Free Web NovelChapter 91: Chapter 87: South Celestial Gate
"Zhang Zihai, would you mind explaining this!"
Chu Bamboo stared at Zhang Hai, his face devoid of expression. "Why is it that the moment I open my eyes first thing in the morning... I see you in my room?"
Frankly, if he didn’t know Zhang Hai wasn’t that kind of person, he would have suspected... ’Has this guy taken a fancy to me?’
Chu Bamboo was rather confident in his looks, after all.
"If I said it was a coincidence... well, never mind you, even I wouldn’t believe it!" Zhang Hai sighed softly, leaning back in his chair. "It’s just that I was busy all night. After I finished sorting things out with Celestial Capital... I couldn’t get to sleep. I tossed and turned, and in the end, I decided I might as well come here and wait for you to wake up so I could impart the Immortal Cultivation Technique to you at the first opportunity!"
"But still!" Zhang Hai’s expression twisted for a moment as he asked cautiously, "Why do you sleep so soundly?"
Zhang Hai couldn’t understand. Chu Bamboo was supposed to be a First Realm Body Cultivator now. Beings at that level had formidable bodies and incredibly sharp senses; all their physical metrics surpassed the limits achievable by mortals. At the slightest disturbance, their subconscious would detect the danger, jolting them awake and instantly putting them in a combat-ready state.
In a sense, First Realm Body Cultivators were born to be living weapons.
And yet... how could Chu Bamboo sleep so deeply? It wasn’t as if he had snuck in yesterday. He had knocked on the door quite openly, and only entered after getting no response because he was worried about Chu Bamboo’s condition.
This was just beyond belief!
He suspected he could have put a knife in Chu Bamboo right then and he still wouldn’t have woken up... ’Seriously, do you have narcolepsy or something?!’ fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
"Perhaps it’s because I don’t need to worry about that sort of thing," Chu Bamboo said noncommittally. This made Zhang Hai pause for a moment before breaking into an embarrassed smile. "I didn’t realize you trusted us that much..."
’No...’ Chu Bamboo groused internally. In truth, he suspected his deep sleep had something to do with the transition between the Dream World and his real life...
Of course, while this was a fatal weakness, Chu Bamboo wasn’t worried about it.
’If there’s danger in the Real World, I can just ask about my time of death in the dream to pinpoint it in advance!’
’As for the Dream World... even if I die, it just triggers a time reset. And during the reset process, I can feel it happening, so I’d realize something was wrong immediately!’
’When you put the two together, the weakness might as well not exist.’
Still, if Zhang Hai wanted to misunderstand and think he trusted the God Worship Society, so be it. Chu Bamboo had no intention of explaining himself.
"Well then," Chu Bamboo said as he slowly got out of bed, washed up, and sat back down across from Zhang Hai, "I’ll have to trouble you to tell me about the God Worship Sect’s Immortal Cultivation Technique. And while you’re at it, you can also tell me how your God Worship Sect chooses candidates for Cultivation."
Chu Bamboo was genuinely curious. In his past resets, he had managed to infiltrate the God Worship Sect—much in the same way he had once infiltrated other major factions.
But in the past, he had even become one of Zhang Hai’s most trusted subordinates. He had used all sorts of methods, overt and covert, gentle and forceful, to learn that Zhang Hai was actually Zhang Zihai, and had even discovered a host of Zhang Hai’s secret hobbies... yet, he had never managed to get his hands on a Cultivation Method or become a Cultivator...
To this day, Chu Bamboo still couldn’t understand it, nor could he let it go.
"...Hm? Oh!" Zhang Hai paused in thought for a moment before arriving at a misunderstanding. "You’re asking why not all members of the God Worship Sect are Transcendent, right?"
"You must have sensed it, right? In the Third District Church, besides Zhang Xu and myself, out of the twelve Priests and sixty-seven nuns, only a very small number of the Priests are Body Cultivators, and there isn’t a single Cultivator to be found?"
"..." ’No, I actually didn’t sense that at all!’
’However, now that I think about it,’ Chu Bamboo thought, ’I can pinpoint those two Priests who are Body Cultivators. It’s mainly because their musculature is abnormal, which is the most obvious trait of a Body Cultivator... I just wonder if there are any others?’
’After all, physique isn’t the only way to identify a Body Cultivator... If their corruption isn’t high, their bodies look relatively normal.’
"The reason, of course, is that Cultivation is dangerous! Extremely dangerous! Incredibly, monumentally dangerous," Zhang Hai emphasized repeatedly.
"Those who join the God Worship Sect usually undergo a test... We call this test a purifying baptism, of course. Unbeknownst to the new members, we’ve already tested whether they have the aptitude for Cultivation... or, to put it another way, whether they can survive the massive hurdle at the very beginning of the path!"
"If they lack that aptitude, we will absolutely never even hint at these matters to them..."
Chu Bamboo: "..." freёwebnovel.com
’Well, case closed,’ he thought. ’No wonder I infiltrated so many branches of the Orthodoxy in the past and not a single one ever took a liking to me or accepted me into their Inner Sect... So it was all because I don’t have the aptitude?’
’How harsh and realistic!’
"Wait, what about me now..." Chu Bamboo’s expression tensed. ’This is bad. Have Zhang Hai and the others already tested me? I was pretty sure in the past that I didn’t have the aptitude... What if they test me this time and I still don’t have it? Will they still give me the Cultivation Technique...? No, that’s not it. The key question is, will I even be able to practice Cultivation at all?’
"You don’t need to worry about that. I’ll explain in a moment," Zhang Hai said patiently. "I need to explain this in the right order... Let me take it one step at a time."
Chu Bamboo: "?"
Zhang Hai let out a faint sigh. "As it stands, those with the aptitude for Cultivation are truly one in a thousand... And to be frank, even having the aptitude is no guarantee that you’ll successfully become a Cultivator."
"Of course, it’s not like there aren’t other ways... For example, by receiving the grace of our God!"
