Chapter 137: Insect Grass Parasitic Body Technique
Fang Shu walked out from the small stone house. Inside the room, there were two people who had not entered seclusion: Mai Sheng Er and Black Rat.
He was carrying things, pondering in his heart, and did not leave without a word. Instead, he chose to cup his hands toward the two:
“Fellow Daoists, Fang has found a way out that might work, so I will go first.”
Mai Sheng Er and that Black Rat heard this and abruptly turned their heads, raising their eyes to look.
The expressions of these two changed, especially that Mai Sheng Er—her face showed the most suspicion and curiosity.
The room was silent for a few breaths.
Black Rat stood up first, returning a salute to Fang Shu, and said in a deep voice: “I wish Fellow Daoist Fang a smooth journey.”
Mai Sheng Er could not hold back and asked: “Fellow Daoist Fang, are you responding to the recruitment notice, or are you going into seclusion?”
Faced with such a question, Fang Shu did not answer. He just smiled, cupped his hands to the two again, then pushed open the stone door and disappeared at the doorway.
After he left, the stone house became even more desolate.
Mai Sheng Er and Black Rat stayed in the room, a lone man and woman, with no hint of romance—only oppression.
Mai Sheng Er’s face showed a mix of envy and suspicion, along with some unease, and she could not help but say: “I didn’t expect Fellow Daoist Fang to be someone who hides his abilities.”
Black Rat was usually aloof in temperament, but at this moment he sighed: “Time waits for no one.”
Then, Black Rat nodded to Mai Sheng Er and drilled into his own small stone house, no one knew what for.
Only Mai Sheng Er was left. Her gaze was vacant as she stared at the small stone house Fang Shu had used, her thoughts churning and tangled.
On the other side.
Fang Shu left Toad Mudflat and, as if familiar with the way, soon arrived at Senior Sister Fang Lu’s hermitage.
Today’s senior sister had long prepared for going out. She wore a blue floral Daoist robe, and her hair crown was unchanged—still the fish tail golden crown.
The two rode a spirit deer together. Amid the deer’s lively hooves, they soon arrived at the Jin Family’s Treasure Hall.
It was still that elegant room.
Yesterday’s attendant smilingly placed several booklets in front of Fang Shu for him to choose from.
The other said: “These are the more commonly used and decent spiritual root planting cultivation methods in our hall. Besides these, there are some more obscure cultivation methods I haven’t fetched yet, but here is a catalog and brief contents.
Please take your time to look, guest.”
Fang Shu’s gaze swept over the table. He did not look at the catalog first but casually picked up a booklet named 《Wolf Heart Dog Lung Spirit Mixing Technique》.
Flipping through it, the cultivation method in this booklet was as its name implied: using “wolf heart” and “dog lung,” these two demonic beast organs as materials, implanting them into the body and refining them for use.
Because it mixed two demonic beast organs at once, after successful spiritual root planting, not only would the lungs and qi and blood greatly increase—two hearts and three lungs—but also because wolves and dogs are of the same species, the planting difficulty was much lower than using demonic beast materials of different species.
The Treasure Hall attendant added: “Our pavilion has specially bred parent-child dog-wolves available for guests to exchange.”
Fang Shu just nodded without raising his eyes, continuing to flip through. But after just a few pages, he saw a secret script, and the booklet could not be opened further.
Looking up at the attendant, the other just smiled and said: “If the guest is sure to choose this one, I will unlock the secret seal for you right away.”
Without a change in expression, Fang Shu immediately switched to examining another cultivation method.
But in his heart, he sighed lightly—his idea of freeloading more spiritual root cultivation methods had failed again: “Sure enough, just like in Guling’s monster market, merchants everywhere are no fools.”
Various types of spiritual root cultivation methods passed before his eyes.
There was one named 《Mysterious Root Grafting Technique》, which required selecting the main root stem of a spiritual plant over a hundred years old, shaving it into a “spiritual wedge” fitting the dantian, grafting it to the dantian, and then using one’s own essence blood as “nutrient solution” to irrigate it. The root stem would gradually entwine and coexist with the dantian meridians, forming a medicinal king wood spiritual root.
There was one named 《Hundred Beasts Blood Fusion Hundred Apertures Technique》, which took essence blood from a hundred demonic beasts and implanted it into the hundred apertures around the body with silver needles, strengthening the physical body, but with risks of bloodline conflict and demonic transformation of the body, temperament possibly becoming bloodthirsty and manic, requiring regular clear-heart pills afterward.
There was one named 《Dantian Sword Seed Technique》, which pierced a natal sword embryo into the dantian, making it part of the body, namely a “sword spiritual root.”
When the sword embryo entered the body, it was like ten thousand swords piercing the body; a slight carelessness would lead to injury by sword qi, or even the body being bisected from inside out, but afterward, one could continuously feed the sword embryo with rare metal and stone, granting great killing power!
In addition, there were ones like 《Nether Lamp Cold Flame Seed》, using the physical body as the lamp and yin fire as the seed; 《Green Willow Wedding Dress Art》, using willow clothing as skin and physical body as pile; 《Bone Graft Embedding Technique》, scraping bones and extracting marrow to transplant demonic bones; 《Evil Ghost Soul Seeding Technique》, using a malevolent ghost as child and human soul as mother… and so on.
One by one, wondrous cultivation methods entered Fang Shu’s eyes, making his face show surprise and feeling that he had broadened his horizons.
He examined these cultivation methods one by one, along with the catalog, and found a total of twenty-four methods, each complete, with no similar effects among them—each taking a unique path and innovative approach.
This made Fang Shu, amid his amazement, secretly sigh in his heart: “Just the Jin Family’s collection of spiritual root secret techniques numbers this many, so the other families, especially the cultivation methods in the Five Viscera Temple’s main hall, must have even more.”
This not only showed that false spiritual root planting was indeed bizarre and varied, but also that spiritual root cultivation methods were hard to find in the sect, purely a man-made scarcity.
Fang Shu now even suspected that once refining qi succeeded, immortals with a bit of skill could probably develop their own spiritual root planting cultivation methods.
Otherwise, why, when refining qi immortals exchanging for spiritual root cultivation methods was clearly more expensive, were there still so many immortals in the temple claiming to have spiritual root secret techniques.
Suppressing the various thoughts in his heart, Fang Shu did not hastily speak to choose.
He slightly closed his eyes, thoughts stirring, as the Dao talisman in his mind trembled faintly, lines of text emerging one by one.
Although he had not freeloaded complete cultivation methods earlier—only seeing introductions and one or two oral formulas or secret scripts—these were still some gains for him.
At this moment, he was sorting and deducing them one by one, analyzing the pros and cons of each cultivation method.
Soon, his attention fell on one spiritual root cultivation method named 《Insect Grass Parasitic Body Technique》.
This cultivation method was developed based on the life and death cycle of insect grass. It used a spiritual insect’s body as the matrix, seeded with spiritual fungus, where the two merged into a spiritual root that seemed alive yet not, dead yet not, like grass yet like insect, then implanted into the human body.
Like the 《Wolf Heart Dog Lung Spirit Mixing Technique》, because it also used two materials for planting, upon success, compared to a single spiritual root, there was a high probability of granting the immortal cultivator two advantages.
Of course, this did not mean a spiritual root fused from two spiritual items was necessarily stronger than one made from a single spiritual item.
Its main wonder lay in combining two common spiritual materials, even one spiritual and one non-spiritual, to take the strengths and supplement weaknesses, kneading them into a better spiritual root.
The reason Fang Shu fixated on this cultivation method, not looking at others like 《Molting Insect Metamorphosis Technique》 or 《Demonic Insect Symbiosis Technique》, was that on his body, besides the dragon seeking gold worm, he happened to have a spiritual fungus—the flesh ganoderma obtained from the medicine cave.
In the elegant room.
The more Fang Shu thought, the more amazed he felt: “Compared to merely using insect as root or vessel, this technique seeds grass with insect, transforming insect and grass—undoubtedly even more profound.”
Moreover, choosing this method, whether spiritual insect or fungus seed, he did not need the Jin Family to provide, thus avoiding any tricks in the materials they supplied.
Suppressing his emotions, after examining it several times, a thought solidified in Fang Shu’s heart.
He opened his eyes and immediately pointed to the 《Insect Grass Parasitic Body Technique》 in the catalog:
“Trouble Fellow Daoist, fetch this one.”
The attendant and Senior Sister Fang Lu in the elegant room were both somewhat surprised to see Fang Shu decide so quickly.
The attendant even said:
“This technique is somewhat unconventional. Though it allows free pairing, it’s best to have some foundation in Witchcraft and Suppression or Illusionary Beast Taming. Is the guest sure to choose this technique?
Additionally, our hall has a corresponding insect-grass pairing, whose spiritual insect and fungus have several successful precedents with higher success rates. Does the guest need it?”
Fang Shu said gravely: “It’s this technique. As for materials, as discussed yesterday, your hall need only provide auxiliary materials.”
Seeing this, the attendant nodded, stood up, collected all the booklets from the table, and left quickly.
In the elegant room, for a moment only Senior Sister Fang Lu and Fang Shu were left.
Senior Sister Fang Lu did not point fingers at Fang Shu’s choice. She just thought to herself thoughtfully, believing Fang Shu chose this because he was confident in his gu refining skills.
Soon, the attendant fetched the 《Insect Grass Parasitic Body Technique》. The booklet looked unremarkable, with a texture like silkworm silk.
In front of the attendant, Fang Shu opened the booklet, roughly scanning it, and also let Senior Sister Fang Lu beside him glimpse it.
The attendant glanced at Senior Sister Fang Lu helping with the check but said nothing more.
After scanning, Fang Shu had memorized the entire content of the cultivation method in his mind, and the secret script was imprinted, but in the short term, due to lack of knowledge, he could not confirm the technique’s authenticity and quality.
Only when Senior Sister Fang Lu beside him nodded secretly did he close the booklet, made a bow to the attendant: “Thanks to your hall.”
“Good!” The Treasure Hall attendant smiled, then led the two out of the elegant room:
“The corresponding auxiliary materials have been sent to the spirit chamber. Please follow me to see our hall’s spirit chamber specifications; it will surely not disappoint you two.”
The Jin Family’s spirit chamber was underground, full of mechanisms and surrounded by arrays. The three walked for a full quarter of an hour before arriving.
When taking over the spirit chamber, Fang Shu, naturally from the mountain, could not see any issues. He only felt the spiritual energy here was no less than in Senior Sister Fang Lu’s hermitage, also with spirit gathering array and clear-heart array—simply excellent.
And according to the attendant, this spirit chamber’s spiritual energy concentration was exactly three times that of Toad Mudflat!
Senior Sister Fang Lu, however, was quite dissatisfied with the Jin Family’s spirit chamber.
First she disliked the ceiling being too low, then complained there was no water in the room, or water but no pool, like a grave pit. Even broken stone bricks in the spirit chamber, she said would affect seclusion mood—change it, change it again.
In the end, after picking and choosing, the Treasure Hall attendant, hugging a pile of things, rolled his eyes repeatedly and was too lazy to run anymore.
Having no choice, the fellow exhaled, simply led the two to an ordinary-looking spirit chamber, and only said:
“This room is also a Propyl spirit chamber, no extra charge, but spiritual energy concentration is three and a half times that of Toad Mudflat…”
Fang Shu’s eyes lit up slightly.
Before the attendant could say more, Senior Sister Fang Lu made the decision: “This one it is.”
Immediately, after completing the transaction, Fang Shu entered the spirit chamber alone.
He stood tall, making a long bow toward Senior Sister Fang Lu outside the room.
Senior Sister Fang Lu smiled without speaking.
With a tremor, the stone door fell heavily, spiritual light surged, and inside and outside the room were completely isolated.
Fang Shu suddenly felt his ears silent, hearing only his own breathing and the drum-like heartbeat.
He stood silently, but rubbing the silkworm booklet in his hand, his face gradually firmed, and his eyes seemed to burn with fire.
With the wondrous method obtained, this seclusion—return only upon success!
