Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Marrow-Cleansing Scripture Lv3, Golden Crow World-Illuminating Scripture! My Father Won MVP!

【And so, after spending several carefree days at Intoxicating Fragrance House, you returned to Guardian King's Manor and began your cultivation of the 3rd tier of the Marrow-Cleansing Scripture.】

【The 3rd tier was called Meridians Clear As A Dragon. It could sweep away the impurities within your meridians—a critical step on your path to martial arts.】

【This tier required you to use the Meridian Circulation Art recorded within the Marrow-Cleansing Scripture, guiding your blood energy to strike the 8 extraordinary meridians and hundreds of minor meridians.】

【Throughout this process, the meridians felt as though they were being sliced by blades—an excruciating experience.】

【Moreover, it was extremely easy to sustain injuries; one wrong move could cause your meridians to wither.】

【During this time, your Jade Bones Radiant Glow was needed to heal the meridians.】

【To accelerate your cultivation, Elder Chen had personally refined Meridian-Opening Pills for you.】

【Each pill was worth 1,000 taels of silver.】

【They were originally intended for high-level Postnatal Realm martial artists to open the 12 main meridians and guide the circulation of internal energy.】

【You had no internal energy before, but now the yang energy produced by your Extreme Yang Constitution could serve a similar function.】

【So for your cultivation, they were equally useful.】

【With the help of the Meridian-Opening Pills, your cultivation speed increased by more than 3-fold.】

【The cost, however, was that you needed to consume 1 pill each day.】

【Over 1 month, that amounted to 30,000 taels of silver.】

【For you, that kind of money was nothing but a drop in the ocean.】

【2 months passed in the blink of an eye.】

【Through your tremendous willpower and perseverance, you finally opened every single meridian in your body.】

【The gates of martial arts had been thrown wide open before you!】

【Marrow-Cleansing Scripture Lv3 (350/350)】

【Furthermore, having mastered 3 tiers of the Marrow-Cleansing Scripture, a new tag appeared on you: Extraordinary Bone Aptitude!】

【Extraordinary Bone Aptitude (White Four-Star): Your aptitude for martial arts is exceptional. Cultivation speed for any art is doubled.】

【This was the first time you had gained a tag through your own cultivation.】

【And its grade was not low—it could be upgraded to Purple Heaven Grade at most.】

【At the same time, the grey tag on you—Poisoned—finally vanished completely.】

【That tag had kept you on edge every single day. Now that it had dissipated, you could breathe a sigh of relief—at least for the time being.】

【However, you quickly noticed a problem.】

【Though the Poisoned tag had disappeared, the black tag—One Foot In The Grave—had still not faded away.】

【You had originally assumed that One Foot In The Grave was caused by Poisoned; after all, the Shattered Heart Parasite not only blocked your meridians but could also slowly bring about death.】

【Looking at it now, the 2 weren't particularly connected.】

【It seemed that whatever triggered the black tag—One Foot In The Grave—was something else entirely.】

【What could it be?】

【Your Transmigrator identity? Hostile forces? Had your relationship with Xiao Yue-huang been exposed?】

【There seemed to be many possible causes, and for now you had no way to determine which it was.】

【Fortunately, you could finally cultivate now.】

【Only by raising your strength was the right path to resolving all problems.】

【As long as you were strong enough, you could even take the throne of Great Qian's emperor—so why worry about the black tag—One Foot In The Grave?】

【Afterward, you began selecting cultivation arts for yourself.】

【Guardian King's Manor had a scripture library that housed all the cultivation arts and secret manuals collected by the Guardian King.】

【Most of them were spoils of war.】

【But even in the martial world, they were more than enough to trigger a blood-soaked storm.】

【Upon entering the scripture library, you discovered that most of the arts inside were Spirit Grade, with Earth Grade arts being woefully scarce—only a handful of volumes.】

【Heaven Grade arts—not a single one.】

【Different arts represented different foundations and future achievements.】

【The higher the grade of an art, the farther one could go.】

【You had originally hoped to find a Heaven Grade art to cultivate, but it seemed that hope would go unfulfilled.】

【Still, Earth Grade arts weren't bad—they could be cultivated all the way to the Manifestation Realm, attaining the rank of Mortal Martial Saint.】

【But when you took a look, you were once again deeply disappointed.】

【The few Earth Grade arts were, respectively: Mystic Ice Energy, Azure Wood Secret Canon, Mountain-Suppressing Divine Art, and Great Five Elements Sword Formula.】

【1 cold-attribute, 1 wood-attribute, 1 earth-attribute, and 1 sword art.】

【Not a single yang-attribute or fire-attribute art in sight.】

【Since you possessed an upgradeable Extreme Yang Constitution, naturally you should cultivate a yang-attribute art to maximize your benefits.】

【You sought out Guard Commander Dian Cheng-feng and asked if he had any recommendations.】

【Dian Cheng-feng recommended several Spirit Grade yang-attribute arts.】

【He could see the dissatisfaction on your face, and so he said: if you wanted an Earth Grade yang-attribute art, he could go search for one—though how long it would take, he couldn't say.】

【You asked him if there was any other way.】

【Dian Cheng-feng seemed to suddenly recall something. He brought you to the very top floor of the scripture library and retrieved a single sheet of gold foil from a hidden compartment.】

【He said that the item had been obtained by your late father, Zhao Wu, from some ancient ruins—but since no one could read the writing on it, it had been sitting there unused ever since.】

【If you were interested, you were welcome to take a look.】

【Showing you something that no one else could read?】

【Wasn't that practically accusing you of being a Transmigrator outright?】

【Whether to accept it or not had now become your dilemma.】

【In the end, you shook your head and said you couldn't read it either.】

【It wasn't that you didn't want it—you genuinely couldn't read it.】

【Dian Cheng-feng had no choice but to put the gold foil back.】

【After leaving the scripture library, you sent a few of the characters you had memorized from the gold foil into the Primordial Realm Group chat.】

【All you needed was to send a message using your mind—passing along a few strange characters cost you no effort at all.】

【You asked whether anyone in the chat group could recognize what kind of writing this was.】

【You expected everyone to go silent for a while, but to your surprise, the moment you sent it, several group members replied instantly.】

【Chen Gong-jia: Isn't this just the most common ancient script of the Primordial Realm?】

【You Luo: No way, little brother—you don't even recognize ancient script?】

【Liu Kun (Group Leader): Brother Zhao is a newcomer. He probably transmigrated to some small backwater of the Primordial Realm, so it's normal not to know.】

【Zhao Jin: ??!】

【You had thought this was some rare, obscure script—who knew everyone would recognize it at a glance.】

【Also, "small backwater"—what on earth was that supposed to mean?】

【The powerhouses here could soar through the sky and burrow into the earth, shatter mountains with a snap of their fingers, and level cities with a wave of their hand—and this was still considered a "small backwater"?】

【You felt your worldview had been shattered.】

【You were just about to ask the group members if they could teach you this writing.】

【Group Leader Liu Kun suddenly posted a group file, @-ing you and saying you could click to learn directly.】

【What a warm-hearted group leader—truly a fine exemplar of mutual aid.】

【After you opened it, a massive flood of textual information poured into your mind. It took you only 1 hour to grasp and use it fluently.】

【By nightfall, you snuck back into the scripture library and retrieved the gold foil.】

【This time, you could read every single word.】

【It was a cultivation art called the Golden Crow World-Illuminating Scripture—a sprawling text of over 10,000 characters.】

【When you had finished reading it roughly, you discovered that it was not an Earth Grade art, nor a Heaven Grade art, but an exceedingly rare Sacred Grade art!】

"Sacred Grade art?"

Zhao Jin was instantly struck dumb with shock—and then a wave of unbridled ecstasy swept over him.

The highest-grade cultivation arts in Great Qian were Heaven Grade.

Going by the tier system of Talent Tags, Sacred Grade was without question a step above Heaven Grade!

This was surely the path of an invincible existence!

Zhao Jin's father, Zhao Wu, had died young—he'd passed away when Zhao Jin was only 6 years old.

Zhao Jin had never really had much of an impression of his father.

Growing up, all he had was his grandfather, the Guardian King.

Zhao Jin had always assumed his father was a freeloader.

With a Guardian King as your father, what else could you be but a freeloader?

It turned out that couldn't be further from the truth.

His father had actually tracked down a Sacred Grade cultivation art.

That was worth more than hundreds of Guardian Kings combined.

When all was tallied up now—

His father had won MVP!

Zhao Jin was the freeloader all along!