Zhao Keran felt a numbness in the fingertips. Looking down, she saw her senior sister bending over, gently splashing water on her face from a basin. She seemed completely unaffected by the previous gust of energy.
When the senior sister lifted her head, her skin was smooth as an egg, jade-like and lustrous. Her phoenix eyes sparkled with stars, shining subtly from within.
She looked radiant, as if the water in the basin had overflowed, spilling out.
“Senior sister, did you break through?” Zhao Keran was momentarily distracted.
Hmm?
Lin Shuang had just finished wiping her face and was hanging the towel on the basin rack when she nearly dropped the white cloth into the water because of Zhao Keran’s words.
She quickly examined her inner dantian.
Dantian 1 at the peak of Qi Transformation Stage 3.
Dantian 2 at the peak of Qi Transformation Stage 3.
Dantian 3 at the peak of Qi Transformation Stage 3.
…
Dantian 84 at the peak of Qi Transformation Stage 3.
Phew, her little junior sister had startled her.
“No, only about eighty Qi Transformation Stage 3 dantians,” Lin Shuang felt her back sweating for the first time.
Zhao Keran: “Hmm?”
What do you mean eighty?
But when she looked again, she noticed her senior sister still lacked the serene aura of the fourth layer of the Water Spirit Technique, so she must have been mistaken.
Could it be that she herself was about to break through, causing the spiritual energy inside her to become restless, giving her the illusion that her senior sister had pushed her away?
“Senior sister, I’m going to start now. Be careful and stay away from me, so I don’t accidentally release spiritual energy and hurt you.”
Lin Shuang finished the last sip of her noodle soup and was about to revise her schedule for the day.
She slightly raised her eyes. “Oh.”
Half an hour later.
After finishing the Top 20 songs from her auricular cultivation playlist, Lin Shuang had also completed a set of the Thousand-Mile Golden Eyes Technique.
Looking at her junior sister, who was still meditating with her eyes closed, she saw her furrowed brows and sighed helplessly.
“It’s been over an hour.”
Her junior sister always took so long during each breakthrough. Was that really a good thing?
Lin Shuang pressed her forehead.
Looking closely, she found that her junior sister still had three acupoints left to unblock. At least another incense stick’s worth of time.
She looked fearfully at her own eighty-four dantians, which were nearly saturated.
Zhao Keran guided spiritual energy into her body. The wooden hut was filled with spiritual energy, almost forming mist.
Yet, six out of ten of the energy streams bypassed Zhao Keran and instead rushed toward Lin Shuang’s limbs and pores, eagerly entering her body and rushing into her eighty-four dantians.
They subtly connected with her eighty-four dantians, urging an immediate breakthrough.
No!
Lin Shuang frowned, and her eighty-four dantians instantly awakened, surrounding the foreign spiritual energy.
They trapped the energy in a corner, beat it up, absorbed it, and then split it.
Soon, a smaller, fresher vortex was formed.
“Hmm, I’ll call you number eighty-five.”
Lin Shuang named it.
Wiping sweat from her brow in relief, she was fortunate—she had nearly broken through.
But breaking through was so time-consuming!
After her eighty-fifth dantian gradually reached the early stage of Qi Transformation Stage 3, Lin Shuang looked through three picture books from her spatial bag, and even got up midway to practice sword techniques—
“Clang.”
Zhao Keran finally opened her eyes, drenched in sweat, her spiritual energy surging.
Her spiritual light radiated outward, indicating a successful breakthrough.
“Thank you, senior sister, for guarding me.”
She stood up energetically, shaking her robe. Just as she was about to cast a Clean Robe Spell, she was moved to tears and laughter by Lin Shuang’s lonely and wronged gaze.
“Senior sister, I was actually quite fast this time.”
“To ensure optimal spiritual energy during the breakthrough, I meditated for three days straight. I drank spiritual tea and water for three days, prepared spiritual stones and focus-enhancing artifacts, and even consulted the master at the Transmission Hall to determine the auspicious timing for my breakthrough. This time went really smoothly.”
…
Lin Shuang listened with an increasingly grim expression.
These steps were so complicated and time-consuming.
The Qi Transformation Stage had ten layers.
Then came the stages of Condensing Essence and forming the Golden Core.
That meant repeating this tedious process nine more times before reaching the Condensation stage, wasting nine times the time. Just thinking about it made Lin Shuang feel suffocated.
From the perspective of optimal efficiency, combining nine breakthroughs into one was the most cost-effective.
Thinking this, Lin Shuang looked inward at her eighty-five dantians.
Hmm, with effort, she could still hold on.
“Senior sister, do you feel anything?” Zhao Keran looked at her hopefully but cautiously.
“What?”
“An inspired feeling, the fullness of reaching the threshold of advancement?”
Lin Shuang’s face instantly turned into a sour expression. “I didn’t. I’m not. Don’t make things up.”
Zhao Keran: “…”
She was about to ask more when, outside the wooden hut, six urgent gong strikes suddenly rang out in the bright daylight.
All outer disciples of Clearwater Hall assemble!
*
“Another fight for the spiritual spring?”
“Last time, Sea and Mountain Sect won three of our springs. We must take revenge this time!”
“We must win, or else our cultivation will slow down by twenty percent!”
Lin Shuang and Zhao Keran flew on their swords, hearing many outer disciples traveling alongside them discussing the matter.
Clearwater Sect and Sea and Mountain Sect were neighbors among the outer sects, constantly disputing over the ownership of spiritual springs on the border.
Over time, an understanding had formed: whoever won in a fight would take the spring.
Zhao Keran had been an outer disciple for three years and had experienced several such events, but this year she felt more worried.
Looking at Lin Shuang, who was leisurely flipping through picture books while sitting on her sword, she felt even more anxious.
Her senior sister was already cultivating very slowly. If Sea and Mountain Sect took the spring again this year, wouldn’t that make her progress go from turtle speed to turtle’s grandson speed?
They had to win.
Pah!
Just as she was thinking, they had already arrived at the gathering point by the mountain gate and stopped. A crooked wooden sign with carved words landed in front of Zhao Keran.
—Stay away from Lin Shuang and move out of House 99!
—Left by a kind-hearted person.
Zhao Keran’s scalp tingled.
She hurried forward, but was a step too late.
Lin Shuang had already looked down and seen it. She squatted, picked up the wooden sign with two fingers, turned around, and handed it to her. “Hmm. It should be for you.”
[Ding, Xiao Ai Counting Service: Today’s completed squats—Flower-Kicking Leg Technique 1 time, 99 remaining.]
[Ding, Xiao Ai Counting Service: Today’s completed Finger-Snapping Blossom Technique 1 time, 99 remaining.]
[Ding, … Today’s completed Golden Eyes Technique 1 time, 99 remaining.]
Zhao Keran: “…”
She saw it.
Her senior sister had definitely seen it.
While doing squats to train her legs, her senior sister had seen the words on the wooden sign from three steps away using the Golden Eyes Technique.
If only her senior sister weren’t stuck at Qi Transformation Stage 3, a genius cursed by heaven for cultivating so slowly, she would have already become the six-sided cultivator mentioned in her book “Fastest Cultivation”!
She would know everything, be strong at everything, and use very little cultivation time!
Look, in one breath, her senior sister had completed three training exercises… Who else could do that!
“Senior sister,” Zhao Keran felt the shame of being caught passing notes by the master, “This person is strange, but I don’t believe him at all!”
Before she could finish speaking, another wooden sign was thrown over.
—It’s been three years, Zhao Keran. You still haven’t woken up. Why must you live with that woman, Lin Shuang?
—She will only hold back your cultivation.
Zhao Keran’s scalp tingled again.
Lin Shuang picked it up again and handed it to her. “Will he throw it 98 more times?”
Only 98 more times, and she would complete her three training exercises for the day.
Zhao Keran: “…”
She looked around, seeing outer sect disciples standing or chatting in small groups, not knowing who had thrown the wooden sign to her.
A world where only the wooden signs were hurt had been achieved.
At the gathering point outside the mountain gate, Xu Rui, the outer sect steward dressed in green robes with a Bagua sword on his back, had been waiting for a long time.
Standing to his left was the steward from Sea and Mountain Sect, dressed in earth-colored yellow robes.
On the north and south sides, disciples from the two sects stood facing each other, glaring provocatively.
“Today, we must show you our strength!”
“Hehe, we haven’t seen many breakthroughs in a year!”
“Sea and Mountain, the supreme in the east.”
“The spiritual spring belongs to us Clearwater! Sea and Mountain can’t even touch it!”
The more hot-headed disciples from both sects had already started shouting challenges at each other from a distance.
Lin Shuang stood with her hands behind her back, looking at them one by one, completing half of her daily plan for the Golden Eyes Technique in an instant.
“Silence!”
When the disciples were all gathered, Xu Rui and the steward from Sea and Mountain Sect each calmed their respective sects.
A sword flew out from behind them, rising into the sky.
The sword qi scattered nine-colored radiance, descending onto the outer sect disciples from both sects.
As the nine-colored light descended upon them, it instantly transformed into nine halos of martial arts competition.
“The nine items of the spiritual spring have been allocated!”
Brother Xu Rui retrieved his Bagua sword and scanned the crowd.
“Junior brothers and sisters, give it your all!”
Soon, the crowd was in an uproar.
“Ah, why did I get spiritual endurance?”
“Damn it, I’m the worst at speed tests.”
“Speed is great, not tiring. I really want to switch with you.”
“Hey, at least it’s an endurance test, not a one-on-one battle. It’s better than last year.”
“Indeed… Last year, I had a fierce battle that lasted as long as it takes for an incense stick to burn and was nearly beaten to death.”
“Who’s unlucky this year?”
The disciples examined the martial arts patterns on their bodies and exchanged glances with one another.
Soon, their eyes froze.
A small figure shaped like yellow earth— the mark of a one-on-one battle— floated from the top three disciples of their sect, Chen Sixin, Zhou Xuanwu, and Zhao Keran.
It wavered and landed on the slender female cultivator standing behind Zhao Keran.
She had no sword, holding an open picture book in her left hand.
Her spiritual energy was weak, almost imperceptible to them.
The battle aura swiftly enveloped her, immediately activating the wooden badge at her waist.
[Lin Shuang]
[Rank 18888 among outer disciples]
The surrounding disciples fell silent in an instant.
Someone broke the silence.
“Didn’t our outer sect just reach twenty thousand disciples this year?”
18888, the lowest rank!
[Record of Lin Shuang seizing the spiritual spring: 8 wins, 6 absences.]
“Wow, eight wins… Was it those eight wins from last year when she faced a disciple with a broken leg, the year before when she faced an opponent who caught fire and went mad, and before that when she faced a disciple who withdrew due to heartbreak?”
All the disciples had strange and peculiar expressions.
But soon they felt grief, worry.
“How could she draw the one-on-one battle?”
“Ten years in the outer sect, still a low-level Qi Transformation Stage! We’re doomed.”
“Maybe she’s lucky again? Could she win without a fight this year?”
“What are you thinking! The Sea and Mountain Sect are all big losers!”
Lin Shuang flipped through her picture book, a slight smile on her lips, seemingly unaware of the surrounding discussions.
Zhao Keran was anxious.
She was covered by a pale gray little sword, which meant she would compete in sword techniques, only to the point of drawing blood.
“I wish I could switch with my senior sister.”
The one-on-one duel was a genuine combat with real blades, lasting the duration of one incense stick.
A slight mistake could lead to injury.
“Senior sister…”
Just as she was about to speak, a noise arose.
The dark patterns on Lin Shuang’s body gradually lit up, outlining a faint glow.
It went to the side of a male swordsman from the Sea and Mountain Sect with the same pattern.
Zhao Keran looked at the opponent and held her breath.
This person was different from the other disciples of Sea and Mountain Sect. He wore a magnificent robe shining like the sun, with an emerald jade belt, dazzlingly bright.
But uniquely, his left hand, adorned with three jade rings, held a bulky sword.
The sword was wrapped in thick cloth, its color like a green robe.
It clashed with his golden and splendid attire.
“Xiao Qi!”
“Top three among the outer disciples of Sea and Mountain Sect!”
“Obsessed with the sword… It’s him. Lin Shuang will definitely lose.”
Zhao Keran sucked in a breath. She had heard of this person before, known for his extraordinary understanding of the sword, but had never fought him.
But with just a distant glance, she could feel the thick sword intent from his sword and the surging spiritual energy.
He was at Qi Transformation Stage 9, even higher than her!
“Alas, the strategy of replacing weak horses with strong ones. Lin Shuang’s good luck won’t help this time.”
“Just give up. It’s better than wasting healing pills!”
“True, it’s better to use the pills for me.”
Zhao Keran glared angrily. Did they eat her pills?
“Senior sister…”
She was worried and turned back, only to find the space beside her already empty.
Lin Shuang had put away her picture book and, with her hands behind her back, had already walked toward Xiao Qi.
Zhao Keran could only anxiously transmit her voice.
“Brother Xiao Qi, my senior sister’s cultivation is far below yours.”
“Please go easy on her. If she gets hurt, there’s a Spring Recovery Pill in her spatial bag…”
She kept chattering, her little junior sister acting like a worried old mother.
Until the isolation formation surrounded the disciples from Clearwater Sect and Sea and Mountain Sect, her voice gradually faded away.
Lin Shuang sighed.
In recent years, her junior sister had become increasingly talkative, which was not conducive to time management. She wanted to become the fastest cultivating woman in the quickest way possible.
“The nine items of the spiritual spring, begin!”
The bell rang loudly before the two mountains.
Inside the isolation formation.
Among the outer disciples of Sea and Mountain Sect, Xiao Qi, ranked in the top three, was wearing a dazzling golden robe like the rising sun, smiling confidently.
But the next moment, when he looked down at his opponent, the corner of his handsome mouth stiffened.
This woman wore a green robe, her snow-white skin almost blending into the frost of the world.
Her phoenix eyes and black eyelashes were like butterflies, delicate and weak, just like her spiritual energy in the dantian… Was it Qi Transformation Stage 4 or 3? So weak that he could hardly sense it?
Xiao Qi’s sword seemed to sigh.
He had thought the young lady from Clearwater Sect who spoke earlier was being too modest.
He had imagined his opponent might be a bit weak, but he hadn’t expected her to be this weak! Qi Transformation Stage 3? Was this a joke?
Xiao Qi sighed, gently patting the bulky long sword wrapped in several layers of soft cloth.
“I’ll go easy on you. But junior sister, you’d better listen to your little junior sister and take out the Spring Recovery Pill from your spatial bag beforehand…”
Otherwise, with just a bit more force, she could be seriously injured.
Lin Shuang raised her eyes. “Xiao Ai, what’s my schedule for this afternoon?”
Xiao Qi’s foot paused.
He looked puzzled.
Who is Xiao Ai?
“Ding! Xiao Ai is here to serve you wholeheartedly. This afternoon’s schedule includes 1. Fat-burning exercise for one incense stick; 2. Talisman practice…”
“?”
Xiao Qi chuckled, his handsome face even more dazzling under the brocade clothes.
He thought a meaningless transmission talisman like this could disturb his mind?
“Excuse me.”
He wrapped his sword in cloth and, with the scabbard, swiftly struck her left arm!
He only used half of his strength, but even a cultivator at Qi Transformation Stage 6 would spit blood instantly.
“If you faint, I’ll feed you the Spring Recovery Pill—”
As he spoke, he looked for her spatial bag at her waist, wanting to pat it open to take the medicine. But before he could finish speaking, he felt his sword stop.
It was as if he had hit a sea of surging spiritual energy, deep thousands of feet and wide thousands of miles.
Layer upon layer of spiritual energy surged, shaking his wrist painfully.
“?”
Xiao Qi’s handsome face changed, and he instinctively pulled back his sword.
But his entire arm seemed to sink into a swamp, unable to move!
He looked up and saw the delicate female disciple, who was only at Qi Transformation Stage 3, her long eyelashes sparkling under the bright sunlight.
“I have to exercise and sweat for half an hour today.”
“So, your strength—”
She pressed on the sword and smiled.
“Is too light.”
Xiao Qi: “…!”
*
Later, one of Lin Shuang’s greatest pleasures was flipping through the notes of her junior sister and everyone else.
*
See you tomorrow, random red packets will be dropped, muah muah to everyone!
Tai Sui Yellow Amulet Paper FuLu Taoist Love Talisman Traditional Chinese Spiritual Charm Attracting Love Protecting Marriage