Chapter 36: Selection of Scriptures
The White Sheep Cave is not big, the highest terrain, under the white clouds as if an island like a small Taoist temple, but also less than a hundred feet in height.
Zhang Yi walked and stopped, counted some of the White Sheep Cave buildings, said some of the White Sheep Cave's door rules, around only spent less than half an incense burner of time, for the door is extremely important to the scripture scrolls cave, has appeared in front of Ding Ning.
The outside of the Scripture Scrolls Cave was a crude little stone hall carved into the mountain, and the only way in and out was a rope bridge that swayed a bit in the wind.
The wooden planks of the bridge were all a bit blackened, even giving the impression that it was not very solid.
The White Sheep Cave's master of the sword, Li Daoji, who was chilling in front of the mountain road, is now standing at the entrance of this rope bridge.
Zhang Yi cautiously stepped forward, saluted and asked a few questions in a soft voice.
Li Daoji nodded, and then his solemn, cold and majestic gaze fell on Ding Ning.
"Cultivation is about being out of the world, purity and few interferences, and the mind is spent on the realization of oneself and the elements of the heavens and earth, and only then will the cultivation progress quickly. That is why all cultivation sects are naturally isolated from the outside world. However, the practice of the same world, some people in the world of practice, more enlightenment, more encounters, the practice of progress rather faster, and then strong practitioners are also people, the same can not escape from the Yu Yu I guile, into the world and line, but not the goldfish raised in the pond, one day into the turbid river, not too accustomed to. The Cave Master said that you are a special case for special treatment, but in the final analysis, it still depends on your cultivation progress and whether you have such qualifications." He looked at Ding Ning and slowly said.
Ding Ning looked into his solemn, cold eyes and said, "What Senior Uncle means is that I can return to Wutong Fall, but I first need to prove that my cultivation progress is fast enough?"
Li Daoji frowned slightly, he didn't know just how much this wine store teenager had comprehended from what he had just said, but he still nodded, and said in a clear voice, "The canonical books in the Scripture Scrolls Cave are yours to pick and study on your own, and the cave master will also make further arrangements and adjustments depending on your performance over these days regarding your cultivation starting and living quarters, and your cultivation in the future."
Listening to these words from Li Daoji, Ding Ning did not have any particular reaction, however, Zhang Yi on the side in front of him and several disciples such as Nangong Cai Beans behind him were once again filled with shock and disbelief in their hearts.
Although practitioners practiced the means of using true essence to invoke the natural enemy's energy, in the cultivation of true essence, the reasoning is also the same, but because each practitioner's physique is different, the body's five qi is different, so countless generations of practitioners have left behind a variety of cultivation of true essence of the actual practice of true essence has a great deal of difference, condensed true essence, will also carry some different characteristics.
More extreme examples, such as the Great Yan Dynasty's True Fire Palace, true disciples are only qualified to practice the real skill of spirits and fire, the real yuan to mobilize the heaven and earth yuan qi, can only be transformed into a horrifying real fire, and the Great Qin Dynasty's only female head of the Department of the Night Zeleng, she practiced the Tianyi Sword Pavilion's Divine Skill of the Water, which is characterized by a variety of water currents.
The combination of different techniques and sword skills as well as other means of invoking heaven and earth yuan qi against the enemy also had different power and effects.
Generally speaking, after a disciple had been initiated, the Master Sect would teach him according to his aptitude and provide him with some advice on the potential characteristics of the disciple, helping him to pick the right technique and sword skill to cultivate.
This selection of cultivation techniques was the first step in the dark night of crossing the river by touching the stone, determining the cultivator's entire life.
Now, however, the White Sheep Cave had actually gone so far as to make a special exception to the extent of not making any suggestions, directly allowing Ding Ning to pick freely.
Until Li Daoji once again left in a flutter, his figure disappearing from the sight of the crowd, Zhang Yi was still somewhat in disbelief that this was true.
However, he naturally wouldn't go against the decision of the cave master, who he usually respected to the extreme, so after crossing the rope bridge and leading Ding Ning and Nangong Cai Beans and the others into the stone hall outside of the Jing Shi Cave, he still couldn't help but bitterly admonish Ding Ning, ''Senior brother, there are a lot of True Elemental Determination Laws in the Jing Shi Cave, and many of them are very powerful and each one of them has its own special characteristics, but it's important to look at whether there are any drawbacks to them, and whether they're suitable for yourself, so you must carefully deliberate."
......
The stone door of the Warp Scroll Cave slowly opened, revealing a stone staircase that slowly went upwards.
"When you performed the Yearly Rotating Stone Disc test at the beginning, you took the wrong one out of the five stone beads, was it on purpose?"
On the way from entering the mountain gate to entering the Scripture Scroll Cave, Nangong Cai Beans had been deliberately keeping a distance from Ding Ning, and at this moment, as he and Ding Ning began to enter the cave, Nangong Cai Beans finally couldn't hold back, walking two steps tighter to the side of Ding Ning, and asking earnestly.
Ding Ning did not expect her to still be thinking about this, turning his head to see her curious and serious eyes, he could not help but smile slightly.
"You did it on purpose, just so that everyone would have a comparison at once, and be able to differentiate at once, right?" His smile made Nangong Cai Beans see something, and her heart couldn't help but tremble.
"To be able to take out four very quickly, of course I'll be able to get all five correct." Ding Ning glanced at her and said softly, "I just don't want to spend too much time."
"From the very beginning you knew that you could definitely pass an introductory test like that." Upon hearing his words, Nangong Cai Beans' brows were instead deeply furrowed as she looked at Ding Ning skeptically, "This matter is too strange, because even if you knew that it was you a genius, but it's reasonably impossible for you to have that kind of absolute confidence, and the next thing is that the Master of the White Sheep Cave even gave you such a special exception, and also letting you enter this Scripture and History Cave to pick out the cultivation trophies didn't give you any Suggestion... To be able to pass the test of the Yearly Water Disk and the Jade Soldier Terracotta with that kind of speed, unless one has already practiced with the Yearly Water Disk and the Jade Soldier Terracotta countless times before, you... you couldn't possibly be the illegitimate son of the Lord of the White Sheep Cave, could you?"
Ding Ning had been listening with interest, but when he heard this last inference of hers, he nearly fell on his heels onto the stone steps.
"Eldest Miss Nangong, your associations are too rich."
He looked at Nangong Cai Beans whose eyes were full of skeptical flames of light and said hopelessly, "Someone like you who possesses such rich associative abilities should go to the Supervisory Heavenly Division to investigate cases in the future."
"Could it be that you really just rely on absolute talent?" Nangong Cai Beans' eyes still had a look of disbelief in them as she continued while thinking, "But since you can be sure that you have such talent, why don't you just participate in the Spring Examination of every sect? Everyone in Changling should know very well that, aside from sects like the Minshan Sword Sect and the Spirit Void Sword Sect, the vast majority of the rest of the sects' entry exams do not have any prerequisite restrictions, and anyone of the right age can take part in them;moreover, with the way you have behaved today, if there is no element of cheating, it is entirely possible for you to enter a better sect."
Ding Ning's heart sank slightly.
This was indeed a break that could potentially cause suspicion, and there were bound to be people in the future who would have such doubts as well, so he had to give a sensible and reasonable explanation.
He furrowed his brows slightly as he thought for a moment and said, "Cultivation... it's not something that everyone can think about, I didn't realize that I had the potential to be able to become a cultivator in the beginning until Fang Xiu Mou came to see me, until I met Wang Taixu."
"Fang Xiumiao? Fang Xiu Mou of the Marquis Fang?" Nangong Cai Beans was taken aback.
Fang Qilin, one of the thirteen marquis of Great Qin, was already old and senile, however, over the years, the Fang Marquis Mansion did not show any signs of decline, instead, it had a kind of momentum that vaguely exceeded the rest of the marquis mansions, because Fang Qilin had two enviable sons.
One of his sons, Fang Rates, is already the same as Nangong Cai Beans' father, is the God's mighty general who guards the outer feudal city, while the other son, Fang Xiumiao, is a famous sword obsessed, for everything other than cultivation, there is no hobby.
Although the outside world does not know what realm Fang Xiumo's true cultivation has reached, however, at least ten years ago, many of Changling's true dignitaries were certain that Fang Xiumo was the fastest cultivation breakthrough in Changling amongst all the people of about the same age.
According to the speed of his cultivation, even the two phases and Emperor Yuanwu had concluded that he was the most promising cultivator amongst the young cultivators of Changling who could break through to the upper level of the seventh realm in the future.
Above the Seventh Realm was the Eighth Realm, a realm that very few cultivators throughout history had been able to reach.
A figure that could receive such an evaluation from the two ministers and the saint was naturally a myth to look up to for Nangong Caixiang.
"And who is Wang Taixu?"
Nangong Cai Beans breathed deeply, trying her best to calm herself down as she looked at Ding Ning and then asked.
"The owner of the two-story building, the owner of a jianghu marketplace gang."
Ding Ning looked at Nangong Caiyang and calmly whispered, "Fang XiuMiao came to see me, and I learned that I had good cultivation potential, but the Fang HouFu still gave up on me, because my body also had very troublesome problems... Later, when I met Wang Taixu, who was in the midst of a fight with another jianghu gang, and who wanted to gamble on it. That's why I decided to use his arrangement to enter the White Sheep Cave to cultivate."
"A gamble?" Nangong Cai Beans asked with difficulty in understanding, "What's the very troublesome problem with your body?"
Ding Ning looked at her, ""A prematurely declining body with too much of the five qi, if there are no special encounters, it is possible to die even faster after beginning cultivation."
Ding Ning's words were very calm, yet in Nangong Caiyang's ears, they were tantamount to shocking thunder.
Her breathing paused somewhat, "Die faster... how fast?"
Ding Ning said, "It may be possible to live until thirty or so."
Nangong Caiyang's footsteps all paused.
Her face went pale as she could hardly imagine that a sunrise-like teenager like Ding Ning could possibly have only a dozen years of life left, and that he was still able to talk about this matter so calmly.
"So I'm not the illegitimate son of the White Sheep Cave Lord, and it's possible that he's making such an exception for me because he thinks that no matter what I cultivate, it might not be of much use in the end." Ding Ning, however, looked at her with a slight smile and said, "Another possibility is that he wants to see my judgment, after all, cultivation still relies on oneself, and he's seeing if with my intuition he can pick out a technique that is more suitable for my own self so that I can live for a few more years."
Looking at his smile, Nangong Cai Beans couldn't even speak for a long time, she inexplicably thought of a saying, some people cultivate just for more glory, while some people cultivate because cultivation is their life.
Ding Ning continued to move forward, the stone steps that slanted upwards had reached their end, and a cave that seemed to always be bathed in soft celestial light appeared in front of him.
This was a cave with many ventilation holes at the top.
In those ventilation holes, there should be many refractive crystals arranged, and the soft beams of light spilled over all corners of the cave, but isolated the wind and rain, making everything in this cave seem to be in a state of absolute time stasis.
The bookshelves on the four walls of the cave were filled with all sorts of tomes.
On the side of the bookshelf directly in front of him, there was also a narrow staircase leading upwards, which should lead to the inner cave.
Ding Ning formally stepped into the Scripture and History Cave, and he started from the left-hand side and began to carefully look at the tomes on each of the bookshelves.
Nangong Caixiang fixed his concentration and followed.
As a disciple of the Green Vine Sword Academy who was fortunate enough to be able to enter another sect's Scripture Collection, it was only natural that she would seize every minute of time to read as much as she could, to see if she could discover something that would be of great help to her own cultivation, yet at the moment, most of the thoughts that were in her mind were all gathered around Ding Ning's body.
She was eager to be the first to know just what kind of gong method Ding Ning would ultimately choose.
