Quinn Shepherd walked over, full of youthful energy. As the saying goes, clothes make the man and gold makes the Buddha—this outfit fit him perfectly, shining far brighter than the beast-hide clothes he used to wear.
Master Qu smiled and said, "Young master, your craftsmanship is superb. Even I wish I could keep you here as a tailor in my cloth shop."
Quinn laughed, "This is Granny Sue's handiwork. I'm just showing off what I learned from her."
Master Qu smiled, "Young master, although this fabric is impervious to blades and spears, it can't defend against spirit tools like needles and threads. Please keep that in mind."
Quinn nodded and thanked him for his kindness.
Master Qu clapped his hands, called over a young attendant, and whispered a few words. The attendant brought over a pouch of coins and handed it to Quinn. Master Qu smiled, "Young master, this isn't much money, but it's a token of my appreciation."
Quinn grabbed a handful from the pouch, about a hundred coins, and smiled, "I've already received your shop's treasure, which is more than enough for me. Please take the rest of the money back."
Master Qu agreed, saying, "As they say, beauty for a fair lady, a treasured sword for a hero. The Dragonfang Shears have been enshrined here and rarely used. Since your tailoring is so exceptional, why not keep them?"
Quinn hurriedly declined, so Master Qu had no choice but to drop the matter.
Feng Xiuyun escorted Quinn to the inn and also took her leave, saying, "Young master, the dock gates open at dawn and the merchant caravan will depart Mizu Pass. Make sure you follow the caravan—these days are truly unsettled."
Quinn thanked her.
At night, Lina the Spirit Fox lit the oil lamp. By its glow, Quinn raised his hand. A thread from his glove slithered out like a spirit snake, growing thicker until he could make out the words of the Grand Fostering Heavenly Demon Sutra and began to study them closely.
The Grand Fostering Heavenly Demon Sutra is a scripture capable of cultivating gods and demons. When Quinn set out, Granny Sue handed him this text but never taught him how to cultivate it—she told him to comprehend it on his own.
"Granny Sue said the Sutra was originally created by a sage who descended from heaven, intending to use it to enlighten the masses. But because it's so easy to go astray, it's called the Heavenly Demon Sutra."
Quinn carefully examined the general preface of the Grand Fostering Heavenly Demon Sutra. Its opening lines were thunderous and shocking.
"The way of the sage is no different from the daily use of the common people; whatever differs from this is heresy! To follow one’s nature and act in pure accord with the natural is called the Dao."
Quinn was startled. This meant that any teaching—divine, demonic, or Buddhist—that cannot be used by ordinary people in daily life is heresy!
As long as it serves the daily needs of the people, it is the true Dao.
What is the true Dao? To act according to one's nature, letting things follow their course.
Such a fierce opening—no wonder people call it a demonic scripture!
But this doctrine also laid the foundation for the Heavenly Demon Cult: its Three Hundred and Sixty Halls, each led by a master from one of the everyday trades among common folk. All their techniques serve daily life—like the Rain Hall Master, who performs rituals to bring rain and relieve drought for the people.
This is the down-to-earth way of the common people, while the path of gods and Buddhas is lofty and remote.
Quinn actually found the Sutra’s general preface reasonable, but it was indeed easy to misinterpret.
The Grand Fostering Heavenly Demon Sutra contains countless arts and techniques—strange, wondrous, and unexpected. Quinn was dazzled and dumbfounded by their sheer variety.
Yet, as Quinn drew out the glove thread and read from start to finish, his frown deepened. The Sutra didn’t have a single foundational method that tied everything together!
In cultivation, there’s ‘gong’ and ‘fa.’ For example, Quinn’s Overlord Three-Core Art is the ‘gong’—the internal driving force—while the pig-slaughtering saber art, Heaven-Stealing Leg Art, and Thunder Chant Eight-Form are all ‘fa,’ techniques that unleash the power of ‘gong.’
To fully unleash a technique’s power, it must be paired with a matching internal method.
For instance, Thunder Chant Eight-Form requires the Grand Buddha Mahayana Scripture to bring out its full strength.
The Grand Fostering Heavenly Demon Sutra has plenty of internal methods and techniques, but none that can govern all the others. That means it’s not truly worthy of being called a scripture for gods and demons!
"The Grand Fostering Heavenly Demon Sutra is incomplete!"
Quinn immediately realized the crux of the issue: the Grand Fostering Heavenly Demon Sutra covers everything, but lacks a unified internal method. With so many arts and techniques, each one is powerful, but mastering even a single one takes immense effort—making it impossible to master the entire Sutra in a lifetime.
Within the Sutra, there are over a thousand kinds of 'gong' and 'fa,' with nearly every technique paired with its own internal method—yet none can command all the rest!
There’s only one explanation for this: the Grand Fostering Heavenly Demon Sutra is incomplete.
"But the Sutra can't possibly be incomplete. The Heavenly Demon Cult treats it as a sacred treasure—the sect's very foundation. There must be a method to unify all the others, or else the cult wouldn't have spent forty years chasing after Granny Sue..."
With a spark of hope, Quinn read through the Sutra again from start to finish, but still found nothing. He tried reading it backwards, but still came up empty-handed.
"Where is the Sutra’s secret? Maybe Granny Sue never found the unifying method either."
Quinn fell into deep thought. Of the nine elders in Oldridge Village, Granny Sue has the lowest cultivation realm—so perhaps she never managed to master the Sutra’s unifying method.
She probably chose just a few methods to cultivate, rather than waste time and energy on too many.
For anyone to learn and master all thousand-plus arts and techniques in the Sutra within a lifetime is nearly impossible.
"Could it be hidden in that jade box sealed by generations of patriarchs?"
Quinn rummaged through his bundle and pulled out the jade box—Granny Sue had stuffed it in before he left. He tried to open it, but the box was sealed with many talismanic seals. Granny Sue had once claimed, during her rampage in Dragoncrest City, that these talismans were the seals of past Heavenly Demon Cult leaders.
Quinn pinched one of the talismans and gently peeled it off—it came away with almost no effort.
He stared blankly, then flipped the talisman over. On the back, a few words were scrawled: 'Fake, hehe.'
Granny Sue really knows how to mess around...
"Granny Sue really knows how to mess around..."
Quinn shook his head, peeled off the rest of the talismans, and opened the box—only to find it completely empty.
Without a grand unifying method, who could ever master the Grand Fostering Heavenly Demon Sutra?
He felt a headache coming on. After thinking for a moment, he mused, "My foundation is the Overlord Three-Core Art—I've already got a core method, so why bother searching for the Sutra's missing unifying technique? If I use the Overlord Three-Core Art to harmonize everything, isn't that enough?"
He put thought into action, unfurled the Grand Fostering Heavenly Demon Sutra, and picked a technique called Rain Summoning Art. In no time, he had mastered it.
He pushed open the window and looked out into the darkness, hesitating for a moment before realizing, "This isn't the Great Ruins anymore—the darkness outside is just ordinary night, and there are still people walking the streets. No need to be afraid."
Relaxing, Quinn leapt from the window, grabbed the edge of the roof, and easily flipped himself onto the inn’s rooftop.
A gust of wind blew from the window. Lina, the Spirit Fox, sitting on her cushion, was swept out by the demon wind. The cushion drifted to the roof and landed beside Quinn.
"What's that in the sky?" Lina suddenly shrieked, pointing at the moon, startled and frightened.
"That's the moon."
Quinn looked up, his gaze dreamy. "I think it's the moon? I saw something like it during the day—Granny Sue pointed out a pale silver disk in the sky and called it the moon. But this one seems brighter..."
He wasn’t sure. When he was little, Granny Sue had pointed at a faint silver sphere in the daytime sky and told him that was the moon, and that it shone bright at night. But Quinn had never seen the moon at night—not once, growing up.
In the Great Ruins, night was absolute darkness—nothing in the sky, not even stars.
Tonight the moon was bright and round—it was the sixteenth of May, and the full moon hung in the sky.
Bathed in moonlight, Quinn activated the Rain Summoning Art. Clouds billowed above the inn, and soon a gentle rain began to fall.
With a wave of his hand, Quinn halted every raindrop, suspending lines of rain in midair as if time itself had stopped.
Lina marveled, jumping up to touch the rain lines, soaking her fur before scampering back inside to dry herself with a spell.
On the rooftop, Quinn shifted his technique, channeling yuanqi through the Rain Summoning Art. As he plucked the rain lines, each one sang with clear, musical notes like silk and bamboo—then the raindrops transformed into razor-sharp blades that shot skyward!
The water blades soared dozens of zhang before losing momentum and falling back as harmless rain.
This was a district full of merchants—no one paid any mind to a young man practicing arts on a rooftop.
Still not quite right. It’s not smooth enough.
Quinn moved across the roof, plucking rain lines in quick succession. Hundreds of water blades clashed and collided in the storm, filling the air with killing intent. Lina floated out from the inn window again, clapping her furry paws and cheering.
The Rain Summoning Art had its own internal method, but when Quinn used the Overlord Three-Core Art to drive it, he felt he couldn’t fully unleash its power.
His technique was already formidable, but that was only because his cultivation was so strong. If he found a perfectly matched method, the art’s power would be even greater!
(End of Chapter 99)