To comprehend all laws and attain immortality

At the rising of dawn on Lingxi Peak.

Gu Fan swallowed a wisp of spiritual energy as he faced the rising sun, circulating it slowly through his internal organs and meridians before it sank into his dantian and was refined into a wisp of pure magical power.

Suddenly, Gu Fan's body trembled slightly.

As if a membrane had been gently punctured, the vortex of magical power within the dantian suddenly expanded outwards.

Once the cyclone had settled, Gu Fan opened his eyes and exhaled a long breath.

"This is the second level of Qi Refining."

Gu Fan stretched out his palm, and with a thought, a flame appeared in his palm.

As more and more magical power was poured in, the flames began to disperse into wisps, soon reaching hundreds of strands.

But Gu Fan did not stop. Instead, he continued to use the Flame Spirit Technique until there were more than two hundred strands of flame before waving his hand to disperse them.

"Sure enough, after my cultivation level improved, my mana and divine sense increased accordingly, and the Flame Spirit Technique also broke through."

Since the Flame Spirit Technique reached the minor completion stage, the cultivation speed has slowed down. No matter how Gu Fan practices, the Flame Spirit Technique can never break through the two hundred strands limit.

Today's verification confirms that it is indeed limited by one's cultivation level.

The effect of Qi Refining stage techniques is to continuously expand the meridians throughout the body, as if digging channels within the body, allowing the dantian to store more magical power and the meridians to withstand greater magical power output.

Limited by their spiritual root aptitude, those with low-grade spiritual roots will encounter a bottleneck when breaking through to the fourth level of Qi Refining, and their dantian and sea of ​​qi will no longer be able to expand unless they take a breakthrough pill and forcibly expand it with the powerful magic power converted from the pill.

Gu Fan possesses a mid-grade spiritual root, and he will not encounter a bottleneck until at least the late stage of Qi Refining.

In addition, by practicing the "Morning Glow Purple Qi Gong" as a supplement, the meridians are nourished by the morning glow purple qi when the practice is performed every day, and they expand slowly but steadily. There is no need to worry about bottlenecks before the foundation is established.

It had been a year since Gu Fan joined the Lingxiao Sect.

For ordinary outer sect disciples, it takes nearly two years to break through to the second level of Qi Refining. Gu Fan cultivates two skills simultaneously, so his speed is naturally much faster.

The peach blossoms in the courtyard bloomed and faded again, just as they had when Gu Fan came, except that a few branches were missing, which were traces left by Gu Fan when he practiced the art of manipulating objects.

For the past year, Gu Fan's life has been extremely regular.

I never missed gathering Qi in the morning and evening, and then I would go to Shenji Peak to do chores and accumulate good deeds.

As his magical power deepened, Gu Fan accelerated his forging speed, but he did not devote all his time to it. Instead, he maintained a pace of earning one point of merit every five days.

Gu Fan wasn't afraid of his forging speed attracting attention; instead, he devoted more energy to studying cultivation techniques and Dao inscriptions.

The true meaning contained within the cultivation method is the most precious treasure. If one merely practices the method without ignoring the true meaning of the Dao, it is no different from buying the box and returning the pearl.

After a year of study and comparison of the Qi Circulation Diagram and the Daoist text, Gu Fan has thoroughly mastered the early stage of Qi cultivation techniques, and gathering Qi daily has almost become an instinct of his body.

On Shenji Peak, Gu Fan never missed the monthly sermons, but he never saw Li Kunyuan again.

The content of sermons varied widely, seemingly depending entirely on the speaker's mood.

They have a wide range of knowledge, from the properties of various spiritual materials and forging techniques to the engraving of runes and the effects of restrictions.

Gu Fan could only understand the part about spiritual materials. As for the content related to runes, he could only memorize it by rote and leave it for later study after exchanging for the rune inheritance.

Fortunately, the day finally arrived. A year had passed, and Gu Fan had accumulated seventy merit points.

Sixty points were used to exchange for the inheritance of the Talisman Dao, and Gu Fan planned to use the remaining ten points to exchange for the Qi Gathering Pill.

Only by quickly improving one's cultivation level can one achieve twice the result with half the effort in practicing magic.

After breaking through to the mid-stage of Qi Refining, one can earn merit points by accepting sect missions and refining weapons, which is far more efficient than blacksmithing.

......

Wendao Peak, Chenxing Pavilion.

Uncle Zhou was still sitting at the entrance of Chenxing Pavilion, as if he had never left, only the scroll in his hand had changed.

Gu Fan glanced at the cover and, as expected, it was still a mundane storybook.

"Disciple Gu Fan greets Senior Uncle." Gu Fan walked up and bowed.

Zhou Furui looked up at the sound, took his eyes off the storybook, and was slightly taken aback when he saw who it was.

"Hey, it's you, kid." Zhou Furui said with some surprise.

The Lingxiao Sect has over two thousand Qi Refining stage disciples, most of whom Zhou Furui has little recollection of, but only a dozen or so cultivate high-grade basic techniques, greatly narrowing down the scope.

What's more, Gu Fan also exchanged for a copy of "Morning Glow Purple Qi Gong" that day, which left a deep impression on Zhou Furui.

I thought he was just another ambitious person who might have suffered a serious injury to his cultivation foundation and had already left the mountain. But today, I see that he has already reached the second level of Qi Refining.

This caused a strange glint to flash in Zhou Furui's eyes. He asked with a smile, "Do you want to exchange for a spell? Same as always, you can choose it yourself, but you can't go upstairs."

Gu Fan shook his head and said, "This disciple does not want to exchange for spells, but rather for a first-tier talismanic inheritance."

"Exchange for a first-tier talismanic inheritance requires sixty merit points. Have you prepared them?"

Having seen the previous example, Zhou Furui didn't think there was anything wrong with Gu Fan exchanging talismans.

"Everything is ready," Gu Fan nodded in response.

Upon hearing this, Zhou Furui carefully examined Gu Fan and noticed the slight calluses on his palms. He smiled and said, "So you went to earn merit by blacksmithing."

"Master Uncle has a discerning eye," Gu Fan flattered.

"Alright, the jade slip for the inheritance of the talismanic arts is on the wooden shelf with the black stone hanging on it. Exchange it with your identity jade ring."

Zhou Furui waved his hand, indicating that Gu Fan should go find it himself.

Gu Fan responded and stepped into Chenxing Pavilion, heading straight for the wooden frame where the black stone was hanging.

The wooden frame was still divided into three layers, but the jade slips inside were not placed randomly like other cultivation techniques; instead, they were surrounded by a layer of white fluorescent light.

Golden characters flickered within the white glow, bearing the names of the contents recorded in the jade slip.

"An Introduction to the Way of Talismans", "An Introduction to the Way of Weapons", "An Introduction to the Way of Arrays", "The Art of Five Elements Restriction", "The True Meaning of Six Lines Divination"...

Gu Fan's eyes lit up at the sight of each name, and he wished he could redeem them all.

Gu Fan extended a finger toward the white fluorescent light, only to see a flash of lightning, and his finger was immediately repelled by a repulsive force, leaving his fingertip slightly numb.

With a helpless sigh, Gu Fan took out his identity jade ring and touched the glowing light that enveloped the "Initial Explanation of Talisman Dao".

Upon touching the jade ring, the fluorescent light dissipated, and the jade slip fell downwards, where it was caught by Gu Fan.

He placed the jade slip on his forehead and glanced at it; a large amount of text unfolded in his mind.

The information in the jade slip includes an introduction to the Way of Talismans, precautions for drawing talismans, and methods for drawing more than a dozen basic talismans.

Having finally obtained the long-awaited inheritance of the Dao of Talismans, Gu Fan was overjoyed. Just as he was about to turn around and leave, he noticed that there were several gray jade slips at the bottom of the wooden shelf, which were not surrounded by white fluorescent light.

Curious, I picked one up to examine it and discovered that it was engraved with many lines that formed a diagram.

The lines crisscross, but are centered around two nodes, and the name of the diagram is written on the outside.

"The Minor Spirit Gathering Array?"