Begin your practice with the crane-shaped stance.

For the next period of time, Xia Dong and Qin Wan stayed quietly in the Yinling Mine, rarely venturing out.

Despite the apparent calm on the surface, the two remained vigilant in private, even keeping a watchful eye on their surroundings during their daily cultivation.

However, it turned out that Master Guyue's warning and Zhao Ting's high-profile announcement did indeed have a great deterrent effect.

In the days that followed, not only did not a single assassin appear in the mine, but even the mine thieves who used to lurk in the shadows like rats and occasionally cause trouble seemed to have vanished into thin air.

The entire Yinling Mine ushered in a rare period of peace.

About half a month later, the Eagle Wolf Guard's verification of their contribution to killing the Wusheng Sect demon was in its final stages.

For a government office that is known for its bloated bureaucracy and complicated procedures, the fact that it was able to finalize the credit for such an important case in such a short time is astonishingly efficient.

This clearly shows that Zhao Ting had put in a lot of effort and lobbied extensively at the prefectural city's Thousand Household Office to secure this achievement.

That day, Zhao Ting secretly sent Xia Dong a confidential letter.

The letter mentioned that he had cleverly recorded a considerable contribution for Xia Dongye in the submitted case file and requested a reward for him.

More importantly, Zhao Ting mysteriously revealed in the letter that he would give Xia Dong a "surprise gift" and assured him that this gift would be of great help to his martial arts training.

As for what exactly this "surprise gift" was, Zhao Ting kept it a secret in the letter, not mentioning it at all, only telling him to wait patiently for the official reward to be disbursed from above to find out.

After receiving the letter, Xia Dong pondered it to himself.

It was a pleasant surprise that Zhao Ting described it as extremely helpful to martial arts.

Xia Dong guessed that the reward was either an extremely rare natural treasure that could directly help a martial artist temper their physical body, or a martial arts manual of extremely high grade.

It should be noted that after hundreds of years of existence, the Great You Dynasty, with its foundation of suppressing the world, possessed a vast and all-encompassing array of martial arts techniques in its royal and official treasuries. Moreover, these techniques had been refined and tested in actual combat by many exceptionally talented martial arts masters and even grandmasters, leaving behind an extremely rich collection of experience.

Therefore, the martial arts system of the Great You Dynasty can be said to be very complete.

In terms of the orthodox lineage and profound foundation of martial arts, it is no exaggeration to say that the Great You Dynasty is the "originator of martial arts in the world".

In recent years, in particular, the imperial court has promulgated new laws to reopen the martial arts examinations and has vigorously promoted martial arts among the common people and in the military. This massive base of practitioners has, in turn, provided valuable experience for the Great You Dynasty to study the foundations of martial arts cultivation and to innovate upon them.

For Xia Dong, martial arts cultivation has never been a disguise to deceive others, but rather a real means of protecting himself and his life, and an indispensable part of his spiritual cultivation.

Regardless of his progress in immortal cultivation, he would never easily give up the path of martial arts.

Moreover, in this vast world, there exist places known as "Lands of No Spirits".

In that special environment, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth is completely isolated or has long been depleted. Once a cultivator steps into it, their magical power and divine sense will be suppressed, and almost all of their usual immortal techniques will become ineffective.

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Once you fall into such an extreme situation, the formidable survival ability and terrifying advantage in close combat of martial artists who focus on physical training will be amplified and fully revealed.

Xia Dong knew very well that the path of cultivating immortality was essentially a struggle against fate.

He might have to venture into these treacherous and unpredictable places in the future, in order to find rare and precious materials or seek opportunities for breakthroughs.

After all, great risks often mean extraordinary opportunities.

Practicing martial arts in addition to martial arts is like having an extra trump card for yourself in desperate situations.

Xia Dong put aside her expectations for the first time.

His next goal was to re-enter the abandoned mine. Firstly, to try and make contact with the powerful ghosts deep within the mine, seeking an opportunity to refine a more effective Yin Sha Pill; secondly, to witness the Taiyin Divine Light.

Previously, Master Guyue personally visited the mine and used the "Taiyin Divine Light" to seal off the nest of Yinming insects in the abandoned mine.

Xia Dong was naturally filled with curiosity about the methods of this Foundation Establishment Perfection Grand Cultivator.

You must know that the Taiyin Divine Light is a renowned supernatural power within the Qixia Immortal Sect, so of course he wanted to see it for himself and see what the mystery of this legendary supernatural power was.

However, Xia Dong has always been cautious in his actions.

The mine had just been the site of a major assassination attempt, and the undercurrents were still running deep, so he didn't want to rush into any risky investigations.

Now that more than half a month has passed, the mine has become completely calm. Xia Dong judged that the possibility of another accident was extremely low, and it was safe to investigate at this time.

After making all the preparations, Xia Dong deliberately chose a dark and windy midnight hour to quietly sneak into the abandoned mine.

Just in case, he also rearranged the array plate that he had seized from the assassins of the Wusheng Cult at the entrance of the mine.

This array plate was initially reported by Zhao Ting as "damaged during the battle," and naturally ended up in Xia Dong's hands. This array plate is not of high grade; it is only a relatively low-grade illusion array plate, with the sole function of concealing one's presence. It is also very simple to set up, requiring only a few low-grade spirit stones to activate.

In fact, Xia Dong now uses this captured array plate as a "textbook" for learning array formations.

Among the various arts of cultivation, the arts of talismans, arrays, and artifacts share many similarities in their basic cultivation stages.

After successfully condensing the "Netherworld Sprout" talisman seed within his body, Xia Dong then went on to learn array formations and weapon crafting by analogy, and suddenly his thinking became much clearer.

Moreover, the talisman seed also greatly assists his daily practice of magic.

Xia Dong had overheard Qin Wan mention in casual conversation that there was an extremely rare and heaven-defying special physique in the cultivation world called "Master of All Techniques".

This means that people with this constitution, as long as they meet the basic requirements for cultivation, can learn any difficult spell in no time and master it quickly, without any bottlenecks.

This feeling is just like when Qiao Feng, the protagonist of the wuxia novel "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils" that Xia Dong read in his previous life, was learning martial arts moves.

Xia Dong now possesses a talisman seed and has vaguely experienced the feeling of "being able to understand all methods".

After all, the essence of talisman making is to perfectly inscribe the trajectory of the spell's spiritual power onto the talisman paper.

Of course, his current talisman seed is still at a relatively low level, making it easy to use for practicing some common low-level spells.

It can be said that its auxiliary effect is quite obvious.

However, the actual effect is certainly not as terrifying as the legendary "all-knowing" constitution.

Even so, Xia Dong still vaguely sensed that the significance of this talisman seed on his future cultivation path was by no means less than that of the "Eternal Spring Qi Circulation Technique".

The purpose of the "Changchun Xingqi Jue" is to improve the cultivator's innate potential, thereby increasing the efficiency of cultivation; while the talisman seed grants him the powerful ability to master and become proficient in various techniques in a very short time.

These two are complementary: one is the "Dao" that lays the foundation, and the other is the "Shu" that protects the Dao and fights.

Using the concealment technique, Xia Dong quietly made his way to the depths of the abandoned mine.

A unique chill, distinct from the malevolent energy within the cave, suddenly entered Xia Dong's body. He rounded a bend and saw the nest of the Yinming insects.