Master of Kaidan
Chapter 208: The Shortest Shortcut is the Detour

Chapter 208: Chapter 208: The Shortest Shortcut is the Detour

"Master, where are we heading to next?" After exchanging names, Liu Qi quickly embraced his role as an apprentice. Feng Xue found his demeanor rather amusing and pointed towards the northwest, saying,

"Although I usually just throw a dice to decide where to go, since I’m taking on an apprentice, I can take you on a speed run—

"First, let’s visit Rong City, then take the Sichuan-Tibet Highway into Tibet, travel all the way to the Northern Border, cross Qinghai, pass through Yumen, experience the grasslands, and finally return to Shangshu from West Capital via the Shu roads, following the Jialing River. This journey should solidify your basic skills, and after that, it’s up to you to seek enlightenment."

"How long will that take?" Liu Qi’s eyes widened. Although modern transportation could circle the globe swiftly, traveling by foot was a different story altogether—and this was supposed to be the "speed run"?

"If we’re talking about the direct distance, it’s less than 8,000 kilometers, but considering various terrain issues along the way, let’s say a guaranteed 10,000 kilometers. For me, this journey, with various rest stops and repairs, would take about half a year. But with you, it might take three or four years."

Feng Xue spoke nonchalantly, while Liu Qi could only feel his legs trembling.

But in the end, he didn’t utter any words of resignation; instead, he nodded vigorously as if making a firm decision, saying,

"When do we set off? I’ll go back and pack."

"No rush, I’ll teach you some basic breathing techniques first. Practice them when you return home. I’ll stay here for three more days. If you can develop your Qi sense within three days, we’ll set off. If not, I won’t wait for you. So go now, and don’t come back until you’ve developed your Qi sense."

Feng Xue said, taking out a small booklet from his chest. Although the "three days" deadline was making Liu Qi nervous, he nodded vigorously and took the Secret Manual with both hands.

The Secret Manual appeared quite ordinary, just printed paper with pen ink, but Liu Qi could see a sharpness in the characters, as if they were swords.

Returning home with the legendary Secret Manual, Liu Qi couldn’t wait to flip through it, surprised by the scant few pages.

This Breathing Technique truly seemed to be just the basics—the entire content didn’t exceed two thousand words and only included some postures, breathing rhythms, and contemplative visualization.

Liu Qi, who had expected to see a plethora of incomprehensible terms, suddenly felt a bit empty inside. But he quickly realized that if the manual were written with a variety of technical terms, he probably wouldn’t understand it anyway.

Although the Secret Manual mentioned that when meditating, one does not need to insist on the lotus position, and could sit comfortably in any way, he still chose to sit in the standard lotus position as illustrated in the book. Though his legs were somewhat uncooperative, the lotus position, which shouldn’t have been comfortable, was unexpectedly bearable.

"Could it be that sitting cross-legged was chosen because squatting in horse stance caused numbness?" A stray thought popped up in Liu Qi’s mind, but he quickly refocused his spirit. With the tip of his tongue touching the roof of his mouth, mouth closed, he breathed through his nose at the book’s prescribed rhythm, imagining a warm flow gathering and dispersing at the center of his chest.

The Breathing Technique was actually a bit counterintuitive; inhale imagining the warmth spreading from the chest and exhale imagining it gathering. It took Liu Qi a full two hours to slowly get used to the rhythm, starting to clear his mind of stray thoughts and concentrate his spirit.

...

While Liu Qi embarked on his cultivation journey, Feng Xue continued to sit under the overpass, gradually infusing his "Crystal Dice" with his essence.

He was not entirely sure what degree was necessary to imprint his mark into "Identity", but he knew he hadn’t met his own standards yet.

It was a pity that it wasn’t several years later, in the era of short videos (at this point Kuaishou had just launched as a short video community, and short videos were still in their growth phase; the explosion would come in 2016 with the launch of TikTok), otherwise Feng Xue thought by now he would have earned a "Handsomest Beggar" in Kaidan instead of just an [Handsome] tag.

Yes, not long after the beauty who had rewarded him yesterday took her picture, Feng Xue had formed such a tag. Although the function of this tag was very limited, only enabling him to "more easily gain the favor of others", if it weren’t for the fact that this ability could be stacked with the "Treasure" entry of the "Money Printer", it would definitely be the most useless tag Feng Xue had.

"Excuse me, sir..."

As Feng Xue was sarcastically criticizing his own tag, a voice came from beside him. He immediately slowed down the infusion of his consciousness into the dice and then looked up, only to find that the person who had come was a city management officer.

The city management officer seemed quite polite and said in a gentle tone,

"Are you facing any difficulties?"

Feng Xue looked at the officer seriously, noting his sincere attitude, and then nodded,

"Ah, yes, yes."

As soon as he spoke, the officer’s eyes immediately became unfocused, and then he walked away as if nothing had happened.

"Uh, this thing is more useful than I thought?"

Feng Xue patted the small blanket wrapped around him and muttered to himself in surprise, then continued to tinker with the crystal dice in his hand. At that moment, a spark of inspiration ignited in the rules of his current world.

With the spread of Executioner Kaidan and the emergence of grandmaster Executioners, ordinary task assignments were no longer being sent to Feng Xue. The "Kung Fu Dream" of his current world rules was a non-stress response rule. Generally speaking, the people who triggered it would have entered his list when he became known through Kaidan, and it was rare for there to be sudden additions, except for those young beginners newly acquainted with martial arts.

With a sweep of his consciousness, sure enough, there was another Chinese descendant who had been bullied by a black-coated ATM. While muttering about these ATMs not learning their lesson, he casually delegated a strand of his consciousness to descend upon the scene.

Yet, at that instant, a flash of inspiration suddenly crossed his mind—

"If I can send a strand of my consciousness to descend into someone else’s body, then can I not send a strand of consciousness into this dice? In that way, wouldn’t it be like having a little version of myself constantly immersing it?"

Once this thought appeared, it began to wildly spread in Feng Xue’s mind. He was somewhat impatient to try this idea, and then, he encountered two problems.

The first was the oft-discussed issue of consciousness intensity; a lot of it would be lost during the process of transferring into the dice. If the consciousness he sent was too strong, it would destroy the outer shell of the dice and contaminate the "Identity" within, but if it was too weak, it would be too faint after passing through the dice, and the efficiency of immersing the "Identity" would be low.

The second issue was that consciousness is not something that can exist for a long time. It can dwell in another person because the human body is a container that can hold consciousness. However, the inside of this crystal dice was clearly not a space that could maintain the activity of consciousness for a long period. Even if he succeeded in sending a strand of consciousness inside, it would dissipate quickly, making no real difference from slowly pressing on a brand himself.

"Does that mean, to achieve ’automatic immersion’, I must solve both the issues of consciousness intensity and consciousness carrier?"

The dice in Feng Xue’s hands rolled back and forth between his nimble fingers as if he was considering solutions.

If it had been the former him, he would have now had no choice but to give up this seemingly promising idea, but now, he had another option—

Relying on the power of "Martial", he could develop a specific cultivation technique for this purpose.