Yuan Ming spent far less time on books about taming beasts than he had estimated, so after returning the books, he began to pace in front of the bookshelves, selecting some new material to review.

Arriving at the "Geography Records" section, Yuan Ming stopped, his gaze wandering the shelves for a good while before he picked out a book titled "Land Connection Records."

This book was larger and thicker than the others, and its cover was distinctive, made of hard wooden boards with a map carved out in openwork.

Yuan Ming opened "Land Connection Records" and began to read but soon discovered that the first page was folded.

Upon unfolding it, he found it was as large as three pages of the book, with a vast topographical map drawn in black and red lines.

To call it a topographical map wasn't quite accurate because the upper half of the map consisted only of rough line drawings with approximate territorial divisions but no marked terrains or features.

The lower half, however, clearly marked various landforms, with mountains rising and valleys dipping, the topology and waterways vividly and lifelike.

Yet, Yuan Ming's eyes were fixed on the top third of the map, which was so simplified it couldn't be any more basic.

The reason was none other than the two characters "Central Plains" marked near the edge of the map, a place vaguely remembered as his hometown, the place he wished to return to but did not know where to find.

Yuan Ming looked closely for a while and noticed that this one-third of the map was also clearly incomplete, crudely outlining just parts of two countries, one named Da Jin, sharing the name with the country of the Emperor he saw when he burned incense, and the other named Xi Yue.

These two countries were neighbors, both bordering the Ten Thousand Mountains that stretched out like a flood dragon, and beyond those boldly outlined mountain ridges lay the Southern Border.

The terrain of the Southern Border was much more meticulously depicted, including mountains, rivers, and also marking some countries and similar power territories.

After a thorough search, Yuan Ming finally located the position of Biluo Cave.

After comparing carefully, he was surprised to find that Biluo Cave, which seemed a vast region, was nothing compared to the immense Ten Thousand Mountains.

The total area of the Southern Border was also remarkably vast.

After looking for a while, Yuan Ming tried to find a route from the Southern Border to the Central Plains but ultimately found nothing.

"The world is vast, and going home is not an easy task," Yuan Ming sighed to himself.

Then, he remembered something and began to search intently on the map again, taking a good while before finally finding a mountain as small as a grain of rice labeled with small characters beside it, "Qingao Mountain."

That was the hometown mentioned by Hagon, and his last concern before passing away.

Yuan Ming planned, once he had established himself in Biluo Cave, to try to make a trip out; returning to the Central Plains was too difficult, but a trip to Qingao Mountain would likely be relatively easier.

After looking for a moment, he packed away his scattered thoughts, folded the map back up, and began to read through the book.

The book mostly contained information about the mountains and rivers of the Southern Border, interspersed with many mystical and bizarre legends and stories, mysterious and bizarre, the truth of them unknown.

Since most places were unfamiliar to him, places he had neither visited nor heard of, he had no concept of them in his mind, and after reading for a while, he found his interest waning and put the book back.

Subsequently, he specifically looked for a few more geographical classics, hoping to learn more about the Central Plains, but unfortunately, the records were sparse and could not provide him with much information.

"Being in the Southern Border, it's indeed pitiful how few books there are about the Central Plains," Yuan Ming said as he stuffed the last book back onto the shelf and continued to pace, looking to see what other subjects contained.

A few steps later, he came to the "Cultivation" section and stopped there.

Yuan Ming randomly pulled a book from the shelf, glanced at the cover, which was written in Southern Border script, "Cultivation General Knowledge," and his interest was piqued.

That he had embarked on the path of cultivation was already something unexpected; previously trapped in the Ten Thousand Mountains as a Fur Beast Slave, naturally no one had taught him the basics of cultivation.

This accidental becoming of a Registered Disciple also meant no one was available to solve his doubts, and Yuan Ming was in need of such knowledge.

He immediately returned to his seat, opened the book, and began to read it carefully.

After a moment, Yuan Ming's eyebrows furrowed, and he thought to himself, "So it turns out that not all cultivators are the same, there are distinctions such as Magic Practitioners, Body Cultivation, and Soul Cultivation."

According to the book, Body Cultivation involves diligently training the body, practicing body refinement techniques, focusing on tempering skin, hair, muscles, bones, flesh, and viscera, forging one's body to be as resilient as a Magic Treasure, relying on one's own body as a weapon in combat, possessing strong survivability.

Magic Practitioners, on the other hand, emphasize the accumulation and cultivation of Mana, drawing the Spiritual Energy from heaven and earth into the body, further purifying, refining, and then storing it in the Dantian and meridians, combined with casting techniques, they can achieve enigmatic abilities, capable of moving mountains and filling seas at advanced levels.

Compared to Body Cultivation, this book evidently favored the path of Magic Practitioners, who, although physically weaker, could manipulate spells and objects with endlessly emerging methods, attack with varied transformations, and also enhance themselves through means such as activating and wearing Magic Artifacts and refining medicines, often having more comprehensive offense and defense.

The third major category mentioned in the book is Soul Cultivation, which is given very little coverage.

As for Soul Cultivation, the author of the book seems to bear an obvious bias, stating that practitioners neither engage in Body Refinement nor in Magic Practitioner but focus solely on the refinement of Divine Soul Power, which he deemed a heresy in the realm of cultivation.

The assessment of "heresy" can be considered extremely derogatory.

Afterward, the book still provides some brief descriptions of the methods used in Soul Cultivation, but they all seem somewhat mysterious.

Always read at the source—*.

For example, the book mentions that once Soul Cultivators reach a certain level, they can control lifeless bodies, manipulating them to move, jump, or even attack and fight like the living.

"That silver cat, I wonder who exactly it is?" Yuan Ming couldn't help but think of the scene where the silver cat controlled the corpses to attack when he saw this.

Regarding Soul Cultivation, the book also describes Divine Travel and Soul Search abilities.

It states that a Soul Cultivator, upon reaching a certain level of cultivation, can let their Divine Soul leave their body, traverse the void with the wind, move thousands of miles, and even, in the form of a soul body, attack others and kill them from thousands of miles away.

What Yuan Ming found most intriguing was the ability of Soul Search.

With this ability, a Soul Cultivator can forcefully invade someone else's Sea of Consciousness with their Divine Sense, freely search and explore another person's memory, and even, more advancedly, forcibly alter or erase their memories.

"If I had such Divine Skills, I wonder if I could recover my own memories?" Yuan Ming mused to himself.

As he continued reading, Yuan Ming gradually understood that although Soul Cultivation had its unique aspects, it also had fatal flaws.

Compared to the other two systems, the conditions for practicing Soul Cultivation were much more stringent, and the process much more dangerous. Even with guidance from an orthodox Soul Cultivation Method, it was very easy to deviate and fall into demonic cultivation.

In minor cases, one could lose their sanity and become idiotic; in severe cases, one's soul could become scattered, losing even the chance to reincarnate as human.

Seeing this, Yuan Ming couldn't help breaking out in a cold sweat. He seemed not to have experienced anything similar so far; he didn't know whether it was due to good luck or because the "Moonlight Technique" given to him by the silver cat was exceptional.

Reflecting on it, he recalled that his current stagnation in cultivation progress had shown no signs of any risks of deviating into demonic cultivation. Instead, he felt that this method alleviated the backlash from his previous practice of the Fur Cloak Skill, which was the main reason he continued his cultivation.

Yuan Ming even felt that maybe the book's author had exaggerated under the prejudice against Soul Cultivation, and he was somewhat dismissive of it.

He knew that the Fur Cloak Skill was still an important reliance for him in combat before obtaining a better method of defeating enemies, so he was not planning to give up, and of course, the Moonlight Technique was essential for him to cultivate.

Later, Yuan Ming intentionally looked for more information on Soul Cultivation, but it was a pity that there was no separate document solely focusing on it. He found some mixed with other content, though.

However, these pieces of information were not only scattered and inconsistent, but they even contradicted each other, making it difficult to distinguish right from wrong, true from false.

But one thing was surprisingly consistent.

That was their attitude towards Soul Cultivation. The best was to fear and avoid it, while at worst, they considered all Soul Cultivators as heretics, stating that seven or eight out of ten were practitioners of Evil Cultivation; less than thirty percent were not on the path of evil.

Based on his prior assumptions, Yuan Ming remained noncommittal about this, merely convinced of the mysterious aspects of Soul Cultivation and its involvement with Divine Souls and memory, which led him to decide to further cultivate the "Moonlight Technique" intensively.

After putting back the last batch of documents he had taken, Yuan Ming stretched and was about to look for more documents when he heard a middle-aged man dressed as a deacon descending the stairs and loudly declaring, "It is nearly 7 p.m., the pavilion will soon be closed."

Only then did he realize that he had unknowingly spent most of the day in this Gui Cang Pavilion.

He did not leave immediately but quickly sketched a tour on the first floor, only reluctantly leaving around 7 p.m.

...

The following afternoon, Yuan Ming went to the Execution Hall.

With his current knowledge, extraordinary memory, and familiarity with Huo Chan'er, he naturally passed the preliminary approval of the managing deacon and was assigned the task of looking after the Fire Mink.

Then, he followed the guidance of the task and went straight back to the Fire Refining Hall to find the Three Cave Masters.

The residence where the Three Cave Masters lived alone was located in a quiet bamboo grove on the back mountain, a very serene environment.

After asking a few fellow disciples, Yuan Ming finally found the path there, but before he could reach the bamboo grove, he encountered Chen Wan halfway.

Apart from the Three Cave Masters, who had accepted three Inner Sect Disciples, the other elders mostly had only one Inner Sect Disciple or had not accepted any disciples at all.

Usually, these Inner Sect Disciples would serve close to their masters, receiving direct teachings. Chen Wan was no exception. Hence, since his admission, Yuan Ming had barely met her.