Decaying World

Chapter 5 005 Joining One
This chicken leg, even its name sounds a bit unorthodox.
Lin Hui felt he could already imagine what these two kinds of chicken legs might taste like.

He then stared intently at the chicken leg, trying to glean further explanation from these two branches.

Unfortunately, the information about the Blood Seal seems to end there, with only two names provided that are purely speculative.

"Eat up, why are you daydreaming while eating?" Yao Shan, the mother, asked in confusion.

"Okay, Mom." Lin Hui then looked away, nodded, and started gnawing on a chicken leg.

As his gaze shifted, it fell on the chopsticks in front of him, and the bloodstains began to flicker and twist again.

New dotted lines began to extend from the edges of the chopsticks.

'Bamboo chopsticks: Ordinary tableware, moderate wear. Can evolve into branch 3.'

'1—Tianjing Bamboo Chopsticks.'

'2—Purple and Blue Thunder Bamboo Chopsticks.'

'3—Chopsticks and people.'

Lin Hui stared at the last person with chopsticks, and fell into deep thought again.

He could guess the meaning of the first two from their literal meanings, but the last one was different.
He tried to consciously imagine the third branch of evolution.

hiss.

After a faint sound, all the evolutionary branches in front of them disappeared, and the third branch reappeared and magnified, followed by a series of messages.

Will chopstick-wielding humans evolve?

'Required resources: a pair of bamboo chopsticks, and a year's worth of energy reserves.'

Time required: Five years.

So long! ?

Lin Hui was startled and quickly chose no.

If you choose this option, you might lose a year's worth of effort. As for what the evolved chopstick-like human will actually be like, that's a pure gamble.

After quickly finishing his meal, Lin Hui made an excuse to go out for a walk and left the house.

Because of the ghost that broke into the door, there were always tall patrol teams from the government offices coming and going outside.

Since it was right at his doorstep, Lin Hui decided to squat down there and test what this newly awakened blood seal could do.

First, he squatted down, looked around, and casually picked a blade of grass.

'Roadside grass: Common plant, immature, suitable for livestock farming. Evolutionary branch: 2.'

'1—Purgatory Bitter Spirit Grass.'

'2—Straw Man.'

"Sure enough, here we go again. This straw man is no different from the chopstick man from before, is it?" Lin Hui tried selecting the straw man and immediately saw a waiting time of at least seven years.
He then picked up a stone from the ground and held it in his hand.

Sure enough, the stones also showed evolutionary branches.

'1 - Enhancement Stone.'

'2—Stone Man.'

This time, he didn't choose the stone golem, but instead chose number 1, the enhancement stone.

'Evolve Enhancement Stone?'

'Strengthening Stone: Consumes a fixed amount of stone powder to obtain a slight enhancement to physical constitution.'

Required resources: one stone, seven days' worth of energy reserves.

Time required: One month.

Thankfully, although this one is also long, at least there's hope. The previous one took far too long.

Lin Hui breathed a slight sigh of relief.

Then he put down the stone and replaced it with many other kinds of stones, and all of them resulted in similar evolutionary branches.

Through continuous testing, he gradually began to understand the function of the blood seal.

'This thing is an all-purpose enhancer; it can enhance anything and even provide some analytical information. Aside from the excessive consumption, there might be something I haven't explored yet.' Lin Hui temporarily shelved his exploration, planning to wait until he went to Qingfeng Temple and learned real skills and knowledge before trying to add other abilities and skills to enhance it as well.

Thinking of this, he raised his head and looked at the flow of people in front of him. The slight depression and worry in his heart before slowly began to fade away after the Blood Seal ability emerged.

The next morning, Lin Shunhe, the old man, took Lin Hui on an oxcart and drove out of the town.

After traveling for more than an hour, the two arrived at a somewhat secluded side road.

The oxcart bumped and jolted as it turned onto a side road, finally stopping in front of a gray-white Taoist temple with a circular outer wall.

Lin Hui got off the oxcart and looked up at the Taoist temple.

'Qingfeng Temple'.

The three large characters are upright and straight, neither ostentatious nor restrained, but rather moderate and peaceful.

Two children dressed in light blue martial arts uniforms were standing at the doorway, each holding a broom and chatting.

They only pretended to clean a few times when they saw someone coming.

"Master Quanshun, is your master Mingde here?"

Old man Lin Shunhe got off the oxcart, paid the driver to go first, and said he would come back to pick up the two of them later. Then he went up to greet one of the young Taoist boys.

“It’s Uncle He who gives out candied hawthorns! We’re here. Master told us to take people in to find him as soon as we see you!” The young Taoist on the right, who wasn’t wearing a blue hair tie, immediately recognized the person.

"Then I'll trouble you." Lin Shunhe smiled and clasped his hands in a fist salute, leading his son and the other party into the Taoist temple gate.

Inside the gate was a rather spacious area. On the right was a large incense burner, and on the left were several Taoist priests sitting cross-legged, seemingly meditating and chanting scriptures.

Directly in front of the main hall, facing the gate, is a three-story square building with winged serpent statues curving upwards at every corner.

The entire building was painted light red, with some areas showing signs of age and peeling paint.

At this moment, footsteps were heard. A tall, burly Taoist priest with a thick beard, dressed in a gray-white Taoist robe and black cloth shoes, came out to greet Lin Shunhe with a loud laugh.

"Brother Shunhe is here! We've been waiting for you!"

“Brother Mingde, we really need your help this time. This is my son, Lin Hui!” Lin Shunhe pulled Lin Hui forward, patted him on the back, and laughed. “He’s getting old, and he’s looking for something to do. I heard you’re short of an accountant who can do arithmetic, and my son is definitely up to the task! I brought him here to give it a try.”

“That’s easy to say. We have a good relationship, so we’ll talk about it once he’s in the door. But whether he can actually do anything depends on his performance. After all, the final decision rests with Abbot Bao and Senior Brother,” Mingde said with a smile.

"That's that."

The two exchanged pleasantries as they entered.

Lin Hui greeted the other party politely and then followed them through the gate.

Inside the main hall of the Taoist temple was a headless statue missing arms and legs. There were no offerings in front of the statue, which showed that this place was not a real Taoist temple, but a martial arts school disguised as a Taoist temple.

Soon Lin Hui was settled in a side room on one side of the hall to wait.

The father and the Taoist priest Mingde went to process his entry into the temple.

The room wasn't big, but it had a bookshelf and a set of tables and chairs.

With nothing to do, Lin Hui asked a passing Taoist priest outside and was told that he could freely browse the bookshelves. So he went to the bookshelves, randomly picked out a copy of the Wuwei Jing (Classic of Non-Action), and began to read it slowly.

'To act without acting is to act; to act is to do what is necessary; not acting is not inaction, but rather a deliberate and purposeful action.'

The scripture was convoluted and he found it boring after flipping through a few pages, so he closed the scripture and was about to put it back.

hiss.

Just then, that familiar soft sound came again.

Lin Hui's heart skipped a beat, and he quickly took the scripture back and examined it carefully.

'The Sutra of Non-Action: Written by an anonymous Daoist, it forms the core doctrine of the Daoist School of Non-Birth. Potential branch for evolution: 3.'

'1—The Sutra of Purgatory Without Action.'

'2—The Ninefold Compassion Sutra.'

'3—The Invisible and Wordless Scripture.'

Looking at these three evolutionary branches, Lin Hui narrowed his eyes and randomly selected the Purgatory Wuwei Scripture to open.

'Is it possible to evolve the Purgatory of Non-Action Sutra?'

'Required resources: One copy of the *Wuwei Jing* (a classic text on non-action), and twelve years of accumulated energy.'

Time required: Fifteen years.

'The longest time in history!' Lin Hui's heart skipped a beat. 'Unfortunately, there's no way to see what the purpose of this scripture is.'

He put the scriptures back in their place and then glanced at the rest of the books on the shelf.

Aside from scriptures, there were various travelogues, but soon he pulled out a different one from the corner.

The Sword of Sealing the Heart.

The book is thin, only nine pages long. The bottom right corner of the cover has an author's mark, indicating that it was written by a Taoist named Mingxin.

Lin Hui flipped through a few pages. It talked about how to make a person have a profound awakening, completely seal the desires in their heart, and thus enter the Dao and embark on the true path of pursuing immortality.

After flipping through it, Lin Hui was somewhat surprised to find that it contained many specific details on how to verbally induce and guide others.

'This is already considered basic hypnotic psychology, right?'

He refocused his attention on the book.

Immediately, a new dotted line extends from the right side of the light blue cover of the Heart-Sealing Sword.

Gray dashed lines connect the small pieces of information.

'The Heart-Sealing Sword: A fundamental scripture of the once-glorious Fengchan Sect, widely circulated, written by the Daoist Mingxin. It can evolve into branch 2.'

There's not much to say, Lin Hui clicked on the evolution branch.

'1—Feng Yuan Jing.'

'2—Sealing Light Spell.'

Seeing this, Lin Hui sighed. Just looking at the name without any specific description of its effects, he didn't dare to choose it at all, since it often involved consuming time measured in years.

To date, he still hasn't fully figured out what the purpose of this bloodstain is.

'Maybe when I'm stronger and have more energy, I'll be able to shorten the evolution time?'

dong dong dong.

Just then, there was a knock on the door.

"Brother Lin Hui, your father and Uncle Mingde want you to go to the inner hall." A somewhat immature male voice came from inside.

"Understood." Lin Hui walked over, opened the door, and stood a handsome young Taoist boy with a topknot.

"This is our first meeting. My name is Huishen. From now on, I will be the one to show you around and guide your learning."

Dao Tongji was about thirteen or fourteen years old, much younger than Lin Hui, but his speech and mannerisms were quite mature. Looking at Lin Hui opening the door, he gave a gentle smile, a smile clearly imitated from other adults, making him appear somewhat overly mature.

"Greetings, Senior Brother Huishen." Lin Hui quickly bowed.

"Let's go, I look forward to your guidance from now on," Hui Shen said with a smile, turning around to lead the way.

*
*
*
For Lin Hui, joining Qingfeng Temple was very simple; he relied on the connections of Mingde Daoist, a highly skilled monk within the temple who was very familiar with his father, Lin Shunhe.

The entire Qingfeng Temple has a very simple structure. After Lin Hui spent several days exploring it, he roughly understood the specific situation.

The highest-ranking person was only one person, namely Abbot Baohe and the Taoist.

Then there are the supervisors in charge, a total of three: Mingchen, Mingde, and Mingxiu. The three of them take turns managing the temple's logistics, teaching, and external affairs.

In essence, Qingfeng Temple is still a profit-making institution whose main income comes from teaching basic external martial arts. In addition, it has a small medicinal garden on the back mountain of the temple, where it cultivates a precious medicinal herb called Shixinggen. These two things easily support all the expenses of the temple.

After joining the group, Lin Hui quickly became familiar with the daily routine and work under Hui Shen's guidance.

Mingde assigned him some basic arithmetic problems and soon found that he did them very easily, so he gradually began to give him more and more problems.

While familiarizing himself with the environment and work, Lin Hui also studied his newly awakened blood mark.

A week has passed in the blink of an eye.
(End of this chapter)