"Alright, you can go now! Kakaka!"

With those words, Luye flew away.

Mei stared at the night sky in a slight daze, as she plopped to the ground, exhausted. Urgh... why did she even come back to ask for training?

Luye was merciless as before, pushing her to her limits and scolding her whenever she made a mistake. When she whined that she was tired, Luye merely laughed and said she still had qi to spare.

For a moment, she considered just sleeping on the ground as before, but remembering she had unlimited charges, she teleported back to her bed instead.

...

Morning came shortly.

Mei was about to head to the canteen when she suddenly remembered something. She forgot to look for turtle yesterday because of Luye!

In a bit of a hurry, she quickly teleported to the turtle's lake, much to the surprise of the nearby monks.

Seeing her, the turtle jolted in surprise before swimming to the surface.

"You? Where did you go? I almost thought you got lost in Sanyang Mountains!"

Mei was expecting it to scold her about not showing up for their reading session and was a bit stunned to be met with concern instead.

She coughed.

"It's worse than getting lost! I was attacked by a huge centipede of sorts and almost died!"

"What? Aren't those stupid buggers absolute cowards? The moment I walk near them, they just run away! Sanyang Mountain is as safe as it gets!"

Mei was speechless.

Well, perhaps if the person in question had cultivation strong enough to scare them off. This turtle really was a little slow...

She decided not to argue with the turtle and once again dragged him off to read.

"I can't believe it! To think an expert was hiding his inheritance in the Death Ravine... Why wouldn't he pass it down to his descendants instead? Was he impotent?"

Mei grimaced as the turtle made all sorts of weird criticisms. She supposed this was what she got for trying to pass the story off as real?

"Who knows what experts think? They're too escentric for us to understand!" Mei tried to come up with some nonsence.

"What! But I'm an expert too? And I'm not a weirdo!"

Mei: ...

"Says the one who hid in a lake, pretending to be a normal turtle and rewarding random people with chestnuts!"

The turtle froze, leaving its mouth hanging open.

"I-is is that weird? What I'm doing is not that weird isn't it? I-I'm not a weirdo!"

Anxiously, the turtle began to babble to the stunned Mei and Su Qing for the minute.

"Okay okay! You're not weird! Just go!" Mei said helplessly.

The turtle looked at her skeptically before wandering off.

Maybe it really was true experts were a little ecentric...

With another five chestnuts in her grasp, Mei scarfed all of them down before cultivating again.

It really wasn't so bad when she felt like she was progressing fast! In such a short time, she could feel she was approaching Mid Foundational again.

She imagined flaunting her cultivation before her friends.

"Mei Xiu? How are you so strong now?"

"Hm? Maybe I was just working really hard! Hahaha!"

She giggled to herself as she imagined their stunned looks. Xiao Mei felt the strong urge to smack her but resisted.

?!

What was this unpleasant feeling in her stomach?

Her face started to get a little green. It can't be... she needed to go! She quickly scampered into the toilet while hunched over.

...

An hour later, a pale faced Mei emerged. What the hell happened there? Didn't cultivators no longer need to use the bathroom?

"It's just what happens when you eat spritual foods that recklessly." Xiao Mei explained. "There's only so much your body can handle before you get diarrhea."

Was it just she imagining it or did Xiao Mei sound a little gleeful about it?

"Why is it only now you decide to speak up? And where did you learn of stuff like that?" Mei shouted.

"If you don't want me to, then I won't talk."

Xiao Mei was once again silent, no longer responding. Why did her nascent soul have to be so difficult?

Urgh... Well, that was a lot of cultivation down the drain. Literally.

...

She headed downstairs grumpily, where Su Qing was working on a new rock nest with some disciples.

By now, some of the nests were almost as tall as the dorm itself, with the help of the formations supporting them. Those stupid "pillars" had gotten so thick, it would take two disciples to wrap their hands around them.

The disciples in the sect sure were bored, huh?

She stared at them and had a strange thought. Since Luye was able to blow her away so easily while she was floating, what if she grabbed two fans and flapped them around like wings and tried to fly on top of them? Her qi control had improved a lot after the grueling lesson after all!

Hmm... though, the Heavenreach Tree was probably a better target. She wanted to climb it for a while now anyway.

She quickly teleported to the tree. To think such a long trip was now this easy... she was going to miss the unlimited teleports when they expired.

After looking around for a bit, she grabbed several of the gigantic leaves on the ground and figured they'd work well enough as fans.

She closed her eyes to focus...

This time, using the qi from every part of her body, she was able to lift herself off the ground much more easily.

She gingerly flapped the leaves and to her delight, they really worked! As she flapped, she floated higher and higher, slowly approaching the canopy of the tree. Was this what it felt like to be a bird?

A little worry crept into her heart as she flew higher, but she told herself she could teleport back to safety if anything happened.

She looked down and suddenly saw a few disciples were flying after her, much to her surprise.

"Don't worry about us! We're just here to catch you when- ahem, if you fall!" one of them said.

Mei scrunched her face.