In the end, faced with the "peer pressure", Mei joined a group of wood monks and cultivated together. She had been procrastinating for way too long anyway... how long had it been since she last cultivated, before today?

As she slowly circulated her qi, Mei was pleasantly surprised to find that despite the qi density being lower than back in her sect, she was able to cultivate much more effectively. Was this some sort of mass cultivation formation? That was cool! She would have thought cultivation would slow down with too many people in the area.

Still... even with Wang Wei's pills... it was slow and arduous.

The Foundational realm, unlike Qi Gathering, was divided into 3 stages. Added with how the qi required increased exponentially, it felt so unrewarding...

How the hell were cultivators just sitting down and cultivating for hundreds of years? Mei would die of boredom! Was there really not a way to cultivate automatically?

As she thought of various random things, complaining to herself, soon, night came.

The pills Wang Wei had given her had run out. Mei stared at the empty bottle sadly. Even with such potent medicine, Mei felt like she had to cultivate for at least 10 more days straights to break into Mid Foundational. Maybe 100 days without pills?!

Not feeling like continuing to cultivate without pills, she figured it was about time she head back.

...

She had no idea where the monk's house was. All of those stupid houses look the same!

Mei had no intention of wandering in the dark this late at night. When she was younger, her mom taught her a valuable lesson: if you got lost, running around without direction was only going to make things worse. Wang Wei should have overheard she was coming here, so he'd probably look for her eventually.

Unfortunately, there was nothing to entertain herself with.

Fine!

Filled with grievances, Mei went back to cultivating.

"I hope Mei isnt mad at me..."

A cyan spirit muttered to himself as he floated around the monk sect, using the soul contract to locate her.

His puppet had been stashed into his storage jade for convenience. Honestly, he didn't really like walking around in the puppet that much, but since Mei went through so much effort to get it for him, he always possessed it when she was around.

Earlier that day, he snuck off, wanting to play around. The monks were very nice, and were happy to talk to him about all sorts of random things. He also helped a few monks plant trees and tend to herbs! Now that he thought of it, those were clearly just chores, but it didn't stop him from having fun.

"Whoa!"

Su Qing saw a spiral of qi above a lake, slowly condensing into the many monks cultivating below. It was so pretty!

Looking around, he finally saw Mei, who was cultivating peacefully, eyes closed.

Wait, that girl was actually cultivating! Finally! Su Qing was so proud of her. The teacher spirits were always telling him about how his master was a useless and lazy girl, which made him rather upset. Now he could prove them wrong!

Not wanting to disturb her, he left, floating towards Ding Zhe's abode.

"It's this late and she's cultivating? Seriously?" Liu Qiang said.

Su Qing nodded vigorously, filled with pride.

Ding Zhe grinned.

"Perhaps she was inspired by our monks. It's never too late to start working hard." he said.

Xiuying stood up, a spark in her eyes.

"If even she is putting in the effort, how can we just play around? Let's work hard and make our elders proud!"

It was already morning... why did no one look for her yet?

Mei wanted to cry.

She wondered what the cultivation levels of her friends were. Honestly, most of her motivation to cultivate was because she was afraid of being left behind by them. Surely they'd get tired of cultivating occasionally too, right?

Thinking to herself for a bit, she decided she needed to find some way to make money. Without pills, cultivation was simply way too slow.

She decided to take a break to feed the the turtle and fishes in the pond.

Just as she was about to toss in more fruit, a voice suddenly rang in her mind.

"A gift."

To her shock, the turtle floated out of the waters, holding a massive purple water chestnut and placing it in her hands.

Plop.

The turtle unceremoniously landed back in the water with a light splash.

"Um... thanks?" Mei was very bewildered.

The turtle laughed.

"Bet you didn't expect me to be a spirit turtle!"

"Oh."

"Come on, is that the best reaction you've got? Spoilsport."

"What?"

For a spirit turtle... he sure was greedy, not even letting the fish have a single piece of fruit.

...

"Why are you even pretending to be a normal turtle anyway?" Mei asked.

"Well, it can get boring here. In the past, I tried to have small talk with the monks, but there's nothing that interesting to discuss. So a while ago, I had a great idea! Whenever people in the sect visit, I'd wait for someone to feed me, then boom, I'd surprise them the next day!"

"Oh."

"The funniest is when they seem to think I'm some sort of great senior, and apologise for disrespecting me. Hahaha!"

"Why don't you go around and explore if you're so bored?"

"This lake is the best water body in the sect. There's a river that comes close, but gushing water is a little too noisy for my tastes."

"Right..."

Mei decided to just go back to cultivating.

"You're going off just like that? No fun!"

As she went back to the prayer mat, she took a closer look at the giant water chestnut. This thing was actually bursting with qi, no less potent than Wang Wei's pills! She supposed it made sense, with how it was growing in a lake with qi that dense.

Was there a way she could convince the turtle to give her those? Probably by entertaining him or something...

Suddenly, Mei had a great idea. She grinned deviously.