Anything excessive would be noticed and toned down by the elders but Autumn Peace was smart enough to do her bullying out of sight.

He wasn’t going to be stuck in the same situation as Snow Gem. He started thinking and his mind turned to the disciple on the table. He went straight to her. She was wearing a different set of robes compared to him. Snow Gem was an outer disciple but she was an inner disciple. He didn’t know her name but sticking around her would stop Autumn Peace.

“What is it?” Musnuf guessed that she didn’t have a good impression of him, he’d only hunted one beast, by and far the lowest score.

“Do you need any help?”

She raised her brow. “I can’t change your score or give you extra spirit stones.”

Musnuf rubbed his forehead. “No, you don’t have to do that. I just-”

“Ok. The skins need to be purified. How proficient are you with the Green Flame Mantra? Can you at least summon the flame?” She must’ve spotted the blue orb behind him.

Snow Gem could do it but for him…it was going to be a little difficult but he could manage. He nodded.

She rolled up the scroll. Behind her were piles of beast skins. “I arranged them in quality from left to right. Let me show you how to do it.”

She opened up a skin and splayed it on her table. “The table is made of EverGreen, you don’t have to worry about the table catching on fire.”

Evergreen, why does that sound familiar? He decided to make a note of that. He would go through the webnovel again and see if there was any mention of it. It gave him a sense of deja vu.

A ball of ghost-green flame appeared on top of her palm. It spread around using tendrils to wrap around her hand. She guided it to the skin and it started blazing up spreading across it in a criss-cross pattern. “You don’t have to do much but summon it and guide it to the skin. Don’t wrestle with the flame. Let it flow. Start from the low-quality ones, I don’t want you ruining the high-quality skins.”

The appearance of her flame triggered a few memories in his mind. He flexed his hands. He could do this. He splayed on one of the skins on a table and closed his eyes. He focused on his stomach. Instinct kicked in and he guided a tendril of essence out of there and into his palm.

Sharp spikes of pain were radiating wherever the essence passed through. He molded it and a flame burst out of his hands. He opened his eyes and he was in awe. It was there. He had no words to describe this feeling.

It flickered at his loss of concentration and he exerted control over it again. He moved his hand closer to the skin and let it pass down to the skin. The skin burst up in flames. He kept on supplying it until it was fully ablaze and backed off. The flame would flicker out on its own but he was exhausted, his throat was parched.

He felt a nudge and it was the inner disciple. She handed him a canister of water. “It took you too long to summon it, your control is laughable and you wasted too much essence.”

The criticism did hurt a little but it was true. “How do I get better at it?”

“Practice. That’s the only way you’ll get better at it.” She turned around and walked back to her table. She’d ignited five in the time it'd taken him to ignite one.

He kept at it until late afternoon. He’d slipped away during lunch and gotten a bowl of food in. Correction, multiple bowls. Autumn Peace must’ve gone up.

He’d used the spirit stone long ago to recover his essence. After that, every time he’d gotten exhausted he sat down and meditated. It was difficult and took too long. Seventy percent of his time was spent on it. It also made him acutely aware of how vital spirit stones were to the process. He needed to get his hands on more.

He’d written in the webnovel, that the trick was to let the intruding thoughts rise, make note of them and let them go. He tried it and it improved his efficiency.

Speaking of the webnovel, he’d figured out what Evergreen wood was. In chapter 20, a new species of termite appeared and it resulted in a severe shortage of evergreen wood. The MC had stumbled onto a giant cache of a 1000 year old evergreen tree. The subsequent sale at the auction-you can’t not have an auction arc-had netted him a healthy profit.

He’d managed to purify about 15 skins. The inner disciple had purified hundreds in that same time. He shuddered at the thought of getting into a fight with her.

“That’s good, for you. I can’t give you any extra spirit stones but you can come with me to the sect quarters.”

Musnuf smiled at that, “Sure.” She’d given him more than a few pointers along the way. Now when he summoned the flame. It didn’t hurt as much. He’d been using the wrong pathways and forcing too much essence.

“I’ll just go inform the disciples in charge of taking these up the mountain.”

He felt a shove as soon as she was gone. He broke his fall with his palms but they were going to burn like hell.

“She finally fucked off.” It was Autumn Peace, he hadn’t expected her to be so persistent. She kicked him in the ribs and the air was knocked out of him. He started coughing up.

“I’m going to make you pay for making me wait.” She looked around and something sparked up in her eyes. It was a lightbulb moment for her.

There was a giant sack of beast core’s in a sack. She grabbed a fistful and shoved them into Snow Gem’s robes. “Bring them up for us and if you don’t I’ll make your life hell.”