Zhanxian

Yang Chen had finally decided to turn Mo Qian and her disciples into his puppets, which certainly was not something he could achieve overnight, so taking them with him was better.

This time, after warning Sun QingXue, Yang Chen had intended to return home. From the time Yang Chen had departed, fifteen whole years had already passed since he had last seen his home.

Yang Chen wanted to spend half a year at his home, so that he could get enough time to spend time with his family and also tighten their villa’s defenses.

After finding the right direction, Yang Chen steered his flying shuttle and started flying towards the direction of the villa where his mother and father were settled. Leading a life while concentrating on cultivating was not bad, but once he thought of going home, Yang Chen suddenly had grown a little impatient.

That villa had been arranged in a place where people usually didn’t come, so generally speaking, in case of a war, the chaos would not involve that region. In addition to purchasing a large quantity of servants, he had also left behind a sufficient number of talismans for their defense, so there should not be any great problems.

The whole journey could be said to have been as fast as lightning. After spending just a few days, Yang Chen had already reached to the mountain where his mother and father had been settled.

From a distance, Yang Chen had immediately discovered that there had not been much change in the illusion spell and the others which he had set up at that time. While flying on the entire journey, he had not discovered any problems. When he reached the mountain, Yang Chen stopped his flying shuttle and began to walk on the road just outside of the mountain.

The villa had a mountain on one side and a river on the other. In those days Yang Chen had recruited a group of servants which had people specialized in all respects and whose numbers counted in the hundreds. The entire villa was self sufficient in terms of fulfilling basic needs, without any need to rely on the outside too much. As for some necessary things, he had recruited people specialized in transportation and purchasing, so it was very safe.

Compared to the days when Yang Chen had left, the villa seemed even livelier, and many small courtyards had also sprung up. Fifteen years of time was already enough for one generation of people to grow up and settle down, which was the reason why so many houses had been built.

The life within the mountains was away from the chaos outside and was thus carefree and the people he had found at that time were also very honest. Even until now, everyone talked about Lord Yang and Madam Yang’s son with great respect. If it were not for Lord Yang they would have been drawn in by the flames of war a long time ago, then where could they have enjoyed such a carefree life like the last ten years?

In the eyes of the people in the villa, Yang Chen was just a stranger. Apart from some old servants recognizing him, none of the youngsters was familiar with Yang Chen and were thus on guard against him. But after Yang Chen proclaimed his identity, he immediately received a very enthusiastic welcome.

When Yang Chen’s mother and father heard that Yang Chen had returned, they were so excited that they were unable to stop themselves from coming out. Seeing that their son still had the appearance like when he left the house, these two people surrounded him and in their surprise questioned him while sizing him up. Only after talking for most of the day, did they remember to take him inside.

His father and mother were healthy, which made Yang Chen very happy. Not only that, in these fifteen years, his father and mother had once again given birth to two sons and one daughter, which indeed exceeded the necessary quota for fulfilling the mission of carrying on the Yang family line.

Because of his cultivation, Yang Chen had clearly stated that he would not produce any offspring for the time being. So with his two little brothers and one little sister, the Yang family could continue to remain in the following years. When Yang Chen returned, his little brothers and sister looked at him very strangely, but still they greeted their elder brother with excessive courtesy.

The villa had not only craftsmen, but also many scholars. All of the children in the villa had learnt to read and had been receiving education from the start. This had made Lord Yang extremely satisfied. Initially he was only a peasant, but now their family had developed greatly in the field of education. Towards the education of his sons and daughter, he spared no pains.

In the entire world there were no unfilial immortals, even if Yang Chen was a cultivator, he still didn’t forget this point. Unfortunately, his father and mother didn’t have any aptitude for cultivation and after Yang Chen’s inspection, he found that his younger brothers and sisters spirit root were also very ordinary, but this was also good: They would be able to enjoy their life, carefree, without any worries or illness. This kind of life was far better than that of a majority of cultivators and ordinary people.

Resting in his villa with his parents and other relatives, Yang Chen felt the familial warmth which he hadn’t felt for a long time. This feeling was very comfortable and his heart was completely calm. Even within his sect, he did not have this kind of pure happiness without any pressure.

In those days, when he had given his mother and father the body refining pill and had left, his cultivation was very shallow: only at the first qi layer. Those illusionary spells which he had deployed outside of the mountain were also quite limited and only had the purpose of defense in the most dire of times. But now Yang Chen was already at the Foundation stage, naturally he had to lay new formations.

Since he now had two younger brothers and one younger sister, Yang Chen decided to increase the extent of the villa. To leave sufficient space for their growth, he expanded the extent of the villa by ten folds.

On the surrounding mountain tops Yang Chen arranged even more large-scale illusion spells and within the main hall of the Yang family’s villa, he had arranged the new spirit gathering spell and a defensive spell formation.

The spirit gathering spell would assemble the spiritual influence of the surrounding hundred miles slowly at all times. As long as anyone lived inside of the villa, the spell would continuously improve their physique, keeping all illnesses away from them. As for the defensive spell, Yang Chen had given two tiles to his mother and father. As long as someone from the Yang family dripped their blood on them, they would immediately be recognized as the master and could control the spell formation.

Within the surrounding farmlands, Yang Chen had sprinkled enough soil from the medicine garden that this soil, which had been nourished by spirit power over all those years, had transformed these farmlands into the best agricultural lands of the mortal world.

He also revealed his flying ability to his parents and his siblings once, to convince them that he was not an ordinary mortal anymore and was already walking on the path to become an immortal, which became the source for extreme astonishment to his relatives.

Yang Chen left many such things for them, such as the elixir from refining thousand year ginsengs which could be used at a crucial moment to save someone’s life, or the body pills which were to be used for the improvement of the physique of later generations of the Yang family. At the same time, he also gave all of them five colours of spirit stones, which could be used to test whether the later generations had a cultivation spirit root or not. In case any of the later generations could cultivate, they should break a jade slip to notify Yang Chen and Yang Chen would personally come to take them to an immortal sect.

With these arrangements, the Yang family villa would certainly prosper more and more with the abundant harvest of all kind of crops, for at least the next hundred years.

After he finished making all such arrangements, Yang Chen began to integrate into this kind of calm livelihood of an ordinary person. On one side he was enjoying the family affection with which he did not come in contact often, while on the other side he was reading those twenty thousand jade slips he had gotten from the Clear Sky Sect.

Last time Yang Chen had only removed the hidden marks from them, but now he was reading all of them in detail. From the beginning, he had the absolutely clear goal of requesting these jade slips with miscellaneous information and the reason why he had spread a reputation of himself as a great bookworm at the Pure Yang Palace was also with the purpose that he could request other sects for such jade slips.

The previous generations had recorded many secrets and all of them were recorded within such books.

It was not that Yang Chen was not emphasizing on his cultivation, but cultivation was actually not just a simple matter of training and increasing spirit power. If it had been such a simple matter, then wouldn’t anyone who had spirit root simply skyrocket? In reality, those who were capable of becoming JieDan stage experts were like phoenix feathers and unicorn horns.

Everyone who had just advanced had to consolidate their current realms. This process of consolidation could last from three to five in the least, to eight to ten years at the most.

The more firmly the realm was consolidated, the easier the breakthroughs would be. As for those people who intend to break through a few layers in short time, the quicker their cultivation was, the more troublesome it would be in the future.

Yang Chen who had gone through rebirth was even more clear about this process. Other people who had built their foundation in only one type of spirit power did not have to be so cautious, but currently he had reached the Foundation stage in all ten types of the Five Phases of Yin and Yang, so he was extremely cautious and didn’t dare to advance prematurely.

While enjoying the peaceful life at his home and reading these books, Yang Chen simply indulged in pleasure and had given up his duties.

The reason why these were all miscellaneous books was because the things written in them were not very significant and had no relation to cultivation, but with regards to expanding one’s horizon, they were invaluable.

With one cup of tea with a hint of thousand year ginseng on the side on a table, Yang Chen was reading one of the jade slips with his spiritual awareness while lying on his couch with his eyes closed. Yang Chen clearly knew that even immortals could not have such a lifestyle frequently.

He was reading each one of them, one after another. If something was useful, Yang Chen immediately remembered it and noted it down. If it was not useful, Yang Chen still read it to pass the time and then forgot about it. After he had cultivated to the third layer of the three purities secrets, his memorizing ability had already reached an astonishing level.

Most of these jade slips were a waste because of Mo Qian’s interference. What Yang Chen wanted was some travel records and things like that to increase his knowledge, how could Mo Qian allow Yang Chen, the person who had uncovered her conspiracy, to have his wishes fulfilled? Even if he wanted to increase his knowledge, these were just not suitable.

The majority of such folk stories were just ridiculous fantasies of some people for the entertainment of others and didn’t have any connection with cultivation in any sense. Mo Qian never had any good intentions in her heart, but she had not expected that Yang Chen would look at these with keen interest.

In Yang Chen’s eyes, most of the things for cultivation, especially in the field of pill concocting, tool refining or spell formations, could mostly be described as products of creative imagination. One could only achieve something if one thought of it. If one didn’t even dare to think about it, then there wouldn’t be even a small desire for it.

These things were just what Yang Chen had wished for, so he was looking at every slip very carefully. Apart from this, there was still one more important reason, currently Yang Che was lacking Eighth Metal True Secrets among his Great Yin and Yang secrets, the information of which was reportedly written in the folklore of the Clear Sky Sect.

This was a memory from his previous life. Yang Chen did not specifically remember which folklore it was, but he definitely remembered that it was some disciple of the Clear Sky Sect with some free time, who had been reading the vernacular folk stories and had discovered this from therein.

These vernacular folk stories were similar to fiction. Most of them were about cultivators, some were about some qi layer cultivator whose cultivation had increased very quickly, some were about the experiences of experts who had gone to temper their disposition and cultivate their mental level. All of them had one common principle, which was that they were based on real events as much as possible, but never involved the real cultivation method of the cultivator or things like that.

But there was one exception and that was a folklore which the Clear Sky Sect had obtained from somewhere else. As it happened among the tales of fantasies, a small folklore containing an expert’s cultivation method was mixed in.

This portion containing the cultivation method was at the end, and the length of the folklore was long, containing at least several millions of character. Those ridiculous plots ahead of it made many cultivators discard it before reaching the end: those who were capable of persevering to the end were truly very few.

By some lucky coincidence a qi layer outer disciple who was hopeless about reaching the Foundation stage had discovered a mysterious cultivation method at the back of the folklore. After asking for guidance from his Merit Transferring Disciple, it caught the attention of an elder. Only then was it discovered that this was a copy of the Eighth Metal True Secrets.

From the beginning Yang Chen had inspected these slips to the greatest extent possible in anticipation of that day. Apart from indulging in the fantasies of people increasing their cultivation realm, he was looking for precisely that piece of folklore.

Twenty thousand jade slips, hundreds of millions of characters. Yang Chen did not even know if the one he had been looking for was in this collection or not, he also didn’t remember its name, thus he could read every single one of them.

Yang Chen knew that cultivation stressed on Karma, therefore it could not be forced, so he would have to work hard to find the one. Even after a few months had passed and he had read over ten thousand jade slips, he still couldn’t discover the one which he had been looking for.

Distant from worldly matters, the days of life were calm and free of worry. Yang Chen didn’t have any extravagant hope that he would be able to take the Eighth Metal True Secrets from the Clear Sky Sect at the first try. If bad came to worse, he could just go again and find an excuse to obtain some more books of the Clear Sky Sect. As long as the he could get a large number of books, he would surely be able to find it.

As for the case that it was first discovered by the people of the Clear Sky Sect, according to his memory, that was a matter which would only happen a hundred years in the future. These hundred years were sufficient for Yang Chen to obtain all of the books which were not related to cultivation from the Clear Sky Sect.

With this attitude, Yang Chen was calmly reading the books which he had, while recording all things which were useful or which he believed would come to use in future.

After he had gone through first eighteen thousand jade slips, he suddenly came across one which was very long and contained several millions of characters. He discovered this after he swept it once with his spiritual awareness. Immersing his mind, he had only read the beginning but he could not help shaking his head again and again. How could someone write such a ridiculous tale and then at that length?

Suddenly he remembered something which made him excited: weren’t the Eighth Metal True Secrets also inscribed in such a ridiculous and long tale? Thinking about this, Yang Chen accelerated the speed of reading and very quickly reached the last portion. Actually he had entirely skipped the plot of the tale and only looked at the portions which contained the cultivation method.

Trying to find the script overflowing with an ancient intention was very easy: within half a day, Yang Chen had found what he was looking for. After carefully comprehending it a few times, he finally confirmed that this was the Eighth Metal True Secrets which he had yearned for all the time.

‘To travel far and wide only to find something easily’, Yang Chen suddenly remembered this sentence. Feeling happy, he burst out in happy laughter, but then another thought flashed through his mind.

In books there are sumptuous houses and graceful ladies, in books there are a thousand bushels of millets, in books there are regiments of war chariots.1

1. Chinese Idiom, basically meaning that in books everything is possible.