After Anji’s bold declaration at her birthday banquet, Yan Ping started making preparations. Many might think Anji claid out of childish optimism. However, the blind prophet was a pragmatic person. She would have told Anji it was impossible if she thought there was no chance.
As the child spent more ti with her family in the guest rooms in the outer court, Yan Ping returned to the sect leader’s archives to search for sothing suitable. When she selected this child as her successor, she already knew that Anji had the potential to complete the trials if she survived the unorthodox treatnt.
Releasing the limiters on Anji’s artificial cores was a gamble. Previously, Anji was unable to sense energy. The limiters were made to increase her sensitivity to it. Now that she could harness them freely, it was ti to remove the training wheels.
Watching Anji stumble and fall without her limiters pained Yan Ping. However, enlightennt and realising the truth was sothing nobody else could help. Although there are cultivation brothers and partners in life, every cultivator’s journey is unique and happens alone. Cultivators who cannot understand their own hearts cannot fully realise their true potential and advance to the next stage.
So far, Anji did not disappoint. Even after falling many tis, she picked herself up and tried to understand why she failed instead of giving up or recklessly hitting the sa wall. The child was both diligent and smart, sothing that the successor of the sect needed. Hard work without a strategy could never birth a leader.
With the help of energy-imbued ink on the special archive scrolls, Yan Ping found the perfect technique that would help Anji gain more control over her balance. It took a while for the child to experint with what her unlimited energy could do. However, she eventually reached the very important conclusion that Yan Ping needed her to realise.
Unlike regular cultivators who used their golden core as a cultivation furnace, Anji was like a free-flowing pipe without a container to process anything. Harmonisation happens when the inner and outer worlds align. Most cultivators typically transform the outer world to align with their inner worlds, utilising their golden core to refine the energy they gather. However, that thod was impossible for soone like Anji, whose golden core was sealed very tightly. Instead, the child figured out that she could do the reverse to harmonise herself with nature rather than making nature adapt to her.
Normally, this would be impossible as every intelligent life form has its unique energy signature, as Anji discovered. Inanimate objects, such as the wooden training puppets, can temporarily absorb energy and adapt to the energy signature they are exposed to. However, they return to inanimation after the energy is consud. Anji was not an inanimate object. However, she did not possess her signature life energy either. It was sothing never recorded before, thus making her the first-ever cultivator to be like a plant, adapting to its environnt and adjusting its energy signature accordingly.
Yet, as humans were not as flexible as plants, Anji continued to struggle with adapting naturally. Instead of going along with the path of least resistance, Anji could not overco the innate desire to transform natural energy into sothing more useable, like in spells that were refined. She was an overthinker, a trait that didn’t surprise Yan Ping. Many intellectuals were overthinkers, and, ironically, this was the only limiter to their success. It included herself.
Searching through the martial manuals and scriptures left behind by the previous elders and sect leaders, Yan Ping poured through the fragile records for days until she found the perfect technique that could help Anji increase her focus and ability to balance many tasks.
The Seven Sound Mantra was created by a cultivator who invented cultivation practices using music. Skipping the lengthy introduction and back story as recorded by a past archivist about this musician’s humble background before he attained sagehood, Yan Ping only paid attention to the theoretical application.
By matching each tone to a specific chakra point, the Seven Sound Mantra was ideal for ditation and enlightennt. Sounds were vibrations, and so were energy types. There were complentary vibrations as well as dissonance that could easily disrupt the energy flow, causing backlash if done recklessly. The ancient text recorded the seven different sounds, and Yan Ping drew her parallel conclusion with the secrets of clairvoyance. Fortunately, Anji’s Celestial Root spiritual body was well-suited for this thod of cultivation.
There was only one problem. The Seven Sound Mantra had never been used by anyone else apart from those practising the path of music. The sage who invented this was an expert musician who employed the Seven Sound Mantra in his cultivation to beco a hypnotist healer. According to the texts, mastery of the Seven Sounds can imdiately change soone’s mood even if it cannot control their thoughts. It can cleanse and heal the depressed and reset the chaotic energy in a body by playing a sequenced lody. However, it could also cause death by playing deliberate dissonance lodies that could create qi deviation.
Unfortunately, nobody practised this musical mantra after he ascended, as his descendants could not master the complicated technique and fled to seek easier paths of cultivation.
"Those fools," Yan Ping snorted after she finished reading the text. It truly was like putting pearls on a swine.
Unlike the foolish disciples of this forgotten music sage, the Seven Sound Mantra was exactly what Anji needed. Although Yan Ping was not a musician, she knew the basics enough as a hobbyist to attempt it.
For the next two weeks, Yan Ping could be heard playing a zither from her study from day to night. Nobody thought to disturb her as she thoroughly researched the technique.
After nearly a month of effort, Yan Ping could finally make Anji’s dream co true. If the girl was hardworking enough, she might just be able to beat Yan Ping’s record to beco the sect’s fastest-recognised successor. Anji was already the youngest successor candidate in all of the Mystical Qilin Sect’s history. Breaking another internal record was nothing.
With her zither and notes, Yan Ping finally summoned Anji to et with her. The teacher and disciple duo can finally start proper lessons while the Rainbow Alliance takes care of external distractions for a while.
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