Chapter 43: Luxury
The bed in the secret chamber was covered with low-grade spirit stones, making the entire room gleam with a silvery sheen. Lu You sat cross-legged on top of the stones. To speed up absorption, he buried half his body in the pile and even held a spirit stone in his mouth.
After just one circulation of spiritual energy, over a hundred low-grade spirit stones turned to ash. The small hill of stones on the bed visibly shrank, then was visibly replenished. After nearly a thousand such cycles, Lu You felt a tearing pain in his dantian, but the bottleneck at the fifth level of Qi Refining was already on the verge of breaking. Gritting his teeth and enduring the pain, Lu You pushed through with another full circulation.
"Hiss—so painful."
Lu You successfully broke through to the sixth level of Qi Refining, but the pain made him curl up on the bed, clutching his stomach.
In an instant, spiritual energy flooded into his body like water released from a dam. His dantian couldn't quite adapt. After using several Purifying Heart Talismans, Lu You turned his inner vision to his dantian and found that it had swollen considerably, crisscrossed with dense red bloodshot lines, like a balloon about to burst.
He hurriedly took out Healing Talismans and used them on himself one after another. It took a full hundred before the tearing pain in his dantian finally subsided. When he looked inward again, he was astonished to find that the red bloodshot lines had vanished, and his dantian had even grown a bit larger.
"So cultivating spiritual energy is actually similar to training muscles."
When training muscles, you first apply load through weightlifting and workouts, causing tiny tears in the muscle fibers. This stimulates muscle cells to grow thicker and stronger, increasing strength, endurance, and size.
Second, during exercise, the load causes micro-damage and temporary atrophy of muscle fibers. With sufficient rest and nutrition, the damaged muscles recover and even grow beyond their original size. This process of surpassing the original level is known as supercompensation.
Just now, absorbing a massive amount of spirit stones was a form of load stimulation for Lu You's dantian. Afterward, by nourishing himself with a hundred Healing Talismans, he completed the supercompensation process—so his dantian expanded slightly.
"Let's hope there aren't any hidden side effects."
Lu You used several hundred more Healing Talismans in rapid succession. Only when his body began to sweat, as if he had taken a hot bath, did he finally stop.
"The nourishment from Healing Talismans is ultimately external. If I had medicinal pills, combining cultivation with pill absorption would be even better."
Thinking of how outer sect disciples received three Qi-Nourishing Pills each month, Lu You couldn't help feeling tempted. He wondered whether he could find a way to obtain better pills—or even learn alchemy himself.
Setting those plans aside for now, Lu You once again circulated his cultivation technique to absorb spirit stones. This time, the swelling sensation in his dantian didn't appear. Having just broken through to the sixth level of Qi Refining, he still had plenty of room before reaching the level peak, so this shortcut of forcibly expanding his dantian wouldn't work again for the time being.
"What a pity, this method only works to expand the dantian when it's at the peak of each level."
Judging his current cultivation speed, if he absorbed spirit stones daily, he could reach the seventh level of Qi Refining in at most a week.
By that logic, if each level were equally difficult, he could reach the peak of the tenth level within two months. Even if each level were harder than the last, it wouldn't take more than half a year.
"By that reckoning, I could touch Foundation Establishment by the time I'm twenty. Wouldn't that make me half a genius?"
In high spirits after this realization, Lu You took out some spirit wine and had a few drinks, then ate three big bowls of spiritual rice. Only then did he lie back on the bed and enter the Blood Shadow Technique to continue cultivating his sword technique.
Within the blood mist, Lu You and Zeng Yan had already fought thousands upon thousands of times. A single shadow of Zeng Yan was no longer any match for Lu You. At this point, the terrifying power of the Evil Eye finally showed itself—so long as it was given enough cultivation origin blood, the Evil Eye could actually replicate multiple shadows of Zeng Yan. This time, within the Blood Shadow technique, Lu You was fighting three Zeng Yan at once.
"My swordsmanship has improved again."
The Evil Eye only reproduced the level of Zeng Yan's strength at the time she performed her sword dance, which naturally couldn't compare to her full-power combat state. Even so, three Zeng Yans attacking together were nothing to scoff at. On ordinary days, Lu You could hold out for at most a hundred exchanges before being worn down and defeated by the three of them. Now that he had broken through to the sixth level of Qi Refining, his spiritual energy had caught up, his physique and strength had improved, and his swordsmanship had advanced along with them. The three Zeng Yans were clearly unable to withstand his assault. Even attacking together, they were pressed into a frantic defense. After a fierce clash, Lu You knocked them into disarray. Soon, only Lu You remained standing in the blood mist. All three Zeng Yans had been stabbed by him and lay on the ground, twitching.
"Three Senior Sisters aren't enough anymore. If only I could see true experts fight, then I could copy a few more shadows."
Lu You sighed, then commanded the Evil Eye, "Again. I want to fight ten!"
As his words fell, the three Zeng Yans twitching on the ground vanished. Ten shadows of Zeng Yan slowly emerged from the blood mist. The very next instant, they attacked together. In just one exchange, Lu You was wounded and forced into a frantic retreat.
But this kind of high-difficulty sparring was exactly what Lu You wanted. Constantly fighting on the edge of life and death was the best way to improve swordsmanship. Facing the encirclement of ten Zeng Yans, Lu You fought as he retreated, occasionally trading injuries for injuries. He managed to stab three of the shadows to death before finally revealing an opening and having his throat sealed by a single sword strike.
The Blood Shadow technique copied the shadows of Zeng Yan during her sword dance, so their strength was on par with her performance state. Though they couldn't reach the level of a ninth level Qi Refining sword cultivator fighting at full power, each shadow still possessed the strength of roughly the sixth or seventh level of Qi Refining.
That night, Lu You fought the Zeng Yans to a stalemate, fierce and exhilarating. When daylight finally broke, Lu You opened his eyes and withdrew from the blood mist. After an entire night of bitter combat, not only was his spirit not depleted, he actually felt more energized than ever. This was another function of the Evil Eye: after consuming a large amount of cultivation origin blood, the Blood Shadow technique didn't exhaust Lu You, on the contrary, it nourished his brain.
After getting up and washing, Lu You went to the kitchen and once again cooked three large bowls of spiritual rice. This small building was far more comfortable than the spiritual fields. The duplex design made the living space feel twice as large, and after three years in a tiny wooden hut, Lu You felt utterly refreshed and at ease. If the people of the Deep Literary Pavilion weren't so heartless, this place would truly be a cultivation paradise.
Just as Lu You was about to enjoy this good life a bit longer, knocking sounded from outside the courtyard. Unlike the wooden hut, although the knocking was urgent, the token restriction meant that if Lu You didn't open the door, outsiders couldn't just push their way in. Forcing entry would damage the formation on the house, and the consequence was only one thing: Zhou Lei would come demanding compensation.
When Lu You opened the courtyard gate, a familiar figure stood outside—it was an outer sect disciple who lived in the communal courtyard. Seeing the tranquility inside Lu You's yard through the doorway, a trace of envy flashed in the disciple's eyes. Then he took out a bundle and tossed it straight to Lu You.
"Here, catch. This is the outer sect disciple uniform. From now on, you'll need to wear this set of clothes to move around within the Deep Literary Pavilion's grounds."
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