Confucian and Taoist Cultivation Starting from the Equipment Slot

Chen Zhuo let out a long breath.

Now he has two Originium stones.

The one I got by chance in the mine has about three uses left.

Chen Zhuo estimated that this piece should have been used five times.

If we only consider offsetting the consumption, it can offset the energy consumption of eight "Devour" script spells.

This means that at crucial moments, he can truly use the word "devour" as a trump card.

Instead of being a one-time, all-or-nothing gamble, like in a mine.

Chen Zhuo carefully put away the source stones and crystal cores, then looked at the panel again.

His literary talent value was currently stable at 34 points.

We're just one point away from reaching the 35-point mark.

Once you reach 35 points, you can learn a wide range of literary arts from your sect.

To be honest, Chen Zhuo had been eyeing this literary skill for a long time.

He has a bit of literary flair, but not much. He'll try his best tonight to see if he can produce something.

Thinking of this, he opened the copy of the poem he had memorized at the Qing Shi gathering today and read it through from beginning to end again.

"Carved and hammered from the deep mountains, it faces the raging fire with indifference. It fears not being ground to powder or shattered body, but only wishing to leave its purity in the world."

It is always refreshing to read, and each reading brings new insights.

Every word in this poem is a famous line that he had memorized countless times in his previous life.

But when he wrote it down at the Qing Shi meeting today, he also incorporated his own understanding into it.

He encountered many things after transmigrating to this world.

Literature, literary arts, the long night, and demons.

Master, junior sister, outer city.

Past scenes flashed through my mind and eventually merged into the poem.

Famous quotes from a past life and insights from this life converge on the character "stone".

This is probably why this poem can evoke a resonance between heaven and earth in this context.

It wasn't because he copied a good poem, but because he poured his understanding from two lifetimes into a single word.

Just as I was thinking this, a faint warmth suddenly surged within my body.

[Literary Ability +1. Current Literary Ability: 35 points.]

Chen Zhuo looked at the number, slowly leaned back in his chair, and smiled.

Thirty-five o'clock.

He finally broke through the learning threshold of the sect's large-scale attack on literary arts.

The next morning, Chen Zhuo went to the College of Arts early.

The night sky was still shrouded in the golden light of the Righteous Qi Array, and the simulated morning light spread out from the east, gilding the green tiles of the Academy with a layer of pale gold.

There were already quite a few people in Minglun Hall. Today's morning class was Qian Wenbi's lecture on the seventh lecture of "Ten Lectures on Literature and the Way".

The content concerns the coordination between the flow of literary energy and the release of literary skills.

Chen Zhuo sat in the front row, listening attentively, but a string in his mind was constantly being gently plucked.

The crystal core engraved with ancient characters in my arms sent a faint chill through my clothes.

After morning classes, he did not go to the Tibetan Library as usual, but went straight to Yangzhengzhai.

Song Zhiyuan was sitting behind his desk, holding a half-cold cup of tea.

The beams of light from outside the window appeared paler than usual in the morning light, almost blending into the sky.

On the corner of the table lay a well-worn copy of the Qingshan County Gazetteer, covered with dense markings in vermilion ink.

"Master." Chen Zhuo bowed at the door.

Song Zhiyuan looked up at him, then placed the teacup on the corner of the table.

"Xiao Si is here. Yesterday, he caused such a commotion at the Qingshi Fair that everyone in Qingshan County saw the character 'stone' hanging in the sky."

"If you hadn't come today, I would have had to send someone to fetch you."

Chen Zhuo walked into Yangzhengzhai and sat down in the chair opposite Song Zhiyuan.

"This disciple has come precisely because of what happened yesterday."

He took the translucent crystal core from his pocket and placed it on the desk.

"This was extracted from a piece of Qingshan stone at the Qingshi Gathering yesterday. There is an engraving inside the crystal core, which is an ancient character. I am not knowledgeable enough to recognize the origin of this character, so I would like to ask Master to take a look."

Song Zhiyuan's gaze fell on the crystal core.

He put down his teacup, held the crystal nucleus to the window, and examined it carefully in the morning light.

The engraving inside the crystal core shone slightly in the light; it was the shape of an ancient Chinese character.

The structure was more complex than the writing system used today, but both people present could recognize the character: "启".

Song Zhiyuan's hand suddenly stopped.

He turned the crystal over and looked at the engraving from another angle, then touched the surface of the crystal with his fingertips very lightly and slowly.

A very subtle fluctuation of literary energy emanated from the depths of the engraving, so faint as to be almost imperceptible.

But Chen Zhuo also sensed it; he had felt a similar atmosphere in the painting "A Record of Leisurely Travels in Mountains and Rivers".

"What is this...?" Song Zhiyuan paused for a moment, "...carved out of a piece of green mountain rock?"

"Yes."

Chen Zhuo briefly recounted how he won the blue-green water-patterned raw stone at the Blue Stone Fair yesterday.

"Besides this crystal core, a source stone was also found inside that rock."

"Originium?" Song Zhiyuan raised his eyes.

"Is it the kind of stone you asked me about before?"

"Yes, it's a mineral that contains special energy."

"I obtained one by chance during a demon-slaying operation before and found that it could be used to counteract the negative effects of certain spells. The one I obtained yesterday is of the same quality as the previous one, but it is much larger."

Chen Zhuo briefly explained the information he had.

Song Zhiyuan placed the crystal core back on the desk and remained silent for a moment.

Then, from under the well-worn Qingshan County Gazetteer in the corner of the desk, he pulled out a folded piece of paper.

A rough topographical map of the mountains is sketched on it with charcoal pencil, and the directions of several mineral veins are marked with vermilion pencil, with a circle drawn at the intersection of the veins.

"Your senior sister came to see me a few days ago. She got a stone shard from Liu Laotie. It was also cut from a piece of Qingshan stone, and it has the same words engraved on it."

Song Zhiyuan pointed to the circle, "Old Liu's grandfather used to work with the Tongxin Alliance's mining team. The mineral veins that the Tongxin Alliance was mining were in this area."

Chen Zhuo looked at the picture.

The veins of minerals resemble several winding snakes, converging deep within the green mountains to form a faintly discernible rhombus shape.

The location circled in vermilion ink roughly coincided with the coordinates he saw in the mineral vein data given to him by Tong Yue.

"Master, there's something I don't understand," Chen Zhuo looked up, "What exactly is the Green Mountain Stone?"

"Why is it that some stones mined from the same vein are just waste, some can be extracted to yield marrow, and others can yield source stones and crystal cores with these inscriptions?"

This matter had been troubling him.

He didn't understand why something could be found inside the stone; he only had a vague guess.

Song Zhiyuan leaned back in his chair, picked up the now-cold tea, took a sip, and then put it down.

"I used to just guess about this, but now it's almost certain. Let's start by talking about the origins of jade gambling."

He pushed the mineral vein map in front of Chen Zhuo, "Ordinary raw stones are products of geological movements, and so is Qingshan stone, but it's not from ordinary geological movements."

"Deep in the green mountains lies an ancient site, the age of which is unknown, but it predates the founding of literature and culture by the First Emperor."