3 Cruel Evil Cultivator

With his father's explanation, Qin Feng quickly gained a general understanding of the cultivation methods in the family's scripture library.

Finally, excluding those cultivation methods that were incompatible with the Beastmaster Sect's cultivation method, there were a total of six cultivation methods laid out before him.

They were Five Spirits Nurturing Mantra, Mirage Bewitchment Mantra, Nebulous Pull, Moon Breeze Meditative Chant, Great Mystery Origin Reversal1, and Nine Cyclic Primordial.

"Five Spirits Nurturing Mantra is a cultivation method that nurtures your spirit using the essence of your five systems. This cultivation method focuses on your spiritual awareness, allowing your spiritual awareness to cover a greater area than the regular cultivation methods by one fold.

"There are many uses for spiritual awareness and it can bring you endless benefits. The most obvious one being the ability to avoid danger in advance if you have sufficiently strong spiritual awareness.

"However, this cultivation method does not strengthen your true essence much. Especially when a major portion of it is used to nurture your five systems and in turn nurture your spirit, it would result in lower fighting power."

Qin Long then continued steadily, "As for this Mirage Bewitchment Mantra, it's a cultivation method for illusory techniques, focusing on illusions. It allows spells to be like a reflected image, blurring the lines between real and illusory, ever-changing.

"Nebulous Pull cultivates your true essence to a nebulous nature—agile and elusive. The complementary spells are also focused on versatility.

"Moon Breeze Meditative Chant is the easiest cultivation method to practice. You only need to focus your entire being on the meditative chant. Going through each chant would be equivalent to one cycle of your Qi.

"This meditative chant helps clear your heart, making it difficult for inner demons to form. A courageous heart can dispel all evil.

"As for the Great Mystery Origin Reversal, one would project the mental image of a dragon and tiger, reverting back to the origin. It allows for one to manifest the shadow of dragon and tiger through a spell to protect you from your enemy. Its strength is decent and will grow in power as your cultivation heightens."

Qin Long happily pointed at the last cultivation method, explaining, "This Nine Cyclic Primordial is a cultivation method that came from a great sect, the Primordial Sect ten thousand years ago. It's rather famous among the factionless cultivators.

"However, when practicing this cultivation method, you have to absorb the spiritual energy you absorbed repeatedly for nine times before finally consolidating it into a strand of pure primordial essence. Using this cultivation method to build your foundation will be most stable.

"This cultivation method is only suitable for those with great patience and dedication. Most people won't be able to hold out to the end, with many of them giving up halfway due to the slow cultivation speed."

Finally, Qin Long looked at his son and asked, "I have explained each of these cultivation methods to you. As for which cultivation method you choose... That's up to you.

"You must remember that these are all to help build your foundation. Once you've joined the Beastmaster Sect, the sect will teach you even better cultivation methods.

"Even if you can't make it into the sect, you'll have to eventually give up cultivating these mantras. Apart from that Mirage Bewitchment Mantra, the other mantras did not have any cultivation method for anything beyond the Foundation Establishment Stage."

Qin Feng nodded his head to indicate that he understood.

He understood that despite these cultivation methods seemed to be great, his dad obviously did not think highly of them.

It made sense to him. For it to be kept in the Qin family's scripture palace, its profoundness was limited.

In the Qi Refining Stage, the most powerful one would be the Nine Cyclic Origin. After all, that was the Qi refinement mantra from a great sect.

His gaze darted back and forth between these cultivation methods repeatedly and finally picked the Great Mystery Origin Reversal, but it was not because he was unwilling to learn Nine Cyclic Origin. 

Although that cultivation method was sufficient to help him lay an extra firm foundation, it would use up too much spiritual energy. With only half a year away from the family assessment, he would need to compete with the other family disciples for the sect acceptance quota.

Practicing the Nine Cyclic Origin would mean that he might be rejected for falling behind in terms of cultivation when the time comes.

"Okay."

Qin Long saw that he chose the Great Mystery Origin Reversal and nodded approvingly. It was great that his son knew how to compromise.

If he chose the Nine Cyclic Origin, he would need to use up several times the spiritual energy than usual. Although the foundations would be solid, his main focus at the moment was to join a sect. As they would be changing his cultivation method once he was accepted, making it pointless to nitpick. 

Qin Long immediately gave Qin Feng a detailed explanation of the Great Mystery Origin Reversal. If his son had any issues, he would explain it again to prevent him from running into difficult situations during his cultivation.

After that, Qin Long headed to the ancestral shrine to have the clan elder record Qin Feng's name in the genealogy.

That genealogy book was different from the regular genealogy book of those ordinary clan members as it was specifically used to record the cultivators of the Qin family.

In Qin Feng's generation, he was the 11th person to achieve spiritual awakening, therefore placing him at the 11th place.

Of course, if he ran into clansmen that were older than him and achieved spiritual awakening at a later time, he would still need to greet them as seniors.

For some time after that, Qin Feng stayed at home to cultivate.

Upon achieving great mastery over Great Mystery Origin Reversal, its strongest spell was to manifest the figure of a dragon and tiger. Although it was not considered an exceptional cultivation method, it was still leagues better than the body training method that Qin Feng used before achieving spiritual awakening.

Upon activation of the cultivation method, he could feel strands of spiritual energy entering his body through his spiritual receptor and flowed along his meridians, slowly being transformed into his true essence.

Moreover, the Qi Gathering Pill that his father obtained from the family treasury enabled him to cultivate at an alarming speed.

Although he had limited time to cultivate each day, elixirs should not be eaten like candy. However, even with just one Qi gathering pull every three days, it was sufficient to boost his cultivation speed to three times faster than his cultivation speed without the elixirs. That meant that his overall cultivation speed was more than double his normal speed without using elixirs.

Of course, the obvious improvement was mainly due to him being in the early-stage of Qi Refining Stage. Once his cultivation reached a certain level, the cultivation speed would come closer to a plateau.

Under his father's tutelage, Qin Feng was able to achieve rudimentary enlightenment of the two fundamental spells of the Great Mystery Origin Reversal. He was barely able to manifest a dragon-shaped cloud Qi and a tiger shaped wind Qi, using them to attack his opponent. It was rather powerful.

That fateful day, Qin Feng was sitting in his room in deep thoughts after practice.

He was not thinking about his cultivation but instead felt that his father's mood seemed to be off for the past few days.

Qin Long's expression was gloomy for the past few days. Whenever he got home from his courtroom duties, he would force out a laugh and stay in his study room alone. Qin Feng had no idea what he was up to.

Finally, Qin Feng managed to get wind of it from the household servants. It turned out that Kun City was faced with a few murder cases.

It would be fine if it were just a regular murder case. Although Kun City was not considered large, it would still have a few cases each year.

However, the recent murder cases were cruel. The perpetrator would pick pregnant women and scoop out the fetus from the mother's womb alive. The scene was extremely terrifying and gory. At the same time, it made people feel scared and outraged.

It would not be much of a problem if it was only one case as it might just be a cruel vengeance from the enemies of that family.

However, for the past few days, there would be one woman from a family that fell victim to this and there was no connection between these families.

That meant that someone was practicing an evil cultivation method and intentionally targeted pregnant women to snatch away immature fetuses.

For some time, Kun City was filled with rumors, enveloping the entire city in fear. Any family with a pregnant woman would be extremely anxious, fearing to fall victim to the evil cultivator.

Qin Long was the patrol officer of Kun City. The bailiffs in the courtroom were of course helpless in solving such a big case. They asked Qin Long for help.

Meanwhile, Qin Long's gloomy expression for the past few days were caused by his frustrations with this case.

The evil cultivator in hiding was extremely cruel. They had no idea what cultivation method he used that would require him to pick on pregnant women.

As the investigation of the case made no progress for the past few days, the county magistrate was unable to withstand the pressure and reported it to Jun City, requesting for Jun City to send over an expert to assist in the investigation.

At the same time, the government also offered a sizable amount of spirit stones as a reward, requesting various cultivators to help solve the crime and capture the vicious evil cultivator. If this went on, they were afraid that all the commoners of Kun City would be deserting the city.

Jun City was very efficient, sending over an expert at the late stage of the Foundation Establishment Stage to assist in solving the case.

With the arrival of that expert from Jun City, the people in Kun City felt a lot more at ease. At the very least, no pregnant women were harmed for at least two days.

At the same time, a number of factionless cultivators came by the city. Among them were some disciples from some small families that were undergoing practical training.

Those people were either there for the spirit stone reward, or just purely treating it as practical training to gain some experience.

Because of that, Kun City turned even livelier than before.

To the point that the commoners of Kun City were getting increasingly active.

Although the evil cultivator had yet to be apprehended, many people figured that he should be in hiding, or maybe even ran away to some distant lands.

Otherwise, with so many cultivators in Kun City at the moment, he would definitely have to face a mob if that person showed up.

Those matters did not require the help of Qin Feng, a teenager with limited cultivation experience. Moreover, as days passed without any signs of the evil cultivator, Qin Long's mood improved as well. If the whole murder and fetus stealing cases happened again, it would greatly increase his pressure.

That day, Qin Feng got up and went out of the house.

After cultivating at home continuously for such a long time, he felt a little frustrated. With that, he decided to take a stroll in town.

Although the evil cultivator riled up the entire Kun City, he did not act against men. Qin Feng did not think that he would be in any danger.

Now that Kun City had an increased number of cultivators, the three local families had also taken the chance to set up a few shops to sell the spiritual materials they produced to those foreign cultivators.

Qin Feng decided to go have a look and see if there was anything special about those foreign cultivators.

He had no plans to look for trouble. The Qin family and the other two families were aware of their lack of strength and naturally would not behave in a brazen manner, afraid of incurring the wrath of those foreign cultivators as they feared the outcome.

After all, if anything happened, they could just leave. Meanwhile, the three families would still need to live in Kun City.

The City had already recovered its usual hustle and bustle. Apart from some celebratory music with the sound of suona coming from several households, everything was just as usual. Nothing seemed to be different.

However, one could often see several cultivators walking past on the streets in search of the evil cultivator's trails. Some were going around the outskirts of Kun City to see if there were any trails of the evil cultivator.

Those foreign cultivators were there in search of the evil cultivator while Qin Feng was watching them.

These cultivators looked different. They cultivated different techniques and wore different styles of clothing. Some even wore oddly shaped clothes that made him watch in amazement.

Right then, sounds of a ruckus could be heard somewhere down the road.

Qin Feng looked up just to see a group of people surrounding the entrance to a shop. He had no idea what they were doing.

He approached them and squeezed into the crowd. After taking a good look, he was stunned.

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