Chapter 11: Five Elements Escape Technique
Returning to the inn, Jiang Qing carefully bolted the doors and windows to make sure no one was peeking. Only then did she hurry to pull out the black iron piece, examining it thoroughly from top to front, and frowned. "How on earth are you supposed to use this thing?"
Though called a black iron piece, its appearance was more like the fragment of some magical treasure—irregular in shape and pitch black all over, looking like iron yet not quite iron.
After studying it for ages, she still couldn't make heads or tails of it.
As for the Five Elements Escape Technique mentioned in the system prompt, there wasn't even a trace of it.
"A drop of blood, burning with fire, or soaking in water?" Oh well, I'll just try them all.
She took out the long sword she had obtained from the Jiang Family back mountain, which she had named the Yunxiao Sword.
Well, she had just casually named it after seeing cloud patterns on the blade, since it was easier to call it something.
Clutching the Yunxiao Sword, Jiang Qing gritted her teeth and gave her left middle finger a gentle slice. Instantly, a few beads of blood welled up on her finger.
She let the blood drop onto the black iron piece, her gaze fixed intently on it, but for a long while, nothing happened.
What the heck? No reaction? Could it be that there wasn't enough blood?
Steeling her resolve, Jiang Qing bit her lip and squeezed out a few more drops of blood onto it, continuing until her face grew gradually pale, yet still there was not the slightest response.
"Did I find the wrong thing?" Jiang Qing wore a look of disappointment.
After a brief spell of disappointment, Jiang Qing acted as if she had been injected with chicken blood, trying soaking it in water and burning it with fire—she put it through all sorts of tossing and turning, but it still didn't react.
"Stupid host, wouldn't it occur to you to use your spiritual sense to sense it?"
Even the system couldn't bear to watch Jiang Qing's antics any longer.
"Oh! System, you can talk?!" Jiang Qing was startled upon suddenly hearing a voice, though she quickly realized it must be the system.
"Duh, this system is a high-tech interstellar product, of course I can talk," the system said with disdain.
"Oh, then why didn't you speak earlier?" Jiang Qing had always assumed the system was mechanical.
Just like playing games in the past, it would only occasionally pop up with some prompts. She hadn't expected this system to be so advanced that it even possessed human intelligence.
"If the host weren't so foolish, I wouldn't have wanted to speak either." The system's tone was dripping with blatant contempt.
Jiang Qing's face instantly darkened. How could a system with such a sharp tongue make her want to give it a beating?
Deciding to ignore it, she simply refocused her attention on the black iron piece in her hand.
Following the system's instructions, Jiang Qing slowly closed her eyes, and her spiritual sense skillfully probed into the black iron piece.
After about the time it takes to brew a cup of tea, Jiang Qing felt a sharp pain in her mind and a blurring of her spiritual sense. Amidst a hazy daze, a passage of mental cultivation methods appeared in her mind:
*Metal and wood as the foundation, water and fire from the same source, thick earth as virtue, thus are the Five Elements. The Five Elements circulate, transforming into wind to escape the earth, traveling ten thousand miles on the breeze...*
She glanced at it, and Jiang Qing understood it only vaguely...
However, one thing Jiang Qing did understand clearly was that she had struck it rich this time—she had truly struck it rich.
As it turned out, this was an escape-type divine ability.
Once cast, one could transform into the Qi of the Five Elements, leaving no trace, form, or substance.
With this escape technique, even if she couldn't beat someone, she could still run away.
No wonder that in the original plot, the male protagonist offended so many people, frequently bringing out the elders after he beat the juniors, making being hunted down an everyday occurrence. Yet whenever he ran, no one was ever able to catch him.
Soon, Jiang Qing discovered that wanting to practice this escape technique came with a requirement regarding cultivation level: one had to be at least at the Foundation Establishment stage.
Never mind, she had better honestly focus on raising her cultivation level first.
Having figured this out, Jiang Qing tossed the now-useless black iron piece aside and began to cross her legs and meditate.
The next day!
Warm sunlight filtered through the gaps in the window, casting fine, mottled light spots that decorated the tidy room.
Jiang Qing opened her eyes. Through a night of cultivation, she felt her cultivation level had progressed a bit further; in about ten days to half a month, she should be able to enter the Qi Condensation 2nd Layer.
This speed was not considered slow by any means. One had to know that Jiang Manhan possessed dual wood and fire spiritual roots and had been cultivating since childhood, yet she was still only at the Qi Condensation 6th Layer up to now.
It wasn't that Jiang Manhan was too trashy, but rather that the spiritual Qi in the Southern Domain was far too thin, especially since Xiaguang City was located in a remote area of the Southern Domain, where the spiritual Qi was even more pitifully scarce.
That Jiang Qing could achieve her current speed was thanks to her supreme single wood spiritual root; otherwise, wanting to progress at this speed would be pure wishful thinking.
"Gurgle!"
Right at that moment, Jiang Qing's stomach made a timely protest.
Jiang Qing rubbed her stomach, only then realizing she hadn't eaten anything since yesterday.
She had only just entered Qi Condensation, so naturally she couldn't manage to fast yet. It seemed necessary to buy some inedible-fasting pills; whenever she got hungry during cultivation, she could just pop one, which would be very convenient.
Rising to open the door, she raised a hand to summon the attendant and ordered a bowl of rice and two small dishes.
With Jiang Qing's instructions, the food was brought over quickly.
Jiang Qing wasn't too picky about the taste of food, as long as it could fill her stomach.
After all, pulling overtime shifts in the workplace during her past life was a common occurrence, and when she got hungry she often just ate some bread or biscuits.
Comparatively speaking, the food at this inn was quite to her liking.
After eating her fill, she called the attendant to clear away the bowls and chopsticks, and then took out the books she had bought at the marketplace yesterday.
She mainly wanted to cram some common knowledge about the cultivation world, seeing as she was a complete cultivation novice.
Well, it really wasn't much different from a children's elementary primer.
Thus, about three days passed. Jiang Qing briefly read through all the books she had bought at the marketplace, which gave her a preliminary understanding of the cultivation world.
Afterward, Jiang Qing cultivated in the inn for another two days, knowing she couldn't delay any longer, and finally set off toward the Black Wind Forest outside the city.
Traveling swiftly, within half a day, Jiang Qing's figure appeared in the Black Wind Forest.
To be honest, entering the Black Wind Forest for the first time, Jiang Qing was still somewhat scared.
With the Yunxiao Sword in one hand and a fireball talisman in the other, her gaze vigilantly watched the movements around her, terrified that something might pop out from some unknown corner.
Fortunately, the journey went fairly smoothly without any major dangers. Along the way, Jiang Qing used the Yunxiao Sword to slay two bamboo pit vipers.
Although these snakes were highly venomous, they were merely ordinary mortal beasts. Without cultivation, they couldn't be counted as demonic beasts yet, so Jiang Qing wasn't afraid.
Afterward, although she discovered traces of other demonic beasts' activities, thankfully Jiang Qing hid quickly and didn't encounter any danger.
In this manner, Jiang Qing cautiously felt her way all the way to the foot of that gourd-shaped mountain.
Well, it was just an ordinary mountain, except its shape looked somewhat like a gourd.
Jiang Qing followed the trail and walked toward the waist of the mountain.
Within a moment's time, she appeared at the mountainside.
"The mountainside is so big, where on earth is it?"
Jiang Qing searched for a long time without discovering any cave.
Finally, somehow, she arrived at the edge of a cliff. Jiang Qing glanced sideways and saw an old, crooked tree growing horizontally right out of the steep cliff wall.
Thinking of something, Jiang Qing's heart stirred, and she put away her long sword.
Turning her body around, she crouched down and crawled along the cliff toward the location of the crooked tree.
She remembered that in many novels from her past life, the protagonists would accidentally fall off a cliff and then gain some fortuitous encounter.
Besides, this was originally a world inside a book; perhaps there was something she wanted down below.
This crooked tree grew so strangely that Jiang Qing wouldn't believe it if someone told her there was nothing below.
Jiang Qing crawled down the cliff wall, and within a short while, she landed steadily on the crooked tree.
This crooked tree was quite sturdy, enough to bear Jiang Qing's weight.
Standing on the crooked tree, she looked toward the cliff wall from this perspective, and at a single glance, she spotted a small cave mouth on the cliff.
The cave entrance was not far from the crooked tree; by being careful, Jiang Qing could still crawl over.