Cultivation: I Have a Golden Talisman-Chapter 55: Gap

Fang Cheng chatted with Wang Xingzhi for a bit, then went to the eighteenth Trial Stele to leave his mark before bidding farewell and departing.

Wang Xingzhi had chosen to challenge the other cultivators participating in the Outer Sect trial here for a single purpose.

To make a name for himself!

He wanted the Elders of the Wang Family to witness his potential firsthand, hoping to secure more cultivation resources in the future.

But this method had its pros and cons.

He had no intention of practicing the Yinluo Sect’s Cultivation Techniques, so he wasn’t particularly obsessed with joining.

Afterward, the Wang Family Elders would surely question him about his sudden surge in cultivation. Bound by his Heart Demon Oath, he wouldn’t be able to reveal what happened in the Dragon Elephant Wanderer’s Abandoned Mansion. He would have to fabricate some other story to explain the origin of his Cultivation Technique.

If the Wang Family Elders possessed some means of verifying the truth of his words, it would be difficult to bluff his way through...

If he told the truth, a Heart Demon would surely arise, filling his future cultivation path with thorns and cutting off his own progress.

It involved a game of wits against the Wang Family Elders, a delicate balance that was extremely difficult to maintain. One wrong move, and he would lose everything.

Since Wang Xingzhi had made his choice, Fang Cheng said no more.

「On the road.」

Fang Cheng opened Qian Shaoning’s storage pouch and found that it didn’t contain as many items as he had imagined.

It was said that Qian Shaoning had a fortuitous encounter in his youth, but no one knew what that encounter truly was.

Fang Cheng rummaged through Qian Shaoning’s storage pouch. Aside from the usual Spirit Stones, pills, miscellaneous items, and the Bronze Shell Leaf, he found only a single jade slip.

Moreover, this jade slip was quite new, clearly made recently.

The jade slip recorded a legacy called the *Thunder Jade Scripture*, a method for cultivating the Taiyuan Immortal Capital Thunder Talisman.

This technique was of a rather high grade, allowing one to cultivate all the way to the Life Soul Realm.

In the Life Talisman Realm, one had to forge twelve Taiyuan Immortal Capital Thunder Talismans, which would then be used to form an Immortal Capital Thunder God’s Life Soul!

The method for refining the Taiyi Thunder Pill was also included within.

’Qian Shaoning’s fortuitous encounter was probably this *Thunder Jade Scripture*, and perhaps some Spiritual Objects to aid in its cultivation...’

Fang Cheng guessed.

’It’s also possible he gave his real prize to that Mad Daoist of Fallen Thunder Island in exchange for his protection.’

The Mad Daoist had made a name for himself over a century ago. He was a renowned figure among the Loose Cultivators of the Abyssal Marsh and a rare expert at the Late-Life Talisman Realm.

Even the Elders of the four great families had to be polite to him, addressing him as "Daoist Brother."

That was why Qian Shaoning dared to oppose the Dong Family, and why he could kill a disciple from a great family on the Ye Family’s Cloud Viewing Platform and escape unscathed.

’The Mad Daoist wouldn’t come looking for trouble with me over a mere Sensing Cultivator, would he? I should ask Madam Ye about it later...’

Fang Cheng thought to himself, put away the jade slip, and headed straight for the final Trial Stele.

A few hours later, he arrived at the nineteenth Trial Stele. The Demon Beast here had already been slain by someone else, and the surroundings were silent.

With that, Fang Cheng had collected all nineteen marks on the Trial Talisman at his waist.

He gazed into the distance. Not far ahead, he could already see the towering and majestic Cloud Whale Mountain!

Fang Cheng took a deep breath and continued forward.

Before long, he was flying back over Cloud Whale Mountain. A stream of light shot out from the Bone Daoist Palace in the sky, wrapped around him, and pulled him inside.

Inside the majestic White Bone Palace, Elder Qingqiu sat cross-legged on the main seat. He was a gaunt man, with long eyebrows that hung to his cheeks and an air of immortal grace.

At his side stood two finely-featured Daoist Children, one holding a Jade Ruyi and the other a Magic Sword.

In the vast, empty hall, twenty jade mats were arranged.

When Fang Cheng entered, three people were already seated on the jade mats. One of them was, to his surprise, Feng Mo, whom he had seen not long ago.

Fang Cheng stepped into the hall, took a deep breath, and bowed to Elder Qingqiu on the main seat. "Disciple Fang Cheng pays his respects to the Elder," he said in a deep voice.

Elder Qingqiu nodded slightly, gesturing to the jade mats in the hall. "Sit," he said gently.

Fang Cheng sat down on the fourth jade mat and looked curiously at the other two people beside Feng Mo.

The pair, a man and a woman, were both dressed in ornate robes, clearly from prominent families.

The man appeared to be eighteen or nineteen years old with a Sixth-Layer Sensing Cultivation. Although his robes were magnificent, they were rather messy and disheveled, suggesting a casual demeanor.

The woman wore a palace-style dress with her hair in an elegant coiffure. She was beautiful and sat there with such dignified grace, perfectly still, that she resembled a Jade Beauty statue.

Feng Mo smiled and nodded at Fang Cheng. The young man gave Fang Cheng a lazy glance before looking away, an expression of utter boredom on his face.

As for the woman in the palace dress, she stared straight ahead, not even sparing Fang Cheng a glance.

’To have entered the Bone Daoist Palace before Feng Mo, they must be from one of the three great families: the Ye, Wang, or Dong...’

Fang Cheng collected his thoughts and sat calmly on the jade mat, waiting in silence.

Several hours passed before another person entered the Bone Daoist Palace.

From then on, people trickled in every few hours.

On the second day, Fang Cheng saw Chen Yu Yan.

Her pretty face was etched with exhaustion, and her aura was weak and unstable, as if she were seriously injured.

When she saw Fang Cheng sitting on the fourth jade mat, she was slightly surprised, and a peculiar look flashed in her beautiful eyes.

After they exchanged nods, Chen Yu Yan went to a jade mat, sat down, and began to cultivate and recover.

It wasn’t until the fourth day that all twenty jade mats in the hall were filled.

The last person was, surprisingly, the plump cultivator whom Fang Cheng had met once before.

Elder Qingqiu looked at the crowd in the hall and began to speak. "You are this generation’s Outer Disciples. My Yinluo Sect has a legacy of five thousand years and has always stood firm in the Yun Country. This is because we rely on Outer Disciples to constantly replenish our sect with new blood."

"I hope that you will all train diligently and enter the Inner Sect as soon as possible!"

"Now, as is tradition, I will tell you about the past patriarchs of the Yinluo Sect and the major events in our history..."

Elder Qingqiu began his slow narration.

The twenty people present didn’t dare to even breathe too loudly, listening with rapt attention.

Half an hour later, Elder Qingqiu finished recounting the sect’s history and had the two Daoist Children at his side distribute the items for Outer Disciples.

They were:

One Identity Token.

Three sets of the Sect’s Magical Robe.

Five jade slips.

Nine bottles of various Spirit Pills.

Of the five jade slips, one recorded the geography and distribution of powers in Yun Country and the surrounding regions.

The remaining four detailed common knowledge of the Cultivation Realm, covering Demon Beasts, Spirit Plants, mineral deposits, and Celestial and Earthly Spiritual Objects.

It was like a complete encyclopedia.

They could systematically broaden a cultivator’s horizons and knowledge.

This was the true foundation of a great sect!

Among all the items, the most important was the Identity Token.

After refining it, one could go to the Dragon Spine Archipelago, where the Yinluo Sect’s Outer Sect was located, to claim a Cave Mansion.

On a normal day, one could use this Token to visit the Outer Sect’s Scripture Pavilion to peruse various texts, or go to the Merit Pavilion to accept sect missions.

After completing missions, one could use merit points to exchange for cultivation resources such as pills, Magical Artifacts, Talismans, Arrays, and Spirit Stones.

Even some of the high-level Cultivation Techniques and Divine Techniques in the Scripture Pavilion required a certain amount of merit points to exchange for the opportunity to view them.

In short, only by obtaining this Identity Token could one truly leverage the resources of the great platform that was the Yinluo Sect to cultivate.

Only then would the path forward hold more possibilities!

For most Servant Disciples, this was a path to the heavens.

Unfortunately, among the twenty people in this batch, fewer than five came from the ranks of the Servant Disciples.

The great families had almost completely monopolized the upward path for ordinary cultivators.

The only openings were left for those with outstanding talent or who had experienced a fortuitous encounter.

Today, Fang Cheng had finally squeezed his way up through one of those openings.

...