Confucian and Taoist Cultivation Starting from the Equipment Slot

Just as Chen Zhuo was about to explore in detail what this great vow was, he was suddenly pulled away by his junior sister.

"Senior sister, do you know what this Great Vow is?" Chen Zhuo asked curiously, seeing his expression.

"I don't know, but it's definitely not something good."

Gu Qing'e spoke vaguely.

Seeing this, Chen Zhuo stopped asking questions and decided to find out more about it when he had time.

When Chen Zhuo returned to the Chen residence, it was already completely dark.

Although the sky remained dark after the long night began.

However, the Righteous Qi Array simulates normal sunrise and sunset.

The lanterns in the courtyard were already lit, and Qingluo was tiptoeing to hang the last one under the eaves. When she saw him enter, she quickly came to greet him.

"Young Master, you're back."

She took the outer robe that Chen Zhuo had taken off and added in a low voice, "The mistress sent someone over with something, saying that the young master had asked someone to find it, and it's already on the desk in the study."

Chen Zhuo paused in his steps.

He did ask someone to find the scriptures; that was right when the long night had just begun.

He instructed the purchasing staff in the manor to keep an eye out for books containing literary content, regardless of their style or genre, and to acquire any they found.

But so many days have passed and there has been no response from the procurement department, so he had almost forgotten about it.

Unexpectedly, the first person to deliver the items was his stepmother, Xie Yaoyin.

"Okay." He nodded. "Prepare some hot water. I'll go to the study for a while."

Qingluo retreated upon hearing this.

Chen Zhuo walked through the corridor and pushed open the door to the study.

The lamp on the table is already on.

A wooden box sat neatly in the center of the table. The box was not large, and the wood used was not particularly precious, but it was polished very finely.

The edges are covered with copper sheets, which shows that a lot of thought and effort was put into it.

There was a note under the box, the handwriting neat but slightly awkward, as if it had been written by someone who had only recently started practicing.

"I heard that Erlang has been collecting books recently, and I happened to come across this volume. I wonder if it is of any use. If it doesn't suit your taste, you can simply discard it; there's no need to worry about it."

The signature consisted of only one word: "Thank you".

Chen Zhuo stared at the word "Thank you" for a moment, then put the note aside and opened the wooden box.

The box was lined with a layer of dark blue coarse cloth, on which lay a scroll of bamboo slips.

The bamboo slips weren't too old, but there were a few tiny cracks along the edges, indicating they had been handled many times.

He reached out and took out the bamboo slip, and the panel appeared before his eyes.

[《Stone Marrow Manual (White)》: A method for exploring mineral veins, enabling one to comprehend the literary art of "stone". Driven by literary energy, a protective layer of stone is formed on the body's surface, continuously consuming literary energy, belonging to the landscape school.]

As I learned more about the world, more and more information was displayed on the panel.

This is undoubtedly a good thing.

He then turned his attention to the new scripture, which explicitly stated that it could be used to comprehend the art of writing, specifically the "stone."

It looks like a defensive spell.

Chen Zhuo held the bamboo slip in his hand, but instead of equipping it immediately, he looked at the note on the table again.

"I came across this scroll by chance"—this "chance" is a bit too coincidental.

He had just finished guarding the city walls when he realized that what he lacked most was defensive measures. Shortly after, Xie Yaoyin "accidentally" obtained a scroll of defensive techniques from the Landscape School.

Of course, this could also be a coincidence.

It was no secret that he had asked the household to procure the scriptures, and it was perfectly normal for Xie Yaoyin, as the mistress of the house, to inquire about it.

Perhaps the procurement team found something and handed it over through her.

Perhaps she obtained it through some channel; it's not surprising that she could manage the Chen family's accounts so well and had some connections outside.

But Chen Zhuo still felt something was off.

This subtlety has no specific target; it's merely an intuition.

He shook his head to suppress the thoughts in his mind. No matter what the situation was, improving himself was the most important thing.

Chen Zhuo put the bamboo slips back into the wooden box, without rushing to equip them.

He had just acquired "Guanshan Travelogue" and Qian Xiu's insights on writing symbols, and there was already a long list of things he needed to digest.

When there's free time, there aren't any items; when there's no time, people line up to come.

With a slight sigh, Chen Zhuo sat back down at his desk and placed "Travel Notes on Mountain Views" and "Stone Marrow Catalogue" side by side.

One scroll is a tattered bamboo slip that no one wanted at the trade fair, and the other is a defensive scripture that the stepmother "accidentally" obtained.

The two volumes, with completely different origins, lay quietly on his desk, waiting to be read.

He picked up "A Travelogue of Guanshan" again and unfolded the bamboo slips.

I only glanced at Chunfeng Tower before, and didn't have time to look at it carefully.

The bamboo slip is decorated with a mountain landscape, drawn in very light ink, which at first glance looks like a casually sketched draft.

But upon closer inspection, one discovers that those seemingly chaotic lines are actually drawn at the turning points of the mountain ridge.

The person drawing the mountain is not drawing its shape, but its essence.

This was drawn by a cultivator while observing the mountain terrain on the border of Shengtian Prefecture. Many small characters were marked on it along the direction of the mountain.

"This vein slopes to the left, and the rock texture is loose, making it unsuitable for excavation."

"The rock strata here are fractured, suggesting the presence of an underground river."

These markings don't seem like the sentiments of a scholar traveling through mountains and rivers, but rather like those of a soldier surveying the terrain.

Chen Zhuo recalled the old soldier who recorded the potholes in the "Marching Diary".

There is a similar meticulousness between the two. It doesn't require a high level of cultivation; it only requires doing the same thing repeatedly until it becomes second nature.

He put down "Travel Notes on Mountain Views" and picked up the money he had earned that afternoon to repair the remaining parts.

Turning to the first page, you are greeted by densely packed small print.

It's not scripture, it's notes. Annotations someone wrote between the lines while reading this book, the handwriting is messy, and some parts have been repeatedly crossed out and rewritten.

"The way of writing talismans begins with the transformation of essence and energy. Using essence and energy as a guide and writing as a bridge, the art of writing is sealed within the talisman paper."

"The conversion rate is less than 10%. To increase the conversion rate, external aids are needed. Spiritual objects are the best, followed by..."

The following words were crossed out, and the rewritten words were even fainter: "Demon core, but be careful, the essence within the demon core is mixed, and direct use may cause backlash."

"The method of purification has not yet been found."

Chen Zhuo flipped through a few pages after reading this point and found that this book of insights contained almost no complete and systematic arguments, but rather fragmented records.

The notes have been read many times, the corners are badly worn, and some pages are stained with ink and oil.

This made him even more certain of one thing: this book of insights was not written by Xu Tianying.

Qian Xiu was a master of talismanic arts, but the fragment in his hand was not his manuscript, but rather a reflection written by someone who owned the fragment.

That person's cultivation level was not high; he was probably just a student or a scholar who had passed the imperial examinations. However, he pondered the book repeatedly and wrote his understanding densely in the blank spaces.

On the last few pages, the owner of the notebook suddenly wrote a seemingly random sentence:

"If we can use the power of the demon core to unravel the secrets of the source stone, perhaps we can solve it."

The words "Originium!" struck Chen Zhuo's eyes, and he almost crumpled the pages of the book.

The previous owner of this book knew about Originium.

What is the connection between demon cores and source stones? He turned the page, but the next page was torn out.

It didn't fall off naturally; the cut is clean, as if it was deliberately torn off.