The moon hung high in the sky.
Unlike in the Sword Sun era, the moon of the Lingyuan Era still looked just as people remembered it: soft and gentle, spilling its light across the entire Lower Courtyard Island.
On Lower Courtyard Island of Ethereal Dao College, among the many peaks that belonged to each department, the Armament Peak might not be the single richest in spiritual energy, but it was definitely among the best.
After all, every student in the Armament Department spent their daily cultivation time doing one thing—refining spirit stones. The consumption of spiritual qi was enormous.
And unlike the students of other departments, this near-limitless supply of spiritual energy, along with their specialized refining techniques, wasn't free. Every year, they had to hand over a fixed amount of spirit stones as a "year-end assessment fee," and that alone was no small expense.
At the same time, within the Armament Department, almost everything besides the three public lecture halls cost spirit stones—meals, special training rooms, you name it. All of it burned money.
The result was obvious: every Armament student was racing against time to refine spirit stones.
The Alchemy Department operated on a similar model, but even they weren't as extreme as the Armament Department. As for the other faculties, earning spirit stones was even simpler: many cultivation grounds originally restricted to their own students were partially opened to outsiders—at a very steep price.
The Beast-Taming Department's Jingyun Mountain, the Formation Department's Eight-Treasure Diagram, the Mechanist Department's Frozen Tower, the Battle Martial Department's Magma Chamber… all of them were auxiliary cultivation sites that helped practitioners at the peak of the Blood Qi stage break through into the Body-Sealing Realm. Every day, countless students from other departments flocked to them.
Just this one business alone was enough to cover the bulk of each department's daily expenses.
At this moment, on Armament Peak, invisible streams of spiritual energy were slowly flowing, split tens of thousands of ways and gently drawn into the bodies of Armament students. Compared to anyone else's share, however, the spiritual qi near the mountaintop—by the special-recruit cave residence—was surging in chunks, rushing toward a single place.
Inside that cave, Wang Baole was in high spirits, tirelessly circulating the Grand Void Devouring Art.
Large amounts of spiritual energy poured into his body, then surged down his arm into his palm. As spirit stones rapidly formed in his hand, his eyes practically glowed.
"I broke through! Hahaha, I broke through!"
Excited, he watched the purity of the spirit stone in his palm surge past seventy-five percent and hit seventy-six. He could barely contain himself. After finishing that stone, he happily pulled out a packet of snacks and started eating.
"Gotta keep pushing—gotta hit eighty percent as soon as possible!"
After a few more packs of snacks, Wang Baole wiped his mouth, ready to start refining again—then suddenly froze.
"I need to be careful… I can't end up like last time, letting my guard down and turning myself into a big fat ball…"
The memory of the last round of weight loss was simply too tragic. Even though he'd stepped from Ancient Martial into the Blood Qi stage, that whole process… was something he never wanted to experience again.
"The road of losing weight is long and bitter… Only someone as tough and unyielding as me can walk it to the end."
He sighed and encouraged himself seriously, very satisfied with his own "vigilance." Feeling that he deserved a little reward, he took out another packet of snacks, crunched his way through it, patted his belly, and then resumed refining spirit stones…
Maybe it was good luck, or maybe the Clear-Spirit Pill had been too effective.
In the following days, the purity of Wang Baole's spirit stones rose steadily—but his body, unlike before, did not start accumulating spirit fat.
It was as if, after expelling so much filth, his body had adapted to the flow of spiritual qi. The influx no longer pooled and congealed into fat, but passed smoothly through him, both raising the purity of his spirit stones and, bit by bit, tempering his physique.
His Blood Qi stage quietly advanced by quite a lot.
This made Wang Baole even happier. When his spirit stone purity finally reached eighty percent while his figure remained nice and slim, his vigilance gradually loosened, and he threw himself completely into refining.
Time flowed by like water.
Meanwhile, over in the Battle Martial Department, Zhuo Yifan—still aching all over from the beating he'd taken—was gritting his teeth in his cave and seething.
He was furious, but also helpless. Unlike Wang Baole, he belonged to a different department. Many of the methods and tricks he might have used simply didn't apply across faculty lines.
"Wang Baole!!"
The unwillingness in Zhuo Yifan's heart simmered. After thinking for a long time, his eyes suddenly lit up. He remembered that he did have a friend in the Armament Department—the head student of the Spirit Stone Class, Jiang Lin.
Their relationship wasn't exactly brother-level, but it was decent. A small favor shouldn't be an issue.
Immediately, Zhuo Yifan pulled out his transmission ring, contacted Jiang Lin, and then set it aside, smiling coldly.
"Wang Baole, even if you're in the Armament Department, I've still got ways to make you suffer!"
Day after day passed.
Two months went by in a blink.
During those two months, Wang Baole's spirit stone purity had slowly climbed to around eighty-four percent, and his Blood Qi cultivation had quietly neared its great circle.
If the Battle Martial students ever found out, they'd probably cough blood on the spot. Wang Baole's progress in Ancient Martial was actually faster than many of those who specialized in it on Battle Martial Peak.
"Hahaha, looks like the side effects of the Grand Void Devouring Art really have been completely dealt with by that Clear-Spirit Pill!"
Wang Baole was elated, feeling that his spirit stones—and his pill purchase—had been worth every coin.
"At this rate, I should be able to hit eighty-five percent. Once I reach ninety percent, I'll become head of the Spirit Stone Class, and my road to the peak of life officially begins!"
Just imagining it made him so excited that he drew in the surrounding spiritual qi with all his might, condensing it in his palm as he prepared to charge straight for eighty-five percent purity.
But ever since the semester began, Wang Baole had thrown himself into the Grand Void Devouring Art, rarely attending lectures at the Spirit Stone Class.
So he had no idea…
That there was a natural bottleneck at eighty-five percent.
More precisely: spirit stones below fifty percent purity could still be used, but most people simply called them "ordinary spirit stones."
Once purity reached fifty percent, they were considered low-grade.
Seventy-five percent and above counted as mid-grade.
And the dividing line between mid-grade and high-grade… was eighty-five percent.
At eighty-five, it became high-grade. If it reached ninety-five and above, it became a top-grade spirit stone—a single one of which was worth an enormous amount and could only be refined by true masters.
The bottleneck between mid and high-grade… for those cultivating conventional Spirit Refinement Arts, required both opportunity and mastery of technique to break through.
But the terrifying nature of the Grand Void Devouring Art truly revealed itself the moment it hit this barrier.
Almost at the instant Wang Baole pushed the stone in his palm from eighty-four toward eighty-five percent, his body suddenly jolted.
Deep inside him, where the Devouring Seed usually spun slowly, an unprecedented suction exploded outward!
The intensity of that eruption far exceeded anything Wang Baole had prepared for or even imagined.
In that instant, every wisp of spiritual energy in his cave residence was sucked dry!
The vacuum created there was like a natural black hole.
It was as if someone had punched a hole through the sea of spiritual qi surrounding Armament Peak—countless currents of spiritual energy tilted and poured toward that one point.
Fortunately, the peak's gathering formations quickly adjusted and diverted the impact; otherwise the whole mountain would have been cleansed in an instant.
And with Wang Baole's Devouring being fast above all else, the total amount he swallowed, though overwhelming inside the cave, was still tiny compared to the entire spiritual reservoir of the peak. So, aside from a faint pause in the surrounding spiritual qi, no one really noticed anything at all.
For Wang Baole, however, that sudden surge of absorption was like a mighty river crashing into his body.
His mind rang out with a buzz.
Under that terrifying influx of spiritual energy, he had no time to channel all of it into his palm. The excess began to rapidly accumulate into spirit fat…
His body visibly puffed up.
But in his palm, the spirit stone was finally, under that violent impact, shoved past eighty-four percent and straight to—
Eighty-five.
It was no longer mid-grade, but a high-grade spirit stone.
Light flowed across its surface, brilliance rippling. It was crystal-clear and dazzling. While not quite on the level of the one Instructor Zou had refined in class that day, it wasn't too far behind. Both were high-grade, and both were extremely valuable.
But Wang Baole… could not be happy.
He stared blankly at the unrecognizable mass that was now his body.
The stone in his hand slipped from his fingers, landed on his belly with a soft plop, bounced, and rolled down to the floor.
When he lowered his head… he could only see his own stomach.
The spirit stone was completely out of sight.
After a long, long moment—
A shrill scream echoed from the cave.
Wang Baole was on the verge of tears. He glanced at his raised hands, then at his belly, and howled.
"Nooo! My perfect figure!"
"How could this happen…"
Overcome with grief and fury, he tried to stand—only to discover he couldn't get up.
That almost broke him.
He could practically feel a chill wind rising around him. In his daze, it was as if countless plump grandpas were walking toward him from all directions, smiling kindly and beckoning him to join their ranks.
"I just wanted to become head student… Why is the road so full of suffering…"
Miserable, he forced himself up and squeezed his way to the cave entrance.
When he managed to waddle through the doorway and realized he could still get out, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.
He'd been genuinely afraid that he'd grown so fat he'd be stuck inside. If that had happened… it really would've been game over.
Thankfully, it was late at night and no one saw him. Otherwise, people would've thought some enormous beast had descended on the peak.
In that cloud of sorrow, Wang Baole gritted his teeth and charged out like a madman, throwing himself once again into running laps around the island.
But this time… it didn't seem to be working.
Even when he snuck off to the weightlifting grounds while no one was around and went crazy with the training—adding more and more weight—it still had only a tiny effect. Far from the results he wanted.
"Gods, what am I supposed to do!"
汗水顺着他的额头流了下来.王宝乐这下真的慌了,他唯一能想到的办法就是上网搜索减肥方法.
被誉为近乎无所不知的灵网充斥着各种帖子和闲聊.通常情况下,想从这堆乱麻中找到任何有用的东西都是一件令人头疼的事.
但这对于一个胖子来说,却是生死攸关的大事.
其他人可能会毫不犹豫地滑过——但一个眼里只有"减肥"这几个字的人,总能从最普通的帖子中嗅出隐藏的线索.
例如...战斗武术部的岩浆室.
"战武峰的岩浆室简直就是地狱.太痛苦了.我在里面汗流浃背..."
"那地方简直是人间炼狱.我只在里面待了烧完一根香的时间,出来就瘦了一磅.我真是太可怜了..."
王宝乐看着人们一篇又一篇抱怨岩浆室的帖子,呼吸一窒,眼睛突然亮了起来.
"岩浆室...岩浆室!"
这就像溺水者抓住了一根吸管.
他猛地抬起头,盯着战武峰的方向,然后拔腿就跑.
在月光下,从远处望去,可以看到一个巨大的轮廓——就像某种巨大的野兽——以惊人的速度横穿小岛,隆隆地向前滚动.
"我要减肥!!"