Asking About Longevity

Chapter 18 Choice

　　“Forget it, let’s do the things at hand first…”

Mo Hua thought in his heart, and then he honestly looked through the middle and low-grade exercises.

"Small Five Elements Technique": a middle-lower grade technique, suitable for cultivating the spiritual roots of the Five Elements system. It can cultivate spiritual power for seventy weeks. To complete the Qi refining period, at least one thousand spiritual stones must be refined. It requires heavenly materials and earthly treasures: 100 years old. Soil etc.

"Rejuvenation Technique": a middle-to-lower grade skill, suitable for cultivating wood spiritual roots. It can cultivate seventy-five weeks of spiritual power. To complete the Qi refining period, at least 1,100 spiritual stones must be refined, and it requires heavenly materials and earthly treasures: Evergreen trees or evergreen leaves that are more than ten years old.

"Hundred Flames Technique": a middle-lower grade skill, suitable for the cultivation of fire spiritual roots. It can cultivate spiritual power for sixty weeks. To complete the Qi refining period, at least 900 spiritual stones need to be refined. It requires heavenly materials and earthly treasures: molten fire stone. wait.

 …

The middle-grade and lower-grade techniques require quite a lot of spiritual stones for cultivation, but they are much better than the high-grade techniques.

However, there are gains and losses. The middle and lower-grade exercises consume less spiritual stones and the spiritual power they cultivate is also less.

With the spiritual roots of the middle and lower grades of ink painting, and the cultivation techniques of the lower grades of the middle grade, at the same level, the spiritual power is only slightly more than half of that of the monks with the upper and lower spiritual roots.

This is only the upper-level and lower-level exercises. The spiritual power cultivated by the upper-level, middle-level and upper-level exercises must be stronger. The further you go in your cultivation, the greater the disparity in spiritual power caused by differences in spiritual roots.

Moreover, spiritual roots are predetermined innately and cannot be changed.

"Sure enough, some people are favored by God when they are born..."

Mo Hua shook his head, but since his spiritual roots couldn't be changed, there was no point in thinking about it.

Mo Hua turned to the last page of the "List of Exercises" and saw a line of small words below, and was completely stunned.

 “What is the inheritance fee for martial arts?”

 Mo Hua saw the following annotation:

The exercises in Tongxian Sect were painstakingly collected, researched and carefully improved by the heads and elders of the past dynasties. They are the hard work of the predecessors of the past generations.

 Disciples in the sect need to pay a certain amount of spiritual stones before they can obtain the qualification for inheritance.

 The specific inheritance costs are also marked below.

The inheritance fee for high-grade and low-grade exercises is 1,100 spirit stones. Since high-grade spiritual roots are rare, it only costs 998 spirit stones after discount.

 The inheritance fee for middle-level skills is slightly lower, and for lower-level middle-level skills it is even lower, but it still costs two hundred spirit stones.

Mo Hua was dumbfounded.

 Why is there still inheritance fee?

 He has never heard of it before.

 Why does the sect charge arbitrarily? This is too dark!

Mo Hua, who only had eight spirit stones in his body, sighed feebly.

This monastic world is too real and realistic...

"You choose the exercises and pay the inheritance fee, and the sect will teach you the exercises. The exercises are very important. It is best to go back and discuss with your parents and elders before making a decision. Don't be too ambitious or too far-sighted. Being shallow means missing out on the future of monasticism."

Yan Jiaoxi left after saying this. Judging from his expression, he didn't seem to be happy to do such a thing.

After Yan Jiaoxi left, the disciples started chatting among themselves in groups of three or three, some with excited faces, others with sad faces, and the room suddenly became noisy:

“What is the inheritance fee? I have never heard of it before…”

"Who knows, if the sect accepts it, can we still refuse to give it..."

"The inheritance fee for "The Xuanhuang Jue of Heaven and Earth" alone costs more than a thousand spiritual stones, tsk tsk..."

"If you really learn it, you will probably sell yourself to the sect."

 “Thank you, my spiritual roots are not worthy yet.”

“Both my parents have middle-grade spiritual roots. Why do I only have low-grade spiritual roots? There are no optional techniques at all…”

“Go and read “The Evolution of Monks’ Spiritual Roots” and you will know why your parents with medium-grade spiritual roots gave birth to you with low-grade spiritual roots…”

“By the way, can we really have high-grade spiritual roots here?”

"Yes, I have a distant cousin who has a high-grade spiritual root, but his father is a gambler, his mother is lazy, and the family is very poor, so he only chose a low-to-medium-grade technique, which was a waste of a good spiritual root. It's too awful…"

“Then even if I have high-grade spiritual roots, I still can’t practice it.”

 “You can get married...”

 “I don’t!”

 …

The disciples were talking a lot, and Mo Hua also held his little chin in thought.

 This sect inheritance fee exceeded his expectations.

There are actually some exercises that Mo Hua can choose from in the "Catalogue of Exercises", but his parents have just gathered together his cultivation, and they cannot produce so many spiritual stones in a short period of time. Even if you borrow money from here and there to get it together, it will still be a heavy burden on the family. "In this case, I have no choice but to choose the technique for now. I'll just make do with the "Tu Na Gong" for the time being. When I accumulate enough spirit stones by drawing formations, I can then choose one of the techniques to practice. Anyway, I just entered. At the third level of Qi refining, there is still some time left before we can break through to the fourth level of Qi refining."

 Mo Hua threw the "List of Exercises" into his storage bag. He had no plans to take it back to his parents in the short term. The top priority was to draw formations and earn spiritual stones.

 The following days of Mo Hua were the same as before. He continued to practice every day, attended classes, and drew formations after class.

The life of the sect is quite comfortable even though it is monotonous.

Tongling Peak has beautiful scenery, with green trees and light clouds, birds often flying around, and the fragrance of flowers lingering.

Outer disciples often play in the mountains after class. The female disciples are pretty and enjoy the flowers together.

Male disciples chased the spiritual beasts all over the mountain. There were male nuns who had just begun to love each other and whispered among the flowers in the mountain stream. There were also jealous disciples fighting.

But these have nothing to do with Mo Hua. Mo Hua spends all his time on formations. Apart from eating and attending classes, he spends all his time studying formations. Even when he goes to bed at night, he practices drawing formations on stone tablets.

Among the familiar sect members, Dahu is at the fifth level of Qi refining, Shuanghu and Xiaohu are already at the fourth level, and they are all practicing at Tongxuan Peak. Although the two peaks are not far apart, they know that Mo Hua studies the formation with all his heart and is usually fine. They won't bother Mo Hua.

Mo Hua has a cute and smart face, looks harmless to humans and animals, treats people kindly, and is quite popular in Tongling Peak. No one would want to bully him.

Moreover, his ink painting formation results are very good, and he is highly valued by Yan Jiaoxi. If someone wants to bully him, once Yan Jiaoxi finds out, the consequences will be serious. Yan Jiaoxi hates his disciples causing trouble among themselves and not concentrating on cultivation. Once his disciples find out, the punishment will be extremely severe.

What's more, Dahu and the other three have always taken care of Mo Hua. They are tall and follow the path of physical cultivation. They plan to enter Dahei Mountain and become monster hunters in the future.

 On weekdays, whenever I have nothing to do, I will find a way to find someone to discuss and fight with. Whenever something happens to Mo Hua, he would already roll up his sleeves and run over from Tongxuan Peak.

Mo Hua cultivated without any distractions. The only time he interacted with other disciples was with An Xiaopang.

Mo Hua returned the ten spiritual stones he borrowed from An Xiaopang years ago.

When Mo Hua gave him the spirit stone, An Xiaopang was stunned. He had obviously forgotten it and it took him a long time to remember it.

 The An family is a big family in Tongxian City. He really doesn't care much about these ten spirit stones. Of course, it may just be because he has a bad memory.

An Xiaopang frowned and recalled for a long time, and then his expression became a little complicated and he said: "You are the first person who has borrowed the spirit stone and wanted to return it to me when you have grown up."

Mo Hua sighed in his heart, this must be the silly son of the landlord's family.

 Some of the spiritual stones he lent may have been forgotten by him, and some may have been deliberately not returned by others. He did not lack spiritual stones, so he got used to them over time.

 “You are so stupid...and kind, be careful of being deceived by others.”

 Mo Hua was halfway through saying the word "silly", then he changed the word temporarily and patted An Xiaopang on the shoulder and said politely.

 An Xiaopang’s expression became more complicated, even a little touched:

“Brother Mo, others say I’m stupid, but only you know that I’m kind-hearted. Of all the disciples I’ve met, you are the smartest. No wonder you can draw formations so well!”

 At the moment of ink painting, I don’t know what to say.

More than a month has passed, and the sect has a two-day holiday.

Mo Hua left the sect and went to Youyuanzhai on North Street. He handed the painted fire array to Manager Wang and asked:

“Is there any formation that is more difficult than the Open Fire Formation and can be exchanged for more spiritual stones?”

Manager Wang glanced at Mo Hua and asked, "Did your brother ask you to ask?"

 “Yes!” Mo Hua nodded.

"Yes, there is," Manager Wang lowered his head and rummaged through the desk, then pulled out a formation diagram. There were several unfamiliar formations on the formation diagram.

“Earth-solidifying formation can solidify earth and stone. It is generally used by monks to build houses and caves and to strengthen doors and windows. Earth-solidifying formation is more difficult than open fire formation. The reward for each soil-solidifying formation is two spiritual stones.”

 The two spirit stones...are twice as many as the open fire array.

 “Can I see the formation diagram first?”

Steward Wang rolled his eyes at Mo Hua, "What's the point of looking at it? Your brother has to look at it."

However, even though he said so, he still gave the diagrams to Mo Hua. These basic formation diagrams themselves are not too scarce, so there is no harm in showing them to others.

Mo Hua looked through the illustrations and found that indeed there were many formations that he had never seen before and had never been taught by the sect.

“I don’t know how long it will take to learn this formation...”

 The inheritance fee for the sect's skills is too expensive, and it takes a long time to save up spiritual stones by relying on the open fire array.

 Mo Hua wanted to draw a new formation, but he was a little hesitant. If he didn't draw it well, he might lose spirit stones. If he couldn't learn it and didn't finish it within the time limit, the formation pavilion would deduct all the deposit.

“Forget it, I can’t bear to let the child catch the wolf!”

Mo Hua made up his mind, even if he didn't learn it within the time limit, all twenty spirit stones would be deducted, and he would just go back and draw the open fire formation to earn back.

To become a formation master, the formations you will have to draw in the future may be much more difficult than this. You will never be able to draw an open fire formation for the rest of your life.

 (End of this chapter)