I have a panel that reduces proficiency.

Chapter 25 The Calibration Ceremony, A Surge of Turbid Air

The third time.

Fang Shi stood still in the courtyard, took a deep breath, and started walking.

With each step, one can feel the earth's spiritual energy seeping in from the Yongquan acupoint, rising along the leg bones, past the knees and hips, and converging into the Dantian.

Sure enough, after Xu Xing Shou Zhong reached the proficiency level for the third time, just like the previous two times, the increase was in movement speed.

The spiritual energy surging up from the ground made him feel as if he were walking on cotton, saving him a lot of effort.

However, Fang Shi frowned.

Why would a rogue cultivator who only draws talismans and doesn't fight with anyone run so fast?

What he needs is to increase his cultivation speed.

The Seven Steps of Spiritual Inspiration can relieve fatigue in the meridians, while the Dietary and Centralized Approach can enhance the absorption of spiritual energy. However, if the Slow and Steady Approach only gives him a pair of legs that can run fast, then it is useless.

If you're not satisfied, then return it.

A thought flashed through his mind—

[Xu Xing's proficiency in defending the center -1]

【Xu Xing Shou Zhong (Beginner): 99/100】

[Xu Xing's level has been reduced: Proficient → Beginner ↓]

Fang Shi looked at the line of words on the panel with a calm expression.

The proficiency panel can always be rewound.

However, back then it was a small number of points that were refunded, but now it's the entire level that's being refunded.

The increase or decrease in proficiency at the normal minor stage will not have a significant impact on the skill's effectiveness.

However, the levels are different; the transition from beginner to proficient represents a qualitative change.

As for rituals like Xu Xing Shou Zhong, they were cultivation methods that Fang Shi deduced himself. There were no precedents to follow, so there were no fixed rules to speak of.

If that's the case, why can't he decide the direction of its improvement?

This is another use of the proficiency panel developed by Fang Shi.

If that's the case, could we have "both"—so that Xu Xing could run fast and also benefit from cultivation?

At first glance, it seems feasible, but ultimately, the increase or decrease is all due to knowledge.

In practice, however, it doesn't work.

Whether it's drawing talismans, building arrays, or performing rituals, it all ultimately comes down to the path of spiritual energy flowing through the meridians.

When spiritual energy flows through the meridians, it brings about permanent changes to the meridians.

It's like a martial arts move.

Those who practice boxing spend years training to achieve "relaxation, flexibility, elasticity, and trembling," aiming for speed and penetration in their power exertion, with short and sharp bursts of energy. Their muscles are trained to be highly responsive and capable of instantaneous explosive power.

Those who train their legs practice standing and kicking stances every day, cultivating "solidity, stability, and ruthlessness." They strive for stability and weight in their power, resulting in a long and continuous flow of energy. Their muscles and bones are forged into strong, robust, and enduring forms.

Fast and steady, penetrating and heavy, short and long force—two completely opposite modes of force exertion.

It's not that I don't want to practice both, it's that my body has already become accustomed to one way of exerting force.

If you try to practice a different type of movement, the old muscle memory will interfere with the new movement, and the new force exertion habits will disrupt the old stability. The two sides will hinder each other, and in the end, you can neither go fast nor stay stable, and you will be stuck in the middle.

The same principle applies to spiritual practice.

The path he took in Xu Xingshou determined that spiritual energy would repeatedly circulate through those specific floating networks. Over time, those floating networks would become fixed and become part of his body.

If you want to change your path, you must first step out of your old body shape.

When you first begin to circulate your Qi and maintain a centered posture, there is still room for adjustment.

Once you practice for a long time and your proficiency improves, the pathways of your meridians become fixed, making it difficult to change them later.

However, Fang Shi was not in a hurry.

The other cultivators had finally broken through to the next realm, and they didn't know if there were any better directions to take, so naturally they only had one path to follow.

But he's different.

He has a proficiency panel; if all else fails, he can simply go back and start over.

It just takes a little more time.

Putting these thoughts aside, for Fang Shi, the most important thing was still the progress of the "Little Water Cloud Technique" and Qi refining.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, the main control panel appeared before his eyes—

Name: Fang Shi

Life expectancy: 18/98 years

[Realm: Qi Refining Level 2: 68/200]

【Technique: Minor Water Cloud Technique (Proficient): 50/200】

[Skills: Omitted...]

This is the result of his arduous training over a month and a half.

Compared to before, the progress of the second level of Qi Refining has increased from 45 to 68, an increase of 23 points.

The proficiency level of "Little Water Cloud Technique" increased even faster—from 0 to 50, an increase of 50 points.

This is not just due to his hard work these past few days, but also the culmination of years of accumulation, which has finally been unleashed by his return to his roots.

Now that I have 50 points in hand, the pace will naturally slow down.

The fact that he had acquired a quarter of the "Minor Water Cloud Technique" also significantly improved the efficiency of his unit cultivation time.

Previously, it would take five hours of cultivation before the meridians became exhausted.

Now, four hours are enough.

He could use the saved hour to do other things—either relax, study the "Small Water Cloud Technique" and talismans, or repeatedly ponder the still unfinished Xu Xing Shou Zhong.

Just as Fang Shi was thinking this, a white light suddenly flashed across the horizon, illuminating the entire courtyard and leaving a fleeting afterimage in his pupils.

He raised his head and looked towards the southeast sky—the clouds were thick and hazy, like a huge gray cloth spread from the horizon, completely obscuring the sky.

He thought to himself: Spring thunder is about to sound.

as predicted.

After a while, thunder rolled in, booming and rumbling, like a giant wheel rolling across the sky.

Fang Shi withdrew his gaze and turned to walk into the house.

Spring thunder comes every year, it's nothing special.

He still has work to do.

There are still 323 fragments of Soul Shard left, enough for three and a half months of full-force cultivation.

Three and a half months is enough time for him to push the second level of Qi Refining forward a lot.

……

Rumble!

Spring thunder rolled across the sky.

Zhou Yan, who was meditating cross-legged, suddenly opened his eyes.

The voices within his mind exploded almost simultaneously: "The time has come! The time has come! Hurry! Hurry!"

Zhou Yan responded with "Yes, senior," and his hands were already forming hand seals, his ten fingers flying across the page.

The array patterns lit up layer by layer underfoot, and the blue bricks became transparent, revealing the surging black energy deep within the earth.

The voice in his mind grew increasingly urgent, saying, "Hurry! Do it now! What are you waiting for!"

Zhou Yan dared not delay and focused all his energy on forming hand seals.

The array suddenly lit up, dazzling and bright, illuminating the entire inner room as if it were daytime.

Spiritual energy converged from all directions, like rivers flowing into the sea, pouring into the formation and transforming into an invisible, immense force that suppressed the surging black energy.

The black energy suddenly stopped, and even the finger bones floating within it trembled slightly, as if they were being held down by an invisible hand.

The voice in my mind laughed: "Good! Well done! That's it!"

Zhou Yan gritted his teeth and poured the last bit of his magic power into the formation.

The array's light shone to its extreme, causing the entire inner room to tremble, and dust fell from the walls.

The black mist was compressed lower and lower, thinner and thinner, until finally the finger bones in the center were revealed one by one—one, two, three, four, five, completely suspended in the center of the black mist, as white as jade, as smooth as new, as if they had just been drawn from flesh and blood.

However, the light from the formation began to become unstable.

First there was a slight tremor, then the light spots dimmed one by one, and cracks spread outward from the center of the array, like a spider web, densely covering the entire room.

Snapped!

Like a mirror struck by a heavy hammer, it shattered in an instant, turning into countless points of light.

Where the fragments dissipated, the cracks in the ground were completely exposed.

The black energy, no longer suppressed, suddenly surged back, like a flood bursting its banks, gushing forth from the ground and instantly engulfing Zhou Yan.

Amidst the surging black mist, a maniacal laugh pierced through the air.

……

Speaking of Old Liu, the butcher who usually sets up his stall next to Fang Shi, he foresaw that it would rain today and didn't set up his stall at all.

At this moment, he was sitting cross-legged in the cultivation room, closing his eyes and concentrating his mind, using his rudimentary cultivation technique to refine his magical power.

When the spring thunder rolled across the sky, he only frowned slightly, without stopping.

Suddenly, the spiritual energy disappeared.

Old Liu opened his eyes, cursing, "You, Chen Santai! I used to call you brother, and you're so careless with building a spirit-locking array! It broke after only half a month. Your skills are even worse than Fang Shi's that day!"

He stood up and walked to the wall. He saw that the spirit-locking array was intact, without any breaks, and the array's core was not loose.

But there was no spiritual energy left.

Old Liu suddenly felt that something was wrong.

If the spirit-locking array is broken, the spiritual energy should leak out slowly, not all at once.

Old Liu cursed, "After all, he's just a rogue cultivator, not comparable to a true disciple from the Three Plates Temple."

Just as he was planning to go to Chen Santai to have it repaired again, he suddenly heard a soft "hiss" sound from under his feet, as if something had cracked.

Old Liu looked down and saw that wisps of black energy were emerging from the patterns of the spirit-locking array, like small black snakes crawling out of the array and winding upwards.

Old Liu was shocked and was about to back away when the black mist suddenly surged and poured into his mouth and nose.

……

Han Laoliu's cultivation room is more than ten square meters, unlike the tiny cultivation rooms in Qiyuan Town, which are so cramped that it's difficult to even turn around.

At this moment, he was bent over the talisman table, holding the brush and concentrating on drawing a first-level intermediate protective talisman—a grade higher than the common first-level protective talismans on the market. The patterns were much more complex, and the path of spiritual energy flow was much more tortuous. Without the magic power of the mid-stage Qi Refining stage, one could not draw it.

Rumble!

Spring thunder roared.

Han Laoliu's hand trembled, and the pen tip deviated by half an inch.

A flash of inspiration appeared on the yellow paper, then it went dark.

He slammed the pen down on the table, his face ashen, and cursed, "It must be that brat at the second level of Qi Refining! Last time I asked him to deliver a message, he made all sorts of excuses, and Lingfuxuan and Jicaotang lowered their prices. Now Chunlei is ruining my talismans—it's all that brat's bad luck!"

After cursing, he spread out another sheet of yellow paper, dipped it in cinnabar, picked up his pen, took a deep breath, and began to draw the talisman anew.

Halfway through the drawing, he suddenly realized something was wrong.

Why is the spiritual energy in this cultivation room so impure right now?

It's like something drawn directly from the Great Wilderness, mixed and turbid, even hindering the recovery of magical power.

Han Laoliu frowned and sensed it again—it wasn't his imagination.

The concentration of spiritual energy remained the same, but the amount of impurities was astonishing, like a bowl of clear water that had been filled with mud and sand.

In all his years of cultivation, he had never encountered such a situation in the cultivation room of Taoyuan Town.

He composed himself and examined the matter more closely.

wrong!

There seems to be something else mixed in with these impurities...

boom!

Suddenly, a loud noise came from underground.

Heavy and dull, like something breaking through the soil.

The entire training room trembled, and the cinnabar box on the table jumped up, spilling blood-red liquid all over the table.

Han Laoliu suddenly looked up and gazed in the direction from which the sound came—the direction of Qiyuan Town.

……

Fang Shi sat cross-legged in his six-foot-square cultivation room, closing his eyes and circulating his internal energy.

Spiritual energy seeped out from the spirit-locking array, flowing into the meridians bit by bit, and slowly circulating along familiar routes.

He focused his mind inward, letting his thoughts follow the flow of spiritual energy, neither hasty nor impatient.

Suddenly, he realized something was wrong.

The spiritual energy has become stronger.

Not only that, the quality of the spiritual energy has also changed—it used to be only at the initial stage of the first rank, but now it has a subtle warmth and mellowness of the intermediate stage of the first rank, as if it were drawn directly from Peach Garden Town.

Fang Shi suddenly opened his eyes.

Something unusual must be going on; he didn't think that a sudden increase in spiritual energy was a good thing.

He had lived in Qiyuan Town for many years and had heard a story from the past.

About seven or eight years ago, there was a rogue cultivator named Dong Chengze who discovered that his spiritual energy was slightly more than others. Although it was of little use, he didn't bother to make a fuss about it.

Later, when Manager Zhao checked the accounts, he discovered this matter. Not only did he make him pay back the excess amount, he was also fined 500 spirit fragments, for knowingly failing to report it and intentionally encroaching on public spiritual energy.

Dong Chengze lost all his savings, even his deposit for renting a house, and was eventually forced to live in a shack on the edge of the wilderness. He never returned.

Fang Shi's heart tightened, and he quickly got up, approached the Spirit Locking Array, and reached out to explore the array patterns.

With a flick of his fingertip, he released his magic power, which then traced the lines of the pattern.

Upon this investigation, his heart sank – it was clearly the Qi-guiding patterns of the Pure Yuan Array that were causing the problem.

When it was stealing spiritual energy, this Qi-guiding pattern was like a slender snake hidden in the shadows, stealing only a few bites each day, no more and no less.

But today, for some reason, this slender snake suddenly went mad, opening its mouth wide and frantically sucking out spiritual energy, like a whale sucking water or a giant python swallowing an elephant. Its ferocity seemed to be trying to drain all the spiritual energy within a radius of several miles in one go.

Fang Shi gathered his magical power at his fingertips and quickly probed into the array's core stone.

Upon investigation, the numbers recording the loss of spiritual energy had actually started to move!

Without a second thought, he formed hand seals, his fingers flying across the paper, and a beam of spiritual light burst forth from his fingertips, precisely entering the starting point of the Qi-guiding pattern.

The energy-guiding pattern dimmed instantly when struck by the magic power, like a snake whose vital point was being pinched; it struggled a few times before completely dissipating.

He carefully examined the patterns of the Spirit Locking Array again, correcting the veins that had been misdirected by the Qi-guiding patterns, until the entire array was restored to its original state, before letting out a long breath.

To destroy the evidence and cover up the crime.

This should make it impossible to find out.

But before he could finish exhaling, a slight tremor suddenly came from under his feet.

He looked down—and saw wisps of black energy seeping out from between the patterns of the spirit-locking array. At first, there were only a few wisps, but in the blink of an eye, they gathered into a mass and stretched along the ground.

Fang Shi felt a chill run down his spine and immediately stepped back.

But the black mist came extremely fast. Before he could retreat two steps, it surged in from all directions and enveloped him.

He felt a sudden darkness before his eyes, and a chilling aura rushed into his mouth and nose.

The aura shot straight to his head, pinning him firmly to the spot, rendering him unable to move.

The tremors beneath my feet suddenly intensified.

boom!

The ground suddenly ripped open, and the earth dragon turned over.