Madmen don't keep diaries

Chapter 302, 301: A Compendium of Beauties, Da Cang, Chen Xiniang
Feng Xiuhu is about to make a breakthrough.

Actually, he had a vague feeling about this after seeing Neo Xu off at noon.

But it's inconvenient to do this during the day, so I had to wait until night.

The location was chosen to be the same as before, the mudflats of Dicheng.

……

That night, Feng Xiuhu sneaked out of his house in the dark, borrowing the power of the Shadow Authority, and darted towards the bottom city like an eel.

The shadow moved much faster than normal walking. In no time, Feng Xiuhu's figure emerged from the shadow behind the boulder and then walked towards the mudflats not far away.

Feng Xiuhu deliberately stayed away from the shantytown area, and only stopped when he reached the high wall of the Broken Wave Bridge.

No one will come here, and with the shadows providing cover, there's no need to worry about being discovered.

Just to be on the safe side, he didn't rush to start, but instead took out the anti-aging mirror and the beauty manual from his pocket.

"How exactly do you use these two things?"

The mind echoed, "The usage of the Youth-Preserving Mirror has already been explained, but the Beauty Manual requires some attention..."

Before he could finish speaking, Feng Xiuhu had already opened the book, which had a worn and aged feel.

The first page depicts the image of a woman in ancient costume with delicate strokes. As the page was fully revealed, Feng Xiuhu clearly felt a cool breeze brush past his nose, and a chill rose faintly around him.

Shi shouted anxiously, "Call her name!"

"who?"

Feng Xiuhu was stunned for a second, then a shrill scream suddenly rang in his ears, followed by a gust of cold wind.

Although he saw nothing, Feng Xiuhu instinctively took a step back.

A chill ran down my chest, followed immediately by a burning pain.

Feng Xiuhu looked down and saw that his clothes were torn in front of his chest, and there were three bloody wounds on his skin.

Shi reminded him again: "Read the book! Look for the names!"

Feng Xiuhu finally realized what was happening and quickly focused his gaze on the book in his hand.

On one side of the portrait of the woman in ancient costume, there was a vertical line of small characters: "There was a woman in Bailu City, born in the 261st year of Da Cang, and died in the 289th year of Da Cang, named Chen Xiniang."

"Chen Xiniang?"

When Feng Xiuhu subconsciously uttered the name, the approaching gust of cold wind stopped, the howling ceased, and even the temperature returned to normal.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a figure in front of me.

Feng Xiuhu looked up and saw a woman in an antique-style plain dress standing in front of him. Her eyes were lifeless, and she stood with her hands at her sides, staring at Feng Xiuhu without saying a word.

Feng Xiuhu asked her, "What are you looking at?"

The woman remained silent, her gaze still vacant.

"She was just a spirit...you can also understand it as what people often call a ghost."

Shi explained helplessly, "On the pages of the Book of Beauties, as long as there is a picture, it represents the spirit of a woman. When the holder turns to that page and calls out their names, he can control them."

Feng Xiuhu leaned closer to examine her closely and realized that although Chen Xiniang was standing on the ground, she did not actually have a physical form; her figure appeared as a blurry, semi-transparent shape.

"Is everyone in the book as violent as her?"

Feng Xiuhu asked, still resentful about the sneak attack earlier. Shi replied, "No, this one in front of us is probably a vengeful spirit, so it naturally harbors malice towards living things."

Feng Xiuhu then asked, "Why couldn't I see her at first?"

Shi couldn't help but sneer: "Because your cultivation is too shallow, if you want to see the spirits wandering in the mortal world with your naked eyes, you must reach the Divine Travel Realm."

Feng Xiuhu suddenly realized what was going on, and he gestured with his chin towards Chen Xiniang: "Come back."

Chen Xiniang obeyed without question, reaching out to gently touch the painting of beauties. Her spirit, like a wisp of smoke, merged into the painting.

Feng Xiuhu gently stroked the book and exclaimed, "What a treasure! How many people lived in this?"

To avoid a repeat of the previous situation, Feng Xiuhu didn't continue flipping through the pages, and instead asked Shi for the answer directly.

"how could I know?"

Shi was baffled: "I haven't seen it."

He then changed the subject: "But no matter how many there are, there probably won't be many left after tonight."

Feng Xiuhu frowned: "On what grounds?"

Shi said, "Breakthroughs require consumables, and these wandering spirits in the mortal world are the best consumables."

Feng Xiuhu was a little reluctant. He had just acquired the magic weapon and hadn't even had a chance to enjoy it before he was going to use it as firewood.

Shi saw through his thoughts: "This is already the best way. Use the spirit as a consumable. The spirit is gone, but the magic weapon is still there. If we find a suitable one in the future, we can put it in."

Feng Xiuhu put down the beauty manual, picked up the mirror, and asked, "What about the anti-aging mirror?"

Shi said helplessly, "That's a safety net for you. If your breakthrough goes smoothly, the spirits in the Beauty Scroll will be more than enough to serve as consumables. But if something goes wrong again like last time, I'm afraid we won't have enough consumables, and we'll have to use magic artifacts to make up for it."

After a moment's thought, Feng Xiuhu realized that this was indeed the best solution.

He nodded and said, "Let's not delay, let's begin—or shall we continue to comprehend the 'Erosion' rules?"

Shi was a little afraid of him, so she quickly said, "No, don't think such things."

Shi told Feng Xiuhu that on the path of cultivation, cultivating the first wisp of magical power is the entry point, which means having a rudimentary understanding of the corresponding rules; while entering the Spirit Realm means gaining initial recognition of the rules; as cultivation progresses, the understanding of the rules must also deepen, otherwise cultivation will stagnate.

Feng Xiuhu automatically replaced it with a statement he could better understand: "Does the understanding of the rules represent the upper limit of the path of cultivation?"

After thinking for a moment, Shi agreed: "Pretty much."

“Normally, the strength of the physical body comes from cultivation, and the level of cultivation is affected by enlightenment. But all enlightenment comes from the spirit itself. In other words, the spirit guides cultivation through enlightenment, and the results of cultivation are then fed back to the physical body. But in this way, compared to the strength of the physical body, the spirit is very fragile.”

Feng Xiuhu was somewhat confused. He clearly remembered that Shi had said that cultivators take care of both physical and spiritual development, so both their physical and spiritual bodies are equally powerful.

Shi said, "That's why we have what we now call the Spirit Realm, in order to solve this problem."

Feng Xiuhu felt as if he had been enlightened—it turned out that what Shi had just talked about was the history of the perfection of the technique.

As Shi once said, the earliest people started by observing the runes of the primordial gods and gradually deduced the cultivation methods that could be practiced. These methods were not created overnight, but through a long evolutionary process, they eventually evolved into the four realms that are now recognized as being the most advanced.

What Shi just mentioned is the circumstances under which the "Spiritual Realm" was born.

"The meaning of the Spirit Realm is to separate the spirit from the physical body, so that they can exist independently and the spirit can receive the same feedback from cultivation."

PS: This setting may be a bit complicated, but it doesn't matter if you don't understand it. It's just to solidify the underlying logic of the cultivation system. I need to be clear about it myself so that I don't mess it up.

(End of this chapter)