3: Chapter 3: The Outer Gate Competition and a Roommate Named "Squeaky"
The Martial Arts Arena of the Heavenly River Sword Sect was bustling with noise today.
The Outer Sect Grand Competition, held once every three years.
This was the only opportunity for thousands of Outer Sect Disciples to leap over the dragon's gate.
The top ten could enter the Inner Sect and receive true teachings, separating the immortal from the Mortal forever after.
The air was thick with a mixture of sweat, blood, and the restless aura of youth.
Sword light flashed and Spiritual Qi surged; the roars from the stands seemed powerful enough to shatter the drifting clouds in the sky.
However, in the furthest corner of the arena, there was a patch of "quiet land" that felt completely out of place.
"Excuse me, watch your feet, don't spit sunflower seed shells everywhere."
Li Mo held a broom, moving along the periphery of the excited crowd like an emotionless cleaning machine.
As a leisurely Servant of the Scripture Pavilion, such a grand event shouldn't have involved him.
Unfortunately, the Chores Department was short-staffed, and he had been temporarily conscripted to be responsible for maintaining "venue hygiene."
This job was dirty and exhausting, and while other Servants avoided it like the plague, Li Mo accepted it gladly.
Because there were many books here.
Not proper books, though.
They were the cultivation insights and techniques that the Outer Sect Disciples carried with them to cram at the last minute.
Or perhaps underground publications titled "Analysis and Odds for the Championship Favorites."
"This batch is no good; there isn't even a decent dark horse."
Taking advantage of a gap in cleaning the trash, Li Mo picked up a copy of "Flowing Cloud Sword Manual Insights (Handwritten Script)" that had been angrily discarded by a defeated Disciple, patted off the dust, and began reading with great interest.
On the stage, two Disciples at the sixth level of Qi Refining were locked in a stalemate.
One used a broadsword with wide, sweeping strikes; the other used a soft sword, feminine and cunning.
The surrounding Disciples watched as if entranced, occasionally exclaiming: "What a move, 'Clouds Severing the Qinling Mountains'! Senior Brother Wang has already reached the realm of Minor Achievement; he is truly terrifying!"
Li Mo looked up briefly, then looked back down at the handwritten script in his hand, a nearly imperceptible curve forming at the corners of his mouth.
With the support of [Swordsmanship Mastery] and [Detailed Manipulation of Human Meridians], the battle in his eyes was a different scene entirely.
The one using the broadsword seemed powerful, but his lower body was actually unstable; before every heavy slash, his right shoulder would give an extra shrug.
The one using the soft sword was even more ridiculous; although the sword moves were fast, the path of Spiritual Qi circulation was full of breaks—he had clearly deviated in his cultivation.
In another thirty moves, the "Zhangmen Point" three inches below his left ribs would surely suffer sharp pain due to Qi congestion.
"It seems reading really is more useful than fighting."
Li Mo shook his head and refocused his gaze on the handwritten script.
The handwriting was messy and stained with tears and snot, but the System was not picky.
[Ding!]
[Host has completed reading 'Flowing Cloud Sword Manual Insights (Incomplete Handwritten Script)', extracted entry: Flowing Cloud Steps (Entry-level)]
[Entry effect: Movement technique like clouds unfurling and rolling; although not fast, its strength lies in being unpredictable and extremely difficult to lock onto.]
"A movement technique?"
Li Mo's eyes lit up.
A good thing for saving one's life.
Combined with the prediction from [Reading the Room] and the parrying from [Swordsmanship Mastery], his defensive System for 'playing it safe' had gained another key puzzle piece.
Just then, the situation on the stage changed suddenly!
Just as Li Mo had expected, the Disciple using the soft sword felt a pain in his left ribs, and his movements instantly stiffened.
Senior Brother Wang was overjoyed at the sight; his broadsword's light flared up as he ruthlessly unleashed an out-of-control "Sweep of a Thousand Armies"!
"Not good! I can't hold back!"
The Spiritual Qi in this strike was violent, and it actually went wide!
A crescent-shaped Sword Qi grazed the opponent's scalp and whistled straight toward the Servant area at the edge of the field!
"Run!"
The surrounding Servants and Disciples scattered in terror.
Only Li Mo stood there as if paralyzed by fear, still clutching that dirty handwritten script, standing blankly in place.
The Sword Qi arrived in an instant!
It looked as if it would split this unlucky sweeping Servant in half!
At the critical moment.
Li Mo's foot suddenly "slipped."
Without warning, his entire body fell violently to the left in an extremely comical posture that completely defied the laws of Physics.
The movement was like a tripped horse—clumsy and pathetic.
Sshhh—
The Sword Qi grazed the edge of his clothes and slammed into the stone pillar behind him, sending stone fragments flying everywhere!
Li Mo lay on the ground covered in dust, crying out "Ouch, ouch," his face full of the terror of a narrow escape.
No one noticed that his seemingly clumsy fall, the frequency and angle of his toes touching the ground, matched the rhythm of the Flowing Cloud Steps.
That was the instinctive triggering of [Flowing Cloud Steps].
"Phew... that was close. Good thing I read a lot of books normally."
Li Mo lay there playing dead, but in his mind, he was reviewing the move.
"Proficiency is still not enough. If I had been off by half an inch just now, this uniform would have been ruined."
Senior Brother Wang on the stage turned pale with fright and quickly jumped down to check.
Seeing that Li Mo's "legs had just gone weak from fear" and he wasn't missing any limbs, he breathed a sigh of relief.
He casually tossed down a few Spirit Stones and hurried back to the stage to claim his reward.
Li Mo skillfully pocketed the Spirit Stones, patted the dust off his buttocks, and continued sweeping.
Only this time, the gaze he cast toward the arena was even more indifferent.
This so-called Sect Grand Competition held no secrets in his eyes anymore.
All the passion and struggle ultimately amounted to nothing more than a few lines of cold theory in a book.
...
As night fell, the clamor faded away.
The Scripture Pavilion returned to silence.
Li Mo locked the main gate and lit a dim yellow oil lamp.
The daytime noise felt like a lifetime ago; only the scent of ink in this place could make him feel grounded.
He pulled the Vermilion Fruit given to him by the rat earlier that day from his robe.
The fruit was bright red, emitting an enticing sweet fragrance, though it wasn't fully grown and its medicinal power was diminished.
"I wonder if my Longevity Body can withstand this medicinal power."
Li Mo hesitated briefly before taking a bite.
Juice overflowed, and his mouth watered.
The next moment, a scorching surge flowed down his throat and rolled into his stomach.
If it were an ordinary Mortal, they would surely be bleeding from their seven orifices by now, with their Meridians shattered.
But Li Mo only felt his body warm up slightly; as that violent medicinal power rushed into his body, it was like boiling water on snow, instantly absorbed completely by his bottomless Physique.
[Ding!]
[Ingested a trace amount of Heaven and Earth Spiritual Essence; Physical Body strength slightly increased, Qi sensation solidity +5.]
Li Mo clenched his fist, his knuckles making a series of crisp popping sounds.
"As expected, the Longevity Body isn't just about not aging; its tolerance is also top-tier."
Just as he was feeling the changes in his body, a faint scratching sound came from the crack in the door.
"Squeak!" (Open up! Water meter inspection!)
Li Mo laughed in spite of himself and went over to pull open the door crack.
A gray shadow zipped in, familiarly jumped onto the table, stood up on its hind legs, and with its little paws on its hips, pointed at the book "Stickman Swordsman vs. One-Eyed Cat" on the table with a look of dissatisfaction.
It pointed at the little person in the drawing, then pointed at itself, making an extremely disdainful expression.
It was as if it were complaining: This artwork is too terrible; it's simply an insult to this Rat Emperor's charisma!
"You think it's ugly?" Li Mo raised an eyebrow and tapped its little head. "If you think it's ugly, don't look. Do you still want the next issue, 'Stickman Swordsman Braves the Kingdom of Women'?"
The rat's face changed instantly.
Its original arrogance vanished without a trace; it clasped its two front paws together in repeated bows, its mung-bean-like eyes blinking with pure flattery.
"You really are a perverted rat."
Li Mo shook his head with a smile and took out a few new sketches from a drawer to hand over.
"I'll call you 'Squeak' from now on; it's simple and easy to remember."
Squeak had no interest in the name; it was hungrily flipping through the new drawings. Seeing the part where the stickman was sent flying for peeking at a fairy bathing, it actually let out a "ge-ge" weird laugh. No matter how one looked at it, it didn't seem like a proper rat.
Li Mo ignored it and took out a copy of "Elementary Formation Explanation" to begin his nightly reading.
One person and one rat, under a single flickering lamp; in this cruel Cultivation World, there was actually a hint of eerie harmony.
However, halfway through Li Mo's reading, Squeak's laughter stopped abruptly.
Its ears pricked up sharply, its nose sniffing hard in the air, its expression instantly becoming alert.
It tucked the sketches into its chest, jumped off the table, bit down hard on Li Mo's pant leg, and desperately tried to drag him deep into the bookshelves.
"What's wrong?"
Li Mo put down the book, his expression turning solemn.
He knew that this rat had an amazing spiritual sense; that was the talent of the Treasure-Seeking Rat Bloodline.
Squeak led him through layers of bookshelves to the most remote corner of the first floor of the Scripture Pavilion, where damp, discarded books waiting to be destroyed were piled up.
It stopped behind an old bookcase and quickly scratched at a loose floorboard with its claws.
Click.
A floorboard was lifted, revealing a pitch-black hole.
"Your private stash warehouse?" Li Mo was stunned.
Squeak held its head high proudly, crawled into the hole, and before long, dragged out a long object wrapped in layers of oil paper.
As soon as the object emerged from the hole, the faint Qi sensation between Li Mo's eyebrows twitched violently; it was a fear like meeting a natural enemy, mixed with an irresistible, fatal attraction.
Li Mo squatted down and unwrapped the oil paper.
Inside was neither a divine weapon nor a Medicinal Pill.
Instead, it was a... bamboo slip.
The bamboo slip was pitch black all over, covered in cracked patterns, emitting an ancient, desolate, and even ominous aura.
Most importantly, Li Mo didn't recognize a single character on it.
They were distorted symbols that looked like tadpoles or ghost charms.
With just one glance, his Divine Soul felt a dizzying sensation of being dragged in.
[Ding!]
[Detected high-level unknown medium... System parsing... Parsing failed.]
[Warning: This medium contains extremely strong mental pollution; please read with caution, Host!]
Even the System failed to parse it?
Li Mo's breath hitched.
His System could even read entries from characters on toilet paper; what exactly was the origin of this bamboo slip?
He looked at Squeak: "Where did you steal this from?"
Squeak waved its little paws, pointing up, then pointing outside, gesturing a "digging a hole" motion, and finally made a hideous grimace.
"The Back Mountain Forbidden Land?"
Li Mo understood instantly, the bamboo slip in his hand feeling as hot as a branding iron.
The Heavenly River Sword Sect's Back Mountain Forbidden Land was rumored to suppress ancient demons; even the Sect Master didn't dare to set foot there lightly.
This damn rat, its guts were way too big!
But wealth is found in danger.
Li Mo knew well that if he wanted to truly stay safe, reading common goods wouldn't be enough.
He endured the discomfort of his Divine Soul and reached out to touch those distorted characters.
The System's parsing failure was because the "reading" was not yet complete.
As long as it's text, it has meaning.
As long as it has meaning, I can read it!
Li Mo's gaze became resolute; he forcibly gathered his mind and began to "gnaw through" the symbols one by one.
When his gaze touched the first symbol.
That black symbol instantly came to life, turning into a tiny black poisonous snake that drilled into his mind along his line of sight!
Intense pain!
It wasn't physical pain, but the terror of concepts being torn apart and cognition being subverted!
Countless chaotic, mad, and malicious whispers exploded in his brain!
Li Mo clenched his teeth tightly, cold sweat instantly drenching his back.
But he did not stop.
The powerful resilience of the Longevity Body was displayed to its fullest at this moment; no matter how his spirit was ravaged, his Physical Body surged with boundless vitality, firmly protecting that single flickering flame of his soul.
An unknown amount of time passed, feeling like a century.
When the last distorted symbol was branded into his mind, Li Mo's world collapsed and reorganized with a loud "boom."
[Ding!]
[Host has forcibly read through '???' (Incomplete Manual) with a Mortal body; Mental Energy significantly tempered.]
[Obtained special entry: Unspeakable Gaze (Passive)]
[Entry effect: ??? (Currently unavailable. When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. This entry can intimidate all low-intelligence evil spirits or attract the interest of certain ancient existences.)]
Li Mo gasped for breath, collapsing to the ground.
The bamboo slip in his hand had turned into flying ash the moment he finished reading it.
"Unspeakable Gaze..."
Li Mo muttered to himself, a chill running from his spine to the top of his head.
He seemed to have touched upon some incredible taboo of this world.
Just then, outside the Scripture Pavilion, the light of torches dispelled the night, and the sound of disorganized footsteps approached from a distance.
The cold, sharp shout of an Enforcement Hall Disciple pierced through the door panels:
"Search! Someone triggered the Forbidden Ground Formation; the thief surely hasn't gone far! Even if you have to turn the Scripture Pavilion upside down, find that person for me!"
Li Mo and Squeak looked at each other.
Squeak's fur stood on end, and it zipped into Li Mo's chest with a whoosh.
Li Mo quickly adjusted his breathing, his eyes instantly becoming cloudy and dull. He grabbed the broom in the corner and struck the pose of a useless person who had just been woken up and was at a loss.
Acting was his specialty.
However, the shivering rat in his chest and that eerie entry in his mind both reminded him:
The peaceful days are likely about to be disrupted.