Martial Immortality: Starting with the Spirit Beast Scroll

After a few more pleasantries, Zhao Lin bid farewell to his two enthusiastic senior brothers and headed straight for the Celestial Water Pavilion at the foot of the mountain.

At the western foot of Xingyun Mountain lay a natural lake, and by its shore stood a Library Pavilion.

The trees around the lake were sparse, creating an expansive view. Looking out from the shore, the sky and water appeared to merge, which is why the Library Pavilion was named the Celestial Water Pavilion.

The Celestial Water Pavilion was shared by disciples of the Outer Court and the Wuxiang Institute.

It was now afternoon, and most disciples had finished their daily cultivation. Hundreds of them were inside the pavilion, either bent over desks reading or wandering between the bookshelves, browsing.

Contrary to what Zhao Lin had initially thought, the Celestial Water Pavilion contained almost no cultivation techniques. Instead, it housed a vast collection of seniors’ martial arts notes and books on miscellaneous subjects.

After making some inquiries, Zhao Lin came to understand the reasoning behind this arrangement.

Cultivation techniques were the very foundation of the sect. If all the precious techniques were gathered in one place and there was a fire, flood, or theft, the sect would suffer a catastrophic loss.

Moreover, there was another drawback to making the techniques freely available: most disciples had limited self-control. Upon seeing an appealing cultivation technique, they would be overcome with excitement and unable to resist practicing it.

This would ultimately lead to them learning a heap of jumbled, useless techniques, hindering their proper cultivation.

Therefore, if a disciple wished to learn a particular cultivation technique, they had to request permission from their master or a transmission elder, who would then decide whether or not to teach it based on the disciple’s individual circumstances.

Another point was that reading books in the Celestial Water Pavilion required no sect contribution points, nor did one have to pay a high price.

The reason was simple: every sect wanted its disciples to advance their cultivation. They wouldn’t deliberately create obstacles or play games of hiding things away.

Doing so would only force disciples to go out and earn money by escorting caravans or guarding establishments—or even resort to robbery and murder. It was far less profitable than cultivating them into talented individuals who could later help manage the sect’s businesses.

Zhao Lin had been here many times and knew his way around. He went straight to the second floor and began searching from the eighth row of bookshelves.

The Xingyun Sect had a long history, and over the centuries, it had accumulated a vast collection of cultivation notes.

These notes were extremely useful to people practicing the same cultivation techniques. Zhao Lin himself had read several journals on the Stone Roar Fist and Turtle Shell Force and felt he had benefited immensely.

However, his purpose for coming this time was to search for records of anomalous beasts.

Practicing martial arts was important, but the Spirit Beast Scroll was even more important.

Zhao Lin had recently been observing the five essence souls in the Spirit Beast Scroll and noticed a significant difference in the speed at which they produced the white mist.

The bear’s essence soul was still potent, releasing a large amount of white mist daily. Next was the Golden Leopard and the White-throated Spintail Swift, with the Fragrant Mink lagging slightly behind.

As for the Horseshoe Bat, its energy seemed to be reaching its limit, and the white mist it released was dwindling.

Zhao Lin speculated that the essence soul’s power had reached its upper limit and could hardly provide him with any more assistance.

If he wanted to keep improving, he would have to absorb more powerful essence souls.

The Xingyun Sect did possess an illustrated catalog of the anomalous beasts in Yanyun Mountain, but it was only accessible to the upper echelons—the Sect Leader, elders, and institute heads—and was not available to disciples.

There were two main reasons for this. First, the internal organs of many anomalous beasts were precious medicinal ingredients and could not be hunted indiscriminately. Otherwise, once the anomalous beasts were extinct, they would have to be replaced with the organs of low-level wild beasts, drastically reducing the medicinal efficacy.

Therefore, the fewer people who knew about the anomalous beasts, the better.

Second, anomalous beasts were ferocious. Even a disciple at the Blood Realm would be in danger upon encountering one. Thus, the mountains they frequented were designated as restricted zones, and no one below the rank of elder was permitted to enter.

Since Zhao Lin couldn’t get the catalog of anomalous beasts, he had devised a workaround: he would search for any mention of them in the notes of the sect’s seniors!

Martial artists were often quite casual when writing their cultivation notes. They didn’t just record insights into their training; they frequently jotted down miscellaneous matters unrelated to martial arts, making the notes resemble travelogues or even diaries.

After poring over a large volume of notes, Zhao Lin had indeed found numerous descriptions of anomalous beasts. The only problem was the sheer amount of work involved. He had to go through them one by one, a process that was incredibly time-consuming and draining.

After more than half a month, he had found records of over twenty different types of anomalous beasts.

Zhao Lin sorted and categorized these anomalous beasts, finding they could be roughly divided into two types based on appearance.

The first category, like the bear, consisted of creatures that had counterparts among ordinary wild animals.

For example, the Zhihao, whose counterpart was the wild boar, as well as insectoid beasts like the Cyan Scorpion, the Fire Cloud Silkworm, and the Silver-Winged Bat, whose appearances could be guessed from their names.

The other category of anomalous beasts had no close relatives among ordinary animals.

One senior martial artist had recorded an anomalous beast with a leopard’s head, an ox’s body, and a single horn on its head.

Another had seen a type of fish by the sea that not only had fins and scales like an ordinary fish but also possessed a pair of waterproof wings that allowed it to take flight from the water’s surface.

Zhao Lin could only imagine what they looked like.

Why did anomalous beasts even exist?

Zhao Lin had always been curious about this.

This world was similar to the ancient eras of his past life; the only differences were the flourishing of martial arts and the existence of anomalous beasts.

’Perhaps there’s something invisible in this world’s air that subtly transforms the bodies of birds, beasts, insects, and fish... including humans.’

Zhao Lin mused as his eyes swept over the pages, scanning ten lines at a glance.

Suddenly, a passage of text caught his eye.

"In the sixth month of the forty-third year of Ganlu, I encountered a strange fish on the third peak from the east of Yuanze Mountain..."

’A strange fish?’

Zhao Lin’s brow twitched. He slowed his page-turning and began to read carefully.

The note went on: "At the time, I was resting by a pool of water. The pool was clear and calm, and as I was feeling thirsty, I took out my waterskin to fill it."

"But as soon as I dipped the waterskin into the pool, the surface suddenly began to churn as if boiling, and a massive, dark fish the size of a calf surfaced."

"I thought this was a perfect chance to secure a meal, so I waited for it to approach before striking with my sword. To my surprise, the great fish twisted its body and shot out a flash of white light that hit my blade squarely."

"I felt my whole body convulse as if I’d been struck by lightning, and I immediately lost consciousness. When I opened my eyes again, the sky was dark, and I found myself lying dozens of feet away from the pool..."

Zhao Lin slowly flipped back to the first page of the notes and read through them again from start to finish. He was certain this great fish was an anomalous beast, something like an electric eel.

The author of the note was named Wu Jiangwei. He was born in the third year of Ganlu and was forty years old at the time of the incident. His cultivation was at the Third Layer of the Blood Realm, the peak of his power.

A creature whose discharge could send a Blood Realm master flying was far more formidable than any normal electric eel.

From his later entries, it was clear Wu Jiangwei had no concept of electricity. He thought he had encountered a demon and developed such a deep-seated fear of the strange fish that he never set foot on Yuanze Mountain again.

’The forty-third year of Ganlu...’

Zhao Lin muttered softly. He had read the Great Yue historical text, *Eight Hundred Years of Jianyuan*, and vaguely recalled that Ganlu was an era name from over a hundred years ago.

’I wonder if that great fish is still alive?’

Zhao Lin had long desired the ability to generate electricity, but he had never come across an animal or fish that possessed it.

The ability to discharge electricity was even more formidable than strength or speed. No wonder it had left a Blood Realm martial artist with a psychological scar.

’Yuanze Mountain... third peak from the east... a deep pool...’

Zhao Lin silently committed the information to memory, planning to write it down on paper when he returned.

’Forget immortality for a moment. If I could gain the power to discharge electricity, invincibility wouldn’t be far off.’