This point, likewise, came as a surprise to Wang Feiyin.
Then, he stood with his hands on his hips and laughed loudly in front of the mountain gate for nearly fifteen minutes, laughing until tears came to his eyes.
Pan Jun watched him with a darkened face.
Wiping away his tears, Wang Feiyin looked down and met her angry, resentful gaze. He couldn't help but burst into two more bouts of laughter. Seeing her face grow increasingly grim, he finally struggled to quiet himself, looking at her with teary eyes. "So, how about it? Being a disciple isn't that easy, is it? For anything you do, a price must be paid."
Pan Jun fell into thought. "So, the reason I can't make money down the mountain is not just because the foot of the mountain isn't suitable for selling talismans, but also because of you, Master?"
Wang Feiyin stroked his beard and said, "While it is true that the foot of the mountain isn't suitable for selling talismans, humans have desires. In such a massive market with people from nearly ten villages, it's unlikely that there wouldn't be a single person of destiny."
He continued, "Whether it is me, your second senior brother, third senior brother, or fourth senior sister, our financial luck is quite mediocre. Now we add you to the mix. However, among us siblings, your financial luck and mine are the worst, because we are the ones most deeply entangled with Master."
Wang Feiyin patted her head and comforted her, "Try to adapt as soon as possible."
Pan Xiaohei gave a sympathetic "Meow—" and then walked away gracefully.
Refusing to accept this as fate, Pan Jun went back to her room to ponder for a long time. Finally, she pulled out that Merit Stone and went to find Wang Feiyin. "Eldest Senior Brother, could you please help me divide this stone?"
She had drawn very precise lines on it, asking him to cut it according to those lines.
Seeing the small piece of stone she had marked, Wang Feiyin frowned. "It's a perfectly good Merit Stone; why do you want to split it up?"
"I want to make an array."
"The array to measure merit you mentioned?"
Pan Jun nodded. "I've been preparing for a long time. I have the array memorized perfectly now; I can begin the carving."
"You're not trying to borrow merit to restore your financial luck, are you?" Wang Feiyin mused for a moment. "It is a line of thought, but you should focus on your cultivation and strive to go down the mountain to perform meritorious deeds as soon as possible. What's the use of carving this? Regardless of whether there is a measurement, the merit you gain from your deeds will return to you naturally."
"Senior Brother, do you know about statistics?"
Wang Feiyin: "What?"
"It is a discipline. The fact that it can exist as a separate discipline proves its importance. Once I complete this array, I will be able to calculate exactly what actions allow me to accumulate merit most quickly and efficiently."
Although Wang Feiyin had never heard of this discipline, he understood its purpose from the name, and he understood the latter half of her explanation.
He was shocked—shocked by the sheer utilitarianism of his junior sister's cultivation.
"Junior Sister, you... you don't act like a practitioner of the Dao at all."
Pan Jun had been hearing such comments lately, but she waved them off dismissively. "I know, you all think I'm too calculating. But a practitioner of the Dao not only seeks to approach the Heavenly Dao but also struggles against it and nature itself. To not strive is to strive; to strive is to not strive. I don't see anything wrong with improving my efficiency."
Pan Jun held out the stone. "Senior Brother, help me out."
Though Wang Feiyin was still processing her words and didn't entirely agree with them, it didn't stop him from helping.
He condensed his Qi into a line and slashed downward with a *whoosh*, the thread of Qi passing rapidly through the stone.
When Wang Feiyin withdrew his hand, the stone appeared still whole, seemingly without a trace of a cut. But when he picked it up and applied pressure, the Merit Stone split along the lines Pan Jun had drawn, perfectly and precisely.
Pan Jun let out a "Wow!" and gave him a thumbs up. "Senior Brother, you're amazing! How do I practice this?"
"Come find me for the method once you have a bit more Qi in your dantian," Wang Feiyin huffed proudly. Finally grasping the implication of her words, he said earnestly, "Junior Sister, what you said isn't wrong, but cultivation focuses on tempering the heart and the body. Otherwise, if you only grow in cultivation level but not in heart, you will never truly attain the Dao."
Pan Jun replied, "I know. Once I get through this difficult period, I will cultivate my heart seriously."
The tone was as casual and unbelievable as saying, "Once I finish this task, I'll start going to bed early."
Wang Feiyin looked at her, shook his head, and walked away.
Forget it; the child was disobedient. She would regret it in the future; he had already warned her.
Pan Jun took the two split pieces of stone back to her room. She tossed the larger piece into her Spirit Realm space and began to regulate her breathing and meditate.
When her physical and mental states reached their peak, she opened her eyes and gazed at the small Merit Stone in her hand, which slowly floated up before her eyes.
With her left hand, she threw out a Fire Talisman. Upon contact with the Merit Stone, a burst of flame erupted, enveloping the stone in the center.
She had drawn this specifically after her lessons. Her Eldest Senior Brother had said that talismans borrow the power of the gods, and she had to believe that gods existed in the world so that she could use her spiritual power to invite divine power to manifest within the talisman.
For the past few days, Pan Jun had been hypnotizing herself, convincing herself that the talismans she once thought were generated by spiritual power were actually generated by divine power invited by spiritual power.
She could now firmly believe that the Fire God was watching over her from the unseen realms, helping her. Now, when she used the talisman, she was using divine power.
Under her gaze, the Fire Talisman burned fiercely, and the Merit Stone slowly melted under her gaze, turning into a circular, viscous mass.
With a massive consumption of her divine sense, the Three-Jade Spirit Realm, emitting a white glow, flew out from her forehead and hovered quietly before her eyes.
As the thought arose, the two masses merged into one. Pan Jun dragged her right middle finger sharply across her right thumb nail; blood seeped out. Concentrating her spiritual power at her fingertip, she began to carve the array she had long since memorized onto the Three-Jade Spirit Realm.
Pan Xiaohei bolted upright the moment Pan Jun cut her fingertip, her large glass eyes filled with fury. She was actually using her own blood to carve the array, further strengthening the connection to the Spirit Realm.
Yet, it didn't dare disturb her. With Pan Jun's current cultivation, carving even this single array was a struggle; if not for her divine sense being stronger than an average person's, she wouldn't have been able to complete it at all.
Therefore, they only had this one chance in the short term.
Pan Xiaohei cursed inwardly but did not dare make a sound to interrupt her.
As the final line was drawn, Pan Jun withdrew her finger. A flash of spiritual light raced along the carved lines, and the two other hidden arrays instantly radiated brilliance. Along with them, the spiritual light enveloped everything, and the three arrays connected instantly.
The Three-Jade Spirit Realm flashed with golden light. A streak of gold shimmered across the jade-white plate, making the edges look as if they were inlaid with gold thread, and the body of the jade itself held a subtle golden hue, making it even more beautiful.
Pan Jun looked at it with great satisfaction and brought it into her Niwan Palace, letting it continue to take root in its usual place.
Pan Jun exhaled, ignoring the faint ache in her temples, and looked at Pan Xiaohei.
Pan Xiaohei sneered repeatedly. "I hope you remember, the Spirit Realm is my body. Even though my spirit is currently outside, it occasionally mistakes you for me. But what is external is external. It's like a soul inhabiting a corpse—no matter how well they fit, they can never be a hundred percent one."
Pan Jun: "Just like the black cat body you're using right now?"
Pan Xiaohei was choked up by Pan Jun's retort and could not speak.
Pan Jun said, "Don't worry. I'm doing just fine being a human. I don't want to be a Spirit Realm. Using blood as a medium is simply because I want us to be a bit closer."
Whether Pan Xiaohei believed her or not was unknown; she simply did not respond.
By now, Pan Jun had removed the spell hiding Pan Xiaohei's array. All three arrays were activated, and currently, three lines hung upon the Three-Jade Spirit Realm: one gold, one red, and one blue.
Gold represented Merit points, red represented Spiritual Power, and blue was the progress bar for unsealing the Three-Jade Spirit Realm.
She curled her lips in satisfaction. "In the future, build a table in the jade plate's storage area specifically to record the changes in these three lines. We will perform a statistical analysis every once in a while to see what we can do to unseal it more efficiently."
Pan Xiaohei: "Isn't that the job of a researcher? You're making me do it?"
"There are no researchers now. You are the Spirit of the Realm; it's just a matter of a single thought. You can record it anytime without wasting effort," Pan Jun said. "My time is more pressing than yours. Didn't we say we wanted to accelerate my cultivation speed to unseal the seal as soon as possible?"
After thinking about it, Pan Xiaohei agreed.
"That's right. Everything for the sake of becoming stronger, everything for the sake of unsealing the seal."
Pan Xiaohei huffed and remained silent.
The next day, Pan Jun became enthusiastic about doing good deeds for the people in the Taoist temple.
For example, she helped Wang Feiyin tend the fire for alchemy, helped Miao He knead dough to make buns, helped Xuan Miao carry a basin of wash water, and helped Miao Zhen sweep the floor—yet the golden line remained motionless.
Pan Jun figured these tasks were perhaps too trivial. She almost couldn't resist trying to give Miao Zhen and Miao He homework—no, not homework, but since they didn't know how to do it, she wanted to teach them.
In the end, after spending fifteen minutes teaching them the Constellations, the golden line was still motionless. "Is teaching them such useful knowledge not considered a good deed? The dissemination of knowledge is such a grand thing!"
Today's lucky number is any number ending in 1. (Screenshot as proof)
(End of Chapter)