The First Lesson of Experience

To the Yuan Family, Lingxian Sect was an excellent partner. The goods they produced were consistently high quality, and as the sect had gradually increased the variety and volume of its goods over the past few years, the family’s annual income had risen rapidly as well. Their influence in Yuanling City had expanded accordingly.

Therefore, upon learning that disciples from Lingxian Sect would be coming to the city for an experience trial, the Yuan Family had immediately arranged a place for them to stay.

The group chatted and laughed as they strolled through the streets, eventually arriving at the residence the Yuan Family had prepared for them.

From the outside, it looked like an entirely ordinary house. A plaque bearing the words “Ling Residence” hung above the gate. The house lay deep within the alley, which contained no more than five households in total. It was neither too close to nor too far from the bustling marketplace, making it an ideal place for them to stay.

Lin Xiao paused in front of the gate for a moment, seemingly satisfied as he examined it. Only then did he push the gate open and say to the eight people behind him, “Go on in.”

Immediately inside was a spirit wall. On either side of the entrance were a stable and a gatekeeper’s room. Farther in, there were two empty rooms on either side. Once they went around the spirit wall, they found an open area with the main reception hall directly opposite.

Beyond the reception hall was a large courtyard containing ten rooms. Not many plants had been planted in the open space at its center, leaving a great deal of room. It seemed to have been deliberately left available for martial practice.

Behind this courtyard was another section of the residence. However, this rear courtyard contained only one large room that had been opened up into a single space. Numerous tables and chairs had been arranged inside, clearly intended for the members of Lingxian Sect to conduct lessons on cultivation.

The room was also equipped with some basic tools related to the four great arts of cultivation, such as alchemy furnaces and formation-carving plates. Their quality naturally could not compare with the tools belonging to Lingxian Sect, but they were all standard goods that ordinary cultivators in Yuanling City could use. They were not particularly expensive, though purchasing a complete set would still cost an amount of spirit stones that was by no means small to ordinary cultivators.

With a sweep of their divine senses, everyone gained a rough understanding of the entire residence.

Lin Xiao waved his hand grandly. “There’s no need to assign rooms one by one. Pick whichever one you like!”

At a glance, none of the rooms looked any different from the others, so there was hardly anything to choose. Their relationships were all quite good, and although the courtyard was spacious, every corner of it was within plain sight. Thus, they simply headed toward whichever room was not already being claimed by someone else.

Only Lin Xiao remained standing where he was.

He looked up at the sky and silently counted to three.

“Hiss—”

Baizhu suddenly sucked in a sharp breath from inside one of the rooms.

Immediately afterward, various noises came from the other rooms as well, all of them occurring almost at the same time. It seemed that everyone had run into some sort of problem.

Only then did Lin Xiao, who was standing in the middle of the courtyard and gazing up at the sky, speak in an unhurried tone.

“Lesson One of Lingxian Sect’s first summer training expedition: the importance of remaining vigilant at all times when traveling outside, as well as an introductory test in breaking free and escaping.”

Looking around, they could see that all eight rooms had their doors wide open, yet every person inside was trapped in place.

The moment they had been caught, everyone had assumed that someone in Yuanling City had set a trap for them. Some had even suspected that the Yuan Family was harboring malicious intentions.

But their sect master had not given them much time to think. He had immediately informed them that this was part of their training.

Moreover, judging from the solidity and complexity of the combined restraining technique, it was entirely reasonable to suspect that their sect master himself had set it up.

Otherwise, how could even Elder Mo Yuanjiao and Senior Yuan Jinsheng, both at the Golden Core stage, still be unable to break free after all this time?

The only problem was that Lin Xiao had been with them the entire time, from the moment they arrived in the cultivation world until now. When, exactly, had he managed to set up all these restraining techniques?

Each of them had different thoughts, but none of them allowed their hands or eyes to rest. They carefully searched for a way out and tried one method after another.

As this was the first lesson of their training, Lin Xiao naturally had not made the challenge too difficult. The restraining techniques used only relatively basic principles from the four great cultivation arts. They included, but were not limited to, the material taught in the sect’s courses. In other words, they also involved some “extracurricular knowledge” that everyone might not have learned before.

Still, the difficulty of each individual technique was quite low. As long as they had a decent grasp of the four great arts and could apply what they knew flexibly, drawing connections and adapting on the fly, solving them should not have been difficult.

The problem was that he had stacked up far too many of them.

Although every technique was relatively basic, there were simply too many. The eight people trapped inside found themselves unable to get their bearings for a while.

There was no helping it. Basic was still basic, but when the techniques were linked together in layer upon layer, with no apparent starting point, they became impossible to approach. It was like having a tangled ball of thread with no loose end—without finding the end, one could not even begin threading a needle.

And that was not all. They were not merely connected end to end.

They had been combined and arranged, layered over one another, interwoven, bent around corners, concealed, and disguised with feints…

At that moment, every member of Lingxian Sect felt as though they had been wrapped from head to toe in an enormous ball of thread. Even the spaces between their fingers and the strands of their hair were filled with disorderly tangles. They had to unravel the chaotic mass, one thread at a time, in the proper order, despite not knowing how many loops it contained or how many knots had been tied in it.

Of course, strictly speaking, they did not necessarily have to unravel it in order. In the world of cultivators, overwhelming force could always overcome intricate technique. As long as one’s own strength was powerful enough, escaping from any spell was possible.

The prerequisite was that one’s strength had to be powerful enough.

If they had been capable of breaking free from their sect master’s restraining techniques, they would have done so long ago. They would have rushed outside and beaten up the sect master, who was currently sitting cross-legged in the middle of the courtyard, enjoying the delicacies Elder Jiang had prepared for him with a blissful, half-lidded smile.

Instead, they were stuck miserably in their doorways, struggling to decipher the restraining techniques.

That wretched sect master had even added a sealing technique. They could not open their storage bags or ring locks, so they could not even stand inside the trapping formation and eat something!

Of the eight people, Mo Yuanjiao was probably having the easiest time. His attainments in formations were also extremely high, so dismantling these piles of basic formations was a simple task for him. If his cultivation had been equal to Lin Xiao’s, he would only have needed to undo a few crucial links before casually setting up counter-formations to break through the rest.

Thus, after a short while, another honored guest joined Lin Xiao in happily enjoying the food in the middle of the courtyard.

As Elder Mo Yuanjiao watched the seven disciples and ate until his mouth was slick with grease, he would occasionally sigh to Lin Xiao, “See how important it is to learn formations!”

Lin Xiao nodded in agreement.

The seven disciples suddenly realized that having a sect master and an elder who were both so young was not always a good thing. Normally, they could fool around together, and neither superior ever put on airs. But at times like this, they truly had no airs at all!

Whenever there was fun to be had, the two of them would watch. Whenever there was excitement, they would join in. They did not care one bit about maintaining the dignity of a sect master or an elder.

The disciples were deeply aggrieved. They secretly swore that in the future, no matter where they went, they would be cautious, meticulous, and extremely careful. They would never again allow themselves to end up in such a frustrating predicament!

The seven of them did their best to ignore the two people in the courtyard and lowered their heads, focusing wholeheartedly on dismantling the techniques.