Junior sister, I really need to control you.

Standing in front of the mountain wall, Mu Xiaoyu examined the strange black stone in her hand.

A silk handkerchief lay beneath the black stone, separating it from her palm, yet she could still feel a cool sensation.

Holding this trophy she had risked her life for, Mu Xiaoyu looked at it with some disdain.

Although the black stone was not stained with a trace of snake blood, nor even with any dust, it was still taken from the body of a large python.

If her Xuan Sha Xiong Xiang Sword attack hadn't completely exhausted her magic power, she would definitely have used her object manipulation technique instead of picking it up herself.

"How strange," Mu Xiaoyu stared at the black stone, her disdain mixed with doubt. "I can clearly see it, and it has weight in my hand, but why can't I sense it with my divine sense?"

"This shows that this item is extraordinary, junior sister. It seems you are really lucky." A familiar voice rang out from not far away.

Mu Xiaoyu turned her head with a look of surprise and looked at the figure wearing a black robe with silver threads.

"Senior brother!"

She was about to run towards Li Yinsheng when she suddenly stopped and rubbed her chest.

Although she had been using her armor-riding technique to dodge the giant black-scaled python's attacks throughout the battle, the final gust of demonic wind still struck her squarely.

Then she was propelled by the evil wind and crashed into the mountain wall behind her.

The combined effect caused some shock to her internal organs. Although the injury was not serious, her qi and blood circulation were inevitably somewhat disordered.

Li Yinsheng stepped forward, placed his palm on her back, and slowly channeled his magic power into her to regulate her qi.

"call……"

A warm, comforting feeling spread through her body, and Mu Xiaoyu breathed a sigh of relief, looking completely relaxed.

After a moment, she finally spoke: "Senior brother, you're back from gathering herbs? I was waiting for you obediently, but suddenly a really big one came..."

Li Yinsheng smiled and ruffled her hair.

"I saw it, a good performance. Not only did you handle the first battle calmly, but you also comprehended your own Xuan Sha Fierce Appearance Sword."

"Although my junior sister's talent for cultivation is average, she is quite gifted in combat."

Mu Xiaoyu chuckled after being praised.

But I immediately realized something was wrong.

"Senior brother!" Her eyes widened. "You've been watching the whole time?"

Li Yinsheng continued to channel his magic into her, nodding with a smile.

"Senior brother, when did you start watching?" Mu Xiaoyu squinted, looking at Li Yinsheng suspiciously. "Wait, senior brother... are you really here to gather herbs?"

"Huh?" Li Yinsheng was somewhat surprised. "When did Junior Sister become so smart?"

"Senior Brother!"

Mu Xiaoyu's shouts echoed through the mountains and forests.

……

In the end, Li Yinsheng put the matter behind him by giving up the rest of the day and the entire next day.

Mu Xiaoyu was overjoyed, and even the corpse of the giant python on the ground seemed much more pleasing to the eye.

However, Li Yinsheng did not tell her that he had originally planned to give her a day off.

After all, she had been cultivating continuously for a month and a half, and she really deserved a day of rest.

"Senior brother," Mu Xiaoyu handed the black stone to Li Yinsheng, "Do you know the origin of this stone? It's so strange."

Li Yinsheng took the black stone and shook his head: "This black stone is very strange. It doesn't seem to have been naturally formed inside this giant python."

How could a demon of this caliber possibly generate a rare treasure that could even deceive his divine sense?

However, even after repeatedly checking it with his magic power and throwing it into the fire ignited by the Burning Wind spell, he still couldn't find anything unusual about it.

He couldn't think of any use for it for the time being.

To say that it could be crafted into a magical weapon for sneak attacks because of its ability to be undetected by divine sense...

However, magical artifacts are controlled by divine sense. This thing cannot be detected by divine sense, nor does it react to divine sense in the slightest. Its main feature is that it cannot be interacted with.

If you add other controllable materials to it and then refine the magical artifact... but those other materials will be detected by divine sense.

Are we supposed to control the attack using object manipulation techniques? How much power would that have?

This thing may be wondrous, but it's somewhat of a useless commodity.

Li Yinsheng returned the black stone to Mu Xiaoyu, racking his brains to come up with some uses or angles to praise it, so that his junior sister wouldn't be too disappointed with this first trophy of her life.

Mu Xiaoyu held the black stone and suddenly frowned.

"Senior brother," Mu Xiaoyu said, "I think I can smell something on it."

"The taste?" Li Yinsheng was taken aback.

Another unusual thing about this black stone is that it is unstained by blood, as clean as if it had been washed with water, and it does not carry a trace of blood or snake odor.

A true human's five senses far surpass those of ordinary people; he couldn't smell anything, but his junior sister could.

Is it a psychological effect caused by disliking its dirtiness?

"If it smells, go back and wash it thoroughly," Li Yinsheng said.

"It's not an unpleasant smell, it's a very faint smell," Mu Xiaoyu shook her head, looking equally puzzled. "I actually find it somewhat pleasant, like..."

"It smells like peach blossoms!" she said.

"The scent of peach blossoms?" Li Yinsheng was taken aback.

Can you still smell the fragrance of peach blossoms if you feel disgusted by them?

After a moment of hesitation, Mu Xiaoyu suppressed her nausea, brought the black stone to her nose, sniffed it twice, and then looked up at Li Yinsheng.

"That's right, senior brother, it's the fragrance of peach blossoms!" Mu Xiaoyu said with certainty.

Li Yinsheng followed Mu Xiaoyu's example and brought the black stone to his nose, but he couldn't smell anything. The stone smelled just like a bowl of water.

"That's strange..."

He suddenly remembered that more than a month ago, when he was cooking the crane egg given to him by Huanghe Temple in his meditation room, his junior sister also said that she smelled the aroma of the egg.

However, because the shell of the spirit beast egg blocked the inside and outside, Li Yinsheng could not smell anything.

The same thing would happen if other real people were in that situation.

Therefore, he naturally assumed that it was just his junior sister's craving that caused her to have a misconception.

But now it seems...

He looked at Mu Xiaoyu suspiciously: "Junior sister, are you sure there really is a peach blossom scent? Or is it just your imagination?"

"Yes! It really is, it's not my imagination," Mu Xiaoyu nodded seriously. "I'm not so sure from a distance, but when I get close, the peach blossom scent is very strong."

After thinking for a moment, Li Yinsheng said, "Then, junior sister, come with me to a place."

……

A moment later, Li Yinsheng descended from the sky with Mu Xiaoyu above a dense forest.

The vegetation here is much more lush than where he took Mu Xiaoyu before; the wild grass is already as tall as Mu Xiaoyu's waist.

This is where the giant python first slept; it was here that Li Yinsheng lured it there using his junior sister's popularity.

As soon as she landed, Mu Xiaoyu twitched her nose.

"Senior brother, there's also the scent of peach blossoms here, the same scent as on the rocks," Mu Xiaoyu said.

"Can you smell where it's coming from?" Li Yinsheng asked.

Mu Xiaoyu turned around a few times and nodded: "The fragrance is very faint, but it should be coming from that direction."

She pointed in a direction deep into the forest.

"You lead the way, and I'll follow you and clear the path for you," Li Yinsheng said.

He summoned a brass incense burner, from which a plume of yellow smoke emerged, transforming into swirling blades that circled around Mu Xiaoyu.

She walked in the direction where she smelled the peach blossoms, and the yellow smoke that turned into blades cleared away the weeds and trees in front of and around her.

After a cup of tea, Mu Xiaoyu led Li Yinsheng to a stream.

A thick white mist floated behind the stream, and within a dozen steps beyond the mist, there was only barren land and scattered rocks, devoid of vegetation.

Li Yinsheng probed with his divine sense and then used his magic to summon a wisp of white mist to observe it closely.

"It's poisonous miasma, and a very strong kind of poisonous miasma." He frowned slightly.

The poisonous miasma was not very large, and it even had a slight effect of isolating divine sense, similar to the black stone. Therefore, he did not notice this place when he searched the mountain with his divine sense.

Upon closer inspection, he discovered that the poisonous miasma was quite potent. Although it couldn't harm a True Immortal, he estimated that without sixty or seventy years of cultivation, it would be difficult to resist its corrosive effects for an extended period.

However, these poisonous miasmas are extremely dense and do not disperse outwards. As long as one does not enter them or get too close, ordinary people will not be in danger.

"The fragrance of peach blossoms is coming from inside, and it's getting stronger and stronger, it smells so good..."

Mu Xiaoyu took two steps forward, already within a zhang of the thick white fog.

Li Yinsheng was about to warn her not to go any further, but he was surprised to find that as she got closer, some of the poisonous miasma in front of her spontaneously separated.

Mu Xiaoyu also noticed this change.

She had originally planned to take two steps closer and then stop, as the area around the white mist was barren and looked very dangerous.

But at this moment, he was also taken aback.

Li Yinsheng's gaze fell on the black stone that Mu Xiaoyu had been holding in her hand.

"Junior sister, try lifting that black stone forward a little," he said.

Mu Xiaoyu raised the black stone in her hand, and the poisonous miasma and white fog in front of her dispersed further.

"Indeed, this black stone has the effect of suppressing poisonous miasma."

After thinking for a moment, Li Yinsheng walked to Mu Xiaoyu's side and gently patted her shoulder: "Let's go in together and continue following the scent of peach blossoms."

As he spoke, a large cloud of yellow smoke billowed out of the brass incense burner, enveloping him and his junior sister.

Although this black stone can dispel poisonous miasma, it's still better to be prepared.

However, the unexpected event he had guarded against did not occur. After letting his junior sister continue searching for the peach blossom fragrance, they ventured deeper into the white mist, but the black stone possessed a remarkable ability to suppress the poisonous miasma.

Within a radius of one zhang (approximately 3.3 meters) centered on it, not a trace of poisonous miasma could exist.

After a stick of incense had burned, Li Yinsheng and Mu Xiaoyu suddenly felt their vision clear as the white mist vanished without warning.

Mu Xiaoyu was startled, but Li Yinsheng remained calm.

Unlike the black stone, this white mist could not completely block divine sense, so he kept his divine sense fully open while walking through it.

Therefore, he was very clear about what was happening around him and the path they had taken.

Despite understanding the situation clearly, he was still quite surprised by what he saw.

At this moment, he and his junior sister were in a mountain gorge. Sunlight shone in from the top of the gorge, so it was not dark.

At the end of the canyon stands a peach tree that is as thick as two people can hug, but less than two zhang tall, covered with peach blossoms, and the stream at their feet flows around the tree.

The peach tree, whether its trunk, leaves, or blossoms, is covered in a faint glow, making it look quite extraordinary.

In front of the peach tree, there is a stone altar, and to the side of the altar stands a stone tablet.

Li Yinsheng looked up and saw that the stone tablet was inscribed with ancient characters that he couldn't understand at all.

Moreover, both the stone altar and the stone tablet clearly show signs of age.

"There really are peach trees..."

Mu Xiaoyu also sensed something was wrong, and subconsciously took two more steps closer to her senior brother, grabbing the hem of his clothes.

"Senior brother, something's strange here."

Li Yinsheng explored the surroundings with his divine sense and found that apart from the peach tree, the offering table, and the stone tablet, this place was just an ordinary canyon with nothing else.

He carefully recalled the knowledge in his mind, and suddenly a flash of inspiration struck him.

The Xuanzhen Temple's Sutra Repository contains many records of experiences and observations left by predecessors over the past few hundred years. Some are personal experiences from their travels, some were exchanged from other Taoist temples, and some are even hearsay.

When Li Yinsheng felt tired from his cultivation over the years, he would read these records of his experiences as a way to relax.

Therefore, from a certain perspective, he could be considered erudite, but he himself did not know how much of this knowledge was true, how much was exaggerated, or how much was fabricated.

Anyway, he just read it as a story for fun, and didn't care whether it was true or false.

And what he saw before him now happened to match a record he had read.

"A hidden place, inhabited by spirits, with an altar before the spirit, and a stele in front of the altar..."

Li Yinsheng asked with a look of astonishment, "Could this thing be a sacrificial spirit left behind by the legendary ancient cultivators?"

"Spirit offering?" Mu Xiaoyu asked curiously. "Senior brother, what is spirit offering? And what are ancient cultivators?"

Li Yinsheng organized his thoughts and began to explain.

"The cultivation world has a long history, numerous sects and traditions, and the path of cultivation has evolved many times. Therefore, the current cultivation methods are quite different from those of ancient times."

"Most cultivators in the world practice the mainstream methods of today. But those ancient methods from who knows how many years ago have not all been lost."

"Therefore, those cultivators from ancient times were called ancient cultivators."

"However, there are a very small number of cultivators who still practice using ancient methods in this era."

Mu Xiaoyu seemed to understand but not quite: "Then, senior brother, are modern cultivators more powerful, or are ancient cultivators more powerful?"

"Is that even a question?" Li Yinsheng shrugged. "If ancient cultivators were so powerful, why were they such a small minority?"

"That's true." Mu Xiaoyu nodded.

"However, I don't know much about traditional methods..."

At this point, Li Yinsheng mentally complained, "And all the information comes from those idle chatter and anecdotes within the sect."

"Then what is this spirit offering you just mentioned, senior brother?" Mu Xiaoyu asked again.

"Although the ancient method is not as good as the current method, which is why it was eliminated, it was the mainstream cultivation method in ancient times. It has been developed for countless years and still has some advantages."

"Therefore, there are still some cultivators in the world who practice ancient methods."

"These cultivators are few in number, and even fewer like-minded people, making it even more difficult to find suitable successors," Li Yinsheng explained. "Therefore, unlike modern cultivators who value the master-disciple lineage, ancient cultivators prefer to leave their legacy and opportunities in various places."

"If you encounter a cultivator who has inherited these opportunities, you may be able to obtain the methods of ancient cultivation from them."

Li Yinsheng shook his head and said, "However, it is said that many of the ancient cultivation methods are not very useful to modern cultivators. They are like chicken bones, with only a very few being relatively practical."

"Moreover, compared to current cultivation methods, the ancient cultivation path does not place as much emphasis on innate talent, but rather on fate and destiny."

"Fate?" Mu Xiaoyu asked, puzzled.

"For example, this peach tree in front of you is one of the ways that ancient cultivators passed down their knowledge, called 'spirit worship'."

Li Yinsheng pointed to the peach tree: "It contains the legacy left by ancient cultivators. The cultivation method is called 'Ancient Method,' and the spell is called 'Ancient Spell.'"

"By offering sacrifices, one may receive the inheritance."

"Maybe?" Mu Xiaoyu grasped the key point.

"Uh... according to the ancient texts I've read, well, the texts record that ancient cultivators placed more emphasis on fate and destiny, so the more expensive the offerings for spirit worship, the better..."

"The offerings required for spirit worship are incredibly diverse and there is no discernible pattern. Only by offering the right offerings can one obtain the ancient methods or techniques."

Mu Xiaoyu looked surprised: "Wouldn't that mean we'd have to try them one by one, for a very long time?"

Li Yinsheng shook his head: "The number of times you can offer sacrifices is limited. If you offer too many sacrifices and still can't find suitable ones, then the tradition within the spirit will disappear."

"Huh? But didn't the ancient cultivators leave behind sacrificial spirits to leave behind a legacy? Can this really be left behind?" Mu Xiaoyu's face was full of "I don't understand".

"That's why I say the ancient cultivators paid more attention to fate and destiny," Li Yinsheng shrugged.

"I guess according to their thinking, if they've sacrificed the spirits until the lineage disappears, then it means that the person who comes in isn't a suitable successor."

Mu Xiaoyu was dumbfounded.

"So, there's a reason why ancient methods are almost lost and ancient cultivators are on the verge of extinction," Li Yinsheng said, patting her head.

Mu Xiaoyu nodded in agreement.

She immediately looked disappointed: "Doesn't that mean we've gone to so much trouble to find this place, only to end up with nothing?"

If the offerings are unsuitable, the spirit will disappear after several attempts.

Even if the offerings are suitable, the ancient cultivator's legacy might not be useful.

This is just a case of giving people false hope!

Li Yinsheng wasn't too disappointed; he was more puzzled.

Although the thick white miasma can block divine sense to some extent, its effect on the divine sense of a true person is rather limited.

This small hill is not far from Xuanzhen Peak. Over the years, it seems that no one has ever discovered this place.

Ordinary disciples cannot penetrate the poisonous miasma with their divine sense, nor are they skilled enough to move within it, so they may not be able to come here.

But Xuanzhen Temple has produced many true masters over the past few hundred years. Didn't the predecessors explore the area around their own home?

However, thinking about it, he was also a real person. If his junior sister hadn't obtained that black stone from the brain of that black-scaled python, and hadn't been able to smell the peach blossom fragrance that he couldn't smell, then he, as a real person, wouldn't have been able to find this place.

He doesn't seem to have much right to criticize his seniors.

That being said, from a certain perspective, Mu Shimei's nose could probably be considered a kind of innate talent, right?

How can someone who can smell things that even real people can't smell not be considered to have innate talent?

Unfortunately, this root is of little use for cultivation, or rather, for improving one's cultivation level.