The Elixir is for You, The Poison is for Me

#248 - The Secret of the Zen Stick

As Lu Jing's words fell, the air in the room seemed to suddenly freeze.

Chi also frowned, as if she had encountered a difficult problem.

Fortunately, after a moment, when she spoke again, she didn't mention Lu Jing living with her in the cave again. Instead, she said, "You said you wanted to borrow Niete to deal with the bamboo in Quzhu Path?"

"That's right," Lu Jing said, relieved.

Chi said, "Now that you've proven that the fusion of materials is more useful than continuous refinement, my previous weapon crafting plan also needs to be changed. I don't have much use for Niete right now, so I can lend it to you first."

"Thank you, Senior Chi," Lu Jing said happily.

"It's a small matter," Chi waved her hand, "Not as important as the direction you pointed out to me… How about this, I'll help you forge three more items. Do you need weapons?"

"Oh, I just got one a few days ago," Lu Jing pointed to the meteorite iron staff standing by the corner of the wall.

Chi's gaze was also attracted to it. She shook her head after only one glance, "The material is good, but the forging technique is too poor. It doesn't look like it came from the hands of a master. It looks more like it was haphazardly made by some blacksmith in the countryside."

"This Zen staff is a relic of Grandmaster Honglian. Grandmaster Honglian was open-minded and didn't care about trivial matters, so this staff might really have been forged by someone he found in the countryside," Lu Jing said.

As he spoke, he saw Chi had already walked to the staff, picked it up, held it in her hand, carefully examined it, and then weighed it a few times before letting out a soft 'huh.'

"What is it?" Lu Jing raised his eyebrows.

Chi didn't answer immediately, but placed the meteorite iron staff, which weighed over eighty pounds, on her two fingers, and she actually held it up with just two fingers.

However, Lu Jing knew that Chi wasn't doing this to show how strong her finger strength was, so he quietly waited for Chi to speak again.

"The weight of this Zen staff is the same at both ends."

Chi still went straight to the point as always, without concealing anything.

As soon as she said these words, Lu Jing finally reacted.

It's natural that the weight is the same, but the head of this Zen staff is actually slightly larger than the head at the other end.

Of course, the difference wasn't too obvious. Ordinary people might not even notice it. Only Lu Jing, with his excellent eyesight, and a weapon craftsman like Chi, who had been dealing with weapons and armor all her life, could see the difference.

Now the question is, how can a Zen staff with one end slightly larger than the other have the same weight?

Lu Jing and Chi looked at each other and saw the answer in each other's eyes.

However, Lu Jing was still a little hesitant. After all, this Zen staff was a relic of Grandmaster Honglian, and it could be said to be a treasure of Buddhism. It would be a pity to destroy it like this.

However, Lu Jing remembered what the little monk Zhaoming had told him earlier, that Grandmaster Honglian had once relied on the Mad Demon 108 Staff Technique to fight several top magic path experts without falling behind.

Lu Jing had now cultivated this martial art to great success. Although its power was also good, he felt that it was far from as terrifying as Zhaoming had said.

Especially after seeing Yan Yun's attack, he further felt the gap between his martial arts and the top-level ultimate techniques.

Why wasn't this Mad Demon 108 Staff Technique as powerful as the legend after it fell into his hands? Could the key be hidden in this meteorite iron staff?

Chi, who was on the side, seemed to not understand what Lu Jing was struggling with and said, "If you really like the appearance of this Zen staff, I can re-forge an identical one for you later."

Lu Jing's gaze happened to fall on the sentence "All dharmas arise from conditions" on the staff, and his heart suddenly became clear.

That's right, why should he be so entangled in the so-called relics of his predecessors? Grandmaster Honglian himself wasn't someone who cared about such things, otherwise this staff wouldn't have ended up in the belly of that mountain demon.

Hearing this, Lu Jing grabbed the meteorite iron staff and followed Chi out of the house and into the courtyard.

Chi pointed to Niete in the courtyard, who was curiously staring at the black cat, "Give your Zen staff to it."

Niete seemed to understand what Chi was saying. Looking at the meteorite iron staff in Lu Jing's hand, it couldn't help but drool, just like a child seeing spicy sticks on the shelf.

However, the staff in Lu Jing's hand was much harder than spicy sticks.

But when he handed the staff to Niete, the latter couldn't wait to bite it like it was biting a spicy stick. He didn't know what its teeth were made of. With one bite, there was a crackling sound, and the originally quite hard meteorite iron staff was bitten off a small section.

After chewing it in its mouth, it couldn't wait to swallow it. Then it bit the second bite, the third bite, but when it reached the fourth bite, it seemed to be bumped by something, and then it spat out a tooth from its mouth.

Lu Jing was stunned and asked Chi on the side, "Did it break its tooth?"

Chi was also stunned when she saw this. She had never seen this kind of situation before, but she still said, "No, right… It's a strange creature. Logically speaking, even the hardest thing shouldn't break its teeth…"

In fact, Lu Jing had already noticed the abnormality after speaking. The tooth looked very small, and its shape looked more like a human tooth than a panda's.

Looking at Niete again, it continued to gnaw on the staff as if nothing had happened after spitting out the tooth.

Lu Jing further confirmed that the tooth was indeed not its own, so Lu Jing took a step forward, picked up the tooth on the ground, and carefully examined it.

He saw that there were actually a string of small characters engraved on it.

— Mad Demon Subdues Bandits, Karma Fire Red Lotus, If You Want True Understanding, First Enter the Pure Land.

When Lu Jing saw these sixteen characters, he was first happy, but then he couldn't help but frown again.

He was happy that the Mad Demon 108 Staff Technique seemed to really have a plus version, but he was stunned when he saw Entering the Pure Land. What did this mean? Did he have to join Buddhism to practice this martial art?

But he wasn't interested in being a monk, and he had the Latent Spirit Physique and a lot of romantic debts. Joining Buddhism wasn't appropriate, and besides Grandmaster Honglian, he hadn't heard of any monks who had mastered this martial art.