Chapter 19: Cultivation Techniques
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Just like weapons, cultivation techniques were also classified by rank, based on their rarity and complexity.
The ranks of cultivation techniques were:
Mortal, Spirit, Earth, and Heaven.
Mortal rank techniques were the most common, easy to find and to learn, while higher ranked ones were rarer and much more expensive.
Heaven rank techniques, on the other hand, were in the hands of only a few individuals and powerful organizations.
It was said that there existed a level even higher than that, one only a few people knew about, and even fewer actually possessed.
The ranks of cultivation techniques were then divided into grades, which indicated their complexity and were also a sign of how far a person could go in their cultivation using them.
The cultivation technique Liang Yuexin was currently training in was the Blazing Phoenix Flame Art.
An Earth rank technique passed down in her family.
She knew there were 2 difficulty grades within this technique, and she had already mastered the first.
Unfortunately for her, to cultivate the second grade she needed to be at least at the 4th stage of Mortal cultivation , something that was proving difficult for her.
It was a cultivation technique mainly for fire element cultivators, but she had blended it with
another lightning element technique to avoid falling behind in training her other element.
Finding cultivation techniques for mixed elements wasn't impossible, but finding high level ones was.
So she could only make do with this.
This was also one of the reasons why she didn't believe Zhu Rong could possibly have a high level dual element cultivation technique.
Even getting his hands on a low level one was expensive, and judging by his financial situation, it was impossible for him to buy one, let alone even find it in the first place.
She quickly read what was written on the paper, and for a moment was left confused.
She flipped it over to see if anything was written on the back, but nothing, it was just one side.
It was known that even Mortal rank techniques were at least two pages long, let alone more advanced ones.
And yet, this looked like just a piece of a technique.
'Bastard, you're only giving me a piece? I knew you were lying to me, ' she thought irritably.
That said, she had to admit, even though it was only a piece of the technique, its complexity wasn't low at all.
'Could it be possible…?'
Curious, she followed the instructions and began cultivating.
She channeled the spiritual energy of her two elements and made it circulate according to the diagram written on the paper.
While she was starting to cultivate, Zhu Rong on the side pulled up a chair and calmly watched her.
The technique he had given her was a Heaven rank one,
The Infernal Thunder Heart Sutra,
a technique he had found in some ruins during one of his journeys in his past life.
After he'd reached the rank of Grandmaster Blacksmith, he would often travel in search of rarer and more unique materials for his work.
At the time, the technique was of no use to him since he could no longer cultivate, and his affinity with fire and lightning elements was never high in the first place.
So he sold it at an auction and made a fortune out of it.
Being a cultivator who'd reached the peak of the Mortal realm, his memory was exceptionally strong, so it wasn't hard for him to remember the technique even after just glancing at it.
His body might have regressed, but his mind hadn't.
All the knowledge and techniques he'd gathered in his past life were still stored in his mind.
Basically, he had a whole library of cultivation techniques in his head, collected over five long centuries of life, all waiting to be used again.
The technique was divided into three parts, and he had only given her one piece.
After all, he needed to keep some bargaining chips for later.
He knew it would take her some time to cultivate it, so he came prepared.
Time passed, and before long, half an hour had gone by.
Liang Yuexin hadn't moved an inch and was sitting there like a statue.
Without even realizing it, she had completely immersed herself in cultivation.
She had noticed earlier that the technique was a bit complex, but once she actually started cultivating it, she realized it was much more than that.
It took her a whole thirty minutes just to grasp a small part of it.
And finally, when she completely digested that little piece, she felt a surge of force erupt within her.
BOOM!
All of a sudden, a reddish violet aura burst out from her body, sending streams of Qi in every direction.
Zhu Rong, sitting a dozen meters away, watched everything with a calm look, as if he had been expecting this to happen.
"Looks like she finally did it."
The pressure Liang Yuexin was emitting was hard to endure, even though he had kept his distance,
he could still feel its weight.
Little by little, the pressure began to drop as the torrent of energy erupting from her body started to settle down.
She opened her violet eyes, which now seemed to have a faint glow in them, and slowly stood up, getting used to her new strength.
'I finally broke through,' she thought in disbelief as she examined her body.
To her surprise, her Qi flow was now stable, smoothly circulating throughout her body.
Even the energies of her two elements, which she had always struggled to keep balanced, now seemed to coexist in perfect harmony within her dantian.
Her expression didn't change as she turned her gaze toward the individual in the distance.
But her look was no longer the same as before.
It was complicated now.
She hadn't expected that the problem that had plagued her for so long would be solved thanks to him, the last person she ever thought she'd get anything from.
And to think, this was just a piece of the complete technique.
Yet even from this small fragment, she could already sense its depth.
'This… is definitely not a low-level technique.'
Just this little part he'd given her could easily rival her family's technique, and by a large margin too.
She was certain the full technique was at least Earth rank, if not higher.
Much stronger than her family's Earth-rank technique.
And that fact was even harder to accept, because she knew how powerful the Zhu family was, and she was absolutely certain they didn't have a technique like this.
And even if they did, there was no way they'd entrust it to Zhu Rong, whose status in his family wasn't all that high.
Which left the question…
How the hell had he gotten his hands on a technique like this?