Three days later... (Night)

It was hell! Absolute hell.

For the past few days, unhappily, Mei had forced herself to work and cultivate during all her free time. She had more free time than normal too, as Xuefang informed them that the weapon elders decided to only train the students 3 days a week from now on. She wasn't sure if she was grateful or not.

Apparently, some students complained about not having enough free time to work, cultivate or relax. Understandable, as the training often got as late as 4 to 6 in the afternoon.

Like a puppet, she worked for the octopus in the morning and cultivated from afternoon to night at the Spirit elder's residence. The closest thing to free time she allowed herself were the visits to Yang Ning to buy pills.

Mei absorbed the qi with a scrunched expression on her face, pushing against the bottleneck as hard as she could. Quickly, she reached into her bag and swallowed the rest of the pills she bought.

"AHHHH!" she shouted.

The 9th level!

There was no boom, no dramatic effect. But it made her ecstatic all the same.

Finally...

The last few days, she felt like a zombie. She had exercised so much willpower to keep herself away from slacking.

"I don't ever want to do that again... never again..." she said weakly, covered in sweat and looking rather miserable. She laid on the ground, unmoving.

A small part of her thought about how she would still need to break through to the Foundational level later, but she quickly suppressed it. She didn't want to face reality, not right now. She deserved a moment of rest.

The breakthrough filled her body with energy, but because of how mentally exhausted she was, she didn't want to move a single inch.

A few moments later, her eyes closed, letting her drift into peaceful sleep. She had sweet dreams that night.

As Mei headed to the cafeteria, she was filled with anxiety.

Right now, what she wanted to do was proudly proclaim she had reached the peak of Qi Gathering. But from her past 'suffering', she was afraid. What if everyone was already in the Foundational realm?

Liu Qiang was wolfing down food from 2 plates as usual, and Yingyi was slowly savouring the food, bite by bite. Xiuying was doing most of the chatting.

"Good morning, Mei!" Xiuying waved to her.

"Good morning." Mei faked a smile.

Xiuying looked back, a strange look on her face.

"Mei... these past few days, I noticed you seemed a bit... down? I wasn't brave enough to ask previously, but did anything happen?"

Backing her into a corner again from niceness... Classic Xiuying. Mei steeled herself. There was no way they were already at the foundational realm!

"Well, I've been working really hard the last few days, working and cultivating! I didn't even sleep for 3 days..." she sighed. "But I finally broke into the peak of Qi Gathering!"

"Ohh!" Xiuying widened her eyes (Mei was a little offended) before smiling. "Congrats!"

Yingyi raised an eyebrow and gave her a thumbs up.

"Waait, yreou didn't srleep at all?" Liu Qiang said, talking with his mouth full. "Dridn't you feel tired?"

"Well-" Mei began but was interrupted by Xiuying.

"You shouldn't do that! Don't you remember what the sect master said in his first lecture? Even though cultivation will stop you from being tired, you still need to sleep to rest your mind!" she said. "Uh... something about... uh... the mind using that downtime to sort memories?"

Mei didn't recall him saying that at all. She did zone out a few times during the lecture. Though, it seems Xiuying wasn't paying full attention either, making Mei rather happy. She dreaded the idea of her friends being 'pure' workaholics.

"Well, I slept very well yesterday, so it should be fine," Mei said with a smile. "I think."

The reason for her smile? As she talked, she had assessed their auras. They were still at the 9th level, meaning she had finally caught up! It left her in such a good mood that she was smiling through the whole conversation.

Xiuying even commented that she'd never seen Mei smile so much before.

Time passed quickly, and before she knew it, she had cleaned her plate.

"I'll be going off first!" she said.

Sure, she did enjoy talking to her friends, but after all that hard work, she wanted some 'me time'! She was going to spend the rest of the day having fun.

2:23, Afternoon.

Mei put down the book, "The Asura's Purge, Volume 1", satisfied.

To summarise it, the main character had his parents killed by Demonic Cultivators at a young age, so he swore to kill all the evil cultivators.

She didn't really like how preachy the main character was at times and felt like he had too much plot armour, but it was still a fun read, unlike the monk novel.

For a moment, she considered reading the next book, but she felt like she had read enough for now.

The tree loomed with its mighty branches in the clouds, stealing the bounty of the sun from the earth beneath.

No matter how many times Mei saw it, it filled her with awe.

She had decided to come here, not to cultivate, god forbid that, but because she enjoyed the atmosphere. Plus, she had saved 24 Jade! In her bag, they made soft little clinking sounds as she walked. As she had gotten a lot better with the chopping, the generous octopus increased her pay to 4 Jade per hour. Though... Xiuying's was 8 per hour.

It made her jealous, but she couldn't complain. Xiuying's cutting technique and speed were just... inhuman. She definitely deserved the high pay.

Mei strolled over to the area Yang Ning set up shop, but this time, not to buy stuff from him.

As she walked passed his shop, she heard the hiss of a snake. For some reason, he ended up taking in the little snake as a pet. Whenever she came to buy pills the last few days, it would hide behind his head and hiss at her.

Today, she was here to buy stuff from the middle-aged man who set up shop near Yang Ning's. From the name tag pinned to his robes, she could see his name was Ding Fang.

It might seem a bit odd to buy food while the octopus already cooked amazing food for the whole sect; but Ding Fang specialised in snack foods, something the octopus didn't cook much of!

Spring rolls, youtiao, chinese carrot cake, steamed dumplings, you name it. The list was incredibly long. It was almost as if he cooked literally every snack food that he knew of! Mei had seen people indulge in those snack foods back in her peasant days, but she had never gotten to try them.

It wasn't that she couldn't afford them, her mom just said it was a huge waste of money.

Outside his shop, Ding Fang had set up 4 round tables, each with 6 chairs. Mei could see several disciples chattering and eating. The queue was rather short right now, but to her surprise, Xuefang was there!

The last person she'd expect to see here was an elder. She thought they'd be buying stuff from 'high-classed' places...

"Oh, Mei Xiu." he turned over and waved, while chewing on a youtiao.

Mei tried her best to smile, really hoping he wouldn't scold her. He was rather fierce during training after all.

"Greetings, master." she bowed, trying to be polite.

Xuefang sighed.

"You don't need to be so stiff and formal around me. Just act naturally."

"Right..."

Easier said than done.

After buying her fill of snacks, spending 1 Jade, she ended up sitting on the same table as him and several other random disciples.

Xuefang ended up being rather nice, friendly even. Because of his fierce looks and harsh training, she didn't expect him to be so amiable.

But as they talked, suddenly, Xuefang's face was filled with shock.

"What's wrong?" a disciple asked.

"Meow."

From the distance, a cat sauntered towards the tables. Its fur was pure white and extremely fluffy. It was slender, cute and elegant at the same time, its dazzling blue eyes filled with cat-like arrogance. A few disciples walked up to it and tried to pet it, but it kept walking.

In an instant, the elder's face was drained of colour.

"I'll, uh, be taking my leave," he said.

A ring on his hand glowed, bathing him in light. And then he was gone.