The Decaying World

Chapter 190: Chapter 180: Future 4

A major sect that champions righteousness would likely be very powerful. If they discovered their Cultivation Technique had been leaked, they would probably investigate immediately. And if they found out my will wasn’t righteous enough...

Lin Hui thought it over carefully. ’I consider myself a righteous and friendly young man, so choosing this might just work.’

After all, the Special Effects for this option were really tempting.

Especially that "Heart of Righteousness"... and the "Formless Tribulation Seal" that could block one fatal blow. It was practically a divine skill!

But just as the thought occurred, he had another idea. He decided to re-examine the Blood Seal’s description in detail, hoping to find more information.

He immediately took another careful look at the introduction for the Formless Sect.

But this time, the more he looked, the more something felt off.

’What does "the more righteous you are, the faster your cultivation speed and the weaker your bottlenecks" mean? Doesn’t that imply the top experts of this Formless Sect are some kind of extreme paragons of justice? The type who can’t tolerate even a speck of dust in their eyes?’

This suddenly occurred to him.

’If that’s really the case, and I think about everything I’m doing right now... I’d say I’m kind, but righteous... The compatibility might not be very high...’

Shaking his head, he moved on to the next option, putting this one aside as a backup.

The fourth one.

’Void Underworld Sect: An Underworld Path sect model, traced back from and extending Qingfeng Temple’s Martial Arts.

All entry-level disciples can receive one Underworld Rebirth. Underworld Rebirth (Instantly revive upon death, with a nine-fold increase to all physical and mental stats for nine seconds. This effect is automatically lost upon leaving or betraying the sect).

Sect Special Effects: Underworld Grotto (A sect member who has experienced a near-death state will gain a 100% increase in cultivation speed. This effect can be stacked and is lost upon leaving the sect).

Note: Due to the special nature of its Cultivation Technique, the Void Underworld Sect’s disciples madly pursued near-death experiences, which led to their numbers dwindling until they eventually vanished from the vast universe.’

This was another twisted sect.

Lin Hui had no interest in a model that encouraged courting death. Although the stackable Underworld Grotto effect was outrageously powerful, if you looked for death too many times, you would actually die.

He looked at the last one.

’Ninth Heaven Sect: Traced back from a certain direction of Martial Arts insight comprehended by Lin Hui, the current Observatory Master of Qingfeng Temple.’

Seeing this line, Lin Hui was stunned. So this sect model was traced back and extended from his own comprehension and insights into Martial Arts?

’In other words, the inspiration and direction I comprehended just happens to align with a sect named the Ninth Heaven Sect in some distant place?’

Lin Hui was lost in thought.

He continued reading.

’...Disciples who enter the sect can receive an enhancement to their Qingyuan Seal, allowing them to invoke the power of an unknown wind disaster to augment their Martial Arts when used.

Sect Special Effects: Righteous Body, Righteous Mind, Righteous Virtue.’

Lin Hui curiously clicked on these three Special Effects.

’Righteous Body (Upon joining the sect and gaining membership, one’s physical body receives a 50% all-around enhancement. The effect is lost upon betraying the sect)’

The prerequisites for Righteous Mind were the same, and its effect was a 50% all-around enhancement to one’s Heart and Spirit.

As for Righteous Virtue, it granted a 50% all-around enhancement to cultivation comprehension.

This one was very simple, with a short description. It was a purely direct and instantly effective buff—simple and brutal. It was clearly extremely convenient for developing a large sect.

’This last one is really strong too...’

Comparing all the options, the first one, the Wind Aspect Sect, was the worst. He definitely wouldn’t choose it. The buffs were too small.

The last two, the Void Underworld Sect and Ninth Heaven Sect models, could significantly enhance the sect’s strength in a short time. This was especially true for the Void Underworld Sect. The Underworld Rebirth effect was terrifying—a nine-fold all-around boost after dying once. Although it only lasted nine seconds, those nine seconds were more than enough to drag an enemy down with you.

And that Underworld Grotto was also ridiculous. "Stackable" meant that with good luck, a sect would always have a few fortunate disciples who had experienced near-death multiple times. Their cultivation speed would be simply unimaginable...

But the drawback was just as the Blood Seal’s note suggested: it could easily push sect members to seek their own demise.

Lin Hui thought it over and over, and in the end, his gaze settled on the Ninth Heaven Sect and the Formless Sect.

The Formless Sect was clearly righteous, a major sect of the righteous path. Its ability to block a fatal attack was incredibly powerful. It was equivalent to having an extra life.

But the drawback was also obvious. What if the strongest experts of the Formless Sect were all extreme purists of the righteous path? If they discovered the situation here, things would get really interesting.

Lin Hui himself wasn’t sure if he had *never* done anything bad, but who could say how an extreme righteous worldview operated?

In the end, his eyes fell back on the most straightforward and honest option, the Ninth Heaven Sect. This one had no extra inclinations or hidden dangers. Aside from slightly weaker development potential and the fact that all its effects were immediate enhancements, there were really no other problems.

’This is the one.’ He decided on the spot to evolve this.

He checked the time required for the five options. Except for the first, which was 17 years, the rest were all fifty years.

With medicine on hand, fifty years wasn’t unacceptable to him.

After all, this was an enhancement for the entire sect; it was normal for the cost to be higher. free𝑤ebnovel.com

Once the evolution was complete, the entire Qingfeng Temple would experience an unprecedented, massive boost in strength.

But Lin Hui put it on hold for the time being and didn’t start right away.

There were still many things in the Blood Seal that needed to be identified and required short-term evolution enhancements.

He would only start strengthening the entire sect after all the short-duration evolutions were finished.

Putting away the Ruyi, Lin Hui was in no mood to continue his sword practice. With the Blood Seal now free, the first thing he needed to solve was the Purgatory corruption problem.

If this thing continued to spread, he would sooner or later be ganged up on and attacked by everyone.

So he had to find a way to counteract the corruption. Or, he could gather the corruption and control it himself.

Now that he had a channel to buy medicine, he had the illusion that the future was completely in his grasp on his way back.

He returned to his Inner Mansion within the sect in one go.

The first thing Lin Hui did was think about how to suppress the Purgatory corruption.

Purgatory corresponded to fire, to the massive burning of vitality and flesh.

Immediately, the first thing he thought of was the extreme cold option that had appeared in the Blood Seal’s evolution branches long ago.

After strolling around his Inner Mansion for a while, Lin Hui quickly found a few items that could potentially evolve to counteract the Purgatory effect.

Mutton skewers, chicken legs, and medicinal herbs with cold properties: Cold Ginseng, Nine-Heart Lily, and Anemarrhena Rhizome.

He had seen evolution branches for the first two before, while the latter were his own guesses.

Soon, Lin Hui took these items into the pharmacy, shooed Chen Meng out, and began testing them one by one with the Blood Seal.

The mutton skewers and chicken legs were the same as before, but the Cold Ginseng, Nine-Heart Lily, and Anemarrhena Rhizome were somewhat different.

The Cold Ginseng had two branches: Extreme Cold Heaven Ginseng King and Cold Jade Heaven Ginseng King.

The Nine-Heart Lily had three: Ice Mechanism Lily, Extreme Cold Heaven Lily, and Aurora Lily.

Like the Cold Ginseng, the Anemarrhena Rhizome also gained two new branches: Extreme Cold Heaven Anemarrhena and Cold Jade Heaven Anemarrhena.

Lin Hui carefully examined the difference between Extreme Cold Heaven and Cold Jade Heaven.

’Extreme Cold Heaven Ginseng King: A hundred-year-old Ginseng King grown in the Extreme Cold Heaven. Consuming it will allow the aura of the Extreme Cold Heaven to transform the entire body. It will also spontaneously add an extreme cold attribute to one’s Inner Strength.’

’Cold Jade Heaven Ginseng King: A hundred-year-old Ginseng King grown in the Cold Jade Heaven. Consuming it will increase one’s Inner Strength by a hundred years’ worth of icy cold attribute and extend one’s lifespan by ten years.’

’It’s obvious. Extreme Cold Heaven is a type of corruption, similar to Purgatory. Cold Jade Heaven doesn’t mention any aura transformation and is probably a more orthodox land of extreme cold. It even extends one’s lifespan.’

Lin Hui no longer hesitated and immediately chose to evolve the Extreme Cold Heaven Ginseng King.

Back then, he had only eaten an evolved mutton skewer to obtain the outrageously powerful Purgatory corruption ability. It had even developed to the point where it was now one of his major trump cards in battle.

This showed just how ridiculous it was.

But gaining strength so easily must come with a huge, unknown price to pay.

Otherwise, if everyone could become infinitely stronger just by fighting and killing each other, Purgatory would have likely conquered everything long ago.

It was just that Lin Hui hadn’t discovered the price yet, so he had to prepare for a rainy day now.

After confirming the Blood Seal’s evolution of the Extreme Cold Heaven Ginseng King, a notification quickly appeared.

Evolution time: nine years.

For him, who still had four stalks of Purple Cloud Ganoderma, this amount of time was a drop in the bucket.

Lin Hui simply ate all four stalks of Purple Cloud Ganoderma in the pharmacy at once. frёeωebɳovel.com

The evolution time was immediately reduced to just one year.

For him now, one year could be completed by just taking medicine as scheduled for a little over a month.

After evolving this, he also planned to try evolving relics, like the Silencing Stone provided by Tao Xuehai, and Treasure Medicines like the Purple Cloud Ganoderma that could enhance vitality.

He had wanted to try for a long time, but he couldn’t resist getting carried away whenever he got his hands on these Treasure Medicines and using them all to shorten the evolution time.

Additionally, he had some other immature ideas he needed to try with the Blood Seal.

’Since even concepts can be evolved, then... is it feasible to directly evolve land, or evolve air?’

*

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*

Qinghe Sect Headquarters.

Within a dark fissure in a stone cliff.

Rows of black stone pavilions formed a small cluster of buildings. This was the true headquarters of the Qinghe Sect in the Inner City.

At this moment, in front of one of the pavilions, two sect members in black robes and white masks waited helplessly outside the main gate.

"Weren’t we supposed to report to headquarters today and receive our new external assignments? Why isn’t Sect Leader Cao here yet?" one of them complained via voice transmission.

"Maybe he was held up by something. Sect Leader Cao has always been dedicated. He’s the busiest person with sect affairs. Situ Sect Leader doesn’t manage much, so he’s the one responsible for running the sect. It’s understandable if he’s a bit delayed," the other person comforted.

"I can understand that, but the problem is my business is urgent. If I get back any later..."

Before the voice transmission could finish, both of them simultaneously sensed someone opening the door of the pavilion ahead.

Looking up, they could vaguely see a tall, sturdy figure through the window. It slowly walked to the door, placed its hands on the handles, and then stopped moving.

One second.

Two seconds...

Five seconds...

Seeing the figure remain motionless, both of them were getting a little impatient.

Looking at the silhouette, although it seemed a bit sturdier, they could still recognize it as Vice Sect Leader Cao.

’He probably practiced some extra Secret Technique,’ they both guessed.

"Sect Leader Cao, it’s getting late. This subordinate must return to the Outer City District to carry out a mission. I wonder if you could handle my debriefing first? There are two situations I need to report to you in person!" one of them called out loudly.

"Alright... you may..." a muffled voice came from inside the door. "Lu Zhengyuan, is it? You come in first... alone..."

"Yes, sir!" The man who had spoken immediately relaxed and hurried toward the pavilion, pulling the door open to enter.

The door slowly closed. Time ticked by, second by second, but the man who went in never came out, and there was no sound at all.

The other man waiting outside frowned, suspicion growing in his heart.

"Sect Leader Cao? May I come in?" he asked aloud.

There was no response.

The man outside felt that something was wrong.

He slowly approached, a mix of Void Power and Inner Strength swirling around him to form a special protection.

This was something only his special Divine Decision cultivation could achieve.

But he had barely taken two steps closer.

PFFT!

In an instant, a red shadow burst through the door, tore through his protection like lightning, grabbed his neck, and yanked him hard.

The next moment, the man was pulled back into the pavilion, vanishing without a trace.

Everything returned to silence, as if the two men had never been there in the first place...