I’m Actually a Cultivation Bigshot Chapter 65
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Chapter 65: Are You Stupid
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Dong…dong…dong…
The music continued.
Yao Mengji closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. When he opened his eyes again, his gaze was more determined than ever!
He had decided to feel and understand this immense Insight!
‘As a cultivator of instruments, this is what I’ve been doing all my life. How can I miss this opportunity?’
His eyes were red, his white hair on their ends. He turned into a fangirling old man, forgetting himself and only focusing intently on the Insights.
Perhaps this piece was not of this realm!
This was the music of Immortals!
Li Nianfan was willing to play this for him. This was the greatest blessing he would ever get in his entire life! If he missed this opportunity, how would he ever succeed in cultivating?
Under the immense Insights, he was like a thin flatboat that could flip over anytime. However, he was not frightened. He welcomed all the Insights and the emotions that came with them. Not fearing death, he focused all of his divine consciousness on the sound of the music, hoping to get a glimpse or two of the mystery.
The music kept on changing.
Fresh blood started dripping out of the corner of his lips and his reddened eyes. The scene was shocking and terrifying.
He had a vision of fearless warriors, as well endless killing and piles of corpses. No matter who it was, everyone was destined to fight, either against one another or against the gods!
In the end, be it a victory or a defeat, it could still be written into a tragic song.
Haha! To fight against the gods? How fun!
He was overwhelmed with fatigue, but the corner of his lips curled up. His eyes sparkled like never before.
The truth was worth dying for!
Finally, the music stopped.
The dragon’s dancing golden body halted for a moment before it silently fell from the sky and returned to the pond. The relaxing old tortoise opened its eyes at the stop of the tune. Then, it slowly made its way back into the pond as well without making a sound!
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The gigantic trees and dryads stopped dancing abruptly. They shrank and returned to their ordinary forms while Blackie’s listening ears dropped. He even yawned. The Sword Immortal Jade, Dragon Fire Pearl, Fallen Demon Sword, and the Thousand-Year Black Ice stopped glowing.
It was as if everything was just a dream.
Qin Manyun’s jaws dropped.
All the items knew that the expert liked to experience life as an ordinary person. Therefore, they concealed themselves as ordinary things to stay by his side and absorb some Insights?
How shameless!
However, she was really jealous of them. No wonder these trees could turn into dryads. If one could listen to the expert’s music every day and get blessed by the Insights, it would be hard not to become an Immortal!
Yao Mengji already came out of his previous state. He wiped off the blood on his face instantly, pretending as if nothing happened.
Of course, Li Nianfan had no idea what was happening behind his back. He looked up at the sky with a calm face. He could not help letting out a sigh.
As expected, there was not even a single bird in the sky! This was too embarrassing! This did not do his skills any justice!
He stood up and smiled at Yao Mengji. “Mr. Yao, what do you think?”
As Yao Mengji was about to speak, air came up from his throat and his mouth was filled with fresh blood.
He shivered a little, though his face remained the same. He gulped and swallowed the blood in his mouth. Hastily, he spoke as if nothing happened, “Mr. Li’s indeed impressive! Your playing is perfect! I’ve no right to give you any comments! The tone of the sound and music made me feel so deeply. I’ve learned a lot!”
He sighed to himself. Had he spurted out a mouthful of blood, it would be like exposing his identity to his face! This would have spoiled all of his fun and interest! If the expert was offended, his life would be over!
So close!
With his every action and word being able to exert immense Insights, he still chose to take on the persona of an ordinary man! To keep up his act, Yao Mengji even had to swallow back his blood!
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He exclaimed to himself, ‘Sigh, life’s hard.’
“Thank you, Mr. Yao,” Li Nianfan said as his ego was boosted.
Yao Mengji asked, “May I ask, what’s the name of this piece?”
Li Nianfan said, “The name’s ‘Ambush’!”
Ambush?
Yao Mengji and Qin Manyun’s hearts sank a little and they both smiled bitterly.
What they had just experienced was exactly an ambush!
Inside the yard, other than the treasures lying around, every corner had at least a hidden bigshot. One could not afford to provoke any of them!
An expert was indeed an expert! Even the title of the piece had implicit meanings!
“I’ve never heard of this piece, but I can tell that it’s a masterpiece!” Yao Mengji said.
Li Nianfan laughed to himself. The songs in this realm were nothing like the songs he knew from his previous realm. If they found out about those songs, they would instantly become his biggest fans!
Li Nianfan sighed. “I’d give you the sheet music since you like it. Unfortunately, I don’t have the sheet music here and I can only give it to you the next time you visit.”
Beat! Beat! Beat!
Yao Mengji’s breathing became rapid as his whole face flushed red.
Qin Manyun had a similar reaction, too. She almost cried out with excitement!
‘Keep calm! Keep calm! Don’t alarm him!’ they chanted in their hearts as they tried to regain their composures and slow down their racing hearts.
This was an Immortal Song!
To those who cultivate with instruments, a good piece or song would come with the biggest chance one could ever get!
They would not even trade it for an Immortal Machine!
They originally thought that they were very lucky to be able to listen to his performance. Who would have thought that the expert was willing to give them the sheet music as well!
What a surprise!
Yao Mengji said hastily, “Thank you so much, Mr. Li.”
Li Nianfan smiled. “As long as you like it. Remember to get it from me next time.”
They gave him a jello-maker. Of course, he should give them something in return. This seemed like a good gift.
Yao Mengji did not want to disturb Li Nianfan any further. So, he stood up and said, “Sorry for disturbing you today. Goodbye for now.”
“Goodbye. Take care.”
…
After walking out of the four-part architecture, Yao Mengji let out a long sigh. He seemed listless.
Qin Manyun asked in doubt, “Teacher, what is it? Are you not happy that the expert agreed to give us the music?”
“Manyun, your understanding is still too shallow,” Yao Mengji said with a hint of regret in his eyes. He shook his head. “You’ll never be able to understand what the expert implies with his words.”
Qin Manyun was confused, “Please, explain it to me.”
“The expert said that he was going to give us the music today. But why didn’t he? That’s because we haven’t’ completed the mission he gave us,” Yao Mengji said bitterly.
“We went to kill the Silver Moon Demon King. Yet, we let it run away, and even needed the Lord Dog to help us out. Of course, this would upset the expert! Sigh! I’m such a bad chess piece. If I knew better, I would’ve killed that Silver Moon Demon King even if it meant I’d have to diminish all my years of cultivation!”
Qin Manyun asked, still confused, “But didn’t the expert ask us to get it from him the next time we come?”
“Are you stupid? Are you not embarrassed to get it from the expert without having done anything?” Yao Mengji said angrily. “What the expert meant was that it will all depend on our performance next time!”
“Oh, I see! I understand now,” Qin Manyun realized, and she sighed to herself. It seemed that she still had a long way to go.
“After listening to the expert’s Basics of Wisdom, I’ve learned a lot. I’ll have to meditate for some time.” Yao Mengji reminded her with a serious tone, “Since the expert likes to live as an ordinary man, there’re many things that he wouldn’t want to do himself. Therefore, you’ll have to complete any task he gives you. Take into account all the implicit meanings of his words. Remember that!”
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Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. 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