The Elixir is for You, The Poison is for Me

#179 - All things arise from causes and conditions

Lu Jing picked up the meditation staff stuck in the ground.

As soon as he grasped it, he felt a sense of ancient simplicity and solemn Zen intent rushing towards him.

He carefully examined it again.

He saw that the staff was forged from an unknown material, and there were natural patterns on the body of the staff, like lotus flowers blooming. Its weight was even heavier than his refined iron meditation staff by a third.

However, it felt surprisingly comfortable in his hand.

Whether it was the grip or the way it swung, it was just right.

Looking at the head of the staff, it was seamlessly integrated with the body, but its weight was twice that of the body, and it was wrapped with cattails.

Lu Jing himself was not a Buddhist, but he had heard some Buddhist stories in his previous life.

He knew that the meditation staff was originally a Dharma artifact used by Zen masters to awaken those who fell asleep during meditation. A light tap might not wake the sleeper, but a heavy tap could cause a bloody head.

Therefore, the head of the staff was often wrapped with soft materials.

Lu Jing then asked again, "Who lost their meditation staff?"

The crowd looked at each other, and finally shook their heads.

Yang Tao said directly, "I've been in the academy for a month, and I haven't seen anyone use a meditation staff as a weapon except for Brother Lu."

"Well, then I'll keep this thing here for now," Lu Jing said. "If you encounter the owner, you can let him come to me."

His refined iron meditation staff was quite handy, but it was not a treasure weapon after all.

In the game, it was just a blue, excellent-grade equipment.

Compared with this ancient meditation staff of unknown origin, it was obviously inferior.

Moreover, after several fierce battles, it had been severely worn.

Now that there was a superior replacement, Lu Jing would naturally not be polite and decisively took it into his possession.

Of course, no matter how good this meditation staff was, it was just a weapon. If he really had the chance to meet the owner of this staff in the future, Lu Jing would consider returning it to its original owner depending on their attitude.

But looking at the age of this meditation staff, Lu Jing estimated that the possibility of its owner still being alive was not very high.

After getting the new weapon, Lu Jing did not forget the purpose of coming here. He had originally agreed to help everyone take revenge and retrieve their stolen weapons, but the mountain goblin was cunning. After a great battle, Lu Jing himself happily received a divine weapon, but the weapons lost by the others were still not found.

So Lu Jing could only comfort the depressed crowd, saying that they could come to him again if they saw the monkey next time.

However, the expressions on the faces of Wang Datong and others were still very serious.

They were not fools, and after experiencing the academy entrance examination, they also had some understanding of strange objects. They had previously asked Lu Jing for help because they were not familiar with the monkey and had just lost their important weapons.

But after watching this battle, many people had some ominous premonitions in their hearts. This monkey was obviously a weapon collecting master, and it only targeted valuable treasure weapons.

For example, Yang Tao's iron spear did not seem to interest the monkey. After snatching it, it just carried it on its shoulder and played with it, without swallowing it into its stomach.

When it exchanged weapons, it threw it away like garbage, which allowed Yang Tao to turn misfortune into a blessing and become the only one among them who retrieved his weapon.

However, on the other hand, this monkey was also fair. Even though it was so powerful with earth escape, when it saw Lu Jing blocking the way, it still had a solid fight with Lu Jing. After losing the fight, it even gave Lu Jing a weapon that it was best at using.

If this strange object's behavior pattern was always like this, wouldn't that mean that even if they asked Lu Jing for help, it would be useless?

If the monkey lost the fight, it would only keep giving Lu Jing equipment, and they still wouldn't be able to get back their lost weapons.

Thinking of this, many people felt a chill in their hearts.

However, Lu Jing couldn't help with the following matters for the time being, so he said goodbye to everyone and returned to his residence first.

After returning to the courtyard, he first took out the ancient meditation staff he had just obtained and used it to perform a set of Mad Demon One Hundred and Eight Staff Techniques.

As a result, after finishing the set, Lu Jing fell in love with this meditation staff.

Although the weight and length had changed compared to the original weapon, he easily reached the state of unity between man and staff with almost no need for adjustment.

It was as if he had been using it for several years.

Then, he saw a line of small characters at the end of the meditation staff—All dharmas arise from causes and conditions.

Indeed, his ability to pick up this meditation staff was also due to his connection with that mountain goblin.

After trying out the new weapon, Lu Jing sat down cross-legged under the peach tree again.

He tried to recall the body protection secret technique he had obtained in the trial realm—the Fire Scale Armor.

Speaking of which, Lu Jing had thought about finding a body protection technique to practice a long time ago. After all, the amount of internal force stored in his dantian was astonishing, but his body protection methods had always been relatively crude.

He basically relied on his internal force to sense threats and then spontaneously rebound.

This trick was quite effective against internal experts, especially those without sharp weapons, but many vital areas were still quite fragile.

In particular, the opponents Lu Jing faced in the future were not only humans, but also those strange objects.

Their moves were diverse and their attack methods were strange.

He might not be able to beat them for a while, and he might not be able to find the right way to deal with them. At this time, being able to survive was particularly important.

Since Lu Jing had come to the capital and plunged into this mysterious world, he naturally had to work harder to find ways to protect his life.

The Azure Cloud Ranking and the Tianshu Ranking were all虚的, survival was the most important thing.

So he didn't hesitate and quickly activated the Vajra Strength according to the cultivation route recorded on the Fire Scale Armor.

This body protection secret technique originating from the Western Regions had a rather peculiar cultivation method.

It required pouring internal force into the limbs and bones, and then burning it with a specific secret method, repeatedly burning oneself, first the meridians, then the flesh and blood, bones, and finally the skin, just like forging iron, until the impurities were burned out.

As the one being forged, Lu Jing was obviously not comfortable throughout the process, but after experiencing the terrifying pain of his dantian almost being burst, this pain was nothing to Lu Jing now.

Moreover, as a first-class master who had opened up the Ren and Du meridians, Lu Jing completed the repeated forging process, which was originally the most time-consuming for ordinary people, very smoothly.

After three hours, he broke through the first level of the Fire Scale Armor in one breath.

The meridians that had already been transformed by the rat tail soup became more resilient, making it difficult for external forces to invade.

If he faced the previous Yin-cold corrosive Qi again, Lu Jing was now confident that he could block it around the outer pass.

A secret technique was indeed a secret technique.

It was only the first level, but the effect was already immediately apparent, and Lu Jing couldn't help but sigh in his heart.

No wonder all martial artists were crazy about secret techniques.