Seeing that Shuang Qingqing didn't want to say more, Li Yan quickly nodded in agreement. But he suddenly remembered something. After hesitating for a moment, he still asked, "Senior, it seems now that the fluctuation of the Thousand Luo Ancient Ape when I first met Senior Sister Bai Rou was caused by my miscellaneous spirit root. But when I took it out later, I also used my spiritual energy many times. Why was there no abnormality then?"
Shuang Qingqing didn't answer Li Yan's question. A hint of doubt also flashed in her eyes. "What's your name? This is the first time I've seen a miscellaneous spirit root Foundation Establishment cultivator. Did you perhaps cultivate a special cultivation method?" In her thousand years of cultivation, although Shuang Qingqing knew that there were miscellaneous spirit root cultivators above the Qi Condensation stage in this world, this was the first time she had actually seen someone successfully establish their foundation with a miscellaneous spirit root. If Li Yan hadn't said himself that the Thousand Luo Ancient Ape had a fluctuation towards him, she would not have bothered to test it.
Li Yan's heart tightened. This Great Elder of the Wood Flow Sect had asked before, but he had just pretended not to hear and had been vague about it. Now, with a slip of the tongue, he had once again attracted her attention. However, Li Yan had a way to deal with this in the Malevolent Spirit Sect.
He deliberately showed an embarrassed expression and coughed lightly. "Oh, this junior is Li Yan. My foundation establishment was a coincidence. With my aptitude, I would probably have been at the Qi Condensation stage for the rest of my life. But this junior initially cultivated the wrong sect's introductory cultivation method. Later, during a cultivation deviation, I fought with someone, and by a fluke, my body underwent some changes. That's why I was able to successfully establish my foundation. This is not a secret in the Malevolent Spirit Sect. Senior Sister Bai Rou also knows about it." Li Yan's words were a mix of truth and lies, and he even messed up the timeline, making people mistakenly think that he had entered the sect first, then cultivated improperly, and then fought with someone, which had led to his foundation establishment. In any case, Li Yan believed that Shuang Qingqing would not verify his words one by one. Even if she met Bai Rou in the future, she would probably only ask about it in general, and what he had said was not wrong.
"Oh? Li... Yan, you actually had such a fortune. But the changes caused by this wrong cultivation method, I don't know if it will be a blessing or a curse for you in the future." Shuang Qingqing's beautiful brows furrowed slightly, and she said something ambiguous. In her heart, she was not optimistic about Li Yan. Li Yan was not the only one who had established their foundation with a miscellaneous spirit root. With her knowledge, she had of course seen it in the records. For example, some miscellaneous spirit root cultivators had accidentally eaten some strange fruit during the Qi Condensation stage and had successfully established their foundation, and some had even formed a core. But the effort they had to put in in the end was several times, or even dozens of times, that of a normal cultivator. Just finding a suitable five-element attribute magical treasure was an extremely difficult matter. With her Nascent Soul stage cultivation, she had gone through great hardships to find the Thousand Luo Stone, a treasure that contained the five elements.
"As for why the Thousand Luo Ancient Ape had an abnormal fluctuation the first time, it's simple. This involves the evolution of the five elements. In fact, for a formation grandmaster and a mechanism grandmaster, it's not too difficult to understand. It's also possible that Bai Rou's mechanism art is still lacking, and her understanding is insufficient. Or maybe she overlooked something, which caused your confusion."
"According to what you said before, it was when you had a clash of Divine Senses with the other party in the free market that the Thousand Luo Ancient Ape showed an abnormal fluctuation. Hmm, you have a five-element attribute spirit root. You were confronting Sun Guoshu at that time. It should have been during the Hour of Shen or the Hour of You, right?" Shuang Qingqing said to Li Yan with a light laugh. (TN: The Hour of Shen is 3-5 p.m., the Hour of You is 5-7 p.m. In the five elements cycle, these are the hours when the Metal element is dominant.)
Li Yan thought about what had happened that day, then nodded in astonishment. "As Senior said, it should have been during the Hour of Shen. How did Senior know?" When Li Yan had described his meeting with Bai Rou in the free market, he hadn't mentioned the specific time, yet Shuang Qingqing had stated it in one go.
"Kid, that's right. When a cultivator has a clash of Divine Senses with someone, although their spiritual energy doesn't clash, they will subconsciously release their spiritual energy to protect their body and be ready to attack the other party at any time. This is a subconscious behavior of a cultivator. So they will generally release the two spirit root attributes with the strongest defense and sharpest attack. This premise is of course that you have these attributes. For example, a cultivator with fire, earth, and water attributes will subconsciously release earth-attribute defense and fire-attribute attack when suddenly attacked. Because the earth-attribute spiritual energy is the most abundant, and the fire-attribute is the most direct. Of course, all of this is automatically triggered by the dantian's spiritual energy when the body feels danger. When truly attacking, one might also use the attribute immortal art they are most familiar with."
"And you have five spirit roots. Although I don't know what your strongest main spirit root is, before your mind can react, in a clash of Divine Senses with someone, you should subconsciously release both earth spiritual energy and metal spiritual energy at the same time. Earth spiritual energy is used to protect yourself, and the sharpest metal spiritual energy among the five elements is used to prepare for an attack, ready to be unleashed at any time. And with an intention to attack, with your cultivation, you haven't yet achieved complete convergence of your spiritual energy, so it will unconsciously overflow and spread.
"The Thousand Luo Stone itself is a small world of the five elements. It has a characteristic: its attributes will also have different strengths at different times. For example, the Hours of Si and Wu are when the fire attribute is most active. The Hours of Shen and You are when the metal element is strongest. When the spiritual energy fluctuation you unintentionally released is consistent with the most active attribute of the Thousand Luo Stone, it will fluctuate. I wonder if you understand what I'm saying?"
Shuang Qingqing had said a long paragraph. Although Li Yan found it a bit convoluted, he finally understood. In other words, his spiritual energy attribute had to be synchronized with a certain time of the Thousand Luo Ancient Ape to cause a fluctuation. And when he and Bai Rou had tested the Thousand Luo Ancient Ape later, they had mostly used pure Divine Sense. Even if they had used spiritual energy, it was not such a coincidence that it was synchronized with the time of the Thousand Luo Stone. This great world was truly full of wonders.
"The problem you find very strange is actually the most basic skill of a mechanism refiner and a formation master. You just don't know it." Seeing Li Yan's strange expression, Shuang Qingqing shook her beautiful head. If Bai Rou had heard her words, she would probably have understood before she had even finished. Many high-level and complex spells and techniques were composed of different basic skills. Formations and mechanisms were the same. It all depended on whether you could use them flexibly.
Li Yan scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. "Senior, you seemed to have said before that the Thousand Luo Ancient Ape was an Ancient Treasure? How is it a magical treasure now? I've made a fool of myself in front of Senior. This junior doesn't know what an Ancient Treasure is."
Li Yan's heart began to pound. Because it seemed that Ancestor Redfire had also called his Heaven-Stealing Kerchief an Ancient Treasure. And he had never heard of the term "Ancient Treasure." Even his senior brother and the others had never mentioned it to him. Now that he had such a good opportunity, he of course had to ask for advice humbly.
Hearing Li Yan's question, Shuang Qingqing looked at him with her beautiful eyes. Only then did she slowly open her mouth. "I must go back soon. Do you know where the Wood Flow Sect is now?" She didn't answer Li Yan's question, but instead asked him one.
Seeing that the other party didn't answer, Li Yan could only give up. But he replied respectfully, "Senior Sister Bai Rou did briefly mention this to this junior, but I only know the general location. I'm not very clear about the specific location." Then Li Yan told Shuang Qingqing what he knew.
Shuang Qingqing listened and silently memorized it. In her current state, she didn't dare to casually go to the Malevolent Spirit Sect to ask about Bai Rou. She was not familiar with the current Nascent Soul cultivators of the Malevolent Spirit Sect, and she couldn't know their temperament. If something went wrong, she might be captured. By then, even death would be difficult. With her knowledge, how could she easily go to see someone with a higher cultivation than herself? Even if she had a good relationship with the Malevolent Spirit Sect in the past, that was long ago.
"Alright then. In that case, I'll tell you one last thing. From now on, we owe each other nothing," Shuang Qingqing said suddenly after pondering for a moment.
There was rarely any sentimentality between cultivators. Especially when a strong person owed a favor, they would clear it as soon as possible. The higher a cultivator's cultivation, the more they valued their state of mind. They would not want to leave a heart knot in their heart that would affect their cultivation. That might even become a fatal heart demon during a certain breakthrough.
"An Ancient Treasure is actually a type of magical treasure. Generally speaking, only cultivators at the Nascent Soul stage and above would know about it, but it's not impossible for special reasons to know about the existence of Ancient Treasures."
"An Ancient Treasure is not just a magical treasure refined by an ancient cultivator. It's actually determined by its refining materials. Only a magical treasure refined with materials from ancient or primordial times, or with worldly anomalies left behind, can be called an Ancient Treasure. And often, because of their special materials, such magical treasures, whether in terms of power or use, definitely have a very unique aspect. Ancient Treasures all have their own separate cultivation and control manuals, in order to be better controlled. However, there will also be some Ancient Treasures that can be controlled with ordinary control manuals."
"For example, my Purple-Winged Ice Phoenix can be called an Ancient Treasure because it was refined with the demonic core of an ancient 'Amethyst Beast.' But the Thousand Luo Ancient Ape can actually only be considered a pseudo-Ancient Treasure, because the Thousand Luo Stone is not a product of ancient or primordial times, but only appeared in the last few hundred thousand years. It was only because the rules of heaven and earth had reached a certain point that it was born and evolved in a specific environment."
At this, Shuang Qingqing stopped talking. But these words, in Li Yan's heart, made his heart skip a beat. 'In that case, isn't the Heaven-Stealing Kerchief a priceless treasure? I wonder what kind of peerless material it was refined with, to be able to break through formation restrictions.'
As Li Yan thought this, his face did not show the slightest excitement. How could he be willing to leak the fact that the Heaven-Stealing Kerchief might be an Ancient Treasure? "Oh, this junior understands. Even if the Thousand Luo Ancient Ape is a pseudo-Ancient Treasure, it's still good if it can deal with Golden Core cultivators. May I ask Senior, can a Foundation Establishment cultivator use ordinary spiritual energy to fight against an initial-stage Golden Core cultivator?" Li Yan felt that even if the Thousand Luo Ancient Ape was a pseudo-Ancient Treasure, it was enough for him at the moment. Even if he could contend with an initial-stage Golden Core cultivator for a while, he wouldn't have to be so helpless in his escape like today.
"Little fellow, I think you've got a few things wrong. Do you think I would tell you the control manual for the Thousand Luo Ancient Ape? And also, I'm taking the Thousand Luo Ancient Ape with me," Shuang Qingqing said, looking at Li Yan as if he were an idiot.
Hearing this, Li Yan's mouth fell open. After a long while, he finally smiled bitterly. "Senior is right. It was this junior who was inconsiderate." Li Yan had subconsciously still thought that the Thousand Luo Ancient Ape was his. But now that he thought about it, she was a Great Elder of the Wood Flow Sect, and also the refiner of the Thousand Luo Ancient Ape. The most important thing was that he was not strong enough. Even if she told you she was robbing you in broad daylight, he would be helpless.