There were many things that did not go as one wished in life.
Although Feng Feiyun was sympathetic towards Murong Ta’s situation, he was not overly affected by it. In the end, everyone had their own stories. The most important part was how their future would turn out.
Murong Ta’s bright eyes gazed at the Boundary Spirit Stone by Feng Feiyun’s waist. Earlier when Feng Feiyun wanted to take out the Eight Arts Volume but then decided against it, this stone did not escape Murong Ta’s eyes.
He handed a deliciously grilled fish to Feng Feiyun. This fish was fresh and fatty with the sweet fragrance of bamboo leaves. Although Feng Feiyun was used to eating delicacies, those cuisines were only mundane and ordinary. They could not compare to this grilled fish.
Both the chicken and fish grilled by Murong Ta were number one. To become friends with him was a blessing for one’s eating habits.
“It is a pity that you are not a chef!” Feng Feiyun ate three of these fish as quick as the wind and threw the fishbones all over the ground. His mouth was full of oil that reflected the warm sunlight.
After being exiled from the Feng Clan, he had not eaten or laughed so joyously.
“If you open a big restaurant, then I’ll be your head chef.” Murong Ta jokingly said with a smile.
“Really?” Feng Feiyun threw away the fourth set of fishbones and asked.
“I never joke around.” Murong Ta spoke with a secretive glare.
“Haha! Very well, remember these words then.” Feng Feiyun said, then he suddenly stood up and picked up a branch from the ground. With this branch, he began to draw a strange line with complicated runes. Each symbol was particularly interesting.
Murong Ta came standing by his side and looked at the drawing on the ground before curiously asking: “What are you drawing?”
“In order to become a Treasure Seeking Master, outside of having a great spiritual sense, one must have great eyesight and a basic knowledge for a few things. For example, formations. This is something that all Treasure Seeking Masters must know.”
Feng Feiyun moved his hand back and forth. Very quickly, he carved a formation on the ground. To be more exact, an outline of a formation.
“You want to teach me formations?” Murong Ta became quite ecstatic. His thin body crouched down and he carefully looked at the runes and outlines on the ground with a very interested expression.
Feng Feiyun put away the bamboo branch and also crouched down. Then, he smilingly said: “There are too many formations in this world; with many different types and complex arrangements, there are more than one thousand different techniques of drawing them. However, they are divided into nine ranks. The higher the rank, the greater the complexity. Some high level formations would require several years of drawing and preparation to complete.”
Murong Ta sat next to Feng Feiyun and quietly listened to his lecture while his spirited eyes gently shifted.
“However, everything has the same beginning, and all the initial frameworks of these formations are the same. Just like what Master Taozi said, the Infinity gave birth to the Absolute, then the Absolute gave birth to the heaven and earth, then the four divisions came from the heaven and earth, and then the Bagua came from the four divisions, and finally all livings things were born from the Bagua. Although the myriad existences are cumbersomely complex, all beginnings are stemmed from the Infinity and the Absolute.” Feng Feiyun was afraid that Murong Ta wouldn’t understand, so he explained everything in great detail. [1. I died a little inside with this. Infinity = wuji, Absolute = taiji, four divisions = the four great mythical beasts.]
Murong Ta slightly nodded his head and said: “Then this thing you carved just now is the bare outline of all formations?”
“You can put it that way.” Feng Feiyun patted Murong Ta’s shoulder and handed him the bamboo branch while gesturing for him to draw.
Murong Ta’s talent at creating formations especially shocked Feng Feiyun. It was as if he was someone who had studied formations for many years. After just three failures, he managed to draw a complete formation outline.
This was the culmination of many years of research from many wise sages from the Demon Phoenix Race, the result of many years to form an outline capable of carving all the formations in this world. It was much more amazing compared to the formation scriptures of humans.
Feng Feiyun thought that Murong Ta was truly an unparalleled genius of the Treasure Seeking Master branch.
Time began to slowly pass by like this. Before they knew it, the two were laughing and studying like a teacher and student, but they were also friends.
When the sun was up high, the examination teacher of the Spirit Treasure Tower came to find them and wanted to bring them to the real spiritual sense test.
It was already extremely impressive for someone to have a spiritual sense nine times greater than an ordinary person. They would be greatly valued by the predecessors from the tower. Moreover, one of them was also the son of the demon, so even the tower master specifically came to ask about this.
After finding out that Feng Feiyun was the son of the demon, this old man before them who always liked to pretend to be cool had to behave a bit. He quietly led the way, but Feng Feiyun suddenly stopped when they reached a straight cliff along the way.
Murong Ta was right behind him and almost hit his head against Feng Feiyun’s back. He quickly paused as well.
The old man noticed the strange expressions from the two geniuses behind him, so he quickly asked: “What is wrong?”
Feng Feiyun asked with a cold glint in his eyes: “Who is the person staying inside that cliff?”
The old man slightly narrowed his eyes and carefully spoke: “Inside is a first level Heaven’s Mandate senior. You should never provoke him; that old fossil is a third rank Treasure Seeking Master who had once intruded an archaic cemetery. His body was infected with corpse poison so he is staying here and hasn’t come out for more than a hundred years.”
“Strange, there was a two thousand year old Lingzhi root on that cliff before. How come I don’t see it now?” The old man shook his head and murmured.
In the end, Feng Feiyun gave a cold glare towards the cliff then eventually followed the old man once more.
***
What was referred to as the Spirit Treasure Tower was actually a huge mountain. All four directions of the tower were just straight cliffs with many pine trees and black dragon spirit grass.
When one looked up, they would see this majestic mountain that pierced through the clouds with cranes flying around along with the roars of animals. There were also spirit lights emanating from the stone walls where old spirit roots would grow.
Within Feng Feiyun’s view, there were at least seven to eight spirit roots that were more than a thousand year old. There was also ginseng moving below the muddy puddles and spirit grasses emitting crimson lights…
It was indeed worthy of being called the Spirit Treasure Tower. Even a big immortal sect would only be able to have two to three spirit grasses, but one could see seven to eight of them here.
The sacred ground of Treasure Seeking Masters was indeed extraordinary.
It was no wonder that some cultivators claimed that Treasure Seeking Masters owned sixty percent of the world’s treasures while the other forty percent was divided to the rest.
The tower was not only the sacred ground, it was also the treasury of the Wanxiang Pagoda. There were many treasures inside that were comparable to a kingdom’s treasury, and there was no shortage of Spirit Treasures, Spirit Medicines, Spirit Pills, and ancient weapons.
The most precious amongst them had to be the nine defining treasures of the Wanxiang Pagoda.
These nine treasures were extremely magical. Each year, there would always be supreme cultivators who came here to steal them, but all of them would be killed by a mysterious expert that protected the Spirit Treasure Pagoda. No one had successfully taken something out of this tower.
The old man took Feng Feiyun and Murong Ta to the 17th floor. Along the way, they saw many Treasure Seeking Masters holding positions inside the tower. There were also some older masters who came here to learn more things along with some Treasure Seeking Students reading ancient scrolls.
The tower was even more complex and huge compared to Feng Feiyun’s imagination. Each level was extremely vast and the tower even had ninety-seven floors.
The 16th floor had some Treasure Seeking manuals such as the “Astrology Study”, “Soul-soothing Grave”, “Yang World’s Three Strange”, “Yin World’s Three Evil”, “First Level Comprehensive Formation”... Of course, all of them were only low level texts.
There was also a training ground for one’s spiritual sense, allowing one to increase their speed of cultivation.
There was also a special floor to train insight with dedicated teachers.
The density of the spirit energy here was abnormally high; it was about seven times higher than the outside. Training for one day here was comparable to three days outside.
Feng Feiyun was very suspicious and thought that there had to be a spirit vein below this tower.
It was not hard for a bunch of Treasure Seeking Masters to anchor a spirit vein for their own use.
“Oh my god, a spiritual sense more than seventeen times that of an ordinary man. You’ll only need some time before you become a first rank Treasure Seeking Master.”
The moment they got to the 17th floor, they heard a hoarse voice.
Having a spiritual sense twice that of an ordinary man would make one a first level Treasure Seeking Student; two times that was a second level student… Nine times was a ninth level student.
However, in order to become a first rank Treasure Seeking Master, one must have — at the very least — twenty times the spiritual sense of an ordinary man.
As for the second rank, one would need forty times the spiritual sense of an ordinary man.
This was the reason why there were so few masters. Just the spiritual sense aspect alone was enough to deny many people at the door, and high level masters were fewer than few.
The moment he entered the door, he saw Ji Feng standing in the center of the 17th floor. It was right when he stepped down from the test platform, so the genius with seventeen times the ordinary amount was Ji Feng.
The Treasure Seeking Students were all looking at Ji Feng with admiration. The eyes of the pretty female students were full of waves; Ji Feng’s talents were really high, resulting in them having a crush on him. He would surely become a high level Treasure Seeking Master that would be highly respected by the rest of the cultivation world.
Although Ji Feng was gravely wounded by Feng Feiyun, a bunch of old teachers from the Spirit Treasure Tower saved him and fed him Spirit Pills, allowing him to regain his basic functions within two days. Today, he was praised by everyone so he had a radiant glow with a hint of pride. The shadow of defeat due to the hands of Feng Feiyun several days ago was instantly swept away.
