Chapter 31: Inheritance

It seemed that Young Master Zhu sensed Li Qi's confusion, and while imparting the Legacy, he explained:

"Divine Will Legacy, in its earliest form, was meant to directly infuse understanding into Disciples, carrying a strong subjective intent. It could even twist the Disciples' Dao Orthodoxy, making them replicas of oneself and cutting off their future path."

"Later, a Confucian Sage proposed that the true meaning of Dao Orthodoxy is something universally applicable and timeless, so why force one's own understanding upon Disciples? Thus, this technique was later refined to only transmit the original text, without too much subjective interpretation."

"So, the Legacy won't rapidly improve your understanding, nor will it allow you to memorize it, but it will spare you the trouble of carrying a stack of books around every day. How about it, isn't it convenient? It puts the books directly into your brain, ready for you to flip through at any time," Young Master Zhu said with a smile.

Li Qi, however, had a subtle expression, as if he didn't know what to say... What was there to say?

It seemed there was nothing much to say. The people of this world... they weren't stupid at all. There were no loopholes for him to reform. It was surprisingly difficult to propose reforms based on his own knowledge... However, this was rather normal. After all, he might have some novel ideas or different experiences, but to try and surpass the wisdom of this world was still too arrogant.

The Legacy involved almost no pain; it was just that a Invoker's Cultivation method, simply named "Zhu," appeared in his mind.

However, when he immersed himself in it, he suddenly felt... grandeur.

It was truly grand. It was as if what was in his mind was not a Cultivation method at all! It was an encyclopedia!

The things recorded were incredibly complex, from the Nine Provinces under Heaven, astronomy, and calendrical phenomena, down to irrigation ditches, roads, plants, insects, and fish – all were included.

Furthermore, rites, music, military, law, agriculture, commerce, medicine, and divination—all of this was imprinted in his mind!

The Cultivation part only accounted for a small fraction.

The profession of "Zhu" itself refers to the person who presides over sacrificial rites.

This book, "Zhu," was more of a database of knowledge that a Invoker needed to understand and know for their profession!

Various sacrificial rites, useful artifacts, animals, plants, rituals for sacrifices, even the forms of mountains and earth veins, methods for discerning various auras of Heaven and Earth—in short, anything related to sacrifice should be in there!

Countless pieces of knowledge were not infused into his mind but stored there. He needed to read and memorize them himself to truly remember them. However, now, with just a thought, he could search through it like a database. Although there would be some delay, the information would indeed appear within a certain period.

For example, Li Qi now clearly understood the sacrificial significance of "Start of Spring."

"On the Day of Start of Spring, officials welcome Gou Mang and the clay ox. Gou Mang is named Aotun, the Spring Child. If he wears a hat, spring will be warm; otherwise, spring will be cold. If the clay ox is red, it portends drought; if black, water. People compete to scatter red beans and five-colored rice to ward off illness for the year. The clay from the ox is used to mud the stove to fertilize the six domestic animals."

There were also methods of sacrifice: blood sacrifices for the altars of grain and soil, the Five Sacrifices, and the Five Sacred Mountains; burying a weasel in the earth for mountains, forests, rivers, and lakes; and offering a single animal for the four directions and all things. There were also ominous rites to mourn the sorrow of the nation, funeral rites to mourn death, famine rites to mourn disasters, condolence rites to mourn calamities, and rites to mourn defeats in war, and relief rites to mourn rebellions.

For instance, if one needed to offer sacrifices for war, they must sacrifice to the mountains and rivers and use animals for the ancestral altars.

There were also various different sacrificial methods, roughly divided into life sacrifices, extension sacrifices, encompassing sacrifices, periodic sacrifices, shaking sacrifices, disturbing sacrifices, absolute sacrifices, winding sacrifices, offering sacrifices, and so on.

It could also differentiate various malevolent stars, such as Calamity Star, Disaster Star, Great Star, and so forth.

It also taught techniques for observing the heavens and astrology, such as predicting good or bad fortune based on the five cloud colors around the sun, and observing the movement of the Qi of Heaven and Earth based on the winds of the twelve months, thereby revealing the omens of disaster or auspiciousness that Heaven and Earth wished to indicate.

In short, countless pieces of knowledge, including looking up sacrifices, extended sacrifices, and bestowing titles, were all recorded one by one.

Everything a Invoker should do was clearly marked.

However, many things Li Qi simply couldn't understand. Although they were recorded, he had no idea what they meant, just like a primary school student looking at advanced mathematics—he'd stare for a long time and still be utterly confused.

Compared to this knowledge, which was so vast he didn't know what to say, the Cultivation method was introduced in a very short section.

It was very simple: the Cultivation method of a Invoker is divided into three branches: Heavenly God, Earth Deities, and Human-Ghost. The one Li Qi received was the Earth Deities branch.

One only needs to regularly offer sacrifices to mountains and rivers, maintain respect for natural spirits, and act according to fixed rituals to gain the power to extract the strength of the hundred things of the Earth Deities, then gather it within oneself and hide it in one's body.

There was no Dantian, nor any need for energy convergence points or anything like that. There was even no need to compress energy from a gaseous to a liquid state. Many of the previous notions he had encountered were useless.

Because, according to the book, the human body itself is a small Heaven and Earth, capable of containing a great many things, and symbolic things like "Qi" are difficult to truly fill the human body's small Heaven and Earth.

By Cultivating this way, slowly accumulating, one can gradually come into contact with stronger, more numerous Earth Deities, gaining even more powerful strength and being able to use more potent spells.

Everything was so slow, so natural, not intense, and without any Bottleneck to speak of.

It was a very peaceful Cultivation method, so peaceful that Li Qi couldn't believe there was a Cultivation method that didn't require fighting and snatching resources to progress smoothly... He had wasted his time reading those novels before.

This is the path of Shaman Dao.

However, although peaceful, there were still general Rank distinctions.

According to this book, there are countless methods in the world, each with a different level. Inferior ones, like Wave-Breaking Force, have an upper limit of only one layer, and completing it allows one to reach the level of an adult in this world. High-level ones, like this book "Zhu," have an unknown upper limit.

Various methods have their own Realm and their own levels. Even different Dao Orthodoxy have different classifications. Confucianism has its own grades, Shaman Dao has its own categories, and Daoism has concepts like Nascent Soul and Golden Core. The various different Cultivation methods have very confusing and difficult-to-distinguish levels among themselves.

Therefore, the Sages established a rule: regardless of the inherent Dao Orthodoxy, all are uniformly ranked by one standard, which is from Ninth Grade to First Grade.

Li Qi was currently flipping through the book in his mind, but Young Master Zhu couldn't wait. He said again, "What needs to be said, learned, and understood is all in the Divine Will Legacy. I won't say much about what needs to be memorized. Let me introduce you to another person, oh... a demon." With that, he gently pulled something from behind him.