Chapter 83: Preparation

Night fell at the underground base. Since he had finished his training for the day, Zuo Zhicheng put on gloves and picked up a fifty-centimeter-long blade. He polished it with a whetstone. On the wall behind him hung Severing Mundane Ties and another object over three meters long.

On the testing platform sat a large jar. Under it was a fire basin, and an unknown liquid burned inside the jar.

After polishing the blade in his hand a bit more, Zuo Zhicheng set down the whetstone. He took a fresh silk cloth and wiped the blade to clean off any oil or dirt. Once he finished wiping, he placed the entire blade into the jar on the platform.

The jar contained sodium hydroxide, nitrite, and trisodium phosphate. Zuo Zhicheng was giving the blade an oxidation treatment. This mixture made the dagger’s surface form a dense, smooth layer of ferric oxide. It turned the whole dagger black, got rid of reflections, and helped prevent rust.

As the oxidizing agent worked, Zuo Zhicheng looked over at another platform nearby. A rat was squeaking loudly inside a cage.

He stared hard at the rat, his eyes giving off cold, icy signals. Unfortunately, the rat seemed to feel nothing at all. It showed no reaction and kept crawling around like before, squeaking from time to time.

“Still not working?” He thought this, frowned, and a burst of killing intent poured out. The rat froze instantly. It acted as if it saw a cat and stayed perfectly still, even pretending to be dead.

Clearly, using the Human Aspect technique of Nourishing Qi with Vast Righteousness on the rat had been useless. But his own habit of releasing killing intent could scare it into freezing.

Zuo Zhicheng slowly recalled the feeling of using that killing intent. He shifted his focus once more and tried Nourishing Qi with Vast Righteousness on the rat.

It still had no effect.

In his Spirit Refining practice with Nourishing Qi with Vast Righteousness, Zuo Zhicheng couldn’t break through to the Human Aspect stage. Instead, the power of his killing intent had grown stronger after he achieved Grand Completion of Qi Training. To him, killing intent felt very similar to Human Aspect. So he decided to use the feel of that killing intent to practice Nourishing Qi with Vast Righteousness for Human Aspect.

After all, Zuo Zhicheng came from modern times. He held no deep respect for the past, secrets, or master schools. He did what worked. Since killing intent seemed helpful, he tried to blend that killing, cold will into Nourishing Qi with Vast Righteousness.

“One more time.”

Squeak! Squeak! This time, the rat didn’t stay unresponsive. It turned its head and looked toward Zuo Zhicheng’s direction, as if sensing something.

This progress felt much faster than only practicing Nourishing Qi with Vast Righteousness. Zuo Zhicheng guessed it was because the cold killing intent suited him better than pure calm or emptiness. It helped him use his Heart Mind more easily.

He just didn’t know how mixing killing intent into Nourishing Qi with Vast Righteousness would affect his future training.

About half an hour later, Zuo Zhicheng grabbed the blade from the jar with big tweezers. The blade was now completely black. He carefully wiped off every bit of the liquid on it.

Zuo Zhicheng looked at the blade in front of him and gave a small nod. It was much better than the last few he made.

He then dipped the blade into another jar filled with a white solution. This was made by boiling fat and sodium hydroxide together until they turned into sodium salts called higher fatty acids and glycerol. Since those salts were soap ingredients, this was essentially soap water.

By soaking the blade in this soap water, Zuo Zhicheng aimed to put a layer of iron stearate film on the surface. This made the blade more resistant to corrosion.

Ten minutes later, he took the blade out, cooled it down, wiped off the solution, and attached a black wooden handle. A long, all-black dagger now lay before Zuo Zhicheng.

He weighed the dagger in his hand lightly and nodded with satisfaction. Of course, it wasn’t as good as the military daggers from his past life. But for his current situation, having such a dagger was quite decent.

He packed everything up and put it away. Then Zuo Zhicheng began his daily translation work. He counted about two hundred and eight Life Groves recorded in the first volume of the Daoist Canon.

He remembered clearly that in the Ancient Tomb, the Old Man once said only about two hundred known Life Groves existed during the Western Wei period. This meant the Daoist Canon listed nearly all recorded Life Groves from that time.

It also meant the Daoist Canon was probably written during the Western Wei era. It wasn’t an ancient secret passed down from older times, or it would have listed all Life Groves.

But if the South Saint Sect had existed since the Age of Gods and Demons, why did the book only list over two hundred Life Groves? Shouldn’t it have all one thousand twenty-four?

Though he found it strange, Zuo Zhicheng lacked enough clues to figure this out. He had to translate both volumes of the Daoist Canon first.

So far, he hadn’t found the section for his own Life Grove, Night Sea. That meant he couldn’t check yet if his Life Grove was still present.

But an hour later, Zuo Zhicheng raised his eyebrows: “Is this… Night Sea?” He had finally located the record for his Life Grove and felt a bit excited.

So about four hours later, after thinking it over again and again, he barely managed to translate the whole Night Sea part. Since it related to his left eye, though, he planned to ponder it for several days to ensure the translation was correct. Only then would he slowly try the practice methods in it.

He counted the time silently in his head. It was already around two or three in the morning, so he ended that day’s translation work. He put the Daoist Canon and his own translation papers together inside a sandalwood box. Next, he lifted a stone slab under his feet. Following his own plan, he carefully pulled aside the threads at the opening. Then he placed the sandalwood box inside.

If a stranger came in and opened the slab straight away, not seeing the threads, and tried to take something, the strong sulfuric acid hidden inside could spill out. It would destroy both volumes of the Daoist Canon and the translation materials completely.

To be safe, Zuo Zhicheng had made a copy and buried it in Xiao Lan’s courtyard.

After all, these secrets were priceless treasures in this era. Zuo Zhicheng couldn’t be too careful.

So after hiding both books well, Zuo Zhicheng changed into his coat and mask. Once more, he disguised himself as Ghost Fist.

Next, it was time to go to where Rihuo was. He would try to find out why Rihuo’s power had grown and check if Spiritual Energy Food existed. If it did, he needed to know where it came from.

Ten minutes later, a black shadow shot out from the small yard. Like a ghost in the night, it raced across the sky and disappeared into the vast darkness.