The voices outside had barely faded.
When Li Cheng led someone inside.
Ning Ri was the first to raise his hand in greeting. "Greetings, Elder Zhou! Greetings, Senior Brother Bei!"
After smiling and nodding at Ning Ri, Li Cheng went off to one side and turned into a Trial Stele, standing silently without moving. Clearly, he had started pretending to be a stele again...
At the same time, Zhou Hai laughed heartily. "No need for such formalities."
After greeting Zhou Hai, Ning Ri took a closer look at him.
Zhou Hai wore gray robes and had a tall, imposing build. Across his face, a line of words could faintly be seen—
"This is way too heaven-defying!"
Ning Ri: "?"
What was this?
Seeing Ning Ri's slightly blank stare, Zhou Hai immediately realized something. He raised a hand and wiped his face, making the words "This is way too heaven-defying!" disappear.
Zhou Hai laughed heartily. "Do not be alarmed, young friend. This is used for teaching. Some Outer Sect disciples do not hear very well, so I use spells to project the content of my lectures onto my face, letting those disciples know what I have said."
So he was part of the subtitle team. A thought flashed through Ning Ri's mind. In his previous life, he had respected subtitle makers the most, and he could not help growing solemn with admiration. "Elder Zhou truly possesses a teacher's benevolent heart. This junior deeply admires you!"
Come to think of it, after becoming cultivators, could their ears still fail to work properly?
Zhou Hai waved his hand and said, "All right, let me examine your acupoints and spiritual roots. Would you mind?"
Ning Ri shook his head to show that he did not mind.
After Zhou Hai's spiritual power made a circuit through his body, Ning Ri watched as an astonished expression appeared on Zhou Hai's face. "Your acupoints are indeed blocked, and your spiritual roots are incomplete. However, I can see why you are able to cultivate."
Ning Ri immediately asked, "Elder Zhou, why is that?!"
Zhou Hai said, "I believe the impurities within your acupoints gave you a helping hand."
Ning Ri froze. "Huh?"
Zhou Hai patiently explained, "Cultivation requires spiritual roots, acupoints, and meridians."
"The function of spiritual roots is to absorb and refine spiritual energy, while acupoints and meridians provide spiritual energy with entryways, exits, and passageways."
Spiritual energy from the outside world entered the body through the acupoints, flowed through the meridians to the spiritual roots within the dantian, and was then refined by the spiritual roots.
Afterward, the refined spiritual energy became part of the body, while the waste produced during refinement was automatically expelled through the acupoints.
"Though your spiritual roots are incomplete and cannot refine spiritual energy normally, it is not as though you have no spiritual roots at all."
"So, your spiritual roots still function. They can still draw in spiritual energy and refine it, only because they are incomplete, the process is very slow."
"Under normal circumstances, because your refinement speed is so slow, all your spiritual energy would immediately slip away. But who would have thought that the impurities in your acupoints would happen to make up for the flaw in your spiritual roots? They clogged that spiritual power inside your acupoints. It entered slowly and left slowly, ultimately giving rise to this wondrous body, unparalleled throughout all antiquity and unrivaled in this age..."
"Splendid, splendid! It seems you were born to join our Heaven Defying Sect!"
"It would not be an exaggeration to call you an innate cultivation sacred body!"
Ning Ri: "..."
No, wait a second.
How had he somehow become an innate cultivation sacred body?
Zhou Hai continued, "However, if you wish to participate in the disciple trial, you must still prove one ability to me."
"What ability?"
"Learning ability." Zhou Hai said, "Have you learned any spells before?"
Ning Ri shook his head. "No."
Both Gale Step and Crocodile Turtle Iron Bone Skill were incomplete versions.
How could that count as learning?
So, give me a new spellbook, my beloved subtitle-team elder!
Zhou Hai took out a jade slip. "Then take a look at this technique. With your Third Stage Qi Refining cultivation, you have enough cultivation to use it. In half an hour, circulate it before me, and I will see how far you can get."
"Yes!"
Ning Ri immediately accepted the jade slip.
Then Zhou Hai closed his eyes and waited off to one side.
The technique Zhou Hai had given him was called [Spirit Absorption Technique].
This was a Qi Refining technique used to accelerate the absorption of spiritual energy. Its specific method was to control every acupoint, increase the pressure, and make the spiritual energy outside flow into the body faster.
The technique Zhou Hai had given him had clearly been chosen with Ning Ri in mind.
Ning Ri could not help feeling touched.
The technique stated that every person's body possessed thirteen hundred acupoints.
When Ning Ri had first begun Qi Refining, that number had given him quite a shock. He could tell that these acupoints were obviously different from those in his previous life—there were so many that it was rather frightening.
And the first thing this Spirit Absorption Technique required Ning Ri to cultivate was seven apertures.
Eyes, nose, mouth, ears!
As for the remaining 1,293 acupoints, the technique did not mention them for the time being.
Clearly, they were not something a Third Stage Qi Refining cultivator like him could touch yet.
Then Ning Ri opened his panel—
[Host]: Ning Ri [Skills]: 1. [Mortal Blade Technique]: 10 (Maxed) (Can Reset Points) 2. [Qi Refining Art]: 3 (Maxed) (Can Reset Points) 3. [Gale Step]: 3 (Maxed) (Can Reset Points) 4. [Crocodile Turtle Iron Bone Skill]: 0 5. [Spirit Absorption Technique]: 0 Free Skill Points: 0
Ning Ri tapped [Can Reset Points] beside [Mortal Blade Technique], and a prompt immediately appeared:
"Does the host wish to confirm resetting points?"
[Yes]
[No]
Ning Ri chose [Yes].
As his body trembled, a sensation of something being pulled away surged through him. Ning Ri felt as though something in his mind had vanished.
He still understood [Mortal Blade Technique], but if he picked up a blade now, everything would feel utterly unfamiliar.
This was what they called rusty hands.
Ning Ri had experienced this feeling in his previous life too.
Several years after the college entrance examinations, when he opened one of his senior-year math test papers again, he had felt, I clearly learned this before, so why can't I understand it now...?
And at that moment, his Free Skill Points became 10.
After resetting his points, Ning Ri sat off to one side with his eyes closed, completely motionless.
To meet the half-hour deadline Zhou Hai had given him, he pretended to ponder for half an hour...
Of course.
He really had pondered it. He had even followed the jade slip's instructions and inhaled forcefully—
But unfortunately, there was no effect.
In Ning Ri's current condition, he could not draw it in through his own efforts alone.
Afterward, he brought up the panel again.
Looking at Spirit Absorption Technique, he had originally intended to go all in at once.
But on second thought, even if he was an innate cultivation sacred body, he should not be so high-profile.
So, he lightly added only three points to [Spirit Absorption Technique].
The panel displayed:
5. [Spirit Absorption Technique]: 3
As his body trembled, Ning Ri immediately felt as though he had entered a state of [Enlightenment], as if his entire body and mind had entered some profound and mysterious realm...
Right after that.
He opened his eyes...
At that moment, Zhou Hai looked over and smiled. "Half an hour is up. How do you feel?"
Ning Ri said in a low voice, "Elder Zhou, I feel that I have some ideas now."
Zhou Hai walked up to Ning Ri. "Oh? Then give it a try!"
"Yes!"
After answering, Ning Ri immediately circulated [Spirit Absorption Technique]...
The mature experience brought by [Spirit Absorption Technique: 3] flowed through Ning Ri's heart. The thin spiritual energy in his dantian finally had a use. Without hesitation, it rushed to his nose. Then, following the knowledge within his body, Ning Ri forcefully inhaled through his nose—
Whoosh—
Ning Ri's nose was like it had been fitted with a pressure pump, and all the spiritual energy before him rushed straight into it...
At the sight, Zhou Hai's eyes first lit up, then his expression changed drastically:
"Why are you sucking away the spiritual energy on my body?!"
Before you continue