Jun happily skipped along the road leading towards the disciple’s quarters. One advantage of being a dog was that he could be as whimsical as he wanted to be. No one would stop him if he wanted to pee on a building. In fact, he did exactly that. Sometimes, it felt nice to be a rebel.
“It’s fine when a dog does it, but when I want to ‘decorate’ my neighbour's apartment at 2 AM and draw a pretty flower on their wall, it’s apparently ‘disorderly conduct and public intoxication.’ Psh. Society.”
Grumbling along the way, he finally reached the bland building. Usually, he would only come by here at night, but he was too excited to wait. A lot of waiting and sniffing was involved, but eventually, he found the right moment to sneak in when no one else was in the hallways. He could’ve just walked in normally, but it would have been too suspicious if Chen Hao’s dog showed up when the boy had been missing for months.
His steps led him to the abandoned servant’s room, but before he arrived there, his eyes couldn’t help but wander to the noticeboard. There it was, a bamboo slip that occupied a quarter of the board. Jun beheld one of the greatest pieces of advertisement ever written in this world.
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Formations: The cultivation secret no one ever told you!
Low spiritual force? Falling behind on your cultivation? Pills too expensive?
We’ve got a solution just for you!
For just the low, low price of twenty spirit stones, you can receive a formation that will last you a lifetime! In just a month, you will have absorbed enough spiritual force to get your money back, and it just keeps on going and going! You can save hundreds of spirit stones by getting one right now. After all, the Spirit-Gathering Formation drawn by our experts lasts longer and is more effective than any other novice formation!
Not enough spirit force? Do you want to get even further ahead? We also offer an advanced version, the Myriad-Element Gathering Formation, which is at least twice as effective as the Spirit-Gathering Formation.
And that’s not all! Weary of worrying about your secrets being stolen? What if someone decides to sneak into your room and ruin your formation? We also offer the Primordial Lightning Formation, which will zap any intruders and make them think twice about coming in again!
So, what are you waiting for? Come down to Room #7 and discuss with our local formation expert— Wang Lei.
The future is yours to grasp.
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But that was not all. Jun was an artist above everything else. There was not a lot of space left on the bamboo slip, but where there’s a will, there’s a way. On the upper-left corner was drawn a small chibi of a dejected and feeble cultivator surrounded by dark clouds. A small tear shone brightly on his cheek. Then, an arrow pointed to the right, revealing a happy cultivator standing on a complicated and powerful-looking formation, absorbing spiritual force like crazy. His entire body was glowing with a golden light.
On the lower-right corner was another chibi. There, an evil-looking cultivator was in the middle of creeping into an empty house, plotting something nefarious. But, oh no! In the next drawing, the evil man was covered in lightning, so much so that his skeleton could be seen through his skin. Of course, he was stepping on a formation.
This was his magnum opus. The world of cultivation wasn’t ready for modern-day advertisements. Jun had spent weeks working on this, and as soon as he put it up, formations started selling like hotcakes. Every single disciple here had bought a Spirit-Gathering Formation, and most had the Primordial Lightning Formation. They were still a tad poor for the more advanced version, but once they saved up their monthly allowances, he would once again be rolling in spirit stones. And it wasn’t only the disciples here. Lately, his formation skills had spread through word of mouth, and many older disciples were willing to check out his services.
As for Wang Lei—he was the unfortunate blackmailed disciple Nr. 2. The man was of noble birth and was born with god-given genetics, causing female disciples to swoon all over him. It was during one particular day that he caught Wang Lei having an affair with a female disciple he recognized. After all, just the day before, she was happily walking down the street with her Dao partner. The rest of the story wrote itself. Jun had no concrete evidence of their “activities”, but her Dao partner was stronger than Wang Lei by several stages. A man like that didn’t need much to squish the handsome playboy.
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It was a win-win situation for both of them. His charisma attracted many female disciples to buy formations, and just his face alone drove up the prices. In exchange, Wang Lei received a cut from every transaction, making him richer than most living here. The most important thing, however, was that Jun got a lackey that had access to the library, sect records, and the Scripture Pavillion,
Jun cautiously walked into the abandoned room, sniffing all around to find any hidden traps. Then, a smile blossomed on his face as he saw two things in front of him. One was a box full of spirit stones together with a bamboo slip of the customer’s names, what formation they wanted, where they lived, and at what time they wouldn’t be home.
The second was a slightly-torn manual, with a grey cover that was aged by time. Bold, imposing words were written on it in a gargantuan font.
“Man-Eating Stone Lion Body Refining Technique.”
“...”
Jun glanced at the technique, and then back at the floor. He breathed in and out. If he squinted his eyes just right, he might be able to hallucinate the name away.
‘Ah yes, I’m so delighted to see the Stone Dog Technique. Much easier on the tongue than whatever rubbish was written previously.’
Excitedly, he flipped open the manual just to get jumpscared by one of the ugliest things he had ever seen!
“Ew. Yuck. Someone kill this abomination.”
On the white page was the drawing of a lion with a human’s face. It looked at the reader, arrogantly sneering with its tongue out, viscous drool dripping to the ground. Instead of a glorious mane, it had a ring of human ears all around its neck. Thick, luscious fur was replaced by grey and cracked stone resembling a lizard’s scales. Its misshapen limbs were so swollen they could be confused for stone pillars.
“The Man-Eating Stone Lion is a highly temperamental and playful creature. It likes to torture humans over weeks and weeks, enjoying coming up with various games for its pets to play. They primarily live in caves under spiritual veins, but they are known to migrate often as they will destroy the landscape around them.”
“People back home would say ‘Look at my cute pet’ and point at this thing. Some animals deserve to go extinct.”
Ignoring the ugly creature, he continued flipping through the manual. The author had a heart-wrenching story about how he had survived weeks of torture under this thing. Eventually, he mimicked the beast’s every move and created this body tempering technique. The final sentence was a note saying that he would be hunting down every lion after leaving behind his legacy.
‘The heavens have eyes,” Jun sincerely said. He wished the man luck.
Finally, he reached the technique section. There were four in total—Arrogant Stone Ram, Earthquake Stomp, Disemboweling Claw, and Roar of Land’s End. Jun excitedly flipped to the last. With a name like that, it would not disappoint him. Unfortunately, he had to learn the moves in order.
As he started reading about the Arrogant Stone Ram, his expression twisted more and more, becoming unrecognisable. When he put the manual down, he started laughing hysterically.
“This is why body tempering techniques went fucking extinct. This is so stupid...” He wiped away a tear, recalling what the manual had said.
“The Arrogant Stone Ram is the first move that the Man-Eating Stone Lion possesses. In a way, it’s more of an ideal than anything else.
“The lion is incredibly arrogant. It believes that nothing should stand in its way, that it is the ruler of heaven and earth. Thus, when it charged and found that it couldn’t move stone, it became outraged. It would continue ramming it, over and over and over again, until either it or the stone broke.
“To cultivate this technique, you must possess the same mentality as the lion. If God blocks the way, ram the Gods. If Buddha blocks the way, ram the Buddhas. When charging at the wall, you must full-heartedly believe you will emerge victorious.
“You must concentrate all of your qi and reinforce your head. In the brief moment that you collide with the stone wall, you will absorb stone qi, which will strengthen any further attempts. You will properly master the technique when you embody the ideas of the lion, break the wall before you, and experience the state of atavism.”
And that was everything that the book said.
“Is this technique even real? The author must have experienced severe brain damage after smashing his head against stone. He hallucinated this entire thing.”
Jun sighed, staring blankly at the room around him. The heavens didn’t have eyes after all. They wouldn’t be so cruel as to make him cultivate this.
“Alright. Where’s the nearest cliff or boulder? Either my head cracks open and I bleed to death or I master this fucking technique.”