Time seemed to lose its meaning in the Scripture Pavilion of Hundred Herbs Peak.
Yue Qingqian sat there quietly, motionless, in the most inconspicuous corner of the seventh floor for five full days.
Occasionally, a disciple responsible for cleaning or an alchemist who came to consult the classics would pass by, and a look of admiration would appear in their eyes. In their view, this junior sister, who had been accepted as a personal disciple by Elder Liu in an exception to the rules, was truly a "Dao fanatic."
She did not look at the alchemy formulas that could quickly improve one's cultivation, nor did she touch the atlases that recorded the locations of precious medicinal herbs. Instead, she just sat there quietly, as if communicating with the ancient wisdom of the entire pavilion on a spiritual level. This attitude of "reflecting on her mistakes," this focus on immersing herself in the sea of knowledge, was simply a model for all seekers of the Dao!
However, they would never know what kind of earth-shattering "transportation" work this seemingly harmless junior sister was currently undertaking.
In Yue Qingqian's own perception, her spiritual sense had transformed into billions of invisible tentacles, finer than spider silk. These tentacles gently and efficiently penetrated every corner of this ancient pagoda. They gently brushed the dust off the scrolls, carefully unrolled the fragile bamboo slips, and meticulously scanned every tiny inscription on the jade slips.
A vast sea of knowledge and information turned into a torrent of data, continuously flowing into her sea of consciousness.
There were long-lost ancient alchemy formulas, so detailed that they even recorded which slight flicker of the flame would affect which medicinal property.
There were atlases depicting the mountains and rivers of the Southern Domain, with red ink marking out secret spirit mines and medicinal valleys that even the sect might not have detailed records of. Of course, next to them were also noted the equally terrifying Yao beasts that occupied those areas.
And then there were the most obscure, yet records she dared not miss a single detail of, the incomplete records of ancient array formations. The occasional mention of words like "space," "dimension," and "folding" made her feel a profound and mysterious sense of touching the very origin of the world.
This work was a huge drain on her mind. Any ordinary Foundation Establishment stage cultivator would probably faint from spiritual sense exhaustion in less than half a day.
But not only was Yue Qingqian's spiritual sense naturally powerful, she also had the "Breath-Concealing Jade" gifted by her senior brother, which seemed to contain a universe within it, constantly nourishing her soul. The faint cool energy emanating from the jade pendant kept her in an optimal state. At the same time, it perfectly concealed her vast spiritual sense fluctuations, making her appear to the outside world like an unremarkable ancient well, calm and undisturbed.
She was like a diligent bee, greedily collecting all the pollen in this garden of knowledge, preparing to bring it back to her own hive and present it to her respected "queen bee."
Just as she had finished "copying" all the classics on the sixth floor and her spiritual sense began to fully penetrate the top-level seventh floor, an old, dusty jade slip, casually placed on the bottom shelf of a bookcase, caught her attention.
She scanned it with her spiritual sense and found that it was not some profound cultivation technique manual, but a travelogue. The author was a senior elder of Hundred Herbs Peak from a thousand years ago who had long since passed away.
Following her senior brother's teaching—"the more inconspicuous something is, the more likely it is to hide key information"—Yue Qingqian did not overlook it. She immersed her spiritual sense into it and began to quickly browse through it.
Most of the travelogue's content was quite dull and boring. It recorded nothing more than the various landscapes and local customs that this senior had seen during his travels, with occasional mentions of a few common herbs, which was nothing new.
However, just as Yue Qingqian was about to finish scanning and archive it under the "useless information" category, a passage at the very end of the jade slip made her heart skip a beat!
The gist of the passage was:
"...Traveling to the extremely cold Ten Thousand Mile Snowy Mountains in the Northern Domain, I chanced upon a volcanic eruption. Ice and fire merged, and the world changed color. Out of curiosity, I ventured deep within and, after three months, discovered a strange valley in a newly formed land."
"The valley was barren, perpetually shrouded in geothermal heat. The soil in the valley was all a strange crimson color. It was warm to the touch but could absorb spiritual energy. Once my true essence left my body, it would be quickly devoured by this crimson earth and vanish. This place is a forbidden land for cultivators."
"I once collected this crimson earth and tried to use it for refining tools and in medicine, but to no avail. This substance seems to be naturally at odds with spiritual energy, completely useless. Later, I sat in meditation in the valley for three days. In the dead of night, I faintly heard an extremely weak, heartbeat-like throbbing sound coming from beneath the crimson earth... thump... thump... thump... like the pulse of the great earth, extremely bizarre! I was terrified, fearing that some great evil was being suppressed or nurtured beneath it. I dared not probe further and fled that very night, never setting foot in that place again for the rest of my life..."
This record was vague and full of the unknown and the bizarre.
But the keywords "soil that absorbs spiritual energy" and "the heartbeat of the earth" struck a nerve in Yue Qingqian like a bolt of lightning!
Although she didn't understand what this record meant, her intuition, an intuition for danger that had been tempered a thousand times by her senior brother's "Dao of Stability," was screaming at her!
She felt that this seemingly useless piece of information, to her senior brother who pursued ultimate safety to the point of wishing he could move his peak to another dimension, might... might have some inestimable, crucial value!
She immediately marked the content of this travelogue jade slip with the highest priority in her sea of consciousness and archived it separately.
After another day, having successfully "transported" nearly seventy percent of the classics on the seventh floor, Yue Qingqian knew she couldn't stay any longer. Staying for too long would eventually arouse unnecessary suspicion.
She "reluctantly" ended her "reflection on her mistakes." As she left the Scripture Pavilion, she did not forget to, as per her senior brother's script, show a "thoughtful and fruitful" expression to the deacons on guard.
She mounted her flying sword and, with the same calm mindset she had on arrival, returned to Lesser Peak.
At this moment, she felt that her mind no longer belonged to her. It was filled with a library that contained thousands of years of wisdom, so heavy that it even slowed her flying speed.
When she landed in the courtyard, she saw her senior brother at a glance.
Lin Fan had already finished processing all the Seven Star Iron Vines. He was now pacing back and forth in the courtyard like an ant on a hot pan. The moment he saw Yue Qingqian, he immediately went up to her, his eyes burning with a light brighter than she had ever seen, brighter than when he saw any celestial treasure.
It was the purest, most extreme desire for "intelligence" and "knowledge"!
"How did it go?" he asked, his voice a bit rushed with anticipation. "Did you bring back the 'goods'?"