Chapter 4 "How is this here?"

Gu Shang was so exited over becoming an official disciple that he couldn't sleep at night, and even though it was surprising for an unorthodox sect to be so accepting, it was understandable after knowing the Blood Lotus Sect.

The only reason why it was considered an unorthodox sect was because of it's methods, but the sect's character was more rightous than most orthodox sects. 

Most disciples were actually pretty innocent even though they used men as cultivation cauldrons, and that's because the Blood Lotus Sect has a technique that allows them to absorb the cauldrons cultivation without sex.

As for Qu Bingxue wanting to take him as a dao companion, he was still wondering why she wanted to be with him. While thinking he started to remember how they hit it off.

They met when he was 16, he was sent over to clean her house, while he was doing it Bingxue initiated some small talk and they slowly got to know each other, by the end of the day both of them were great friends drinking wine and eating grilled meat.

After they got drunk they somehow ended up enjoying each others bodies, altough Gu Shang didn't remember doing it with her as he drank 4 jars of wine, Qu Bingxue had better alcohol resistance so she remembered how good she felt that night. 

The next day Bingxue asked him if he ever wanted to do it again, and since he didn't even remember it, he couldn't pass on the oppurtunity to have sex with such a beautiful women. His body was already done growning so his body was mature enough to do it and his mind was of a 23 year old at that time, so he was basically her age, so there was really no reason to not agree.

That's how in a matter of a single day they went from strangers to friends to friends with benefits.

But there was really nothing more between them than that.

The next day Gu Shang came to the main temple to get his badge and uniform, every disciple in the temple was surprised to see him there as the temple was cleaned yesterday already.

Gu Shang came up to the elder responsible for giving uniforms and said.

"Disciple Gu Shang is here to collect his badge and uniform."

After hearing this all disciples were shocked, most of them knew that Gu Shang was a person who liked to joke, but this could get him killed.

"Here's your badge and uniform and remember, try not to disappoint the sect."

"Understood Senior."

After taking his things Gu Shang left the main temple, the discipiles ran toward the elder and asked her if Gu Shang really became a disciple of their sect.

"Elder Hua, is Gu Shang really a disciple of the sect?"

"Yeah, all of us are asking the same question, he is a man and his talent is trash, why was he even permited to join?"

"Enough, that decision was made by the sect leader herself, so if you have any complaints go to the sect leader."

Even after hearing the answer some girls still dared to whisper to each other why was Gu Shang accepted as a discpile.

"Hey do you think that he castrated himself to join?"

"Who knows, in my opinion some elder or even sect leader got into bed with him and that's the reason why he was able to join."

The theories were being said and every weirder than the other, but Gu Shang didn't hear any of it as he went to his house to change and then immediately left for the Scroll Temple, he had saved enough spirit stones to get a much better technique than he had right now.

While walking he glanced in the directions of other buildings, the sect had 7 important places in total: Artifact Pavilon, Main Temple, Scroll Temple, Medical Hall, Pill Pavilon, Array Palace and Training Arena. He could only go to them when he was sent to clean there.

After ariving in front of the Scroll Temple he could remember the last time he was here. 

Gu Shang entered the building and came up to the elder in charge and asked.

"Greetings Elder Mo, what is the fee for entering the first floor of the temple?"

"1000 spirit stones."

'Damn, good thing I saved up.'

Four years ago he bought the best technique that he was allowed to buy and after that there wasn't really anything to spend his spirit stones on, so he just saved them up for some ocasion

He quickly went up the stairs to the first floor to choose a technique for himself. That was the difference after becoming a disciple, being able to access the different floor of the Scroll Temple. As a worker for the sect he could only access the ground floor, aka the worst techniques there were in the sect, he wasn't even able to look at a technique to learn what it was about, he could only ask for a technique in a certain price range and he would be given that technique after paying. 

But now that he was a disciple, all he needed was pay to enter the first floor and he could choose any technique on this floor. 

But Gu Shang wasn't planning on choosing a single technique, he was planning on reading and memorizing all the techniques he could in the three hours he was given to be on this floor. 

Ever since entering the world of cultivation, his photographic memory advanced to a point where all he needed to do was read something once and he would memorize it.

Gu Shang didn't waste any time and went to the section with cultivation techniques, he didn't want to learn any combat techniques at the moment.

He immediately started reading the first technique he got his hands on.

Two hours passed and he already memorized about a hundred techniques, he stopped because he thought it was enough techniques to cultivate. But another reason why he stopped was to look for some secret techniques, y'know, the stuff novel protagonists always find among some trash stuff or hidden in a floor board, like some ancient piece of paper that contains a powerful technique.

For the first half an hour he didn't find anything of the sort, but after there was only 20 minutes left he seemed to find what he was looking for.

There was a weird symbol carved on a ceiling board, it was so lightly carved that if he was specificaly looking for something of the sort, he would have missed it, so he thought about it and did the only thing he thought that could work.

Tsk! Drip. Drip.

'Fuck! How the fuck do people in anime not flinch after doing this?!'

He bit a chunk of skin off of his thumb and made it bleed, he pressed his bloody thumb on the symbol and just like he thought, the symbol lit up and a ceramic floor plate opened up.

Inside the space under the floor plate he could see a scroll, without wanting to waste time he quickly took it, unfurled the scroll and started reading it.

18 minutes passed and the scroll along with the floor plate were back in their place.

If some protagonist was born in the sect later, then their chances would go down if the scroll was taken by Gu Shang.

He knew that the technique was definitely a high grade one that should be at least at the top floor of the temple.

Then he went down the stairs with some technique he didn't read yet, showed it to the elder and left the temple. If he walked out without any technique the elder would probably be suspicous, most disciples couldn't memorize the entire technique in 3 hours so they were allowed to take one technique with them.

When Gu Shang got home the first thing he did was try to find techniques similar to each other and try to fuse them together to make a better one.

After 6 hours he was able to make three completely new techniques that could be put on at least the second floor of the scroll temple after fusing tens of similar techniques, but he didn't practice them as he knew they were inferior to the secret technique. He would just sell them to the sect later

The technique was called "World Creating Lotus Art" and was definitely something powerful as it was a cultivation technique that summoned the Qi from a greater world called 160-Petal Lotus World.

Just the fact that it summoned Qi from another world for the user meant that this technique was precious. 

Cultivation technique could be categorized into two categories, surrounding, and summoning. Surrounding techniques were about absorbing Qi from you surroundings and transform it into your own Qi, meanwhile the summoning techniques were about connecting the user and another realm or world together for the user to summon and absorb the Qi from that realm or world. There were also many sub-categories, but for now they are not important.

The surrounding techniques ranged from low to high grade depending on what they were about, meanwhile the summoning techniques were all at least high grade, and their power depended on what realm or world they connected to. 

Generally the grade of the summoning techniques also depended on the world someone was in, for example the world Gu Shang was in was a lower world that didn't even have a name and most summoning techniques gave the user the ability of absorbing better Qi than from this world.

The Qi from the 160-Petal Lotus World was a fusion of 160 types of Qi from the realms that existed in the petals of the Lotus World, meaning that the Lotus World was without a doubt a world close to the top.

Gu Shang started cultivating and was extremely surprised as he could feel his realm rapidly rising, he was flabbergasted how such a technique could even be in this bottom world.