Chapter 271 – The World Map, the Far Western Ice Folk, and Gains Before Retreat - Part 2

A few days later.

Li Yuan’s special standing—his close ties to the high ranking members of the Holy Tree Temple, as well as his years of service—unlocked new privileges for him. He was granted access to the temple’s information repository.

Though not the most closely guarded secrets, these archives were still restricted to a select few. Even Yan Mu, an inner disciple, couldn’t simply walk in, nor could an imperial consort like Cui Huayin. But Li Yuan had permission to enter this lofty structure woven of living vines.

Suspended in midair, these vine-braided pavilions seemed straight out of a fairy tale—with gnarled roots thicker than an elephant’s leg coiling around the base; half-hanging aerial roots draping from above; and a tangle of vine-shrouded rooms suspended a hundred meters high, all framed by the sky itself.

There were no stairs. Anyone qualified to reach the upper floors would have no trouble simply leaping or flying up. Li Yuan floated into one of the wooden lofts.

This was the other reason he had stayed at the Holy Tree Temple.

In this world, what was most important? That was

information

.

Back in Gemhill County, Li Yuan struggled to learn anything substantial about how this world truly worked. Information was always scattered, guarded by thresholds he couldn’t cross. But now, he finally had a chance.

Although he could move to Cloudpeak Province, he wanted to learn as much as possible before venturing off to that remote region.

As for Yan Yu’s merging with the ghost domain there, the initial worry weighing on his mind had eased. They shared a special link through his

system

—the fixed stat points she granted him continued daily. As long as that link wasn’t broken, it meant she was safe.

“What would you like to look at, Master Li?” The voice was elderly but kind.

Turning, Li Yuan saw a white-haired old man standing at the entrance to the vine-woven hall. He radiated neither menacing power nor hidden might, and the numbers hovering beside him—45~300 (815~845)”—confirmed it. He was simply the keeper of these archives, nothing more.

“Old Mu, I’d like to look into some information about forging weapons.” Li Yuan already knew the archive’s keeper belonged to the Mu Clan. Having failed to break through to the fifth rank, and with his lifespan nearly at its limit, he visibly showed signs of declining vitality.

He had apparently been a formidable sixth rank martial artist in his prime, but now, his base state was barely on par with ninth rank. If he overexerted himself, he might peak at seventh rank in combat power. Truly, he was a man on the brink of death.

Li Yuan addressed him respectfully and then offered up a plausible official reason for his visit.

“Forging weapons, eh?” Old Mu thought for a moment before replying, “On the third floor of the Vine Pavilion, you’ll find what you’re looking for. Though I suspect it may not be more than you already know.”

Li Yuan smiled politely. “You flatter me. I’ve still got a long way to go, really. I just got lucky enough to learn a skill or two. But these skills of mine are barely good enough to scrape by. In truth, I’m just a plain old blacksmith.”

He forced a wry smile. Thanks to his cautious nature, Li Yuan’s success rate at crafting spirit artifacts was remarkably high, but nothing he produced ever surpassed mid quality. It was nowhere close to the prowess of Master Gong or Zhu Ban, who both rarely worked at all. And when they did, they rarely smithed seventh rank weapons, worried it would dull their masterful touch.

Li Yuan, meanwhile, had smithed an untold number of seventh rank weapons—mostly to amass personal funds. Those funds were quietly funneled to Cloudpeak Province, becoming the financial bedrock for a growing power base there. Yet every gain has its cost.

All that money, and the goodwill from forging so many weapons, had granted him an easy time within the Holy Tree Temple. People rarely spoke ill of him, and he moved freely among the temple’s hierarchy. But that same reputation prevented him from taking on more ambitious, higher-level projects. Perhaps aware of this limitation, the Holy Tree Temple had asked him to stop forging for a while and

let his hands rest

.

Old Mu laughed. “If you’re just a plain old blacksmith, then I’m just a plain old gatekeeper.”

The two men exchanged a glance and burst out laughing. Watching this interaction, one could practically see Old Mu’s opinion of Li Yuan rising by the second. Leading him onward, the old man showed him where to look.

Li Yuan climbed the stairs and spent the first few days reviewing volumes on smithing. Only then did he move on to what he truly wanted to see—

First was the nature of power in this world, so he could advance his own cultivation technique.

Second was an overview of the entire realm, its various nations and their power structures.

Third was a map of the Great Zhou, detailing the local powers in each region.

Fourth was major events throughout the land, records that could guide him to safety and success.

Once Li Yuan had grown familiar with the archive, he started flipping through other volumes in a seemingly aimless manner—picking up each tome, reading it for nearly the same length of time, as though he were merely whiling away the hours.

In the midst of this, he came across a book titled

Reflections From Sunny Mountain

. His gaze sharpened.

It was written like a diary—

cultivation insights

by an unknown master—yet simply being housed here hinted at its extraordinary value. Li Yuan browsed the entries on sixth rank cultivation.

”Power is like a weapon. However mighty it may be, without someone to wield it, it’s worthless. For us, shadow blood is that power, and we are the wielders. But once shadow blood dissolves into sand, once life transforms...can I truly remain my ordinary self?”

“When I enter a certain mental state, the sluggish blood sand finds its own direction and begins circulating on its own. In that split second, I feel an immense surge of strength. Yet the moment I step out of that state, the shadow blood goes back to its sluggish form...”

“I realized this special mindset only needs to be

felt

; it doesn’t have to match my personality. As long as I recall that fleeting image when I channel my power, I can trigger the effect.”

“As my strength and foundation grew closer to perfection, I increasingly sensed a gap in my own

mental state

. Only after seeing my junior brother and sister, who trained in different disciplines, did I finally have a breakthrough. We were under the same master yet practiced very different techniques.”

“Eventually, Master came clean with us. What truly drives our strength is that instant we enter the mental state. That’s the

seed of intent

. Through visualization, we obtain the seed of intent. The ancestral seal is nothing more than the perfect symbolic expression of that seed. But ours were all incomplete.”

“I, my junior brother, and my junior sister all reached our respective pinnacles. We began dueling, fighting with abandon. In that mortal struggle, we came to know each other deeply, and we could even imitate each other to a degree.”

“The moment I defeated them, I felt something within me finally becoming whole. My heart grew calm, and a truer version of myself began to form deep inside my chest. It was in that moment that I stepped into the fifth rank.”

“Afterward, I grew worried for my junior brother and sister. Master insisted they’d merely been injured and that a few months’ rest would see them recovered. But is that the entire story? I can’t help but wonder.”

“From my observations, my junior brother recovered in half a year. His spirit and resolve returned, and he once again seemed ready to attempt a breakthrough to the fifth rank.

My junior sister, on the other hand, lost much of her strength and sank into a deep malaise. It took a full year for her to recover.

Intrigued by these injuries, I thought studying them might help me better understand my own power. So I began my research...”

Li Yuan found uncanny parallels to the

seeds

he himself had personally planted. He flipped to the next page, only to find it torn out. Clearly, the missing text concerned the author’s research on those very injuries.

Why was it torn out?

Li Yuan pondered this. Aside from the temple master, a few elders, and certain direct disciples, only a handful of core disciples with long tenures were allowed to view these archives. Typically, those core disciples had reached the cusp of a breakthrough to the fifth rank themselves.

Yet it appeared the Holy Tree Temple did not want its disciples learning the intricacies of these injuries—only that once healed, they could recover; and that, for details, one would have to consult higher authorities.

It felt less like a conspiracy and more like a deliberate information bottleneck. After all, if there truly was some sinister scheme afoot, how could the Holy Tree Temple have grown so large and powerful in the first place?

Li Yuan thought back to the clues he had gathered—

One was Jing Shuixiang, whose original identity seemed to be Xiang Wang. A sixth rank core disciple named Xiang Hailou, who’d been training for over 20 years, claimed his sole aim was to defeat her.

The second was anyone who failed to break through to fifth rank took time to heal, with injuries varying in severity. These injuries affected both power and the psyche.

Though just one page of text was missing, Li Yuan deduced that in severe cases, one’s mind could be pushed to the brink of collapse, potentially causing mental disorders.

He couldn’t help linking this to Jiang Shuixiang. Her extreme submissiveness might be part of a specialized

shock therapy

to treat her condition—and, in the process, she ended up marrying him.

After a brief pause, Li Yuan arrived at a plausible conclusion.

Still, that’s quite the intense treatment. No clue whether she chose me or her clan picked me. Oh well, in any case, I’m hardly complaining.

He mused on how the world wasn’t perpetually riddled with some deep, dark conspiracy; nor was it the case that everyone was always out to get him.

Then another thought struck him.

These notes were undoubtedly penned from the perspective of an inheritor, rather than a creator of a technique. Even more puzzling was the fact that reaching sixth rank normally required both a seed of intent and an ancestral seal. Yet Li Yuan possessed neither. And what about those who cultivated his technique? What would happen if one of them reached the sixth rank?

He flipped a few more pages. The latter half of

Reflections From Sunny Mountain

recorded insights into reaching the fifth rank. Li Yuan memorized them, content to revisit the details when he was closer to that stage himself.