Universal Knowledge of the Dao - Chapter 64 Ruining The Sec

Right before stepping out of the shadow though, Shin Sumi stopped, suddenly pondering about something. In a simple movement, she exchanged her green robes for orange ones. With magic it was much faster than a blink and soon her green robes were hidden in her bag.

She then walked rapidly from behind the arena wall, intent on making her way through the upper valley.

It was only then, in the bustling activity of disciples fighting and walking in small groups or alone that she realized that she knew basically nothing about the upper valley.

“Lan Hui was the one who showed me the ropes of the lower valley, but here… There is nobody I know besides Yue and Brother Fen.”

One landmark that Shin Sumi remembered was the arrival platform from the Rising Star Tournament. Heading there, Shin Sumi made sure to open her eyes wide, taking in all the sights, smells, sounds and feelings.

Between her breasts, hidden in the orange folds of her robes, the little nut seemed as impatient as her to discover another part of the sect entirely.

If the lower valley was still somewhat similar to a mortal city, it was completely different in this part of the mountain.

Everywhere Shin Sumi looked, she could see cultivators, not just people. Some were reading ancient scrolls, others simply walked around with swords spinning around them.

Magic was everywhere, the flow of Shinsoo unperturbed despite the bustling atmosphere.

“Wow, over there, what is that?!” Shin Sumi had just spotted a cultivator feeding what could only be a Devil Fox, a beast high enough to touch his chest with its head.

The Devil Fox had two bone horns poking out from between the ears, as well as three tails. It looked ferocious and impressive but in the hands of the cultivator from the Divine-Beasts Pavilion it was simply a pet.

On the cultivator’s neck was a tattoo representing two horns, engraved in his skin with a dark red mark.

Shin Sumi had almost stopped to observe the scene better when the neck of the cultivator flashed with a vibrant orange color. In a very fast vortex, the Devil Fox spun through the air, sucked into the marking like a pile of dust in a strong wind.

Besides Shin Sumi, nobody was surprised to see such a thing happen. Everything was just common feats around here.

“Oi, Ken Dang, I’m over here! I need to ask you a favor!”

Just behind Shin Sumi a disciple with a long black beard interpelled somebody in the distance.

“About that plant growing formation that you said you had mastered… If I offered you a short sword and a Cleansing Spirit Pellet, would you help me with my Centenary Ginseng root?”

“So people exchange favors in the street just like that…”

The sense of community and being part of a whole was mind-blowing to Shin Sumi.

“Are these really the same people that would fight to the death at any occasion during a trial or for resources?!”

Coming from the Rising Star Tournament where unless you had enough strength you couldn’t relax your guard at any time, the peacefulness of the upper valley was a drastic change.

Shin Sumi found the platform where she had caught a glance of Xiao Yue two days prior after more than an hour of leisurely walking through the sect.

Past the excitement of seeing the first new Liquid Realm cultivators come out of the trial successful, not many disciples were around.

The only groups left were those that were waiting specifically for a friend or a clan member, somebody they knew was still in the lower valley.

Waiting for the opportune moment, Shin Sumi only made her appearance on the platform when nobody was paying attention to it, by eyes or divine sense.

From then on, she would just have to act like she had just been teleported.

Motion sick from the ‘teleportation’ she had just ‘gone through’, Shin Sumi fell on her knees loudly, catching the attention of a young man that had been on the other side of the platform.

“Oh, an orange robed girl! That one surely isn’t half bad to have arrived this early!” he said in a low voice before continuing out loud: “Hey there Sister. Are you okay? Welcome to the upper valley!”

Shin Sumi looked up towards the young man who presented himself rapidly before answering her questions.

“From what I’ve heard, you’re the fifteenth person to walk out from the trial. The first arrived two days ago and we can expect the late bloomers to finish in a couple of months at most!”

Shin Sumi nodded, acting much happier now about her ranking.

“Do you want me to take you to the Resources Pavilion? From there you’ll get your rewards for your ranking as well as a jade slip allowing you to take a house for yourself somewhere in the valley.”

Great! Shin Sumi didn’t even have to ask before the serviable young man already gave her the answers she was looking for.

The massive building holding the main center of resources distribution was a dozen or so kilometers away from the platform they were in, which made it close to the center of the upper valley.

But for Liquid Realm cultivators, what was a dozen kilometers except a short run. Shin Sumi even had to cut down her speed a bit to not arouse suspicions that she was already completely used to her cultivation level.

“Head in there and go to the clerk in a red robe, he’ll help you. If you need any more assistance, you can send me a jade slip message. Or just ask for Juwen Xi at the Shinsoo-Medecine Pavilion! I’ll see you later Sister Shin!”

Shin Sumi bowed rapidly, expressing her thanks before turning towards the Resources Pavilion.

“Hello? Is there anybody here?” she asked, unsure of what to do after she found the high ceiling room completely empty.

A bang followed by the screeching of somebody trying to pick up tens of scrolls and papers at once answered her.

“I’ll be with you in a second, sorry for the wait!”

Shin Sumi’s ears twitched. Hadn’t she heard that voice before? Before she could find out in her memory, a young man walked up from hidden stairs behind the counter.

The face was indeed familiar, even after about two years had gone since she last saw him.

“Brother Azu?

-Green talented girl! Big Brother Wudao’s protegee! You’ve made it into the Liquid Realm in no time, are you here for your rewards?!”

Shin Sumi answered affirmatively, happy to see someone she had already talked to once.

She remembered him, the second Immortal she had ever seen. Little Azu had been sleeping on the platform hosting the second test for entering the Dark Sky Starry Sect.

He was the first person to discover her supposed green talent when the nut touched the testing stele, hidden in her hand.

Little Azu took out a piece of jade on which were inscribed the names of the disciple that had already finished the Rising Star Tournament, all the while making small talk.

“So do you know which Pavilion you want to get in? With your ranking, there’s bound to be room in any of the five.”

Shin Sumi thought about it. She knew she had three slots but still hadn’t decided on which branch would be most interesting.

“About that… I don’t really know what to choose, Little Azu. What is your opinion on them?”

Little Azu’s smile turned more confident in the blink of an eye. Brushing his short hair machinally, his tone turned to that of a teacher talking to a kid.

“Well from my own experience… The Breaking Style is for muscle-heads. A cute girl like you isn’t fit to be there, unless you want big bulging muscles everywhere and air in your head.”

What Little Azu said made sense to Shin Sumi.

“Then there’s the complete opposite, the Shinsoo-Medecine. Becoming an apothecary isn’t great for fighting but you get to learn a lot. The only other bad aspect is that your control needs to be on another level. It’s not about power, rather about your ability to control Shinsoo to perfection in order to create medicine. Because I’m not good at fighting anyway it’s the Pavilion I chose initially, but I got rejected when my teachers found out that I have no talent.”

Shin Sumi’s face must have turned to worry or pity because Little Azu instantly dispelled her thoughts with a casual wave of his hand.

“Oh no, don’t bother, it’s fine. Being more of a caretaker is really a good position. I get to learn a lot about the sect and to meet a lot of people. Anyway, what was I saying?”

Shin Sumi had heard from Lan Hui about what had happened to Little Azu. He had been brought to the sect very early in his youth but his talent had only been red. After years of trying, nobody thought that he could reach the Liquid Realm. In a feat of pure luck he finally managed the breakthrough but with only one Shinsoo Door opened, condemning him to be stuck at the very bottom of the Liquid Realm.

Little Azu quickly got hold of his thoughts, his glib tongue endlessly continuing to speak information to his listener.

“Now the Formation Style. That’s a good one. More balanced than the rest. The people there focus much more on using magical techniques to fight. They are also more versatile than the others I guess. Depending on your type of magic there’s really nothing you can’t do. It just takes a lot longer for them to reach higher levels of cultivation within the Liquid Realm.”

“Obviously there’s also the stars of the sect. The best fighters almost always go to the Star-Sword Pavilion. That’s where you can learn to master all sorts of weapons. Everybody wants to go there! The only thing is…”

“…?”

Little Azu bent his upper body down, closing in on Shin Sumi from over the counter. As if he was afraid somebody would head him, he continued in a very low voice.

“The Swords Masters in charge of the teaching are ruthless. They only want the best of the best. It’s basically only for the Inner Sect disciples, the ones chosen by a master.”

“I mean it’s understandable. There are so many geniuses in there, they wouldn’t want the standard to lower over time.”

Before Shin Sumi could say anything, Little Azu gave her a wink, adding “But Big Brother Fen is the most genius-y out of all of them!”

“And yeah, that’s about what I can tell you. So have you chosen?”

“Erm… What about the Divine-Beasts Pavilion? You left this one out, Little Azu.”

“Tch,” Little Azu almost spat on the floor before remembering that he was in his workplace, “that bunch of fools who think they are strong. Apart from the Medicine branch they are definitely the weakest of the bunch!

It’s all bark and no bite with them.”

“But how do they chose their fighting beasts?”

“Does it really matter?”

Shin Sumi could tell that Little Azu had some sort of resentment towards the Divine-Beast Pavilion. Maybe they didn’t accept him either, she thought. But looking at her face of insistence, Little Azu sighed.

“Fine. It’s more of the opposite actually, the beasts chose them. Anyone can actually go and visit the Beast Nest on the bottom of the north mountain. But don’t do it!

If you go there, with your talent, you’re bound to attract a beast and then you’ll be stuck with the Beast Style without being able to leave! Sure you might get a powerful Steel Wolf or a Blood Red Tortoise but you should really stick to swords or magical techniques.”

So it’s the animal that chooses the cultivator, not the other way around… Could have Shin Sumi been chosen by the little nut before she even started cultivating?

“One more thing… Can more than one beast choose you?”

Little Azu thought about it for a few seconds before recalling some information he was given when he reached the Liquid Realm.

“Yeah, that can happen, but you need to reach at least the third step of the Liquid Realm I think. Most disciples only have one but the Beast Master of the Pavilion has three.”

Shin Sumi pondered for a moment, “third step…”

“The Liquid Realm is divided in five steps. When you breakthrough you’re automatically on the first step. Then you need to condense vortexes in your Shinsoo Sea. When there are five of them you can solidify your Shinsoo Sea into a solid core. That’s-

– The Core Development Realm,” she finished Little Azu’s words.

Shin Sumi had known about the steps in the Liquid Realm for a long time. In fact it was one of the first questions she had ever asked Lan Hui after meeting him. It was also how Little Azu had presented Fen Wudao on her first day.

Fen Wudao was a genius because at only seventeen years old he was already on the fourth step of the Liquid Realm.

Thinking about it, even with the nut and the Copper Bell and the complete circle of Shinsoo Gathering, Shin Sumi was only in the first step despite being sixteen years old.

Thanking Little Azu for his precious help, Shin Sumi retrieved her prize for placing fifteen in the Rising Star Tournament and left the Resources Pavilion.

Her prize consisted of a hundred and twelve medium grade spirit stones as well as a stabilization pellet. For her the pellet was useless considering the unusual stability of her cultivation base, but the spirit stones were definitely worth the hassle.

If a medium grade stone was worth ten low grade ones, then she was sitting on a goldmine!

Wondering what they would turn into, Shin Sumi discreetly fed the pellet as well as a couple spirit stones to the little nut, keeping the rest in her bag of holding.

She had just stepped outside of the Resources Pavilion when words of Fen Wudao came through in the form of a divine sense message.

“My Master has finished tweaking the records of the sect. Now ‘Yan Yan’ and ‘Bai Fulong’ can officially step in the upper valley.”

Shin Sumi was overjoyed. Now all she needed to do was to find a discreet place to swap identities and she would be able to claim even more spirit stones!

Not leaving anything to chance, Shin Sumi returned inside the large building to ask Little Azu for directions.

“The market is on the west side of the valley. Here, I’ve inscribed the location on your identification jade! Good luck finding what you’re looking for Sister Shin!”

The market wasn’t far away, and Shin Sumi even heard the bustling activity of disciples selling their goods and arguing about prices before she saw the market with her eyes.

Compared to the lower valley market where she as Yan Yan had made a ton of spirit stones with Yin type spirit plants, the market this time wasn’t much bigger.

What changed the most was the quality and quantity of the resources sold.

Her first stop was in front of a disciple claiming in a magically enhanced voice about the best changing rates of the whole valley. There, Shin Sumi exchanged twenty medium grade stones for a hundred and eighty low grade ones.

The disciple was right, it wasn’t a bad exchange rate, considering that in a couple of hours they would have almost all turned into high grade spirit stones!

With more currency in her bag than ever, Shin Sumi then found a seller for cultivation robes. For a price as low as a handful of stones, Shin Sumi bought the cheapest red and orange robes she could find.

Her previous ones were all in tatters after the fights she had endured in the tournament, but she needed something for her alternative personalities to wear.

Her first choice was Bai Fulong. Morphing into male features without even needing a Confusion Pill, Shin Sumi donned the newly acquired yellow colored robe in a secluded forest far from the buildings.

From there, all she had to do was go back to the Resources Pavilion!

Little Azu was still behind the counter, this time being far less talkative and friendly.

“I guess Bai Fulong is not better looking than me after all…”

Doing the same thing a while later for Yan Yan, at the end of the day Shin Sumi sat down on a cultivation platform, in the middle of meditating disciples. Probing her bag of holding, she calculated the amount she had acquired in no time.

Bai Fulong had placed nineteen in the trial and Yan Yan twenty. Because of that, Shin Sumi now had an additional two hundred medium grade spirit stones.

When she had asked the Patriarch about the possibility of using all three of her identities to learn from different branches, she had completely forgotten about the rewards.

“Patriarch Sen must have been furious on the inside… Three hundred medium grade spirit stones instead of a hundred… I’m ruining the sect, eh!”

Overall, she was really happy. Now she could virtually do anything in the upper valley. With Little Azu’s indications, she now knew where the main buildings of the valley were.

“Okay little nut. First I’m going to stop by the market once more and see if there’s any interesting scroll. Then I’ll visit the sect’s library and buy a few techniques. If after that I still have resources left I’ll try to find a few swords! The Void Sword is too strange and recognizable, I need weapons for Yan Yan and Bai Fulong too.”