One divination a day, a trainee celestial master

"Whoosh~~" As soon as he turned out of the alley of Nanxi Lane and was out of sight of the Zhou family, the immortal aura on Jiang Shou's body vanished without a trace.

"I'm so disappointed..." Jiang Shou said dejectedly, clutching his rumbling stomach. He spotted the breakfast stall at the alley entrance.

He rushed over, scanned the code to pay, grabbed two steaming hot meat buns, took a bite of one half, and slurped it up because it was so hot.

Just then, "Ugh..."

Jiang Shou suddenly felt that the Suihanling in his inner underwear pocket was faintly emitting a warm sensation.

"The mission is complete?!" Jiang Shou's eyes lit up. He stuffed the remaining buns into his mouth in a few bites, choking and rolling his eyes back.

He quickly hopped onto the dilapidated three-wheeled motorcycle parked by the roadside and kicked it to start. "Put-put-put-put~~" A plume of black smoke billowed from the exhaust pipe of the three-wheeled motorcycle. Jiang Shou twisted the throttle to the floor and sped off impatiently toward Cuiwei Mountain.

……

On the other side, in the Zhou family courtyard in Nanxi Lane.

Zhouzhou's mother, Lin Juan, finally came to her senses and turned to her mother-in-law: "Mom, which Taoist temple did that little master say he was in? I was so distracted just now that I didn't hear him very clearly."

The old woman's face was flushed with excitement as she slapped her thigh: "Shouyi Temple! It's the Shouyi Temple on the mountain in the western suburbs of Qiyun County!"

Zhou Guodong stuffed the stack of cash back into his pocket, looked at his wife and elderly mother, and nodded heavily: "Yes! Mom, Juan'er, once Zhouzhou has recovered a bit in the next few days, our whole family must prepare a generous gift and personally go to Cuiwei Mountain to offer thanks to the Three Pure Ones and Master Jiang!"

"Yes, yes, yes!" The old woman nodded repeatedly with satisfaction. "We must go! We absolutely must go! It's a blessing from our ancestors that our Zhou family has encountered such a selfless and altruistic person!"

……

Cuiwei Mountain, Shouyi Temple.

With a loud bang, Jiang Shou shoved open the two dilapidated vermilion doors of the Taoist temple, then slammed them shut behind him.

Fat Tiger, the orange tabby cat, was comfortably sunbathing on the threshold of the main hall when the sudden loud noise startled him so much that his whole body trembled.

Fat Tiger opened its eyes, looking somewhat annoyed at the human's back as it rushed into the back room like a gust of wind. It rolled its eyes, let out a dissatisfied "grumble" in its throat, and changed its position to continue lying down.

"Bang!" The door to the side room was locked from the inside.

Jiang Shou leaned against the door, panting, and eagerly reached into his robes to pull out the slightly warm Suihan Token.

Looking down, sure enough! The four lines of divination on the back of the wooden plaque, concerning "a young child losing his soul," were now emitting a lustrous, radiant blue light.

The moment Jiang Shou took out the wooden plaque, the glowing characters began to twist and merge, then transformed into a thick, dense blue light about the thickness of a thumb. As if it had eyes, it shot directly into Jiang Shou's brow with a "whoosh"!

"Ugh—"

The moment the blue light entered his body, Jiang Shou felt a sudden heat deep between his eyebrows.

Immediately afterwards, an indescribable feeling of ultimate comfort overwhelmed all his senses like a tidal wave.

He felt as if his blood had been washed clean from head to toe by pure, warm water. A tingling, numbing sensation spread through his limbs, as if every cell was cheering with joy.

Jiang Shou leaned back against the door uncontrollably, his eyes closed, his expression extremely ecstatic. "This is so good... this stuff is really addictive..." he thought to himself, somewhat dazed.

I don't know how much time passed. It might have been just ten seconds, or it might have been more than ten minutes.

As the intense pleasure slowly receded like the tide, Jiang Shou suddenly opened his eyes. A glint of light flashed in his eyes.

Jiang Shou took a deep breath. He could clearly feel that he was now full of explosive energy! The fatigue from staying up all night drawing talismans and rushing around early in the morning had long been swept away.

His mind was unusually clear, and his thinking was so agile that it was as if he had been given a new head.

What surprised him even more was his breathing. Without any conscious effort, each of his breaths became deep, even, and smooth, as if he could breathe directly to his heels.

"Dantian!"

Jiang Shou suddenly remembered the most important thing, so he quickly closed his eyes and used his mind to focus on the area three inches below his lower abdomen.

Sure enough! Within that seemingly empty dantian, a solid, warm mass of energy lay dormant. This was the "True Essence" that cultivators in novels dreamed of!

Moreover, it was different from the residual energy that was only the size of a walnut last night.

The ball of true energy residing in his dantian at this moment was a whole size larger than before! If you closed your eyes and felt it, the ball of energy radiating warmth was already about the size of a lemon!

"Cultivation True Essence..." Jiang Shou stood in the side room, feeling the surging and warm power coming from his lower abdomen. He couldn't help but grin wildly, and the smile eventually stretched all the way to his ears.

"At this rate, if I take on a few more missions..." Jiang Shou rubbed his hands excitedly, "Wouldn't I be able to fly on a sword? Hahahaha!"

Having learned his lesson from his previous disastrous experience of recklessly using his true energy to try out the "super 8x scope" and "jumping out of the ground and crashing into the roof beam," Jiang Shou was much wiser this time.

He forcefully suppressed the urge to mobilize that ball of true energy again to test its power.

"Good steel must be used on the hilt!" Jiang Shou patted his lower abdomen, secretly calculating in his heart: "This is the true essence of cultivation, every bit used is a bit less! It must be kept in the dantian as a trump card, and must not be used unless absolutely necessary. At the very least, I must save it for when I go out to show off... cough, to show off in front of others, and to make my ancestor look good."

……

After carefully putting away the Winter Solstice Decree, Jiang Shou stretched and yawned. At that moment, his mood was like the sun breaking through the clouds and spring flowers blooming.

He pushed open the door to the side room, humming a pop song with off-key tune, and strode arrogantly into the courtyard with his pigeon-toed gait.

The morning sun had already crossed the mountain and was shining warmly into the courtyard of Shouyi Temple.

Jiang Shou immediately spotted the orange cat Pang Hu, who was sunbathing on the threshold of the main hall.

The golden sunlight gilded its already glossy orange fur with a golden edge, making it look like a freshly baked loaf of bread from afar.

"Hey, why does this fat cat look so pleasing to the eye today?"

Jiang Shou, in high spirits, chuckled, rubbed his hands together, and strode over, reaching out his sinful hands, wanting to give this lump of "baked bread" a good hug and rub.

"Come here, little fat cat, let this abbot get closer..."

Just as Jiang Shou's hands were less than ten centimeters away from Pang Hu's body.

"Whoosh—" Only a blurry orange afterimage remained in the air.

Jiang Shou didn't even feel the wind blowing by before his hands grabbed nothing, slamming them down on the empty wooden threshold with a "smack".

He paused for a moment, then suddenly looked up.

Suddenly, Fat Tiger nimbly leaped across the several-meter-wide distance and landed steadily on the high offering table in front of the statue of the Three Pure Ones in the main hall. It looked down at Jiang Shou, its amber cat eyes filled with hostility and wariness.

"Holy crap?" Jiang Shou stared at his empty hands, his eyes practically popping out of their sockets.