Investing in the Reborn Empress, She Actually Calls Me ‘Husband’

Chapter 23: Heavenly book Stone Seal, Opening Another Meridian

Inside the room, Li Mo soaked his feet while reviewing today’s investment returns.

[Congratulations, Host, for successfully investing in a portion of ice-fire wine and a portion of roasted exotic beast meat.]

[Investment return: One jar of Deng Flower Condensing Dew Ointment.]

[Investment return: One night pearl.]

[Deng Flower Condensing Dew Ointment]: “A top-grade healing medicine, made from the first drop of dew collected from rare Deng flowers and exotic herbs. Contains exceptional regenerative properties, with remarkable effects for treating injuries, especially internal ones.”

[Night pearl]: “Produced in the Northern Sea, it glows continuously without extinguishing. An essential treasure for high-level cultivators caves.”

…

“This reward should be for Master,” Li Mo mused as a round, glowing pearl the size of his fist appeared in his palm. He had seen something similar before at the Heng Tong Auction house in Ziyang Prefecture city, where a night pearl was on display. However, judging by the luster and color, the one in his hand now was of much higher quality—undeniably valuable.

Yet, it still couldn’t compare to the Deng Flower Condensing Dew Ointment. Li Mo applied a little to his body, feeling a cool sensation as it soothed the minor injuries he had sustained from tempering his body in the Divine Blade Cave earlier. Almost immediately, the small wounds began to heal.

[Congratulations, Host, for successfully investing in a portion of ice-fire wine and a portion of roasted exotic beast meat.]

[Investment return: Thirty years of martial arts insights.]

[Investment return: One piece of Xuan crystal.]

…

“That Ice doll still gives the best returns,” Li Mo couldn’t help but sigh.

Just offering her some alcohol yielded thirty years of martial arts insights. This was something you could never have too much of. Clearly, with the same investment, given Master’s clear preference for wine and meat, the rewards from investing in Ying Bing were still significantly better. This just showed how terrifying her red destiny truly was.”

Hmm, for the sake of rewards, he must also tightly hug Ice Doll’s jade legs. But was he really hugging legs? It was clearly embracing a golden money tree!

[Host, you still have one reward waiting to be claimed. Do you want to claim it?]

Li Mo suddenly remembered. Earlier that day, he had saved Murong Xiao, significantly altering his fate. What kind of reward would he receive?

With some anticipation, young Li focused his thoughts. “Claim.”

[Congratulations host, you invested one bottle of Mind Clearing Pill and successfully saved Murong Xiao, preventing him from falling into demonic cultivation.]

[Investment return: One Heavenly book Stone Seal.]

[Heavenly book Stone Seal]: “When stamped on any martial arts manual, it can deduce and perfect the technique, thereby elevating its grade. At most, it can elevate a martial art to the Earth-grade level.”

“Perfect martial arts techniques?” Li Mo was stunned, nearly dropping the night pearl.

The next moment, a thumb-sized seal appeared in his left hand. The seal had a copper color, but different from any brass or bronze Li Mo had seen before. Inscribed on its surface were tadpole-like characters, exuding an ancient charm.

“A Heavenly book Stone Seal, does that mean there are also copper ones, silver ones, and gold ones?” Li Mo pondered.

Among the techniques he currently practiced, the highest level should be the “Extreme Slaughtering Martial Body Tempering Technique”, which was in the realm of supreme techniques. The “Fire Heart Lotus Method” was an Earth-grade level martial art.

Beyond supreme techniques were divine skills.

If he obtained silver or gold heavenly book seals in the future, he could also upgrade the martial arts he had already practiced. Upgrading existing martial arts would be much more convenient than switching to practice other techniques.

“We’ll see about that in the future.”

Li Mo took out the “Scorching Wildfire Sword Technique” that Master had just given him. Apart from this mid-grade sword technique, there were no other martial arts he could upgrade at the moment. He gently pressed the celestial book seal onto the book pages.

Instantly, the tadpole characters on the surface glowed faintly and all ‘drilled’ into the book, beginning to move between the words. Some words were rearranged by the tadpoles, while others were swallowed and new words were spit out. Li Mo found it quite fascinating.

After about five minutes, the tadpole characters completely lost their glow and disappeared. The sword technique recorded in the book had also changed to:

[Fire Crane Thousand Feather Sword].

“I gained 30 years of new martial arts insights. If I add them all to the other two techniques, it might not be enough to break through from major accomplishment to perfection. Let’s learn the sword technique first.”

Young Li rubbed his hands together, reasoning with himself.

Alright, truth be told, he just wanted to learn swordsmanship.

Who wouldn’t want to be a handsome and graceful swordsman riding the wind and questioning the moon?

Strength aside, looking good is a lifelong affair.

With anticipation, Li Mo infused all the martial arts insights into the “Fire Crane Thousand Feather Sword”.

[Thirty years of martial arts insights successfully infused.]

[On the first day, you enthusiastically began learning the “Fire Crane Thousand Feather Sword” and successfully entered the entry level.]

[On the second day, you were still eager to learn the sword technique. The practice went very smoothly, and you finally reached the initial mastery level.]

[On the eighth day, you entered a bottleneck period. You made no progress for a long time and began to doubt yourself.]

[On the thirtieth day, you finally summarized the sword technique experience through long meditation, barely reaching Minor accomplishment level.]

Li Mo opened his eyes.

In an instant, memories flooded back—his extensive practice day and night without rest became vivid and clear.

He looked at a tree branch outside the window. No, this was clearly a peerless divine sword!

Breaking off the branch, he enthusiastically swung it around. In his hands, the branch seemed to emit a faint, clear whistling sound. The Scorching Wildfire Sword Technique originally emphasized explosive power. After being deduced and perfected, the Fire Crane Thousand Feather inherited this advantage and took it to another level.

Each strike on the enemy would leave internal force in their body. At that time, red marks like burning crane feathers would appear on the enemy’s body. When the internal force accumulated to the limit, it could erupt all at once. At minor accomplishment, the internal force could be stacked up to nine layers at most.

“When I reach the Internal energy Realm, I can replace the internal force with qi.”

Throwing away the branch covered in cracks, young Li was very satisfied. After calming down, he couldn’t help but ponder again.

Only reached minor accomplishment after thirty years? 

Was it because martial techniques were harder to master than cultivation methods or body tempering, or did he just lack talent for swordsmanship?

“I’ll know when I add some martial arts insights to other techniques in the future,” Li Mo concluded, withdrawing his thoughts.

He sat down cross-legged and began practicing his cultivation method. “The speed of opening meridians needs to be faster. It seems this Mysterious Immortal Body of mine has more main meridians, and the path in the Blood Qi Realm is also longer than others.”

Buzz—

A strange resonance echoed between heaven and earth.

Li Mo once again entered a state of unity with heaven and earth.

The purest source qi in heaven and earth flowed into his body like water. His consciousness also slowly sank, entering his own body.

This internal visualization didn’t require special practice. After Li Mo comprehended the Fire Heart Lotus Method to Major accomplishment, he could naturally do it. Of course, for others, they might only be able to master this skill proficiently when they reached the Internal energy Realm.

Ordinary practitioners in the Blood Qi Realm could only rely on diet and practice to continuously temper their blood qi, and then use it all at once to impact their meridians. But with the help of internal visualization, Li Mo could not only use source qi to temper his blood qi, but also precisely guide it into his meridians wrapped within Blood qi.

To make an analogy, the former is like pouring a bucket of water all at once. The latter is like connecting a water pipe, precise and efficient. Therefore, Li Mo’s process of opening meridians could only be described as ‘natural and unforced’. There were no so-called bottlenecks, and it was impossible to get injured.

It looked simple, but in fact, achieving this point was the result of multiple factors. The Mysterious Immortal Body, the supreme-level cultivation method at Major accomplishment, the increase in meridian strength from the Extreme Slaughtering Martial body – none of these could be missing.

“Sigh, it’s a bit slow,” Li Mo sighed lightly in his heart. “I estimate it will take until midnight to fully open the ‘Yang Wei’ meridian.”

These words could only be said in his heart. Because if they were spoken aloud and heard by others, he would be beaten.

Even the outer sect disciples in the sect were elites selected from an entire prefecture. Each generation was all for entering the inner sect. The condition was to open thirteen main meridians and enter the Internal Energy Realm within three years. However, in the end, only one in ten people could successfully enter the inner sect.

Before he knew it, night had fallen.

The moon, more than ten times larger than Blue Star’s, bathed the Qingyuan Mountain Range in silver light. In the room, the fluctuations of heaven and earth source energy slowly subsided.

“The Yang Wei meridian is open,” Li Mo confirmed, glancing at the moon, which had just moved to the center of the sky.

It took about… three hours?

If others knew this, they would probably think they had seen a ghost. But in Li Mo’s body, that newly opened meridian was truly filled with abundant blood essence.

Of course, this was within Li Mo’s expectations. What really surprised him was the number of meridians in his body.

“I should have… thirty-six main meridians?” Li Mo was both shocked and delighted.

For martial artists, the main meridians in the body were equivalent to engines. In other words, the blood qi he could mobilize in the future would be three times that of ordinary Blood Qi Realm practitioners?

The gap in combat power would be even greater.

“Still about ten days until the sect trials.”

“I wonder if anything unexpected will happen.”

After all, Ying Bing’s evaluation clearly stated her fate was fraught with danger.

So, if nothing unexpected had happened so far, it likely meant that some unforeseen events were still to come.

If she encountered trouble, living under the same roof, he likely couldn’t avoid being drawn in.

A sense of urgency rose in Li Mo’s mind.

He craved to become stronger!

“The accumulated blood qi should be enough to open another meridian.”

Li Mo muttered to himself.

After visiting the restroom and drinking water, he sat down again.

Once more, source qi surged through him again!

Strangely, whenever he cultivated, he felt no fatigue or exhaustion at all.

If not limited by the conversion speed between source qi and blood qi, it wouldn’t be impossible to cultivate for twelve hours straight…

…

—Next door—

In Ying Bing’s room, many things had already frozen.

She never lit candles.

When she cultivated, candles weren’t worthy of burning in her presence.

In Osmanthus Palace, the entire palace was illuminated by jade crystal lamps made from merfolk fat.

“Two meridians.”

“Still not fast enough.”

Ying Bing lowered her eyes, calculating briefly.

The inheritance site she aimed for required at least eight meridians in the Blood Qi realm.

In these ten-plus days, she still needed to open six more meridians.

Suddenly…

Ying Bing recalled that this year’s sect trials might not be peaceful.

She hadn’t yet opened her meridians then and wasn’t a participant, but she had heard rumors.

Several inner disciples had disappeared during the trial.

Not dead – disappeared, with no trace of them living or dead.

What happened remained a mystery.

“The stronger I am, the better my chances.”

“I must obtain one of the Nine-Colored Primordial Phoenix’s souls.”

Ying Bing’s snow-like eyes flickered slightly.

In her previous life, by chance, she had entered a secret realm born from the ‘Rosy Soul’, one of the Nine-Colored Primordial Phoenix’s nine souls.

This revealed her talent and changed her fate.

In her later life, this inheritance remained inseparable from her.

Later, through various means, she collected all nine souls of the Nine-Colored Primordial Phoenix, a key support on her path to invincibility.

Among the major fortuitous encounters in her life, the Nine-Colored Primordial Phoenix ranked in the top four.

Her self-created divine technique – the Nine-Colored Mystic Phoenix Scripture – required possession of all nine souls to cultivate.

“Li Mo, still cultivating?”

“He does have some perseverance.”

Strangely…

When Ying Bing thought of Li Mo next door, her once-frozen heart rippled slightly.

She didn’t dislike this feeling, but she disliked being affected by it.

More so she disliked not understanding where these emotions stemmed from…

“Could it be because I still owe him a favor?”

Ying Bing pondered, then decided.

When going to the inheritance site, she would bring Li Mo along.

Any opportunity obtained there, even a small one, could change an ordinary person’s fate.

Perhaps it could allow him to step out of Ziyang Prefecture, or even the Eastern Desolate Domain in this lifetime.

If he could witness even a fraction of the true wonders of the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths, it would make his life worthwhile.

…