Over the next week, Jiang Zhaoye was like a nocturnal cat.
Ms. Wen's alarm went off at 7:00 AM every morning. Jiang Zhaoye would return to his room from the ice cave at 6:30 AM to shower, change into pajamas, and show up in the living room, pretending he had just woken up to start preparing breakfast.
After the two of them happily finished breakfast and Ms. Wen left for work at 7:30 AM, student Jiang would bring out the extra spirit rice porridge he had made and wolf it down all at once to replenish the energy drained from his Body Refining. He would then toss all the dishes into the dishwasher and teleport straight back to the ice cave from his room.
When his mom returned home from work around 7:00 or 8:00 PM, student Jiang would usually appear in the kitchen right on time wearing an apron and cooking, looking every bit like a filial son taking the initiative to handle chores.
Strictly speaking, however, he had actually already devoured a ferocious meal prior to this.
The dinner Ms. Wen ate with him, while kept completely in the dark, was actually student Jiang's second extra meal.
After chatting through dinner, Ms. Wen would go to the study to work, while tryhard Jiang would pretend to head back to his room to cultivate.
In reality, cultivating at home was far too inefficient; having tasted luxury, Jiang Zhaoye found it hard to return to frugality.
He usually didn't cultivate at home during this time, mostly just shutting the door and sleeping soundly to catch up on rest in preparation for his night-owl excursions.
Around 10:00 to 11:00 PM, Ms. Wen would knock on his door. If Jiang Zhaoye responded, his mom would gently remind him to rest early.
If she didn't hear a reply, she would open the door, walk in to check on her son, pull up the blanket, stroke his head, and tread lightly on her way out.
Whether it was the effect of practicing the 《Ice Muscle Jade Bone Art》 or the bonus from his spirit eye, Jiang Zhaoye's five senses grew slightly sharper with each passing day.
Normally, he was already awake the moment the first knock sounded.
The teenage boy sometimes chose to answer Ms. Wen, but most of the time, he feigned sleep. Once his mother's footsteps faded into the distance, he would stealthily crawl out of bed and teleport back to the ice cave, officially kicking off his second session of cultivation.
In other words, except for those two windows—from when Ms. Wen woke up until she left, and from when she got off work until she went to bed—when Jiang Zhaoye would deliberately time his returns to maintain the illusion of a normal sleep schedule in front of his mom, he spent almost all remaining time in the ice cave.
Tryhard Jiang even sneaked into the garage to dig out a thermal sleeping bag he had used for mountain climbing in the past. When he got sleepy, he would crawl inside for an hour or so, waking up to resume cultivating.
Because of the three-to-four time ratio, time in the ice cave flowed slower than in reality.
Sleeping six hours in the ice cave only took four and a half hours of real time, which Jiang Zhaoye felt was a much better deal than sleeping at home.
Hard work paid off.
After a week, the stats on his watch had become: [Psionic Energy: Metal 13, Water 38, Ice 51].
His Ice attribute had surged from 23 to 51, up by 28 points; his Water attribute had climbed from 16 to 38, up by 22 points; his Metal attribute remained steady at 13, completely unchanged.
Jiang Zhaoye kept simple records and calculations during his cultivation.
When he first cultivated on the spirit-gathering array, his Ice attribute gained about one point roughly every three and a half hours, while his Water attribute gained one point every six hours.
However, after his Ice attribute stat broke past 40, the growth rate of his Ice attribute dropped sharply.
Even though Jiang Zhaoye could feel that with every single point increase, his body's efficiency and affinity for absorbing spiritual energy were both improving, the time required to gain a single point of Ice attribute still nearly doubled.
Once it hit 50, the growth rate took another dive. Pushing his Ice attribute from 50 to 51 consumed almost an entire day's worth of cultivation time, excluding sleep.
By contrast, the growth rate of his Water attribute hadn't changed, holding steady at one point every six hours.
However, Jiang Zhaoye speculated that once his Water attribute also reached 40, its growth rate would likely slow down just like his Ice attribute did.
On Blue Star, hitting 40 points in a single psionic attribute was a major milestone.
For example, Zhang Mingyan had a Fire attribute only in the low 40s and academic scores far inferior to Jiang Zhaoye's and Li Sining's, yet he was admitted into a top-tier high school in Huaicheng. If he voluntarily chose a second-tier school, he could even receive rewards and subsidies from them.
This was because a single attribute at 40 possessed an awakening potential inherently a tier higher than the 20 to 39 range, yielding a higher success rate when awakening a path and faster cultivation speed after awakening.
By the same logic, every additional 10 points after that represented another tier.
If a single attribute reached 100 and the person awakened the corresponding attribute's path, they would skip cultivation altogether post-awakening and instantly become a Psionic Rank 1. Because of this, people whose single attribute reached 100 before awakening had a nickname: Innate Max Attribute.
Jiang Zhaoye speculated that single attributes actually corresponded to spirit roots in the ice cave world.
During these days of cultivating in the ice cave, whenever he grew fatigued or bored of practicing, he would scurry all over the cave abode, rummaging through boxes and drawers or learning the written language of this world by comparing the content in the jade slips with the books in the cave.
On the very first day of this week, he had accidentally uncovered a spirit testing stone in a chest beside the cold jade bed.
At that time, his psionic values were [Psionic Energy: Metal 13, Water 17, Ice 26], but when he placed his hand on the spirit testing stone, it unhelpfully emitted only a faint trace of deep blue light.
By local standards, it meant he had only tested positive for an ice-attribute pseudo-root and nothing else.
At the time, Jiang Zhaoye guessed that an attribute probably had to break past 20 to count as a spirit root. To confirm this later, he tested himself again when his Water attribute broke 20, and sure enough, it showed dual pseudo-roots of ice and water.
Once his Ice attribute crossed 40, he tested himself once more. As expected, it had upgraded to a low-grade ice spirit root and a water pseudo-root.
Presumably... breaking 40 in a single attribute was a whole new level in both worlds—an aptitude that truly allowed one to step onto the path of cultivation.
While aptitude improved and absorption efficiency increased, the energy required to further raise psionic stats—or rather, spirit root quality—also surged. With the environment remaining unchanged, growth naturally slowed down.
However, Jiang Zhaoye wasn't satisfied with his current Ice attribute of 51. In the online materials and promotional posts about awakening special physiques he had read, a single attribute over 50 was barely considered passing. In Huaicheng alone this year, there were plenty of students without special physiques whose senior high school entrance exams showed single attributes in the 60s or 70s, and those in the 50s or 60s were everywhere.
Expanding to the entire province, there were even people with multiple attributes above 70, or even a single attribute maxing out at 100. A mere 51 left Jiang Zhaoye completely unsatisfied; he had initially expected a steady growth of one point every three and a half hours, thinking he'd reach 61 after a week...
Muttering inwardly, Jiang Zhaoye couldn't help taking out the spirit testing stone. He pressed his hand onto it with practiced ease, and a deep, cold blue followed by a soft, clear cyan-blue lit up in sequence, the light of the former nearly obscuring the latter.
Mid-grade ice spirit root, low-grade water spirit root.
Jiang Zhaoye raised an eyebrow. He had already finished another full day of practicing the 《Ice Muscle Jade Bone Art》 plus the 《Psionic Guiding Technique》. The stat progression, which had slowed to a crawl, left him feeling impatient, and for the moment, he really didn't want to keep cultivating.
Anxious and thoroughly bored, he whimsically pulled out the 《Mystic Ice Mirror》 to give it another shot.
Time slowly flowed as spiritual power circulated silently through his meridians... It felt as though something inside his body was suddenly punctured, like a thin membrane quietly splitting open.
In that instant, his speed of absorbing spiritual energy noticeably accelerated, as if a river channel had been widened. The previously stumbling execution of the 《Mystic Ice Mirror》 suddenly became much smoother.
Utterly mystified, Jiang Zhaoye picked up the jade slip and re-sensed the technique's content for the 《Mystic Ice Mirror》. Comparing against it, he discovered that he had unexpectedly broken through to Second-Layer Qi Refining without even realizing it.
Jiang Zhaoye froze for a moment, then checked again. It was indeed Second-Layer Qi Refining.
Rate on N.U.
