Cultivation starts with picking up attributes-Chapter 62: Ch-: Memories

"Forgive me, Sister."

Tian Shen blinked, heart pounding.

"Looks like the past won’t let me go that easily."

Feng Yin raised an eyebrow.

"You planning to tell me what you saw?"

He smiled faintly.

"After we pass the trial."

But in his heart, he knew something crucial: the legacies of the Honoured Ones weren’t just waiting to be inherited.

...

The second day of the Spirit Beast Trial dawned with the faint glow of silver sunlight piercing through a veil of thick, ghostly mist.

The mist hadn’t dispersed overnight—it had grown denser, wrapping around the peaks like the breath of a slumbering titan.

Every leaf was slick with dew, every stone cold beneath the foot.

Tian Shen stirred from his seated meditation beneath the overhang, eyes opening with a sharp glint.

Across from him, Feng Yin quietly rolled up the talisman net she’d deployed through the night.

They had remained untouched while others screamed in the distance, their camps clearly not as fortunate.

"We’re still being watched, huh."

Tian Shen said flatly, scanning the tree line beyond the thin Qi wards he’d drawn last night.

Feng Yin nodded.

"It didn’t come back, though. That spirit... if that’s what it really was."

Tian Shen said nothing more. The trial was only halfway through, and the deeper they went, the stranger the beasts became—not just in form, but in behavior. Too calculated. Too silent.

The duo broke camp quickly. With three cores already collected—boar, hawk, and lizard—they could technically descend and complete the trial.

But the mist hadn’t lifted for a reason. Something waited at the heart of the peak, and Tian Shen’s instincts whispered that turning back now would be a waste.

They followed an old stone path partially swallowed by moss, likely carved decades ago by patrolling elders.

The ground was uneven, and the sound of birds was suspiciously absent. Even spirit herb patches, normally guarded by fierce territorial beasts, seemed to be untouched.

By noon, they arrived at a wide, sloping glade wrapped in broken trees and crushed stones. Something large had passed through here recently.

Feng Yin crouched by a gouge in the dirt.

"Claw marks, deep ones. Six meters apart."

"Spirit Beast. 4-star, maybe."

Tian Shen replied.

She frowned.

"That shouldn’t be part of the trial."

"No one said the peaks were truly ’controlled.’ The elders only watch. They don’t clean up what’s wild."

As if in agreement, the air trembled.

A low growl rolled across the clearing like distant thunder. From behind a fractured boulder, a massive silhouette emerged—dark brown fur bristling, four gleaming eyes locked onto them.

Its body was hulking, lupine but with reptilian spines protruding from its back and tail. Saliva sizzled as it hit the ground.

Tian Shen narrowed his eyes.

"Venomblood Direwolf, a 4-star beast."

Feng Yin already had three talismans glowing between her fingers.

"You truly are a jinx, so we run?"

Tian Shen stepped forward.

"Not yet."

"You just want the core, don’t you?"

He grinned, and in a flash, launched himself forward.

The wolf roared and lunged, its breath thick with acid fumes.

Tian Shen ducked under a swipe and slid across the gravel, slamming his palm into its belly.

The impact vibrated through the beast’s body, but it didn’t falter.

Feng Yin struck from the flank, her talismans chaining into a web of blue fire.

The threads wrapped around the wolf’s left leg, halting its movement for a moment.

Just enough for Tian Shen to leap upward, bringing his blade down in an arc.

Crack!

The blade skidded across one of the beast’s spines.

The recoil jolted Tian Shen’s arm, but he twisted mid-air and flipped over its back.

"Too tough for regular strikes!"

He called.

Feng Yin adjusted her stance.

"Then we suffocate it!"

She stomped the ground, activating a pre-set array that summoned a whirlwind of condensed Qi.

The wind condensed around the beast’s head, restricting its breathing while distorting its sense of direction.

Roaring, the wolf slammed its claws wildly.

One caught Tian Shen across the ribs, tearing through his outer robe and drawing blood.

He stumbled, but the pain didn’t faltered his focus.

With a growl of his own, Tian Shen plunged his blade into the earth and poured Qi into it.

The ground rippled, and a wave of stone spikes erupted beneath the beast—jagged, cruel, and precise.

Howling in agony, the wolf reared back—only for Feng Yin to unleash a final talisman: a compressed beam of spiritual lightning.

The bolt struck the beast’s chest. The wolf froze, convulsed once, and fell with a ground-shaking crash.

『Congrats host, you killed a 4-star beast and gained Luck points ×1000, physique points ×500, Charm ×200.』

Tian Shen exhaled, wiping blood from his mouth.

"Not a bad haul."

Feng Yin retrieved the beast’s core and tossed him a healing pellet.

"Don’t get cocky."

They took shelter beneath a cliff wall to recover, consuming light rations and circulating their Qi.

As Tian Shen’s internal injuries slowly stitched themselves together, he glanced toward the deepening mist.

The mist wasn’t just natural. Now that he had observed it during combat, he recognized subtle shifts in its behavior.

It coiled where they moved, followed when they ran, and thickened around places of death.

"I don’t think it’s a beast controlling the mist."

He said, then continued.

"I think the mist itself is the beast."

Feng Yin paused mid-chewing a roasted boar leg.

"That... doesn’t make any sense."

"It does, if it’s an spiritual remnant, not a physical creature."

She fell silent, eyes darkening.

"Then this trial really is a deathtrap."

Tian Shen stood, adjusting his blade.

"Let’s finish what we started."

By nightfall, they reached a lake at the heart of the peak—moonlit and utterly silent.

The surface of the water shimmered like glass, and the mist above it was impossibly thick.

A stone pavilion stood in the center, accessible by a thin, cracked bridge.

Drawn by curiosity—or perhaps intuition—Tian Shen crossed first.

The stone groaned under his weight but held firm. Feng Yin followed, her hand never far from her talisman pouch.

As they stepped into the pavilion, a ripple passed through the air.

Then the mist surged—rising like a tidal wave, forming vague humanoid figures.

Hundreds of them.

All without eyes.

Tian Shen’s breath slowed.

"Illusions?"

Feng Yin whispered.

"Yup, they’re not attacking."

The figures moaned silently, reaching toward the lake. Some knelt. Some clawed at their own chests.

Tian Shen stared at them.

"They died here."

Feng Yin reached into the pedestal at the center of the pavilion and withdrew a black-metal shard embedded into the stone. It pulsed faintly with Qi.

"A fragment," she muttered. "Of what, I don’t know. But it feels old."

Tian Shen touched it briefly. A vision flashed through his mind: monks in meditation, drowned beneath the rising lake. Sacrifices. Rituals.

He snapped back to reality.

"This place was sealed. The beasts here... they’re drawn to the residue of old sorcery. We need to leave."

They crossed back quickly, but not fast enough.

As their feet touched solid ground again, the mist boiled. From the lake’s surface, a shape emerged.

A massive, skeletal serpent with glowing orbs for eyes. Its jaw unhinged as it screamed—not from its throat, but from its soul.

Feng Yin flinched.

"Soulsteel Serpent! Those are only found in cursed zones!"

Tian Shen cracked his neck.

"We’re in one now."

The serpent struck, its body phasing through trees like mist before solidifying upon attack.

Tian Shen dodged left, slashing across its spine. The blade passed through—but it shuddered, part of its misty body collapsing.

Feng Yin fired talismans, but they fizzled against its body.

"Physical attacks don’t work!"

"Then we use spirit."

Tian Shen closed his eyes and activated the Sage’s Qi—not the raw might, but the clarity. His spirit sense expanded, wrapping around the serpent.

He reached out, not to kill—but to control.

A pulse.

A memory.

A boy, swallowed by the lake after defying a ritual.

A mother, weeping at the water’s edge.

The serpent’s rage... was grief made manifest.

"I see you."

Tian Shen whispered.

The serpent froze.

He opened his eyes, stepped forward, and let his sword drop.

"I see you."

The mist shivered.

And the serpent—mournful, ancient, hollow—dissolved.

A single teardrop of liquid spirit crystal hovered in its place. Tian Shen caught it in his palm.

He turned to Feng Yin, who was still panting.

"It’s over."

She exhaled.

"You’re insane."

He smirked while giving her the liquid spirit crystal.

"Maybe."

They descended the peaks the next morning.

Their tokens glowed gold—proof of survival, and of having cleared more than required.

At the Southern Watchpoint, Senior Disciple Huang Wei raised an eyebrow as they arrived.

"This early?"

"We got enough cores."

Tian Shen said casually.

"Only two returned from your group. The rest... are still missing, or maybe worse."

Feng Yin glanced at the misty peaks behind them.

"Then we were the lucky ones."

But Tian Shen said nothing. He merely placed a hand over his chest—where the mist still clung faintly, deep in memory.