Chapter 65 - 42: Spiritual Sense Jade Scroll, Daily Exam

Chapter 65: Chapter 42: Spiritual Sense Jade Scroll, Daily Exam

Inside the inner hall of the Refining Furnace Shop.

After gaining a general understanding of the situation, chatting with the Shopkeeper for a while, and offering a few words of comfort, Li Yinsheng finally got to the point.

"Shopkeeper, I wonder if your shop currently has any Spiritual Sense Jade Scrolls for sale?" Li Yinsheng asked.

"Spiritual Sense Jade Scrolls?" The female Shopkeeper paused, unable to help herself from commenting, "Senior, you certainly like buying niche items."

Li Yinsheng smiled without saying a word. If not for his junior sister’s unique situation, he indeed wouldn’t buy such a thing.

"Fortunately, you came to the right place, Senior. Our Zulu Temple has a rich inventory, and we actually do have a few Spiritual Sense Jade Scrolls. I’ll go fetch them for you right now." After saying this, the female Shopkeeper didn’t call a maid to run the errand. Instead, she turned and left to fetch them personally.

Having devoured several plates of pastries in a row—and even specifically having a maid bring several more midway through—Mu Xiaoyu finally stopped eating. She looked at Li Yinsheng curiously. "Senior Brother? What’s a Spiritual Sense Jade Scroll?"

"It’s a type of Magical Artifact where one can repeatedly engrave information using their Divine Sense," Li Yinsheng replied. "They aren’t cheap; they usually cost several thousand talismanic coins."

"That is really expensive. Several thousand talismanic coins could buy dozens of sacks of snacks," Mu Xiaoyu nodded. "Since they sell for so much, what are they used for? Can they only record things?"

"Once a Cultivator engraves information into it with their Divine Sense, the user only needs to absorb it with their own Divine Sense to instantly memorize the contents," Li Yinsheng explained. "For example, if I record an entire Daoist Scripture into it with my Divine Sense, you can then draw it directly into your mind.

"You would then have this Daoist Scripture firmly memorized, which is equivalent to spending a long time reciting it word for word.

"It’s essentially a Magical Artifact specifically designed to help people quickly memorize scriptures or other complex information.

"Junior Sister, since you came up the mountain, although you’ve gained Cultivation, you lack a foundation in scriptures. It will only become increasingly difficult for you later on.

"If you had to make up for this lacking foundation through normal study, it would take at least two or three years of daily, arduous desk work. And you have no choice but to study; without a scriptural foundation, you won’t even be able to understand the later layers of the Qingxuan Scripture.

"However, if you can utilize a Spiritual Sense Jade Scroll, it will be much faster," he chuckled.

Mu Xiaoyu stared blankly for a few breaths before nearly jumping out of her chair.

"Senior Brother, then I don’t think this Spiritual Sense Jade Scroll is expensive at all!" Her eyes sparkled. "If I had this treasure when I was studying with my tutor, I wouldn’t have had to memorize texts every day!"

Nor would she have had her palms slapped by the tutor for failing to finish her recitations.

"But it’s not too late to have it now!" Mu Xiaoyu let out a silly giggle. "Actually, I’ve always been worried. You mentioned before, Senior Brother, that Beginners had to study scriptures for a few years.

"You’re so nice, Senior Brother. You taught me to cultivate before making me read scriptures, but I figured that one day I might have to make up for all the books I haven’t read.

"I hate studying the most. Now that I have this treasure, learning scriptures will be a breeze, right?" Mu Xiaoyu’s face was brimming with joy.

At Mu Xiaoyu’s naivety, Li Yinsheng shook his head and chuckled softly. If it were truly that convenient, how could it be a "niche" item as the female Shopkeeper had said?

The Spiritual Sense Jade Scroll sounded simple and convenient—a shortcut to studying scriptures—but in reality, it was an absolute nightmare to deal with.

Firstly, just engraving information into it with Divine Sense demanded incredibly high Cultivation and Divine Sense, and it consumed a tremendous amount of Heart Power. Because this wasn’t merely leaving a message with Divine Sense, but transferring memories to directly pour information into someone else’s mind, the engraving of the scriptures had to be exquisitely meticulous.

Moreover, the recorded content was for one-time use only. After one person used it, the engraved information would disappear. If another person wanted to use it, it would have to be engraved all over again. Hoping to engrave it once and benefit all Beginners was simply impossible. It was tantamount to having a Cultivator with profound Cultivation spend a significant amount of time just to spare a newly cultivating Beginner the trouble of memorizing texts. Someone without a formidable background could never enjoy such treatment.

Of course, for a Daoist like Li Yinsheng, whose Divine Sense was exceptionally powerful and who had practiced a specialized Soul Tempering Technique, engraving it was as easy as flipping his hand. But to have a Daoist personally engrave a Spiritual Sense Jade Scroll for them? Anyone receiving such treatment would need an unfathomably profound background.

Secondly, when using a Spiritual Sense Jade Scroll, a massive amount of information would forcefully flood the mind in a short period. A certain degree of dizziness and headache was naturally inevitable. Even normal studying and memorization would cause a headache after a while, let alone a Spiritual Sense Jade Scroll. However, Li Yinsheng believed that with his junior sister’s steadfast willpower, she could definitely overcome it.

Most importantly, memorizing it didn’t equate to truly understanding it. The "memorization" that the Spiritual Sense Jade Scroll provided the user was purely rote learning. That alone was useless. After memorizing it, someone still needed to lecture and explain the scriptures so the disciple could thoroughly understand them and apply them to their Cultivation. The Spiritual Sense Jade Scroll could only save the time spent memorizing, not the time spent learning.

That was why Li Yinsheng had to set aside at least half an hour every day for his junior sister moving forward—she had to attend classes. During this time, Li Yinsheng would personally explain the scriptures to her, helping her make up for her foundational knowledge as quickly as possible.

Back when Li Yinsheng was studying scriptures himself, he didn’t have the luxury of a Spiritual Sense Jade Scroll. He could only rely on himself to memorize two entire bookshelves’ worth of Daoist Scriptures. Fortunately, when it came to studying, he had his Martial Uncle to explain things to him, so he didn’t have to fumble around blindly. According to the study plan he had arranged for his junior sister, they should be able to compress two or three years of coursework into a few months.

Naturally, this would definitely be much more grueling than normal study over two or three years. After all, even with the aid of the Spiritual Sense Jade Scroll, his junior sister would only have half an hour of class every day. At most, he would increase it to an hour depending on the situation. Therefore, the intensity of this half-hour or one-hour study session would inevitably be quite high.

A moment later, the female Shopkeeper returned with several Spiritual Sense Jade Scrolls. According to her, these Spiritual Sense Jade Scrolls had been in stock for several years, and their base qualities varied slightly, so their prices ranged between five thousand five hundred and eight thousand talismanic coins.

Before Li Yinsheng could say anything, Mu Xiaoyu waved her Qiankun Bag, declaring that she would pay and wanted the best one! Her reasoning was crystal clear: since this Jade Scroll was obviously meant to spare her the agony of memorization, of course she had to buy the absolute best!

Since Mu Xiaoyu was willing to buy it herself, Li Yinsheng didn’t stop her, but the necessary haggling process couldn’t be skipped. After he thoroughly bargained with the Shopkeeper, Mu Xiaoyu bought the Spiritual Sense Jade Scroll that originally cost eight thousand for five thousand talismanic coins. After inquiring about Li Yinsheng’s intended use for the Spiritual Sense Jade Scroll, the female Shopkeeper even threw in some complimentary gifts.

That evening, inside the Xuanzhen Temple.

After Mu Xiaoyu successfully cultivated her third Sword Light with the aid of the White Rainbow Sword, Li Yinsheng dragged her off to the Scripture Pavilion. Only then did she realize that when her Senior Brother promised she "could practice swordsmanship for half an hour less," the full meaning was "use the saved half an hour to study scriptures"!

At first, clinging to the notion that with the Spiritual Sense Jade Scroll, studying scriptures wouldn’t be tiring anyway, she sat down at the desk with a bright smile. But then she learned that receiving knowledge through the Spiritual Sense Jade Scroll felt like "having her skull pried open while someone poured water directly into it."

After using the Spiritual Sense Jade Scroll for the first time, Mu Xiaoyu touched her head all over. She couldn’t shake the illusion that her head had been physically stretched by all the knowledge.

Afterward, she was pinned to the desk by Li Yinsheng and forced to listen as her Senior Brother explained the scriptural verses she had forcibly memorized but still didn’t understand. And for some unknown reason, her Senior Brother seemed capable of catching exactly when her mind wandered with flawless precision. As a result, for that entire half an hour, she listened to his lecture practically without a single moment’s pause!

After half an hour of this torment, the moment Li Yinsheng finally said, "We’ll stop here for today," Mu Xiaoyu immediately collapsed limply onto the desk. Resting her chin on the tabletop, she looked up at Li Yinsheng with teary eyes. "Senior Brother... I want to practice swordsmanship now..."

"Junior Sister, you can’t neglect learning the scriptures. Otherwise, you won’t even be able to understand your Cultivation Techniques in the future," Li Yinsheng said. His tone was kind but brooked no refusal.

"Ugh..." Mu Xiaoyu covered her face.

"Didn’t I come here to cultivate immortality? Why do I still have to study? Cultivation shouldn’t be like this!" she wailed internally.

After howling in despair for a long time, Mu Xiaoyu, who had no choice but to accept reality, could only make the best of a bad situation and comfort herself.

"Look on the bright side. Although I have to study even after coming up the mountain, at least it’s not like at home where, on top of studying, there are also quizzes..." she mumbled to herself.

The tutor at home had been incredibly strict, administering a quiz every three days and handing her an exam paper to judge her progress. If she did poorly on the exam, she would be punished with copying lines at best, and getting her palms slapped at worst!

Hearing Mu Xiaoyu mumbling to herself, Li Yinsheng looked somewhat surprised. "How did you know I prepared an exam for you, Junior Sister?"

Mu Xiaoyu bolted upright, her eyes wide as she stared at Li Yinsheng. Under her despairing gaze, Li Yinsheng pulled out a thick stack of exam papers from his Qiankun Bag.

"These are the complimentary gifts the Shopkeeper threw in. She said Daoist Temples everywhere use these exam papers specifically to test the coursework of Beginners. Normally, they are given once every seven days or half a month.

"However, you learn much faster than them, Junior Sister. So, you can fill out one paper every day after you finish studying.

"No, even one paper a day won’t keep up with your scripture-learning speed. Better make it two papers a day..."

Mu Xiaoyu stood frozen, her face ashen as the voice in her ears seemingly faded into the distance.