Author’s note: Shout out to Jago Spencer. Any queue is cleared. All donation will be removed, until further notice. Chapters shall be released on a new schedule after hiatus (as we build up more chapters). We wish you all a good day.

In a yard decorated with a small pond and a few small trees, a girl in pink dress was flying across the area. With each step and thrust of her palm, a small wind would be generated from her movements.

After a while, the girl stopped and stood still as she took a deep breath. “Huuu…this is the hundred and fortieth time I practiced this moveset. Now that this is the fifth day I’ve been practicing this, I should have already grasped the [Four Season Palm]’s 3rd layer, Spring under Summer’s Wind.”

After comprehending the first layer of [Four Season Palm], the next two layers almost came naturally for Xie Mei. It was as if the skill was meant for her, allowing her to easily understand its concept and integrate its moves.

Xie Mei looked up at the clear sunny sky as she thought about her young master. A month has nearly passed, with the Annual Clans Gathering happening in just three days. Spring has already skipped away, with the hot humid air replacing the present weather.

Thinking back to her master’s change for the past few months, Xie Mei felt a strange feeling bubbling in her heart. The original hatred and fear she felt towards Jin Xia had by now, extinguished.

After all, while the previous Jin Xia did treat her poorly, it was not to the point of being traumatizing. Rather, the good treatment that Jin Xia had given her for the past few months had been so dramatic and life-changing, that Xie Mei truly felt gratitude at the bottom of heart.

With the hot sun beaming down on her, Xie Mei’s eyes twinkled as she wondered what her young master could be up to now…

“Sister Xie Mei!” A sweet voice called.

Turning around, Xie Mei saw a girl in light green dress skipping over happily. Behind her, were several young children following cutely behind her. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, occasionally laughing and poking at each other while they walked behind Fei Qing.

Besides Fei Qing, a long haired girl in light purple garment gracefully walked towards Xie Mei. Similarly behind her, several children were attentively following behind her.

“Sister Fei Qing. Sister Fei Yu. ” Xie Mei smiled as she greeted the sisters.

When her young master Jin Xia had brought over the two girls, Xie Mei had initially felt a bit conflicted in her heart for some reason. But after getting to personally know the girls, and hearing from them how “Jin Xia had taken pity on them so he took them in”, only then did Xie Mei relax.

And with their living quarters situated right next to each other, the three girls naturally many chances to talk with each other, thus strengthening their bond. By now, the girls were quite fond of one another.

Walking up to Xie Mei, Fei Qing smiled widely as she said excitedly: “Sister Xie Mei, the patriarch told us to start preparing. It seems we’ll be leaving shortly!”

“Yeah, Sister Xie Mei, you have been practicing since the break of dawn. It’s already the afternoon now, so you should go rest and get ready to leave soon.” Fei Yu kindly added as she gave Xie Mei a smile.

Although the two Fei sisters told Xie Mei a fictional reason as to why Jin Xia had taken them in, the two girls were still very comfortable with Xie Mei. They did not want to drag her into their own affairs, thus they did not tell her any details about their goals and revenge.

“Mn. Thank you, Sister Fei Yu and Sister Fei Qing. I will go get my stuff soon.” Xie Mei replied smilingly.

“Hehe, Sister Xie Mei is always so hardworking. Even though I heard you started cultivating later than us, you’re already at the 7th stage of Wudan! This training speed..,I think it would only be right to call Sister Xie Mei a genius now.” Fei Qing giggled happily.

Each time when Xie Mei broke through in the Wudan Realm, she could distinctly feel her bones and muscles strengthening. Her dantian was even expanding a tiny bit as she increased her level.

Moreover, since Xie Mei had diligently ate the martial pills Jin Xia had given her, while training physically each evening, her breakthrough had been relatively painless; with most of the discomfort being whittled away by the pills and her pain sensors being hardened through grueling practices!

Xie Mei smiled as she replied: “Sister Fei Qing, what are you saying? Compared to me, you two sisters are even more amazing…having broken into the Spiritual Dan realm, you’re practically on the same level as our core family members!”

With Jin Xia’s medicine and martial manuals, the Jin Clan members have gone through a dramatic transformation with their cultivation. By now, most of the elders and high level members of the Jin Clan have broken through the Spiritual Dan realm, with many of them being in the 1st stage, while the patriarch was at the 3rd stage of Spiritual Dan.

Even Jin Xia’s mother, Jia Yue Bing, reached the 2nd stage of Spiritual Dan, becoming the second most powerful person in the Jin Clan. Although Jia Yue Bing’s innate quality was the same as her husband, quality of three, because she was nourished with more high-graded pills by Jin Xia, she was able to advance through the Wudan stage with much ease, just like Jin Liu Dan.

This was also how many super-clans tend to ‘powerlevel’ their younger generations, as truly, with a few potent pills and herbs, getting out of the Wudan Realm is not much of an issue; albeit there are many cases of weaker foundations later on…

But with the rapid pace of advancement and high grade skills those super-clansmen tend to be treated with, the weak foundations are often covered up through quantity, rather than quality.

And likewise, with this surge of cultivation, Jia Yue Bing, who had been often neglected due to her low cultivation and gentle personality, instantly became one of the more prominent figures in the Jin Clan. With power, naturally comes greater respect and fame.

As for the younger Jin generation, several of them had reached either the 6th or 7th stage of Wudan, with the strongest now being in the 8th stage.

This was because almost all of the Jin Clan’s younger practitioners only possessed an innate quality of 2 or 3, with an Ordinary Bloodline. Thus, even though the medicine and techniques helped boosted their cultivation speed, they did not increase it to the point where the lower levels could be ascended more ‘easily.’

Besides the Jin Clansmen, though, the Fei sisters made the most progress, having rapidly reached the 3rd stage of Spiritual Dan! However, with their innate quality of 5 combined with great pills and skills, this progress is not out of the expected; if Jin Xia had been there to witness their progress.

“Hey Big Sis Fei Yu~ Uncle Liu Dan said we’ll be leaving soon~”

As the Fei sisters were chatting with Xie Mei, a short, black haired girl ran up towards Fei Yu’s back and gently tugged the latter’s dress as she said in a high pitched voice.

Yu Fei turned towards her and smiled gently as she replied: “Alright, Little Cao Cao, sister will get ready soon, so just wait a bit more, ok?”

“Mmn!” The little girl named ‘Cao Cao’ grinned as she turned around and ran towards her friends.

“Looks like we’ll have to get ready soon.” Xie Mei smiled when she saw this scene. Although she did not personally interact with the children much, having been immersed in her training, but the few times she did she could tell that the children were all good. In fact, some even seemed much more mature than their age revealed…

“Yeah, I’ll head back first and get a few things done before I go. I’ll wait for you outside!” Fei Qing said as she skipped happily away. “Let’s go, children!”

The group of little kids playing around heard Fei Qing’s call, and immediately ran after her, laughing.

“Then I’ll go outside first and wait for you both to get ready.” Fei Yu gently nodded towards Xie Mei before she left as well, with the children following behind her.

Lifting her head towards the sky again, Xie Mei softly murmured to herself. “I wonder how Young Master has been…”

***

“Grr…form for me!” Hu Feng growled under his breath.

His eyes closed, sitting in a lotus-position on a large, gray boulder in the middle of the forest. Beads of sweat was pouring from his forehead, as Hu Feng struggled internally.

At this time, a stern voice rang out:

“Focus! Sense your dantian and guide the Qi inside your body towards it! Just imagine as a sea of water being poured into your dantian! If you run out of Qi, or have difficulty locating anymore inside your body, hurry and start drawing more World Qi around you and continue sending it into your dantian!”

Hu Feng gritted his teeth as he tried to follow Jin Xia’s instructions. Slowly, the World Qi that has been accumulating inside his body started to flow towards his dantian. It felt as if all the energy inside his body was focusing on one point.

“Do not lose your concentration! Do not try to form your Spirit Core yet, let it accumulate! Once you feel as if it’s about to burst, then start condensing it! Imagine the mass of World Qi inside your dantian as a giant, foamy ball; then picture yourself slowly compressing it! Keep on molding it and do not stop! Your core should form by itself automatically afterwards!”

“Ughh…” Sweat rained from every pore on Hu Feng’s chubby body as he seemed to glisten in the morning sun.

Directing his entire attention inside his body, the moment Hu Feng felt his dantian start to flare up, he immediately began to imagine a set of ‘hands’ slowly compressing down ‘mass of Qi ball’ inside his dantian. As he did so, Hu Feng could slowly feel the energy inside the ‘mass of Qi ball’ getting stronger and stronger.

The aura around Hu Feng began to strengthen as well.

After some time, a sudden *BOOM* sound resonated inside Hu Feng’s body, followed by a relaxing *Pshhh* sound. A surge of powerful aura burst out from Hu Feng at the same time, leveling some of the tall stalks of grass around him.

Unlike Jin Xia, Hu Feng was unable to minutely control his soul nor his Qi energy, thus he could not hide his newfound aura from bursting out each time he made a breakthrough.

Usually, within several meters, if a person breaks through, the sudden release of a fresh aura would alert nearby experts. As for whether those experts would visit the person who made a breakthrough with good intention or not…only they would know.

But with Jin Xia by Hu Feng’s side, any dangerous was more or less manageable; adding on to the fact that the duo was in deep in the Sun Forest.

Only extremely few experts could do what Jin Xia did, suppressing his breakthrough aura from leaking.

This was how he had been able to advance in the Jin Clan without any nearby experts noticing, much less even his family who were residing close to him.

“Huuuu…..” Hu Feng slowly exhaled as he opened his eyes.

Right now, he could vaguely sense a small, bead-sized orb inside his dantian. He could feel a very concentrated energy emanating from the bead.

“So…this is the Spiritual Dan realm…?” Hu Feng murmured in pleasant surprise. He could feel his body invigorated with a new type of vitality. It was very different from the usual, coarse energy that Hu Feng had barely felt in his body when he was in the Wudan Realm!

While Hu Feng was busy inspecting the changes in his body, Jin Xia, who had been leaning against a thick tree and eating a batch of wild grapes, slowly walked over to him.

“Now, that you…*nom*…are at the Spiritual Dan 1st stage, you will mainly have to focus on absorbing World Qi and consolidating it into your dantian. This way, your Spirit Core will strengthen and grow. All the World Qi you absorb will be centered in your Spirit Core and will not disperse throughout your body like when you were in the Wudan realm. It’ll be like your Qi energy tank.

And the more solid colored your core is, the stronger your cultivation would be, and the easier it’ll be to break through to the next stage and realm. But don’t neglect to train your body as well even though you’re not in the Wudan realm anymore.” Jin Xia explained as he directly munched on the vine of grapes.

“Though World Qi may help toughen the body as well, it’s always safe to ensure you know how to control your body’s movement more efficiently through physical training…you don’t want to suddenly stumble in a life and death battle!” ’

“Yes, thank you for your guidance Brother Jin Xia!” Hu Feng nodded, as he lifted his head and looked at Jin Xia. There was a sharp glint of determination and deep gratitude in his eyes.

Over the past month, Hu Feng had personally witnessed just how insane and monstrous his fellow brother was.

After entering the mountains for three days, Jia Xia had directly helped open all twenty of Hu Feng’s meridians at once. The sensation Hu Feng felt afterwards was akin to being born alive.

He astonishingly found that the speed and volume of World Qi he could absorb have surpassed his past records by a vast margin. It was like comparing being able to take a tiny sip of water to now being able to take chugs of a giant glass of water!

Because of that though, Hu Feng only needed several minutes before his dantian was full and had to go through another several minutes of a condensing process; compared to his usual tens of days of absorbing and another set of weeks needed to ‘digest’ the World Qi!

As for the rest of the days, they were mainly spent having Jin Xia slaughter late staged Wudan beasts or early staged Spiritual Dan beasts in the forest. Jin Xia had to suppress his aura many times, in order to attract beasts to them for battle; especially for Hu Feng to train with.

Whenever they came across an Earth elemental beast or Water elemental, Hu Feng would always see Jin Xia harvesting their monster core. The latter did not do the same for regular Savage beasts, rather those cores were given to Hu Feng to further cultivate with. But Hu Feng did not pay much attention to that, as he was often busying trying to protect himself.

Along with the special pills that were given by Jin Xia, his fully opened meridians and his set of Godly Profound Veins, Hu Feng’s cultivation naturally increased at a much rapid rate than normal people’s.

And besides mediating from night to early morning, with a day or two of full sleep, the hours were spent fighting against savage beast. When they weren’t fighting, Hu Feng would be practicing his martial arts instead, while Jin Xia laid around savoring wild fruits.

Although Hu Feng had not personally witness Jin Xia cultivate more than a few times at night, each time he saw Jin Xia the next morning, the latter’s aura would have strengthened greatly somehow.

Then, during a full moon, Jin Xia had asked Hu Feng for his family martial books. If it was any other person, Hu Feng might not have been so inclined to give it, as it was his original family skills. But to Jin Xia, who had helped him without reserve, Hu Feng did not mind at all.

(TL: “Full moon” is usually the 15th or 16th of a month, according to the Chinese Calendar; so it’s like the middle of the month)

But what he did not imagine was, besides looking at his family’s skill book, Jin Xia had, at the same time, wrote a completely different set of technique in accordance to Hu Feng’s techniques. Jin Xia had said it was a ‘little modification’ to his techniques.

While Hu Feng was confused at first, when he actually looked at the ‘modified’ version of his family techniques, his doubts were covered up with another pang of shock. Interestingly, Hu Feng had found the manual to be much easier to understand, and when tried to practice it, he found that his body almost moved accordingly, step by step, to the instructions in the book!

Although Hu Feng had many questions, Jin Xia had promptly shut him down by telling him not ask about anything, The youth had told Hu Feng that he was a bit ‘better with his eyes’ than most people, so he was able to locate a few flaws in his book and fix it. And that everything was done for him because he was Jin Xia’s ‘first fellow brother.’

Now, with Hu Feng’s knowledge from Earth, he did not quite believe Jin Xia’s words at all. From the many Wuxia Web novels he had read before, an ability such as modifying skills or even opening meridians were already extremely rare and powerful. So for both techniques to be exhibited by a mere sixteen to seventeen years old…? Either Hu Feng was correct in thinking that Jin Xia was a reincarnated human, or this world was just simply absurd.

Hu Feng chose to believe in the former assumption.

But he did not say anything. From his initial meeting with Jin Xia, Hu Feng already knew that it was not easy to have Jin Xia say anything if the latter did not wish to. He’ll just have to continue observing by Jin Xia’s side and hope that one day, either he would have solid evidences to prove Jin Xia’s real identity, or the latter tells him straight up.

Jin Xia, on the other hand, did not know what Hu Feng was thinking, of course.

The reasons why he chose to modify Hu Feng’s skill books were because one, Jin Xia could not see through Hu Feng’s soul. Even when he had a peek into the chubby youth’s soul domain, most of the latter’s soul was covered and hidden from Jin Xia’s observance.

Second, while Jin Xia could tell the skill compatibility of a person just through their body and inner physiques, it was not as accurate as directly checking that person’s soul. There was only about 90% chance of compatibility, if observed through physical characteristics only.

And lastly, because Hu Feng was the ‘first non-blood related brother’ Jin Xia had acknowledged in this world, he was more inclined to give the latter greater benefits. It was the same for Xie Mei. She was the first female whom Jin Xia had a rather good impression of through the previous host’s memories and his own personal meetings, thus he had opted to directly opened twenty of her meridians at once, contrary to him wanting to wait to open all of the Fei sisters’ meridians.

As such, Jin Xia decided to help modify Hu Feng’s family skills, since techniques passed down through bloodline were mainly the most compatible with those of same heritage.

“Since you’ve finally broke through, it’s time to go back.” Jin Xia nonchalantly said as he began to head towards a different direction.

“Eh? Go back?” Hu Feng asked, confused.

“What are you saying? Did you forget about the Annual Clans’ Gathering Competition that’s going to happen tomorrow?” Jin Xia responded as he continued to walk.

Hu Feng awkwardly scratched his hand. “Oh, there was that..”

In truth, he had completely forgotten about the upcoming competition. After being immersed in his training and being busy trying to keep his wits around Jin Xia, Hu Feng almost had no time to worry about other things. Even his life was put at danger everyday, with strong savage beasts popping up left and right…just how could he have the time to care about other matters?

As Hu Feng followed behind Jin Xia, the latter suddenly stopped.

“What’s wrong, Brother Jin Xia?” Hu Feng asked as he looked at Jin Xia.

Jin Xia slightly turned his head as he gazed at the dense patch of trees to his right, as if he was searching for something.

Hu Feng followed Jin Xia’s line of sight as well, but all he could see were pillars after pillars of trees and wild grasses. There was no sign of movement either.

“Did you sense something, Brother Jin Xia?” Hu Feng asked cautiously.

Having been with Jin Xia in the forest for about a month, Hu Feng came to trust Jin Xia’s absolutely keen senses. The latter youth always seemed to be able to detect a monster right before it appears; this was how Hu Feng was able to prepare himself each time before the fight!

Jin Xia narrowed his eyes and lowered his head slightly as he sank into contemplation, but after a while, he lifted his head and turned around once again.

“No, it’s nothing. I must have sense something…wrong, I guess. Let’s go.” Jin Xia said casually.

Seeing that no beast was about to pop out, Hu Feng gave a shrug and walked after Jin Xia. But Jin Xia’s next words made Hu Feng’s body instantly cringe.

“Since we have nearly a whole day left, let us race on foot to the Azure capital city. It’ll serve as our warm, and it’s only a few miles west from here I believe.”

“Mother of—” Hu Feng cursed in his mind as an feeling of despair welled up in him. As a practitioner, one would have almost near perfect memories, so Hu Feng had naturally remembered a map of the Great Azure Country he had seen once.

While the Azure Province was indeed located west of Taiyang Province area, Hu Feng estimates that if they were to start from the Sun Forest, the distance was at least twenty miles!

“And even after breaking through, how the hell do I still have this fatass body…my god!” Hu Feng wailed silently as he chased after Jin Xia, who had suddenly decided to sprint out of the blue.

After the duo rapidly traveled quite far away from their original spot, the area that Jin Xia had been looking at a while ago slightly twisted. The air and the trees around looked as if they were being compressed for a moment, before they all returned back to normal.

No one appeared, and the space resumed it original appearance. A barely audible sigh of relief seemingly floated out of nowhere.

Chirping of birds whistled through the forest, as the hot summer sun gently smiled upon the blooming flowers growing nearby…