Bamboo Mound

Once he came to his senses, he decided to spend the night there.

Because of the mounds and tree roots, the view from lying down here is almost the same as from half-lying down, but without the back pain that comes with half-lying down for a long time.

He plucked a few leaves from the surrounding trees and piled them up, layering them over the entire root space before lying down inside.

Taking a few deep breaths, Ning Chang put his hands behind his head and gazed contentedly at the fragmented night sky seen through the gaps in the branches and leaves.

The sun has completely set, revealing a sky full of stars, some shining brightly while others dim.

A solitary moon casts its hazy outline through the treetops, interspersed with wisps of clouds, half-concealing the pure moon's halo.

In Ning Chang's eyes, the moon at this moment seemed to be truly shining on its own!

A gust of wind blew by, startling a few birds into flight as the leaves rustled. Seeing that it was just a passing breeze, they chirped to each other a few times and returned to their original spots, remaining quiet.

The leaves dancing in the wind added a touch of liveliness to the moon that it obscured.

"Cultivating immortality is like life itself~"

They all believe that cultivation is for the purpose of enjoying the world, watching flowers bloom and wither, and lamenting the passing of spring and autumn.

However, no one says you can't enjoy life if you don't cultivate...

Ultimately, it's people who limit themselves...

A gentle breeze was blowing, and Ning Chang drifted off to sleep without realizing it.

The moonlight shimmered on the treetops, adding a touch of haziness to Ning Chang's dream.

In his dream, Ning often stood on a desolate land, surrounded by broken bamboo and the remains of some unknown creature.

A man and a woman stood before him, their faces obscured, their mouths opening and closing incessantly, yet Ning Chang heard not a sound.

After an unknown amount of time, the male figure nodded to him and then disappeared from the spot.

Then, the stars shifted and a stone platform appeared before them. Above the platform, a deep blue vortex appeared out of thin air and remained there.

The female figure waved to herself, then turned and flew into the vortex.

In the dream, the self shook their head, their vision began to blur, until it was completely dark.

.......

When Ning Chang opened his eyes again, it was already the next morning.

After stretching, yawning, and closing his eyes for a while, Ning Chang finally came to his senses.

"What does that mean?"

"I don't understand. Stone platform, whirlpool, I can't possibly still be making prophecies in my dreams, can I?"

Without much thought, Ning Chang gave up on exploring last night's dream, since further exploration would be futile.

Ning picked up some more bamboo leaves and propped himself up slightly to find a comfortable position.

He then took out "Jianfeng" from his spatial bag and began to read it.

However, before he could even read a few pages, his arms began to ache.

"Ugh... I'm so tired."

He pulled his arms back and slumped onto the tree roots on either side, staring blankly at the sky.

"Wait a minute! I have a spirit summon?!"

After a while, Ning Chang realized that he could control objects.

So he kept his hands at his sides and used his spirit control to lift Jianfeng's booklet and hold it in front of him.

"That's right."

The booklet didn't contain much information; it mainly discussed one method of using spiritual power. It was almost noon when Ning Chang finished reading the booklet and casually tossed it aside.

Its purpose is to concentrate spiritual energy within objects to enhance their properties, such as sharpness, strength, and toughness.

This contrasts sharply with his previous use of spiritual energy as a covering.

Actually, it's his fault for not realizing before that spiritual energy can penetrate into the interior of matter. Or perhaps he was influenced by science and had a preconceived notion that matter cannot be accumulated, but now it seems that spiritual energy may belong to the category of energy.

"But they do exist in the air and can be touched."

"...Wait, I'm not a scientist, why would I research this?"

Ning Chang shook his head after realizing what was happening and began to try practicing according to the method Jian Feng had described.

Although it is just a method of using spiritual power, it is not as simple as just stuffing spiritual power into an object and that's it.

......

It wasn't until around mid-afternoon that Ning Chang was able to manage to use the "Sharpening" technique on two bamboo leaves simultaneously at most.

There's no other reason than that the spiritual power required to see the wind is several times that of the spirit control. Although he uses all his meridians to store spiritual power, just these two bamboo leaves consumed nearly 20% of his spiritual power!

Furthermore, one must simultaneously control both the spirit and the sharpness of a single bamboo leaf. If the spiritual energy of the two operations is concentrated together, it can easily lead to occasional malfunctions.

Fortunately, the spiritual energy filling the bamboo leaves does not deplete over time, and like spirit control, it can be returned to the body when it is used up, which can be considered another kind of consumption-free energy.

"Okay, that's enough for now. We'll practice again later."

He had practiced enough from noon until mid-afternoon.

Suddenly, he heard his master's voice.

"It's time to come back. Let's meet in the square."

Upon receiving his master's call, he got up, dusted himself off, picked up "Jianfeng," scattered the pile of leaves under the tree, and strolled back.

However, the journey home was not so smooth.

After walking for about the time it takes to drink two cups of tea, Ning Chang realized something was wrong.

Looking at the unfamiliar forest around me, I realized I seemed to be... lost.

Since it was already getting dark when I arrived last night, and I was just wandering around, turning left and right, and there were no specific paths in the whole forest, the scenery was different every time I moved around.

Moreover, almost a whole day has passed, and he's not even sure of the general direction anymore!

Moreover, he didn't expect to get lost, so he didn't leave any spiritual energy in his residence to mark the direction.

"This... I can't fly either." He looked up at the sky between the treetops.

"Sigh, I'll have to make a big fuss. Hopefully, I haven't gone too far and the people from the Xuanshan Sect will see me."

He came up with a solution: although he couldn't make himself fly, it was easy for a leaf to fly higher.

So Ning Chang picked another bunch of leaves and stopped picking from several trees.

Then, these leaves were sent flying to the treetops, where they swirled rapidly, creating a whirlwind that made the surrounding treetops sway gently.

Ning Chang continued his actions, tearing at the leaves to expand the size of the leaf tornado in the sky.

.......

On the other side, several elders of the Xuanshan Sect who were not participating in the Three Sects Grand Competition were gathered in a stone pavilion halfway up the mountain. They were lying on deck chairs with a small table next to them and several steaming teacups on it.

Just as they were getting into the conversation, an elder on the side sensed that Yu Guangzhong seemed to be making some kind of noise.

When he turned his head, the sight before him stunned him. He thought he might be seeing things, but after rubbing his eyes, he realized that he wasn't seeing things.

He then spoke up to remind them, "Stop for a moment, look over there, isn't there a pile of leaves flying around?"