The Drawbacks to Divination

Wuxian couldn't help but feel a mixture of both awe and dismay. On the one hand, the ability to directly communicate with Heaven's will, the very thing responsible for governing the world, was tantalisingly alluring. Not only would it aid in solving his inner demon tribulation, but it would also provide continuous value further along down the line.

And to be honest, just the ability to see even minute details about the future would be a massive boon, not only to any large organisations such as sects and clans, but also to lone cultivators such as himself who needed to seek any possible opportunity possible. One single windfall would provide him an even greater competitive edge.

Unlike most other divination manuals, rather than sacrifice his lifespan or cultivation base, he'd have to carry out the bidding of Heaven's will instead. As for which was better for him, it was difficult to tell at a glance. While lifespan and cultivation were extremely important things to a cultivator, they were both things that could be recovered and extended or improved. Additionally, divination would always be conducted under controlled environments, greatly reducing the danger of reverting one's cultivation base.

In contrast, Heaven's will might tell him to travel to some faraway place he'd never visited to assassinate some random individual who he'd never heard of before. The risk was incomparable- not only would he have to make it to the location within the time limit, but he'd also have to then gather information, formulate a plan of ambush and so on. Again, all within the time limit!

On the other hand, the technique possessed a few glaring weaknesses. Firstly, was that like any other divination technique, it depended entirely on Heaven's generosity. The possibility that Heaven didn't feel like helping Wuxian out with his inner demon tribulation, which it had inflicted upon him in the first place, was very real. Secondly, was the fact that a high quality earth vein in the form of a mountain and river was necessary for Wuxian to be eligible to learn the technique, since he needed to form a spiritual connection with it. This meant that he had to leave Cang'An city alive, survive any possible pursuers all the while looking for an unclaimed earth vein that just so happened to fulfil the necessary requirements to become his soulbound landmark.

It felt a little paradoxical in that the easiest way to be able to learn the Survey of Mountains and Rivers was to use another divination technique in the first place!

Thirdly, and this was one of the most glaring problems of them all, was that after bonding to the landmark and communing with Heaven's will, there was a good chance that he'd then have to leave the comfort of his newly acquired home to go and fulfil his contractual obligation, lest he die from backlash. He felt trepidation imagining a scenario where he passed his inner demon tribulation with the help of Heaven's prophecy, only to neglect his side of the agreement, resulting in Heaven's will sending down another inner demon! 

But back on the topic. If he had to leave the soulbound landmark behind for an extended period of time, who was to say that some other lone cultivator wouldn't wander over and take over his home? And if at some point in time he had enemies targeting him and he had to leave to complete a task from Heaven, wouldn't they be able to use spiritual attacks to destroy the earth vein? Spiritual connections were mutual, two-way, connections. While the earth vein could share and reduce damage he'd received from attacks directed at him, it'd be the same the other way around.

No further explanation was necessary for this last point.

'Regardless, the Survey of Mountains and Rivers will have to wait until I reach Golden Core. While I will have to leave Cang'An city to make my preparations, that is business for my future self. Right now, I am but a newly-advanced Qi Condenser. It would be best for me to spend some time consolidating my realm for the moment.'

According to what Wan Qiushou had told him, of the factions within Cang'An city, only the Nightwatch and the Jade Garden had Golden Cores within the city walls. However, the Nightwatch's few Golden Cores had all been whisked away by the Jade Garden, so defence was lax. On top of that, while the Jade Garden definitely had Golden Cores to spare, it was currently involved in a war quite some distance away. Exactly how much attention the Jade Garden's people were paying to the safety and surveillance of Cang'An was unknown.

But going off from his recent encounter with a gu master's parasitic gu, it was likely that a handful of hostile Golden Cores had successfully infiltrated the city and were biding their time. After all, going off of Big North's words, the general rule of thumb was that control-type effects were only effective against those who were weaker than the caster, so at the very least, the gu master was a Golden Core, or perhaps even an Origin Spirit immortal. Both were bad news to Wuxian, but on the plus side, until the gu master was ready to make his final move, he couldn't expose himself too obviously, lest he attract the attention and ire of the Jade Garden.

As he quietly familiarised himself with the changes to both his physical body and his spirit body, he mentally made a note of his various priorities and plans moving forwards.

'My first priority of the greatest importance is to strengthen myself. There are multiple ways to go about doing this. For example, continuing cultivating as I have been, neglecting as many worldly affairs as possible for the sake of spending as much time as possible on condensing qi and expanding my dantians.

Since the greatest powers within and around Cang'An city are predicted to be around the Golden Core stage, it will be relatively safe for me to leave once I reach late Qi Condensation. At that point, I won't be able to break through to Golden Core anyway, since I need to make my preparations to learn the Survey of Mountains and Rivers immortal art, so staying in Cang'An city will become a hindrance rather than a boon.

Besides pure cultivation, training my martial combat skills and mastering my mystic arts is another avenue to which I might become stronger. For Natural Spirit Blood, I am already close to fully conditioning my body to the point where I can begin learning the second stage of the technique. In that regard, my breakthrough to Qi Condensation has improved my constitution helping me become more resilient to the toxicity of wood qi. Going off of my previous estimates, the time I will need to spend conditioning has reduced down now from three months to one.

For the moment, my other techniques do not require as much intensive training. They all require increased meridian mastery to utilise effectively, same as before. The only difference is that my meridian channels have become significantly larger and more spacious and now with my condensed qi, I can circulate multiple mystic arts at once as opposed to previously where I faced the risk of qi deviation in doing so. Of course, while it was always possible to use only one element of qi to activate multiple mystic arts at once, my own skill is the greatest limitation. While I would not suffer qi deviation if I used the same element of qi to multicast two different techniques, should I even momentarily lose control of my qi or if they collide, the activation of the techniques would fail and I would suffer damage to my spirit body and meridians.

So my biggest focus in regards to Turning Stone, Effortless Flow, Sonic Strikes and Reactive Qi is to practise activating them simultaneously. With my three dantians, I can cast three different techniques at once, as long as I am willing to expend my relatively more precious fire and earth qi to multicast. However, Turning Stone will only work when using earth qi and when it is being activated, I cannot begin an earth qi weapon imbuement at the same time, but that is hardly a problem.

A nice new capability is for my dantians to function semi-autonomously. Activating multiple mystic arts at any one time is less strenuous now than it would have been before, and I can allocate repeat tasks like the continual activation of Effortless Flow to the same part of my body to the dantians, freeing up my mind to focus on other more complex operations.

Back to the topic. To strengthen myself, I can cultivate and train finesse. My next main priority is to pass my inner demon trial by venturing out into jianghu and finding a suitable earth vein to become my soulbound landmark and future cave abode. In this regard, I will need to know information on not only the lay of the land, but also some geomancy. Knowing the lay of the land will help narrow down my choices greatly, while geomancy will allow me to differentiate landmarks with and without earth veins from one another, and then further differentiate the qualities of these earth veins too.

Jianghu is dangerous and as master previously told me, this is not only due to other cultivators, but spirit beasts as well. To prepare myself for the potential foes I may face, it would be prudent to procure a spirit beast bestiary of creatures in the local region or whichever region I choose to migrate to. While interacting with the Jade Garden is a possibility given my preexisting connection to the Nightwatch, their branch organisation, it might be wiser to not bring myself to their attention any further than necessary. The Nightwatch is already suspicious and distrusting of me, which is fine, since other than chief Li, the others cannot really affect me, but if it is the Jade Garden which has any ill intentions towards me or decides to take me in for interrogation, I will be helpless and at their mercy. There exist many weird and wonderful mystic and immortal arts out there, such as ones that allow the user to read minds and or scry souls and other things along the same lines. There's no telling whether the Jade Garden has immortals with these capabilities, but it's better not to risk it.

So my only other contact and source of cultivation-related things is the Twilight Order. Using their silver pendant, I can get in contact very easily to purchase a bestiary, though my only concerns are whether they'll be able to predict my intentions in doing so. Going on from that is whether or not they'll be interested in stopping me from leaving or not, especially since it's in their best interests to keep me as a mole in the Nightwatch.

In the scenario where they deny me from leaving by refusing to sell the bestiary, I can make it so that my value as a spy goes down, so that there's no point in me remaining as one or I can obtain some sort of leverage over them. To compromise myself, I merely have to make tip offs to Wan Qiushou and Shui Qianyue, which will be easier since I have already garnered some suspicion upon myself, though this comes with risks of its own. Obtaining leverage over the Twilight Order on the other hand is no easy task either. It is generally wiser not to burn bridges with anyone, but I must mentally prepare myself to be able to do so should those bridges begin to weigh me down.

My plan of action in this regard will vary depending on how things go. It may be the case that after aiding the Twilight Order enough, they'll be willing to let me cash in and pack my bags. Of course, relying on the generosity and kindness of others is always a gamble, so I will work on contingencies along the way.

And I could always get close to Wang Qipian and persuade him to help me. He seems to me like an honest and principled individual, so unless my impressions are wrong, this is a valid route to take as well.

But in the end, I can only enact my plans once I am strong enough. The dangers within Cang'An city are stirring, so my inner demon trial isn't the only thing which is putting a clock on the amount of time I have left. As always, I must cultivate more!