Xue Mingzhao felt her blood pressure spiking. Taking two deep breaths, she reached the end of her patience. “Today, you're either drawing Qi into my body to help me cultivate, or we go down together! If I lose you, at worst I'll just live as a mortal. You, on the other hand, can just wait for death!”
“Wait, wait, wait!” The Chaos Spiritual Root's voice cracked. “I was just joking! Where is your sense of humor? I'll help you draw Qi into your body right now. Right this very instant!”
The moment it finished speaking, the spiritual energy that had been blocked outside came rushing in.
Xue Mingzhao sat on her bed without moving a muscle as the spiritual energy practically lined up to drill into her body.
Looking down, she watched stream after stream of filtered, faintly glowing white spiritual energy flow through the meridians in her arms and toward her dantian. She couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.
Wouldn't it have been easier if you'd just done this from the start? You just had to wait for a threat to get to work.
As the Chaos Spiritual Root worked hard to absorb spiritual energy, it cursed itself a thousand times over.
To think that it, the grand Chaos Spiritual Root, a noble existence that had been around since the dawn of heaven and earth—
—was actually threatened by a little girl who didn't even know how to draw Qi into her body, with a dagger pointed right at her dantian.
How humiliating. Absolutely humiliating.
It was never meant to belong to anyone's body, let alone help someone absorb spiritual energy to cultivate.
It had been sleeping perfectly fine when it was mysteriously stuffed into this brat's body. What was even weirder was that it couldn't get out no matter what it tried.
It had planned to stay invisible and play dead forever. After all, a mortal's lifespan was only a few decades. Once this body died of old age, it would regain its freedom.
Yet, this damn girl had somehow sensed its existence.
Not only did she sense it, she even threatened it with a dagger.
A dagger! A piece of junk forged from mortal iron.
But now it was trapped in this body, unable to leave and unable to hide.
If this crazy girl really stabbed herself and destroyed her dantian, would it even survive? It didn't have the slightest clue.
The more it thought about it, the more frustrated it felt.
You want spiritual energy, don't you?
Fine, have at it.
Absorb it until your dantian can't hold it anymore, until your meridians can't take the strain.
Once she was in absolute agony, it would slowly stop and establish some ground rules. Who was the master, who was the subordinate, and who got the final say would have to be renegotiated.
And also, stop calling it a transparent bead!
The more the Chaos Spiritual Root thought about it, the more pleased it became. It put all its strength into dragging in all the surrounding spiritual energy, pouring it directly into her dantian like a torrent.
After the first wave poured in, Xue Mingzhao had no reaction whatsoever.
After the second wave, she remained as steady as a mountain.
Refusing to believe its eyes, the Chaos Spiritual Root poured in a third wave, a fourth, and a fifth.
The spiritual energy rushed into her dantian like an opened floodgate, moving so fast that it kicked up a spiritual wind in the room. All the surrounding spiritual energy was dragged in, forming a miniature vortex around her.
Xue Mingzhao sat cross-legged on her bed, blinked, and felt absolutely nothing.
No swelling, no aching, not even a trace of feeling bloated.
The spiritual energy poured in like water into a bottomless pit, leaving not even an echo.
Her dantian was like a bottomless rice jar, impossible to fill no matter how much was poured inside.
The Chaos Spiritual Root was dumbfounded.
This wasn't right. A normal person would have been screaming in pain from being stuffed like this. Why didn't she have any reaction at all?
After waiting for a long time, Xue Mingzhao looked down at her quiet dantian, then at the transparent bead that was clearly stunned. She asked in earnest, “Are you slacking off?”
Chaos Spiritual Root: “...”
In truth, Xue Mingzhao had already noticed what was happening during the second wave.
This fellow wanted to burst her.
She almost laughed in exasperation. Just a moment ago, it was claiming it was only joking, and the next second, it was playing dirty.
Just as she was about to find a way to stop it, she realized something was off—her dantian didn't feel bloated at all.
Forget bloating—with how much spiritual energy had poured in, it was like a drop of water falling into the ocean, failing to kick up even a tiny splash.
It was completely unlike the descriptions in the books about aching meridians, swelling dantians, and feeling suffocated as if one's entire body had been inflated like a balloon.
She felt absolutely nothing.
Xue Mingzhao looked down at her flat abdomen, lost in thought.
Her dantian seemed to be a bit different from everyone else's.
The Chaos Spiritual Root had poured energy for what felt like ages, leaving it exhausted. Yet when it looked up, not only was Xue Mingzhao completely fine, but she was even looking down at her dantian with a slight smirk. Her expression clearly said: That's it?
The Chaos Spiritual Root instantly blew its top and went on strike.
With a whoosh, it stopped absorbing spiritual energy and shrank deep into the recesses of her dantian. Its outline faded, and it went invisible to play dead.
Xue Mingzhao called out to it twice, but received no response.
She didn't bother pressing the issue. Since she had already absorbed quite a bit of spiritual energy, she would refine it first.
Following the techniques in the Qi drawing scripture, she converted the spiritual energy in her dantian, stream by stream, into her own origin true Qi.
Absorbing it had been as easy as drinking water, but once she reached the refining phase, the smile slid right off her face.
The spiritual energy purified by the Chaos Spiritual Root was excessively pure. Every single strand felt like boiling oil being poured into her meridians.
It stretched her meridians until they throbbed, and the depths of her dantian felt like someone was stirring it violently with a spoon—aching, swelling, and carrying an indescribable dull pain.
She gritted her teeth as cold sweat broke out on her forehead in waves, but she didn't make a sound.
The Chaos Spiritual Root stopped playing dead and immediately popped up to watch the show. “If it hurts, just scream. No one's going to hear you anyway. My purified spiritual energy is incredibly potent. Just bear with it and it'll pass.”
Xue Mingzhao ignored it, refining, gathering, and sinking those streams of spiritual energy into her dantian one by one.
By the time the last stream of spiritual energy was converted into true essence and settled firmly, she looked as if she had just been pulled out of a river, her clothes completely soaked through.
A quarter of an hour later, she opened her eyes.
The first level of Qi Condensation!
She glanced down at her dantian, intending to mock the Chaos Spiritual Root with a few sharp words, but when her gaze accidentally swept across her palm, she froze.
On the five-colored petal birthmark in her palm, the second petal had gained color.
It was a light green, but not a pure green. Its surface seemed to be covered with a thin layer of gray, looking misty and overcast.
Xue Mingzhao stared at her palm for a long while.
Among the five elements, gold was represented by white and gold, while wood was represented by green.
The light green of the second petal seemed to correspond perfectly to the wood element.
Did that mean the first milky-white petal corresponded to gold?
Five petals, with each representing one of the five elements?
She turned her palm over and looked again.
She couldn't figure it out.
This birthmark had followed her for two lifetimes and had always remained completely unchanged. Yet ever since she arrived in this world, its petals had begun to change colors, one after another.
The first had changed when she encountered that five-colored spirit flower, and the second had changed just as she broke through to the first level of Qi Condensation.
She couldn't figure out the pattern behind this for the time being.
She decided to refine the remaining spiritual energy first.
She closed her palm, shut her eyes again, and circulated the Qi drawing scripture.
Her meridians felt as if someone was tapping them from the inside out with bamboo slats, a dull ache climbing up her spine all the way to the back of her head.
She gritted her teeth and continued to push upward.
Success! The second level of Qi Condensation!
Yet, she didn't stop there, continuing to push her limits.
The purified spiritual energy ran rampant in her meridians. The depths of her dantian were so sore and swollen that it felt as if a piece of red-hot iron had been stuffed inside. The heat made her entire body tremble. She clenched her hands until her knuckles turned white, nearly biting through her lip.
Finally!
The third level of Qi Condensation!
Xue Mingzhao snapped her eyes open, panting heavily.
She collapsed onto the bed, too exhausted to even lift a finger.
More than half of the spiritual energy in her dantian remained. If she continued refining, pushing to the fifth level of Qi Condensation wouldn't be a problem.
But she knew that if she continued cultivating like this, she would arouse the sect's suspicion.
A person who was still a useless mortal without a spiritual root yesterday, leaping to the fifth level of Qi Condensation overnight—who would ever believe that?
Rate on N.U.
