「Nightfall on the fourteenth day of the first lunar month.」

Song Ciwan had been in Cultivation in her Profound Level Cave Mansion on Wangjiang Mountain for more than ten days.

During this time, she had sold off a great deal of human desires, completely using up her ten daily trading opportunities.

She used most of the Cultivation time she received in exchange to practice her Magic and Martial Arts, leading to immense improvement in all her Techniques.

Her Void Illusion Demon Sword and Illusion-Breaking Blade Technique naturally saw great progress, but she also delved deeper into her practice of basic Magic like the Blazing Flame Technique and Palm Thunder.

Once her Palm Thunder reached the Level of Mastery, Song Ciwan no longer needed hand seals. A single thought was enough to summon crackling lightning from the void.

Her Palm Thunder unlocked a special ability: Thunder Rolling Residual Clouds!

Previously, a strike from Song Ciwan could only produce a single bolt of lightning. But after grasping Thunder Rolling Residual Clouds, she could instantly unleash a sprawling web of electricity, transforming Palm Thunder from a single-target Basic Magic into an area-of-effect Attack!

In addition, there was the Infinite Power of Divine Communication and Daoist Techniques.

This Divine Technique was divided into four layers: the First Layer, Infinite Power; the Second Layer, Giant Force Holding Heaven; the Third Layer, Moving Mountains and Chasing the Sea; and the Fourth Layer, Grasping Stars and Catching the Moon.

Without a doubt, the potential of Infinite Power far surpassed that of both Palm Thunder and the Blazing Flame Technique.

To cultivate this technique was to walk the path of "one power to shatter ten thousand laws"—the path of proving one’s Dao through absolute strength!

Currently, Song Ciwan only possessed the Cultivation method for the First Layer of the Daoist Technique, Infinite Power. By applying all the extra Cultivation time she had gained, she managed to train Infinite Power to the Master Level.

The Master Level was still a far cry from true Mastery.

This wasn’t because Song Ciwan lacked diligence, or because she had allocated too little time to it. Rather, the difficulty of cultivating Infinite Power was directly proportional to its immense potential.

The greater its potential, the more difficult it was to cultivate.

At the Master Level, Infinite Power already gave Song Ciwan the burgeoning sense that she could split a mountain with a single palm strike!

What she was missing was the physical conditioning to match.

This was where Song Ciwan’s other Main Cultivation Method came into play: the Thunder Fire Body Devouring Technique.

The Thunder Fire Body Devouring Technique had five layers in total, and Song Ciwan currently possessed the complete Cultivation Techniques for the first two.

She had only cultivated the First Layer, but she had already reached the Mastery Realm.

As a Body Refining Technique, cultivating the Thunder Fire Body Devouring Technique was considerably more "painful" than her other methods.

And "painful" was meant in the most literal sense.

As the name suggested, this technique required one to be devoured by thunder and fire!

And so, another common activity for Song Ciwan during this time was to strike herself with Palm Thunder and burn herself with the Blazing Flame Technique...

Then, she would use a vast amount of resources to replenish her energy and the Ganlin Spell to heal her wounds—

Through endless suffering, she would shed her mortal form.

Additionally, there were the Celestial Spirit Daoist Skills: Fetal Transformation and Shape-shifting, and Call Wind and Rain.

Song Ciwan had advanced her Call Wind and Rain from the Beginner to the Skilled level. Her Insight Technique panel displayed: Call Wind and Rain (Skilled 69/1000).

This Daoist Technique was every bit as difficult to cultivate as the Thunder Fire Body Devouring Technique.

Song Ciwan thus came to a realization. Although she had collected a considerable amount of human desires and exchanged them for a great deal of Cultivation time, she had far too many things to practice. She had even paused her work on the Sutra of Sitting and Forgetting, but the time she had still felt insufficient.

’The path of Cultivation is truly endless.’

It was no wonder the scriptures said: "Life is finite, but knowledge is infinite!"

To pursue the infinite Dao with a finite body... didn’t that make "seizing every moment" an absolute necessity?

In this regard, Song Ciwan was lucky.

Because she had the Heaven and Earth Scale, she could obtain more Lifespan with relative ease. This eased the desperate urgency to "seize every moment," granting her a measure of calm.

However, Song Ciwan had her own frustrations.

Recently, she had been trading away human desires. While most were converted into Cultivation time, some—being the first trade from a particular person—yielded various Cultivation Techniques from the Heaven and Earth Scale instead.

Among them were five Daoist Techniques.

Three were Basic Daoist Techniques: the Body-Stabilizing Spell, the Cloud Mist Technique, and the Body Traveling Technique.

Song Ciwan had received the complete methods for these three Basic Daoist Techniques in one go. However, besides the Body-Stabilizing Technique, which she practiced diligently, she had only reached the Beginner level in the other two.

It wasn’t that she looked down on these Daoist Techniques; the main issue was the risk of biting off more than she could chew.

She simply didn’t have enough time to cast a wide net and master every single Dharma Gate. For the time being, she had to be selective!

’As for the future... that’s a problem for another day. No need to rush.’

’As they say, live long enough and you can become all-powerful. The future... the future is a long time. Who knows what it holds?’

All in all, this abundance of Magic was a bittersweet problem for Song Ciwan. Of course, among them were some pleasant surprises.

For instance, Song Ciwan had obtained another High Level Daoist Skill: Water Escape, part of the Five Elements Escape Technique!

There was also a special Daoist Skill: the Sacrificial Blade Technique!

This Daoist Technique, in particular, had come from trading the human desires of Xie Yunfeng, Xie Zhang’s father.

As its name suggested, the Sacrificial Blade Technique was a Daoist Skill that allowed one to use various special materials in a ritual to temper a blade, thereby enhancing the quality of blade-type Magical Artifacts.

Take Zhang Ping, for instance. He would often feed his blade with human blood, using it to improve the quality of his Hundred Battle Saber. This was, in fact, a form of the Sacrificial Blade Technique.

However, Zhang Ping’s version was crude and sinister. The Sacrificial Blade Technique Song Ciwan had acquired was of a much higher Level, with far more refined and varied methods.

After learning this technique, Song Ciwan immediately took out a portion of the Celestial Meteorite Iron she had acquired, melted down two pounds of it, and ritually forged it into her Black Armor Saber.

The Black Armor Saber’s resilience increased, though it didn’t quite level up—upgrading a Magical Artifact was never that easy, after all.

But Song Ciwan decided that from now on, she would practice the Sacrificial Blade Technique on her Black Armor Saber in her spare time. If she slowly tempered it, the blade was bound to level up eventually.

In addition to the five Daoist Techniques, Song Ciwan had also obtained three Martial Techniques.

One was a Hidden Weapon art. The Technique was called Soul Reviving Needle, and while Song Ciwan memorized the method, she had yet to practice it, as she didn’t possess any needle-type Magical Artifacts.

If she ever wanted to practice it, she would have to forge the Soul Reviving Needles herself. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Another was a Martial Technique called the Formless Flying Flower Palm. This Palm Technique was far more powerful than the lowly Mountain-Breaking Fist—it was an Innate Martial Technique!

Lacking time, Song Ciwan had only managed to cultivate the Formless Flying Flower Palm to the Beginner level.

Finally, there was a Martial Technique called the Xuanwu Mountain Observation Seal. It was a special Seal Technique primarily used for defense. For now, Song Ciwan had only obtained the First Layer of the Xuanwu Mountain Observation Seal.

Song Ciwan focused her efforts on this Seal Technique, bringing it to the Skilled level.

In just over ten days, she had made great gains and consolidated her foundations. Compared to the turbulent state of the outside world, Song Ciwan, nestled safely in her cave mansion, felt as if she were in a secluded paradise, untouched by any storm.

At the start of the Hai hour, Song Ciwan concluded her Cultivation.

She stepped out of the cave mansion to see a full, round moon in the sky, casting down a pure white glow.

Then, from the foot of Wangjiang Mountain, the faint, joyous melody of a suona inexplicably drifted up through the night.