Pa!
Li Ye closed the booklet with a snap, still wearing an expression of amazement.
"Hiss… Senior Brother Hu, you went all out, huh…"
At first, Li Ye had been thinking as a modern youth from Blue Star, was there really anything in this world that could still surprise him?
But after flipping through that book…
He had to admit this was something he had never seen before!
"The cultivation world is unfathomably deep. There's still so much I need to learn," Li Ye sighed sincerely, carefully putting away the small booklet titled Dragon and Phoenix in Harmony.
Truth be told, a dual cultivation technique like this was worth far more than your average spell.
Senior Brother Hu giving this to him so readily may have been partly out of gratitude, but more likely it was a way to make up for the way he'd immediately backed away when Li Ye had mentioned Cai Siwei the other day.
After all, Hu had benefited quite a lot from Li Ye's guidance lately, yet when it came down to it, he didn't even dare brush up against that kind of trouble.
In fact, for a while afterward, he'd kept his distance from Li Ye, almost as if he feared being dragged down with him.
That kind of behavior could only be described as disloyal.
Even among the spirit farmer disciples who weren't particularly close to Li Ye, few acted that way.
Now that Cai Siwei was being openly friendly toward Li Ye, and the threat was gone, Hu had come crawling back, pretending nothing had happened and offering gifts to make amends…
And while the item he gave did carry some frivolous overtones, Li Ye wasn't about to take the matter lightly.
He could understand that Senior Brother Hu had a family and couldn't afford to take risks but that didn't stop him from feeling disappointed.
Now that he'd accepted the booklet, Li Ye wouldn't go out of his way to blame him for anything, but the trust they'd once had? That was gone.
Going forward, he'd certainly keep that in mind when dealing with Hu.
Compared to people like Hu, whose actions had always been predictable, the one person Li Ye still couldn't quite figure out was Cai Siwei.
After his injuries healed and he was accepted as a disciple by one of the elders, Cai took the initiative to reconnect with Li Ye and even expressed an interest in recruiting him.
He acted as if he didn't mind being rejected again and again never showing a hint of resentment or displeasure.
Even after Li Ye turned him down once more, he just nodded in understanding and drifted away gracefully.
The whole interaction had the air of a magnanimous senior brother being patient and supportive of his junior.
But this saint-like figure was the very same person who'd once teamed up with Tang Xiaohan to trick Li Ye's past self into walking right into a disaster!
Li Ye couldn't help but marvel at the man's acting skills they were damn near Oscar-worthy.
"That guy using me to gain favor and climb higher within the sect yeah, that's expected. Totally in line with the kind of person he is…" Li Ye murmured to himself, eyes flickering with thought.
"But for someone who just started showing promise and only recently earned the elders' attention… he's pushing hard on all fronts already."
"Isn't he being a little too aggressive?"
"And that woman, Tang Xiaohan… ever since that demonic cultivator incident, there's been barely any news about her within the sect…"
With how things had developed, in the eyes of the outside world, Li Ye was now essentially tied to Cai Siwei.
Even the Li family had come knocking, hoping he could introduce some younger family members to curry favor with Cai. Other sect disciples and even some outside factions probably had a pretty similar understanding of the situation.
The only reason they hadn't tried the same thing was because, unlike the Li family, they didn't have an inside connection.
In this situation, even though Li Ye had every reason to suspect there was something off about Cai Siwei…
Unless he actively stirred up trouble and made a public break with him dragging himself back into danger and isolation he wouldn't be able to sever that connection in anyone's eyes.
And of course, Li Ye wasn't about to do something that reckless just based on gut feelings and speculation with no solid evidence.
He was just cautious not to the point of being paranoid.
"But I have to say… those folks from the third branch are considerate!"
Li Ye's smile deepened. "Since Li Zongyin is so eager to bring himself to the chopping block, I might as well let him draw all the attention from the outside world…"
"That way, even if Cai Siwei does stir up trouble someday, the fallout on me will be minimal."
"After all, this is the cultivation world… What kind of schemer would spend all day toiling in the fields?"
Though Senior Brother Hu's little "gift" offered some entertainment, it didn't distract Li Ye from his daily cultivation routine.
As for alchemy, he had stubbornly kept at it for a few more days, refusing to give up but the result was the same as before.
No sudden epiphany, no breakthroughs. Just the usual slow, steady progress.
Naturally, he moved on to learning the art of refining artifacts.
This time, the learning curve wasn't quite as brutal as alchemy… but it wasn't much easier either.
After several days, all he'd managed to gain was the successful registration of the "artifact refining" skill on his panel and a measly handful of experience points.
Only now, with this comparison, did Li Ye realize just how trash the so-called "incomplete inheritance" for alchemy had been.
Take artifact refining, for example.
The missing parts of the inheritance weren't just about the records of finished artifacts they also lacked critical foundational knowledge.
Much of the content was disjointed or full of errors as if it had been cobbled together from scattered scraps.
This made the entire learning process way harder than it needed to be.
"No wonder the clan's spent all these years trying to raise alchemists and artifact refiners, only to end up with a bunch of furnace exploders and glorified tool repairmen…"
"With stuff like this, unless you're some freak genius who can intuitively make connections, who the hell could learn from it?!"
With a snap, Li Ye tossed the jade slip aside and grumbled under his breath.
"Whew…"
Letting out a long breath, he picked up the final, untouched jade slip in resignation.
"At this point, I might as well focus on learning how to draw talismans…"
As for alchemy and refining he'd just wait until he had more experience points from the harvest and use those to level up instantly.
With his mediocre talent, better not to mess around with these half-baked inheritances and end up learning the wrong way.
Underground Meditation Chamber
Li Ye held his breath and steadied his mind, fully focused as he carefully painted runes onto a yellow talisman paper with a charming brush.
Using his spiritual power to guide the strokes, he set one magical node after another into the paper.
Everything progressed smoothly until he reached the sixth node.
Just as the talisman was over halfway done, one of the earlier nodes suddenly destabilized.
The spiritual power began to leak out, triggering a chain reaction. All the nodes collapsed in an instant, and the yellow paper crumbled into ash.
Li Ye watched this calmly, unfazed. He even looked slightly excited.
Compared to alchemy or artifact crafting, the art of talisman crafting was a lot easier.
It still required understanding, but it was one of the few disciplines where consistent practice could yield results, even for beginners.
Even with his average aptitude, thanks to the assistance of his skill panel, and the fact that he'd been burning through materials every day to practice nonstop for the past month
His proficiency with talisman crafting was already over halfway there. He was close to officially mastering the basics.
With a flick of his sleeve, he swept the ashes off the desk with a pulse of spiritual power.
Energized and inspired, he felt he was starting to grasp the essence of it, and was eager to take advantage of the momentum to try a few more times.
But just then, the alert talisman he'd set outside was triggered, forcing him to pause.
While tidying up the items on the desk, he mentally calculated the date and suddenly remembered.
"It must be time for the sect's disciple recruitment ceremony…"