Beyond the Divine States

Chapter 75 In the Hidden Peak

The episode of the morning class was not a big deal. The three disciples had a conflict with the disciple of Xuanri Peak but they only competed with each other for learning, which didn't actually lead to any casualty.

Ning Changjiu was only an outer disciple. He was punished for his impertinent remarks. The other disciples only gloated over his suffering and then believed that this outer disciple was too haughty due to their master's indulgence. By indulgence, of course it meant Lu Jiajia's indulgence towards Ning Xiaoling.

Lu Jiajia put away the ruler, returned to her desk and closed her eyes in meditation. Before the ink screen covered by the black veil, the woman's hair was like clouds and her sword clothes were like silk. She was as cold as the snow lotus blooming among the rocks of the cliff.

Ning Xiaoling was scared by her master's angry appearance. She didn't turn around to size Ning Changjiu up until she kept her head lowered for a while. To her surprise, she found that he didn't seem mad at all. He just kept his chin slightly lowered and eyes rather composed. She was not sure whether he was pretending to be calm or not.

Ning Changjiu's wide sleeves were hanging above his hands. He rubbed his palm and eased the pain bit by bit.

He sighed inwardly... He didn't expect that he would be avenged so shortly after he ridiculed her a bit this morning.

However, he took advantage of the scene to compliment her on her body shape and appearance sincerely and there was no one else aside. As a woman, Lu Jiajia should love beauty. Why was she so mad?

Was it because her cultivation was in difficulty due to her unhealed injury?

Or...

Ning Changjiu's eyelids suddenly twitched and something wrung his heart. Was it because she found he was the one who took care of her injuries?

Impossible. How could she know? At that time, she was unconscious... Unless Ning Xiaoling turned him in. But she had no reason to do so.

Ning Changjiu felt so puzzled and then took a glance at Ning Xiaoling.

Ning Xiaoling didn't know what he was thinking about. She only stared at her fellow disciple with her clear and innocent eyes. Then, she blinked her eyes, as if saying that she didn't see his embarrassed look.

After the morning class, Ning Changjiu said a few words to her randomly and then wanted to leave.

"Wait." Lu Jiajia suddenly stopped him.

The ruler disappeared on the black desk.

Ning Changjiu who was going out of the door stopped.

A long and square wooden ruler hung quietly in midair to stop him.

All the disciples gazed at him, guessing that this outer disciple must be caught mumbling something by their master for being unconvinced. It seemed that he would be evicted from the inner peak. Some disciples couldn't help envying him inwardly for he could let the master hit him with the ruler on her own.

Even Ning Changjiu felt a bit nervous. "Are you so vengeful?" He thought.

"Master, what's the matter?" Ning Changjiu asked.

Lu Jiajia looked at him and said slowly, "You can come and join the practice on the sword field of the Cloud Tower later."

"What?" Someone shouted and hesitated for a while before he understood what Lu Jiajia had said.

"Master, he is an outer disciple. It is inconsistent with the rules," someone immediately refuted.

More people came to their senses after being shocked. A disciple said, "Master, all of us have cultivated for a year or so on the outer peak and become exceedingly outstanding so that we could have a chance of taking the test to the inner peak. He is here only because of Xiaoling, which will inevitably make the other disciples of the outer peak feel unfair."

"That's right. Besides, Changjiu's constitution is not good enough. If he cultivates with us, I'm afraid that he will be frustrated."

They were talking in the face of Ning Changjiu, which indicated that they were really dissatisfied with this arrangement.

Lu Jiajia took a look at Ning Changjiu as if asking for his opinion.

Ning Changjiu knew that she wanted to take this opportunity to guide him in cultivation. Feeling a bit warm, he still shook his head and said, "Thank you for the offer. I shall cultivate by myself on the inner peak alone and then enter the inner peak in a perfectly justifiable way by taking the test to the inner peak with the outer disciples."

Ning Changjiu said so but he didn't intend to join the inner peak officially at all.

It was already rather boring to attend the morning class with Xiaoling every day. If he had to spend another four hours practicing swordsmanship on the sword field...

Worse still, if he was late, he would be beaten by Lu Jiajia with the ruler...

The more classes he took, the higher chances of being abused by Lu Jiajia for her personal grudges there would be.

Besides, given his speed of cultivation, he didn't know when he could defeat her.

Most importantly, now that he had thought through his road of cultivation, he only needed to tread forward attentively. As to the side issues, he should try his best to avoid them.

He nodded at Lu Jiajia without traces.

Lu Jiajia took the hint and didn't say anything more. "It's my decision on the spur of the moment. Since you don't want to, I won't insist then."

Some disciples were relieved inwardly while some poorly talented disciples felt a bit pitiful. They thought that they could have someone bound to be at the bottom attract the attention so that they could be less jeered at by their peers and scolded by their master.

Lerou was more thoughtful. Previously, when Lu Jiajia punished him with the ruler, she felt something was wrong. Being hit with the ruler was what the inner disciples could get. On what ground could an outer disciple be hit by the master? Now the master even asked him to cultivate on the sword field together. Did the master want to cultivate and nourish him?

But Ning Changjiu was too ungrateful to understand the master's unsaid intent. Did he only want to be a deadbeat of Ning Xiaoling for a lifetime?

"How can this man stay on the inner peak? What a disturbance to our Taoist mind and eyesore to Master! I must find a chance to make Master expel him!"

Lerou thought angrily.

...

...

Ning Changjiu walked into the inner peak and entered the library. Yan Zhou was squinting his eyes. It was hard to tell whether he was dreaming or awake.

Ning Changjiu took out the book he read yesterday, turned to the page about the formation principle and induction of innate spirits and started to read.

There were a lot of sayings about the formation of innate spirits in the books. Some believed that the innate spirit was the inherently remained nascent soul, whose appearance was affected by the owner's date of birth and 4 pillars of destiny, Fengshui upon birth and Chinese Zodiac. As to why all the innate spirits took the shape of the spirit beast or mythical creature, it was related to human beings' inherent b********y.

Some believed that it was similar to the principle that things would become spirits as they sustained long enough. Every man's body was a space. When it was equipped with the sea of Qi in Zifu, it was possible to foster an innate spirit. The spirit had its own shape and shared the consciousness with its owner. Dominated by the owner, it could be summoned outside the body and move within a certain range. The spirit and the human existed in unison. They couldn't be separated from each other.

Some thought that the innate spirits were seeds which evils sprinkled into the secular world. They would take root and sprout in the human beings' bodies and form an embryo. Eventually, they would devour the hosts and turn into the power that could support the evils to come to the secular world.

Ning Changjiu was dissatisfied with these sayings.

He couldn't think of what his previous innate spirit was. Perhaps, just like the three words--Bu Ke Temple, it was also naturally concealed.

It might be because, in his current life, his innate spirit didn't come to being at all. How could one have the memory of a thing that didn't even exist?

However, sometimes, in his dream, he occasionally saw the red sun, which hung high above the dark curtain. Something seemed to be entrenched in the middle of it, which stared at him across the red waves like a black shadow.

Every time he had the thought, he would feel slightly dizzy.

He immediately perished the thought and gazed at the book again.

Although opinions varied in the books, there were three publicly acknowledged features about the innate spirit. Firstly, it didn't have an innate consciousness; secondly, it was inseparable from the human's soul; thirdly, it could be contaminated.

Ning Changjiu had no doubt about the third point because Ning Xiaoling's innate spirit had been contaminated by the evil seed of Old Red-tailed Lord. However, such contamination should be conditioned. For example, Old Red-tailed Lord and Ning Xiaoling's innate spirit, the snow fox were of the same origin.

As to the second point, Ning Changjiu could basically overturn it because his innate spirit used to be removed by his master. In the imperial city, if it were not for his poor cultivation level, Ning Xiaoling's innate spirit would have been removed by him.

The first point was the most suspicious one to Ning Changjiu. Did the innate spirit act only dependent on its owner's consciousness or have the inherent consciousness?

This was the thing he wanted to know most for now, which was directly related to his guess about his master removing his innate spirit.

Yet, he couldn't find any guinea pig to testify his guess.

He turned the page about men's spiritual meridians. Staring at the part of the two acupoints channeling the back--Yunqi and Baifu for a long time, he recalled the badly mutilated back hit by the illusory sword. In the end, he heaved a sigh lightly.

He finished reading a book quickly.

He rose, walked to the bookshelf and pushed the book back into the wooden shelf.

He should have gone to cultivate now but he didn't leave. Instead, he thought of what Yan Zhou had said to him.

The latter part of the Heavenly Oracle Sword Method was left here.

Of course, he didn't want to obtain the sword classic hailed as the treasure. Yet, if he could find it, maybe it could be of help to Lu Jiajia.

After all, she let him live here for free. In return, he should do something for her.

Ning Changjiu wrote the word "Ning" faintly in the air with his fingers.

The word Ning looked like a sword. Now, as he wrote, it also contained the hazy sword Qi.

In fact, the first time he came to the library, he also vaguely sensed something but the feeling was rather insubstantial. He felt as if standing in the deep valley with streams flooding from all directions.

The word Ning, just like a delicate flying sword, flew past quietly. He followed it closely. His white clothes rushed across the wooden shelves.

After a while, the word stopped and shattered like a particle of firework.

Where the delicate sword vanished, Ning Changjiu stopped.

He looked here and there and then drew out a book by instinct.

Of course, the book couldn't be the Heavenly Oracle Sword Method.

He vaguely felt that the book contained some secrets.

The book's pages were white and its dark green cover was new. It wrote two words--Grotto Heavens.

Ning Changjiu slightly frowned and realized that he had triggered something but his Taoist mind didn't give him any dangerous warning. Hence, he hesitated for a moment and still turned to page one.

"A formation?" Ning Changjiu looked at the several scattered spots made of golden sand on the preface page and knitted his brows.

The next moment, the world seemed to be overturned. Ning Changjiu only felt that his body plunged and then the scene in the library immediately got out of his view. The surroundings turned dark. As he looked around, he saw the smooth wall which vaguely contained steely green stone grains just like the marking of a serpent.

In the library, Yan Zhou opened his eyes, glimpsed the direction where Ning Changjiu disappeared and mumbled, "A Taoist disciple?"

"Is he a disciple of the Hanxu Sect?" Yan Zhou finally gave a worried look.

...

Ning Changjiu didn't have the book in his hand now.

The book was more of the pivot of a formation. He stood there and took away the book, leaving the formation triggered, which thus got himself teleported here.

He looked around and observed the grains of the rocks. He was sure that he was still on the inner peak.

In this case, he should be somewhere under the library.

He walked along the mountain path. As expected, the familiar towering arm was in the middle of the end of the path. The huge arm pierced through the rock mass. He looked down and saw no boundary.

Ning Changjiu raised his head and saw that at the extremely high position of the rock wall, there were a lot of skylight-like grottos, through which the bright light shone.

If one could harness the sword, he should be able to fly through the grotto into the sea of clouds outside the peak.

Ning Changjiu continued walking forward.

The flowing sound of the hidden fountain came to his ears. On the stalagmite, flowing water also oozed out of its tip and dripped on the rock.

Around the Dragon Intertwining Pillar, there were four huge logs, which looked like single-plank bridges. One end of the huge logs supported the rock wall and the other end inserted into Dragon Intertwining Pillar in the mortise and tenon joint structure.

Ning Changjiu stood at the edge of the big pillar and the rock wall and looked down.

The whole peak seemed to be caverned out.

It was extremely spacious down there. He could see nothing but darkness.

Just like standing at the edge of the abyss, even he still felt a bit frightened and also had a bit of vague feeling.

Of course, Ning Changjiu wouldn't risk jumping into the abyss for some complicated and confusing lucky chances. He only took a look at it, turned around and left.

The inner peak world under the library was large.

With the Dragon Intertwining Pillar as the center, there were grottos, undercurrents of the natural caves, natural karst caves and a lot of broken ancient swords.

Ning Changjiu walked along the stone path and found many artificial spaces. He suspected that those were the places where the inner disciples had the closed-door training.

Seemingly in order to testify his guess, there was a grotto unclosed ahead. Behind the door, among many natural stalagmites, a young man in black sat cross-legged with his hair scattered and his brows knitted, who looked as if pondering. It seemed that he had been in closed-door training for long. He ate nothing and only drank the hidden spring water of the peak. His eye sockets and cheeks were slightly sunken.

The moment Ning Changjiu arrived, the young man suddenly opened his eyes. It seemed that he didn't expect an outsider to come here. Several iron swords stabbed beside him started to hum nonstop.

"Who are you?" It seemed that he hadn't spoken for a long time so his voice was a bit hoarse.

Ning Changjiu took a glance at him and said seriously, "There is something wrong with your cultivation."