ZI Yu rose from her bow and uttered to no one but herself. “Three days…”

***

A week passed before a muffled bang rang out that started everyone awake.

It was early morning right now, and the dew had yet to disappear from the leaves of the trees and the herbs.

A crisp morning air rushed into the nostrils of those who opened their eyes in a rush.

A few figures looked in the distance where they saw a boy with his palms clasping another.

Naturally, this was Long Di and Xiannu Liang and the observers were none other than Whiskers, Shen Ling and Mina.

Pebbles, on the other hand, was lying sleepily atop the head of a scarlet-haired beauty. The bruises from a fight long over were present all over her body, yet she wore them with pride.

She stared intensely at the cultivating Xiannu Liang and Long Di who helped her.

Obviously, this was Long Qian, the longtime observer of Long Di. Even though Pebbles who was lying atop her head was the very picture of kawaii, she didn’t dare to act up about it. Instead, she quite frankly embraced it.

After she returned, she had reported to Long Zhe the circumstances under which she ‘escaped’ from the Grand Preceptor, which was a loose variation of the word, if anything else.

Long story short, she was beaten. There were no two ways about it. This was something that Long Zhe expected of course.

After all, the Grand Preceptor was an old monster that lived for countless years. His strength was not something that Long Qian could compare to despite her being a dragon capable enough to become an observer.

She told Long Zhe that after he had taken the others to escape, the Grand Preceptor flew into a rage that shook the region and incited fear into the hearts of everyone. He had then descended upon her and unleashed an attack fueled with fury with such power that space shattered and the void was torn open.

She was half dead by this point, and the void had swallowed her up. She had used the last vestiges of her strength to follow the aura Long Zhe had intentionally left behind so she could find them.

She had just managed to find them before fainting from her injuries. Of course, she wasn’t in any life-threatening condition. After resting for a few days, she was well enough. However, it would be quite a while before she would be back to full strength.

Whoosh!

A surge of spiritual energy being sucked in by one of Xiannu Liang’s cauldrons caught her attention.

The absorption speed of this cauldron suddenly skyrocketed, signifying a qualitative transformation in its state.

“I did it!” a wide grin appeared on Xiannu Liang’s face when she felt the change in her ninth duan.

“You’ve got a high-grade cauldron for your ninth duan.” Long Di said with a nod. “Are you sure you don’t wanna make it a supreme grade?”

Xiannu Liang shook her head. “It’s fine. I can go ahead and proceed with my breakthrough.”

“You’re all people that are okay with getting fifty percent for your test scores aren’t you?”

Xiannu Liang frowned upon hearing this and released her grip from his. She wasn’t a hundred percent certain, but she was pretty sure that Long Di just insulted her.

“It’s not necessary,” Xiannu Liang glared at him.

“True, and by holding on to this belief you’ll be living up to your full mediocre potential,” Long Di said as he casually shrugged his shoulders.

Xiannu Liang’s eyes widened in shock. “You-”

“Why are you okay with staying at the high grade? You’re talented enough to forge your cauldrons to much greater heights.”

Xiannu Liang’s frown deepened as she stared at Long Di. Neither of the two spoke. After about ten minutes, Xiannu Liang broke eye contact, compelling her to groan in irritation.

She then fell backwards and stared up at the sky in silence.

“Is it related to your race?” He finally asked her.

But to this, she wordlessly shook her head.

“… I want you to heal Shen Ling… as fast as possible,” he said after another moment of silence. “But I don’t want you to do it at the risk of your future.”

“I-I won’t be ruining my future,” Xiannu Liang advised him.

Long Di was unmoved by this and pushed her further. “Tell me what you mean by this. If you don’t, I’m not helping you.”

Strangely enough, hearing this caused a warm feeling to fill her heart. Long Di was an enigma for sure, but it was obvious at a glance that he was like this because he wanted her to be in her best state.

“Ghostfire Woods is opening soon,” she told him.

“You have a slot for it? I thought it wasn’t an easy thing to get.” Long Di cocked his head in confusion.

He still remembered how Yaomu Shou acted when someone with a high status like Zi Yu said she had a slot for Ghostfire Woods. He knew this was not something simple that anyone could get their hands on.

“Whose domain do you think it’s in?” Xiannu Liang said with a mysterious smile.

Long Di was surprised to hear this. So Ghostfire Woods was actually a part of Emerald Forest.

“Well, it’s not IN Emerald Forest exactly. We’re more like neighbours separated by several thousands of miles, but it’s not as far in the grand scheme of things.”

“Something tells me that I have a closer familial relationship with the dragon lady over there than you do with Ghostfire Woods,” remarked Long Di.

“Not on your life!” Long Qian yelled.

“Shut up! I’m sleeping!”

“But crown prince he-”

“Is my friend,” Pebbled interjected. “Now stop shaking your head. I’m getting motion sickness!”

Long Di wasn’t gonna get involved in that. He kept his gaze focused on Xiannu Liang. “You’re sure about this?”

Xiannu Liang nodded to indicate she was.

“Fine.” Long Di shrugged his shoulders at this point. He already did his due diligence, so whatever happened next wasn’t up to him.

The cauldron-forging realm was a peculiar one among the rest. It was peculiar in that it didn’t require one to bring their cultivation to the utmost limit of a particular stage before the next breakthrough could be made.

This meant that as long as a cauldron was created, the cauldron could be set at that stage, and the next cauldron could be worked on. Because of this, it can either be the realm that one spends the shortest time in or the realm where the most amount of time is spent relatively.

Naturally, Xiannu Liang and Long Di knew this, and the former was already readying herself to make her breakthrough.

She and Long Di clasped hands once again, and she activated her cultivation technique to the utmost limit!

D-D-Dum!

A powerful pressure unfurled from all nine of her cauldrons and they spun at a rapid rate as an incredible absorption power erupted from them.

Of course, Long Di knew what this meant and activated his profound myriad heavenseize physique once more.

Hong!

Its heavenly pressure was unleashed as Long Di opened the floodgates for the spiritual energy to pour through.

“No matter how many times I see it, this physique goes against the sky,” Long Zhe who was observing everything from within the void mumbled to himself.

The physique had several things about it that placed it in a league all its own. He had truly seen this when he saw how Long Di injected the heavenly pressure the physique possessed in his voice, nearly creating something that he knew the boy had not yet reached the realm for.

“This child will be sought after by them with every breath.”

Whoosh!

Xiannu Liang struggled to compel the spiritual energy to crystallise to create the pearl she needed. She had heard of it before from her seniors in passing, but doing it was another matter.

‘The spiritual energy of the spiritual vein root is the purest next to the spirit stone. You needn’t worry about getting the purest of it to condense the spiritual essence, just absorb everything and run it through the grand cycle as many times as necessary to refine it over and over. This isn’t to purify it but to concentrate it. You’ll see the changes on your own.’

Long Di’s voice echoed in her mind, giving her the guidance she desperately needed.

He truly was the best person to help her in this regard. After all, he was a demonic-level genius who had brought every stage he went through to its absolute peak before moving on.

Xiannu Liang frantically absorbed the copious spiritual energy Long Di gave her and circulated it according to her cultivation technique.

It ran through the channels of her main meridians for one grand cycle and, listening to Long Di’s advice, she perused the roaring spiritual qi and did indeed see that there was a subtle change to it.

‘Don’t seek the bare minimum.’ Long Di’s voice sounded out once more.

‘Concentrate the spiritual qi to its utmost limit. Send it into your cauldron only when you sense no more changes. The purity is no problem, so start!’

Whoosh!

Xiannu Liang paid heed to his words and urged the spiritual qi in her body to go through the grand cycle countless times. Every cycle caused the spiritual qi to glow brighter and grow stronger than ever.

‘Incredible…’ Xiannu Liang’s thoughts were focused entirely on this wisp of spiritual qi when…

Shing!