Chapter 14: The Golden Finger Arrives

Familiarization complete.

Cheng Buzheng took a small pouch from his bosom; it was no different from the small pouch hanging from Senior Brother Huang's waist, the one used for verifying cultivation credentials.

This object was a storage bag, a common "newbie gift" distributed by sects to newly joined disciples.

He walked to the wooden bed and inventoried his entire net worth. Calling it a "net worth" was a bit of an exaggeration; it was merely the welfare provided by the sect to newcomers, serving as their first bit of wealth.

With a thought, he sent his divine sense into the storage bag. The internal space was approximately one cubic meter, containing ten spirit stones and a set of gray robes.

Having thoroughly read the *Encyclopedia of Cultivation*, Cheng Buzheng had a general understanding of the purchasing power of ten spirit stones. They were enough to buy five spirit pills to advance his cultivation within the early stages of Qi Refinement. Although these were the most common and cheapest types of pills, they were essentially "freebies," so having them at all was quite good.

As for the set of robes, they were the standard sect uniform. Without reaching the first level of Qi Refinement, one wouldn't even have the opportunity to wear the sect's disciple clothing. After all, since all belongings were kept in the storage bag, and one lacked both divine sense and magical power without reaching the first level of Qi Refinement, it would be impossible to open the bag.

These robes were low-grade magical tools, featuring built-in spells for cleaning and temperature regulation, and they were exceptionally durable, capable of ignoring the slashes of mundane weapons.

He placed the robes, the ten spirit stones, and a bottle of spirit pills on the wooden bed, then took out the storage bag along with a jade slip and a book.

The bottle of pills contained Inedia Pills. He had been fortunate enough to receive one pill at the county town square; after nearly two months of consumption, the original bottle of ten pills now contained only eight, averaging one pill per month.

Within the immortal sects, although there was the Fengyun Pavilion where all dishes were made with spiritual herbs and demon beast meat and all drinks were spiritual wines, the cost of meals was not settled with mundane silver, but with precious spirit stones.

Furthermore, the prices in the Fengyun Pavilion were not low; even the simplest meal cost at least one spirit stone, which was far beyond his current means.

Consequently, his only option for now was to consume Inedia Pills.

The jade slip recorded the sect-issued cultivation technique, the "Red Fire Art," while the book was the *Encyclopedia of Cultivation*, an introductory text for the path of immortality. It contained a vast amount of common knowledge regarding cultivation, ensuring he wouldn't be left wandering blindly and helpless.

Looking at all his possessions while clutching the white jade token, Cheng Buzheng's fingertips rubbed against it incessantly, betraying his restless heart.

The token was only the size of a palm, seemingly crafted from some kind of spiritual jade. On the front, a coiled flood dragon was engraved, with three ancient characters in the center: "Baiyun Sect."

On the reverse, the name "Cheng Buzheng" was engraved in the center, with the four small characters "Outer Sect Disciple" at the bottom.

This token was his sect identity token, bound to his soul's aura, and served as a symbol of his membership in the sect.

A moment later.

With a thought, Cheng Buzheng put his items away, leaving only the set of robes on the bed.

A short while later.

Having changed into the robes and with the storage bag hanging from his waist, he finally looked somewhat like a sect disciple.

He took a moment to look himself over, a slight smile appearing at the corners of his mouth, before sitting cross-legged on the bed to prepare for another cultivation session.

Cheng Buzheng did not stop his training just because he had reached the first level of Qi Refinement. He knew that in the world of cultivation, he was like an infant in swaddling clothes, possessing zero ability to withstand danger.

Without further delay, he sat cross-legged on the bed and lightly closed his eyes.

Suddenly, he felt a strange sensation within his soul, but he chose to ignore it.

Cheng Buzheng circulated the Red Fire Art, moving unhurriedly and maintaining a specific rhythm. As he guided the energy through his meridians, a large number of red light spots, along with a small number of yellow and gold light spots, merged into his body and entered his meridians.

The light spots moved according to a specific circulation pattern. Just as he was about to complete one full cycle and the light spots were about to be refined, the yellow and gold light spots, carrying a significant number of red light spots, dissipated within his body.

Cheng Buzheng was helpless against this occurrence; this was one of the inherent differences between spiritual roots, such as cultivation speed, the probability of advancement, and the effectiveness of refining pills.

Those with good aptitude progressed like a rushing storm or lightning, while those with poor aptitude were as slow as snails!

The differences between spiritual roots were simply too vast. To this day, no great expert had managed to research exactly what a spiritual root was or produced any definitive results.

Cheng Buzheng was quite satisfied with his three-element spiritual root aptitude. Although he could not compare himself to those with single or dual spiritual roots, cultivators with four or five elements were extremely lackluster—better than the worst, but far from the best.

Thus, he felt quite fortunate; the better the aptitude, the lower the probability of occurrence.

Out of a hundred people with five-element roots, perhaps one would have a four-element root; out of a hundred four-element roots, only then might a three-element root appear. Following this logic, one could see how rare and precious a single-element root truly was.

Only after completing one full cycle did Cheng Buzheng sense that slight tremor in his soul from when he had been circulating the Red Fire Art.

He calmed his mind, sent his divine sense into his sea of consciousness, and settled his awareness into his soul. Deep within his sea of consciousness, a small purple dish glowing with violet light drifted.

The more Cheng Buzheng looked at it, the more familiar it became. This small purple dish was an object from his previous life.

"Could it be that this purple dish is what brought him to this world? And this body happens to possess a spiritual root—otherwise, how could so many coincidences overlap like this!"

He had picked up this purple dish at a street stall in his past life.

At the time, he had noticed that the dish looked brand new, yet he couldn't tell what material it was made of, so he bought it out of curiosity.

Even after spending a year, he had failed to find any similar material. The patterns engraved on the dish were incredibly complex; looking at them for too long seemed to cause one to lose focus, as if their very thoughts were pausing.

Having found no results from his research, he had reluctantly hung the small, exquisite purple dish around his neck.

Suddenly, the purple dish emitted a burst of information that merged into his soul.

After reading it, he understood the dish's function. Its purpose was simple: it absorbed pure spiritual energy and stored it within its complex patterns, while allowing one to place spells, techniques, and more into the central indentation. Combined with pure spiritual energy, it could deduce even stronger "spiritual seeds."

By absorbing these seeds, one could obtain more exquisite spells and more powerful techniques, achieving a leap toward perfection and directly comprehending them at the completed stage.

However, as the Great Dao is fifty, but Heaven only derives forty-nine, leaving one to escape, he could only master nine spells at the completed stage.

Additionally, the dish had one specific manifestation function.

He decided to test this function. With a thought, the purple dish emitted a faint glow, and a floating panel instantly appeared above it.

Master of the Heavenly Jade Disk: Cheng Buzheng Realm: Qi Refinement Level 1 Cultivation Technique: Tier 1 Mid-grade (Common) Red Fire Art (Beginner) Spiritual Energy Value: 0

It looked like an ordinary small dish, but its functions were incredibly powerful, bordering on the miraculous.

He knew very well that this was the foundation upon which he would establish himself in this world.

Seeing the spiritual energy value at zero, he couldn't help but think of the ten spirit stones in his storage bag, but he immediately suppressed the thought.

Having just joined the sect, there would certainly be many places where he needed to use spirit stones. He would wait until he understood and became familiar with the sect before making any allocations; it wouldn't be too late then.

Suddenly, Cheng Buzheng thought of his own magical power, which was also refined from spiritual energy.

Magical Power: Refined from pure spiritual energy and one's own will. Its power varies depending on the specific technique and the attribute of the spiritual energy used.

However, since he was the master of the Heavenly Jade Disk, and his magical power contained a bit more of his own will, there shouldn't be much of a difference.

"Using my own magical power instead of spiritual energy should work, right? If it succeeds, great—I can save a lot of spirit stones in the future. If it fails, there's no real loss; trying it doesn't cost anything!"

Action was better than hesitation.

He enveloped the trace of red magical power within his dantian with his divine sense, while simultaneously connecting to the Heavenly Jade Disk deep within his sea of consciousness. However, the Heavenly Jade Disk did not react at all.

Clearly, the experiment had failed.

Seeing this, Cheng Buzheng frowned slightly but said nothing more.

Instead, he silently closed his eyes and began to cultivate with extreme care. Having just stepped into the first level of Qi Refinement, he needed to consolidate his foundation even more.

Immediately, the surrounding spiritual energy gathered toward him, forming a thin layer of spiritual light. As he circulated the Red Fire Art step by step, that thin layer of light was gradually absorbed into his body.