Xuan stared at him for a moment, then sighed. "That sounds cool and all, but what’s the Qi Type? You’ve been hyping it up quite a lot, so it better not be something trash."

Dian raised his hand, but decided against slapping Xuan. Instead, he took a deep breath, and after bottling it up, he explained.

"There are some special variations of certain Qi Types. Some that, individually, are far stronger than when used outside of their original form... Sound Qi."

"Hm?" Xuan paused for a moment. "That doesn’t exactly sound like a variation. It just sounds like a proper Qi Type."

"Really? How do you cultivate Sound Qi then, genius?" Dian scoffed.

"By playing instruments? Using sound based instruments for combat..." Xuan tilted his head. "That seems like something you’d do, especially since you taught your daughter how to use the zither and whatever."

Dian thought over it for a moment, then shook his head. "If it were that simple, we’d all have Sound Qi by now. No. The truth is, there is no way to attain Sound Qi. Through repetition such as instrument playing and instrument fighting... You may attain Silence Qi. It’s an interesting form of Qi, but not the absolute."

He raised a single finger. "With Silence Qi, you may move in complete and total silence, you may make someone deaf, and at the highest level, you can completely erase your entire existence. It’s uh... One of the main reasons why most women who cultivate in our sect go on to become assassins, because once they attain Silence Qi, they’ve basically become the most valuable resources to any rich benefactor."

That made sense.

Honestly, Xuan respected them for it. He would do the same. But from all the knowledge he had about sound, he had a rough idea of why it was superior.

Sound wasn’t just noise. It was vibration. Frequency. Something that passed through walls, through water, through bone. You couldn’t block it by covering your ears any more than you could stop a wave by putting your hand up.

So if Silence Qi was the absence of all that...

Then Sound Qi was the full thing unleashed.

"So with sound, you can control perception, hearing, mimic Silence Qi essentially... Then you can squash someone’s brain with just a light tap, or even a hum. I mean... I get the novelty behind it all, but what if someone’s prepared for you?" Xuan said.

Dian clicked his tongue. "Your outlook is far too narrow. With Sound Qi, the sound can enter your pores and reach your brain, shut down your nervous system, and kill any being instantly, even if that being is slightly more powerful. Do you want me to show you a demonstration?"

Xuan, who had already gotten dressed and all, took a step back, then shook his head. "Sorry boss, but I don’t want to go deaf today. On that note, you mentioned you only had Space Qi, Water Qi, and Blood Qi. You don’t have Silence Qi, why?"

"Because I don’t like it. It’s not what I want," he replied.

Xuan stared at him.

That was it. That was the whole answer. Not I couldn’t attain it or the cost was too great or anything that made sense for a man who had just spent ten minutes explaining Sound Qi like he’d written the textbook on it himself. Just... I don’t like it.

Okay.

He genuinely didn’t know what to do with that. The man was a Spirit King. He’d bathed in the blood of an entire race to get Blood Qi. He had opinions on the finer points of assassination, on how Death Qi was meant to be used, on what Xuan was doing wrong with his own cultivation. And his reason for not pursuing one of the rarest Qi Types in existence was that he didn’t like it. Xuan decided to move on before his brain started hurting.

"But can’t you upgrade it into Sound Qi with enough practice. I mean, if you know about it, then there had to have been precedent," Xuan mused. "How else did you get Blood Qi from Water Qi, you know?"

The air shifted.

It wasn’t dramatic. Dian didn’t move, didn’t raise his voice, didn’t do anything that should have made the room feel different. But it did.

"Through killing an entire race and bathing in their blood, Xuan," Dian said in a far more serious tone than he had ever before, causing Xuan’s body to stiffen as he continued:

"You seem to lack the proper grasp of power... Your Qi Types, especially. They are powerful. Death Qi, combined with Space Qi and Sound Qi would make you the most powerful cultivator in the Lower and Upper Heavens. Only if you have a high enough mastery, of course."

Then, he clicked his tongue once more.

"But you seem to avoid everything that gives you power. Ugh... I’m not supposed to tell you this since I’m in the righteous faction, but if you have Death Qi, you kill. If you have Space Qi, you explore and cause chaos... Time Qi, you must find ancient shrines and cultivate in them, eventually allowing you to unlock more of the Time Qi’s effects."

Xuan quietly filed all of that away. He wasn’t going to say anything right now, obviously, but he was absolutely going to think about it later when nobody was watching him think about it.

And after taking a deep breath, he added:

"Sound Qi... Imagine walking through an open plain, a clearing in the forest. The wind blows against the tall grass, and the trees rustle in the distance. A critter’s howls echo, and the sound of a distant fight shakes the land... All of these bits of chaos contribute to your power. How great is that?"

Xuan didn’t say anything for a second.

Okay. That was actually really cool. He wasn’t going to pretend otherwise. The idea of just... existing in the world and growing stronger because the world was loud was almost offensively good. There was no grinding involved. No sitting in a cave for three hundred years staring at your own navel. Just walking around being a person and absorbing the ambient noise of everything happening around you.

It was the kind of power that didn’t ask anything of you. No sacrifice, no ritual, no wiping out a bloodline. Just living. Which, compared to everything else Dian had described so far, felt almost suspicious. Like the universe had gotten lazy with that one and forgot to attach a horrible price tag to it.

To be honest, Xuan did find it overpowered, but if someone had such knowledge about Sound Qi, and obviously, he was old enough to train toward it... Why hadn’t he gotten it yet? Why did he think that Xuan, of all people, would be able to attain it while he, a Spirit King, could not?

It was a stupid thing to think about, but then again, what did Xuan know? He wasn’t a cultivator for long, nor did he know how half of this shit worked. Yuelan, who had watched a bunch of videos and played a shit ton of games definitely had an advantage in this regard.

But once more... Xuan, despite appearing lazy, was anything but. If there was a good cause, or rather, something that could make his life easier, he would most definitely do anything in his power to attain it.

And in this case, the thing that would make his life easier was just a simple instruction on how to do some stupid shit. So of course, Xuan went ahead and accepted it.

"Alright. You can teach me, and I’ll do my best to comprehend it and teach it to you too. How does that sound?"

Dian rolled his eyes. "Brat, it’s a shot in the dark. If you somehow manage to comprehend it, I will kowtow and accept my defeat."

Xuan wanted to reassure him that he won’t let no father in law of his kowtow to anyone. Alas, he wasn’t in the mood to get beaten once more, so he refrained from saying that and went ahead and got to business.

"So how do we start?"

"Right. I will blast a bell into your ears, and if you feel like you’re dying, blink," Dian said.

Xuan raised a brow. "Isn’t that a bit much?"

"Nope. It’s pretty normal. The only thing you’ll be able to do while in that state is blink anyway, so it’s fine. On another note, cheer up. You’re the first disciple that might actually survive my training."

Dian’s encouragement was akin to slapping salt on a wound. Xuan was very wounded right now, especially after hearing the fact that he had a few more disciples.

But oh well, this wasn’t the first time he stepped into shit. He would just take it as a learning experience. Most definitely.

Welp. He was ready to be screwed since he just wanted it to make him stronger. With those thoughts, Xuan decided to subject himself to even more torture.