Taiji Essence

After finishing a lavish meal, Qu Jianlei slept soundly. It was the sweetest sleep he had had since coming to the Wasteland.

When he woke up and turned on the exhaust fan to air the room out, he unexpectedly noticed, "Has it gotten colder?"

The temperature outside had dropped to around minus forty degrees Celsius. It was considered extremely cold weather.

"Good thing I moved fast enough," Qu Jianlei muttered softly. "I'll need to add heat exchange to the ventilation system later."

Heat exchange could save a great deal of energy. Although his supplies were abundant now, he could not afford to be wasteful.

Xiao Jing was sleeping soundly on the other side of the partition, breathing evenly.

Putting those stray thoughts aside, Qu Jianlei washed up and began warming up.

Recently, he had been busy preparing for winter. Whenever he was truly exhausted, he would occasionally meditate and regulate his breathing, circulating the Nameless Qi Refining Art.

He had not practiced the Eight Section Brocade, Five Animals Play, or standing meditation. After all, he was already physically active every day.

After completing the two sets of movements today, he felt slightly warm and began his standing meditation.

As his physical condition steadily improved, he was able to hold the stance for longer and longer.

But after standing for half an hour today, he could no longer endure it. He stopped and could not help sighing.

"Sure enough, if you don't advance, you fall behind. Skip one day and you know it yourself; skip two days and Master knows it; skip three days and everyone knows it."

Then he drank a cup of hot water, rested for a while, and took two tubes of Nutrient Solution.

With the supplies he had stored up, he could eat and drink well every day and have no trouble making it through the winter.

Next, he was going to meditate.

It was not advisable to eat too much before meditating, but meditation also consumed physical energy, so Nutrient Solution was more suitable.

No wonder cultivators in legends always consumed heavenly treasures. The calories from regular meals really were not quite enough.

With warmth entering his stomach, he sat cross-legged and circulated his qi through one cycle. Once he felt accustomed to it, he took out a box.

Inside the box were six Mutated Beast Crystals. Five were the size of quail eggs, while one was the size of a ping-pong ball.

The crystals of Rank B Mutated Beasts were all red, though their shades varied slightly.

He adjusted his breathing, took out the palest Rank B Crystal, and began circulating his qi.

A familiar violent aura invaded his body once more, followed by the familiar swelling pain.

This time, the circulation went exceptionally smoothly. One cycle followed another, until after five cycles, he felt hungry.

Opening one eye, he found Xiao Jing eating yesterday's leftovers. The little fellow even knew to heat them on the electric stove.

Qu Jianlei gave him a helpless glance, picked up two tubes of Nutrient Solution, and squeezed them into his mouth.

Xiao Jing looked at him, then at the bowl in his own hands, frowning in confusion. Was Nutrient Solution really that tasty? This meditation session lasted Qu Jianlei an entire day, and he consumed six tubes of Nutrient Solution.

Even so, he was starving. Once he finished his cultivation, he picked up yesterday's leftovers and wolfed them all down.

Once his stomach felt a little better, he immediately began cooking again—perhaps it did not taste great, but at least it was guaranteed to be cooked.

After keeping this up for three days, his Nutrient Solution supply dwindled rapidly.

The palest Rank B Crystal had shrunk by nearly a tenth.

Xiao Jing finally could not suppress his curiosity. "Black Sky Bro, what is this martial art you practice called?"

As Qu Jianlei set his stance and prepared for standing meditation, he answered, "The Eight Section Brocade and Five Animals Play."

Xiao Jing's eyes lit up. "Can practicing them make me as strong as you?"

You're really overthinking this. Qu Jianlei shook his head. "They're only for strengthening the body. They're good for your health."

But Xiao Jing asked again, "Can you teach me? I want to learn too."

Qu Jianlei did not think much of these two sets of exercises and definitely did not mind others learning them in secret.

But the thought of teaching someone else gave him a slight hesitation.

Still, he only hesitated briefly before making up his mind. "I'll teach you starting tomorrow after I finish practicing today."

Xiao Jing easily reminded him of Rogers, though the two were still very different.

First, Xiao Jing understood fear and respect. Though young, he clearly knew what could and could not be done.

He would rather starve half to death than sell the Mutated Beast Crystals, because he knew perfectly well that trying to exchange them for money would get him killed.

Rogers did not understand that. He only knew how to use every possible means to make his own life better.

Second, Xiao Jing could help Qu Jianlei. Aside from their past cooperation in battle, more importantly, he possessed inherited knowledge.

Qu Jianlei had to rely on him to explain many of the ways of the Wasteland.

For those two reasons alone, he could consider teaching him these two methods.

But he had already arranged his schedule for today, so it would have to wait until tomorrow. That was just how orderly his obsessive tendencies were.

Teaching Xiao Jing the next day proved somewhat difficult.

Such simple movements were actually hard for the boy to learn, and he could never quite make them standard.

Qu Jianlei did not intend to give him any special treatment, so he had him familiarize himself with the individual movements first.

Still, Xiao Jing was young after all, and he improved quickly. By the fifth day, he had basically learned both sets.

The key was that he had nothing else to do, so he practiced them over and over again.

And whenever Qu Jianlei saw him doing something wrong, he could not help correcting him.

Ever since Xiao Jing began practicing martial arts, Qu Jianlei discovered something else—the kid... was getting more and more able to eat! Xiao Jing already had quite an appetite before, very much like the saying, "Growing boys can eat their fathers into poverty."

Now, whether he was practicing the Eight Section Brocade or the Five Animals Play, his food intake had at least doubled.

That day, he even wanted to learn standing meditation.

Qu Jianlei truly could not tolerate it anymore. "I can teach you standing meditation, but there's a condition..."

"Standing meditation consumes more calories than those two sets of movements. You can't spend all day practicing this stuff, or we might not make it through the winter."

Not making it through winter was an exaggeration, but if they kept this up, there would not be much food left.

On Blue Star, martial artists were all big eaters to begin with.

Xiao Jing naturally knew that his appetite had grown sharply lately. He hesitated before saying, "But I don't have anything else to do."

"Excessive exercise is bad for the body," Qu Jianlei said seriously. "You can find some chores to do, or read books."

Though the room was small, there was plenty of work to be found if one looked for it.

Xiao Jing accepted the arrangement, especially since the consequences of overtraining made him somewhat wary.

So he only exercised four or five hours a day, spending the rest of his time doing various chores.

Still, his appetite increased slightly—there was no helping it. Standing meditation truly consumed a lot of calories.

On the twentieth day after sealing the door, Qu Jianlei had absorbed half of the palest crystal.

By that calculation, five Rank B Crystals would be enough for him to absorb for five months.

After doing the math, Qu Jianlei was truly shocked. Fifty kilograms of gold was only enough for five months of cultivation? He had obtained such a huge amount of supplies entirely through dumb luck, picking up a Secret Silver Plate from a dead man.

One hundred kilograms of gold, even on Blue Star, would equal the total assets of more than a dozen middle-class families.

Such an enormous fortune would be used up in such a short time?

He began to wonder whether his ability to earn money could keep up with his spending.

But immediately afterward, he discovered that things were not as he had imagined, because he encountered a bottleneck.

The Nameless Qi Refining Art was becoming increasingly complete. Qu Jianlei defined his current realm as the third level of Qi Refining.

Advancing from the third level of Qi Refining to the fourth should be breaking through a minor realm, and he was stuck there.

For three consecutive days, he felt no improvement. More importantly, the crystal was being consumed very slowly as well.

Instead, faint pains occasionally came from his body and Meridians, as though they were being torn apart.

With no one to guide him and relying entirely on his own exploration, Qu Jianlei made his own judgment: Maybe I've been cultivating too much.

Thinking about it, that made sense. From the time he began cultivating until now, it had not even been four full months.

During that time, he had often been wandering or fighting, with pitifully little time to focus on cultivation.

So this rate of progress was truly astonishing, enough to even cause backlash.

Having reached that conclusion, his mindset immediately relaxed. Hmm, wasn't there something I still hadn't done? Seeing Xiao Jing practicing the Eight Section Brocade, he remembered. Oh, right. I regretted not learning Tai Chi back then.

The instant that thought arose, his head began to swell with pain.

Qu Jianlei hurriedly closed his eyes. I know this routine.

Sure enough, Xiao Hu appeared in his mind again, its oversized head and tiny body slowly spinning.

Was it because the hardware foundation was still too poor? A flash of insight struck Qu Jianlei, and he reached out to grab the Mutated Beast Crystal again.

His guess was completely correct. The swelling pain in his head began intensifying, growing more and more severe.

And Xiao Hu's rotation speed seemed... to increase just a tiny bit?

He did not know how long it lasted. When the swelling pain in his head became truly unbearable, he released his grip.

Then the pain stabilized at that point and gradually began to fade.

Immediately afterward, a piece of information inexplicably appeared in his mind: Taiji Essence! I knew that was how it worked! A smile appeared at the corner of Qu Jianlei's lips.

Xiao Hu, do you have the Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon? The cartoon avatar quietly vanished without the slightest hesitation, just as it had appeared.

Taiji Essence... Qu Jianlei examined the information. Sure enough, it was the Tai Chi he knew.

This essence was still very vague, just like when he had first acquired the Nameless Qi Refining Art. Many parts were unclear and imprecise.

But it was already pretty good. He had not studied Tai Chi very seriously on Blue Star either.

Tai Chi was famous, but... what did that have to do with me?

It was too late for regrets now. Fortunately, Xiao Hu had collected some information.

That was right, Xiao Hu had truly collected it. Much of the information within this vague Taiji Essence was completely unfamiliar to Qu Jianlei.

He had absolutely never learned it before. It touched upon gaps in his knowledge.

It was as if he had seen a whole new world.

It did not matter that the explanation was vague. He could slowly perfect it. He was familiar with that kind of work.

Qu Jianlei slowly opened his eyes and looked at the Mutated Beast Crystal in his hand. Sure enough, it had shrunk by a third!

(That's all for today's update. During the new book period, please support it in every way.)