s palm strike, but it’s just an ordinary hundred-refined steel sword. I’ll just replace it when I return to the mountain,” Zhang Yuanshan smiled at Jiang Zhiwei, “Junior Sister Jiang, besides that, what else are you interested in?”

Jiang Zhiwei’s beautiful face seemed to be veiled in brilliance: “Last time, I roughly browsed the sword techniques on the ‘Exchange List.’ Excluding those that would take a long time to afford, there’s a sword technique that’s quite interesting. Its first twenty-two sword moves are only at the Qi-opening level. The emotional sword technique section is worth only two hundred Virtuous Points, and the emotionless sword technique section is only six hundred.”

“But when it comes to Sword Move Twenty-three, it suddenly jumps to a level that’s quite good among the Exteriors-level sword techniques, requiring thousands of Virtuous Points to exchange. According to the Sixfold Cycle Sovereign’s description, I think my master would also praise this sword move endlessly. It’s hard to imagine that a sword technique’s moves would have such an essential leap.”

As she talked about the sword techniques, her entire being became breathtakingly beautiful.

“Miss Jiang, what sword technique is that?” Hearing about Sword Move Twenty-three, Meng Qi immediately thought of something and asked in shock and astonishment.

Seeing Meng Qi’s expression, Jiang Zhiwei understood that he had seen the introduction of this sword technique before. She gently nodded with a smile and said, “As you might have guessed, it’s the ‘Holy Spirit Sword Technique.'”