After another fruitful reading session, Mei hastily begun scarfing down chestnuts once more.

Originally, she was going to save a few to sell, but she felt like she was on the verge of a breakthrough!

The feeling of qi rushing through her body grew more and more intense, until she could barely handle it anymore.

It had broke past her qi barrier and rushed into her damaged meridians! Mei was about to cry out in pain when a secondary force stepped in, helping to stabalise the raging qi.

Xiao Mei?

With her help, Mei finally managed to get it under control. The remaining qi was finally all absorbed into a dense sea of qi her dantian.

With a tremour, the qi seemingly imploded into a single sliver, sending tremours throughout the air.

Covering head to toe in sweat, Mei stood, panting.

She... broke through?

Finally, Mid Foundational!

Well... not that it was the result of hard work or diligence. If anything, it was completely undeserved.

But Mei was perfectly fine with that.

"Be more careful next time."

Typical... only deciding to help after being offered benefits. But maybe she shouldn't be saying that about a clone of herself.

"Xiao Mei, if we worked together, how much faster would we cultivate?"

There was no response.

Not sure what exactly to do now that it was dawn, Mei decided to look for the other disciples.

With Su Qing's help, she found Liu Qiang with Xiuying.

Liu Qiang was hunched over a field, plucking out weeds carelessly, while Xiuying was asleep for some reason, her hands still grasping a nearby weed.

"What are you doing, farming this late?" she asked.

Did the monk force them to after their "offence"?

"Oh, Xiuying told me to make up with Ding Zhi, so he told me to help with chores." Liu Qiang huffed. "And then he just went off to heaven knows where!"

"Oh, haha..."

Honestly, Mei was surprised he was willing to listen.

She decided to hurry off before Xiuying woke up, in case she asked her to help out as well. Still... weeding was boring, but falling asleep halfway?

...

Following Su Qing, next, she found Wang Wei, Yingyi and Jian Jue in a clearing.

While Yingyi watched with a bored expression, the other two were pointing wooden swords at each other.

"Grrr! You fight so unfair!" Wang Wei complained. "Weren't you one of the top students in a dojo? Where's your honour?"

Mei suddenly realised that the grumble noble was covered head to toe in sand and dirt.

"They didn't let me fight like that back there, but I still hone my skills for a real fight!"

"Oh, it's you, Mei Xiu! Hear me out!" Wang Wei suddenly ran to her.

Mei subconciously took a step back, failing to notice the irony of a peasant not wanting to touch a filthy noble.

"Sword fights are supposed to be honourable, right?"

"Um, I guess?"

"But when we were sparing earlier, she just kicked my ankle to make me trip! Then when I started falling, she grabbed me by my arm and threw me facefirst into the dirt!"

Seriously?! That was way too brutal for a mock fight! This girl was a lot crazier than she looked...

"When I was told by the elders to consider my dao, I thought hard about it," Jian Jue said. "After thinking more about it, I had an epiphany and realised as a sword practitioner, I was too fixated on the sword!"

"Right..." Mei said with a forced smile.

"I decided that learning to use my body to the fullest would be my weapon dao! To let my body itself act as my sword!" Jian Jue said proudly.

Uh huh. Mei was pretty sure that was called a martial artist.

"So, are you gonna start wearing pointy shoes and a spiked hat?" Yingyi laughed. "What's a sword without a point?"

"Hey, don't tease me! Huh... bladed shoes do sound like a good idea..." Jian Jue mused.

Suddenly, a huge glob of dirt was thrown at her face.

"Hah! Now let's see how you like that!" Wang Wei stuck out his tongue before running off.

Mei expected her to give chase, but Jian Jue merely wiped the dirt off with qi sense and seemed deep in thought.

Not feeling like taking to either of them, she decided to just follow Wang Wei.

"Oh... hi... Mei." Wang Wei said awkwardly.

Like yesterday, he had been strapped to one of the stretching devices.

"It's... surprisingly beneficial." he said, sounding strained. "Qi flow... very smooth."

"Why do you sound like you're dying? Did they take away your painkillers after all?"

"No... I just... made medicine too potent... hard to talk."

Mei was speechless.

"Care to join... me?"

She glanced at the "torture machines" with squinted eyes.

"No thanks."

Mei thought to herself complacently that she already had the chestnuts.

She briefly used her qi sense on Wang Wei, noticing he was also only at Mid Foundational.

Hehe. Maybe once she broke through again, she could scare him! For once, she would be ahead of her friends.

"Oh yeah... speaking of which... here you go..."

He floated a handful of pearly white pills to her.

"I tried to make qi pills out of the chestnuts... you can have some..."

"Thanks!"

Mei couldn't help but smile as she received them.

Hmm... maybe back at Qiulan Mountain, she should have smuggled some herbs out for Wang Wei.

Were there any neighbouring mountains or forests nearby with crazy herbs here?

With how she got those chestnuts from the turtle, she felt like there was a good chance! Or was it that spirit beasts were naturals at raising spirit plants?

If that was so, it might be a little dangerous. But with her soulsense, Mei felt surprisingly confident! If she sensed anything powerful nearby, she could just teleport off with Wang Wei.

She was going to have to teleport back later anyway, so that was two birds with one stone

With a look of glee, she began describing her plans to Wang Wei, whose eyes lit up as well.