Two months passed in the blink of an eye.
After the examinations divided everyone into different tiers, the hall Yun Ye needed to attend was completely different as well.
The regular Qi Nurturing Hall had not only been replaced with a larger one, but its students had changed too, increasing to more than fifty.
This time, luck was on his side. He had been assigned to the same Qi Nurturing Hall as Wang Yao—the Grade C Qi Nurturing Hall, though with the Second Examination prefix added.
With them closer together, Yun Ye and Wang Yao could do much more. Competing against each other in Tiger Fist and discussing Qi Nurturing Technique had become commonplace, all in hopes of speeding up their cultivation through such methods.
Unfortunately, relying on themselves alone yielded meager results, far inferior to guidance from a renowned teacher.
But with the Qi Nurturing Hall's increased number of students, all the teachers had their own preferences. They paid no special attention to Yun Ye and Wang Yao, and their guidance was perfunctory to the extreme, making it practically meaningless.
As for the true geniuses and the wealthy students, they received private guidance and advanced by leaps and bounds, widening the gap even further.
That was under the circumstances that Yun Ye and Wang Yao had not been singled out. As for those unyielding geniuses, the stakeholders simply refused to guide them, or even deliberately taught them incorrectly. That was truly terrifying...
After two months, Yun Ye had made great progress in Qi Nurturing Technique. He had already advanced from the early Foundation Establishment stage to the middle stage. At this rate, he would probably achieve minor mastery in Qi Nurturing within a year or two and gain the opportunity to awaken his spirit root.
But he had also discovered a problem.
The main course was Qi Nurturing Technique.
The supplementary course was Tiger Fist.
The secondary courses were Demon Knowledge and Cultivation Knowledge.
The amount of study in the Second Examination stage of the Prominent Learning Hall was enormous, and it had already begun to exceed Yun Ye's capacity.
As he increased the time spent cultivating Qi Nurturing Technique, he inevitably fell behind in other areas.
His three daily meals of Grade D Superior Food were equivalent to requiring him to practice Qi Nurturing Technique at least fifteen times.
That was no small number. Yun Ye had to spend three hours on it.
In reality, Yun Ye did not eat only Grade D Superior Food for his three daily meals. He also received one serving of Grade C food.
He spent at least four hours a day practicing Qi Nurturing Technique.
On top of that, he still had Tiger Fist and all kinds of knowledge to master. Yun Ye's time was already becoming insufficient.
"Is there any way to improve the efficiency of Qi Nurturing Technique..."
Yun Ye began pondering.
The Qi Nurturing Hall specialized in teaching Qi Nurturing Technique.
The higher one's mastery, the better the effect. Overall, mastery was divided into five levels: entry, proficiency, minor mastery, Great Success, and perfection.
At present, he was only at the proficient level. In theory, there was still a great deal of room for improvement.
But that was only in theory.
Anyone who had focused on a single craft for more than a decade understood that learning progressed fastest at the beginning. The farther one went, the slower it became. It was entirely a matter of grinding away with water, and sometimes one simply hit a dead end.
Although Qi Nurturing Technique was not particularly complicated, Yun Ye had still needed a month to reach the entry level and a year to become proficient.
To enter the minor mastery stage, he would probably need at least five years of slow improvement, carving the skill into his very bones before he could accomplish it.
But such a long time clearly could not resolve Yun Ye's predicament.
Qi Nurturing Technique undoubtedly came in different grades.
It was just like internal cultivation techniques in martial arts novels: the effects of an unrivaled divine art and an ordinary martial art were worlds apart.
Yu Yu, who taught Qi Nurturing Technique, had also mentioned other Qi Nurturing Techniques.
If the Qi Nurturing Technique taught by the government was the foundation, then stronger Qi Nurturing Techniques were secret transmissions.
Every lineage's secret transmission of Qi Nurturing Technique had been developed little by little from the foundation of Qi Nurturing Technique.
In essence, they were still the same art, only easier to learn and easier to bring to a higher realm.
It was equivalent to organizing scattered knowledge into a knowledge tree and improving learning efficiency.
In other words, proficiency in every Qi Nurturing Technique was universally applicable.
Once one obtained a new technique, one could most likely take it up immediately.
It was precisely this universality that gave secret transmissions their immense value. Basically, no one would pass one on to outsiders.
As the teacher of Qi Nurturing Technique, Yu Yu had actually mastered a secret transmission as well. That was precisely why he had been chosen as the instructor.
In theory, if he taught without reservation, even students who could not learn the secret Qi Nurturing Technique could still improve rapidly.
But Yu Yu belonged to an Aristocratic Clan. It was impossible for him to wholeheartedly teach a commoner. After a year, Yun Ye had only recently grasped even the "proficient" realm of Qi Nurturing Technique.
Yun Ye felt that the path through the Prominent Learning Hall would not work. If he wanted to obtain a secret transmission, he could only do so through other means.
Or he could research one himself.
But both paths were almost impossible.
Given this world's degree of secrecy regarding secret techniques, Yun Ye could not buy a secret transmission with money. He could only seize one through overwhelming strength, or render a great service to an Aristocratic Clan or the government and have them bestow one upon him.
Yun Ye had neither strength nor much cultivation to speak of. He had only just begun cultivating and could not possibly render such a service.
As for the second path—researching one himself—that was even more difficult.
White Stone Town had existed for at least several hundred years and had passed through more than a dozen generations, yet the Aristocratic Clans with recognized names remained only a handful.
Clearly, this was not something that could be completed in a few generations. Even someone with extraordinary talent would find it difficult.
But after turning the matter over in his mind from every angle, Yun Ye felt that researching one himself was perhaps his only option. His time was the least valuable thing he possessed. If one lifetime was not enough, there was still a second. Accumulating whatever he could was the King Path.
The thought ran through him like a clear current.
Yun Ye was thoroughly relieved. He no longer pondered how to score more points in the examinations, but instead devoted himself to studying all kinds of knowledge.
It was only then that Yun Ye discovered the purpose of the various secondary courses in the Prominent Learning Hall.
The secondary courses were where practical skills were taught directly.
They taught everything from herb classification and ore refinement to medicine and musical instruments. However, these subjects were fundamentally not aimed at those with revived spirit roots, so no one paid them any attention.
Yun Ye discovered that most of the students attending the secondary courses were around fifteen or sixteen years old. This left him astonished. Wasn't that the sprinting stage? Why were they still here?
But after thinking it over, perhaps they had reached the final stage and realized that awakening their spirit roots was hopeless. That was why they had come to learn practical skills, hoping to earn a living and not have their journey amount to nothing.
After Yun Ye quietly made some inquiries, the actual situation soon became clear.
It turned out that the students in the secondary courses were not all cultivators. In fact, most of the learners were ordinary people without talent. They were apprentices in the government's Logistics Department...
They could also be called servants whose roles had been passed down through generations.
Their lives consisted of learning a skill, then serving the government or cultivators, before having children and repeating the cycle endlessly.
Yun Ye was already unsurprised by this. He silently blended in and absorbed all the knowledge he needed.
To research Qi Nurturing Technique, one first had to understand its operating principles.
In this world, almost everyone knew what something was but not why it was so. No one had conducted deliberate research. All improvements relied on a flash of inspiration from some genius.
But Yun Ye's situation was clearly different. His creativity was insufficient, and he could not open up a new path.
Yet systematically analyzing what already existed still allowed him to discover things that most people could not.
That was the function of the incantation.
Qi Nurturing Technique had to be paired with an incantation. Although silently reciting it was enough, doing without it was absolutely impossible.
The incantation generally described refining qi from throughout the body, gathering it in the chest, allowing it to remain there for a long time, and ultimately preserving Life Energy so that the physical body would gradually grow stronger.
That sounded a little like... hypnosis? Self-suggestion?
Yun Ye's interest rose, and he immediately began experimenting.
First, he stopped thinking about the incantation and simply practiced Qi Nurturing Technique once.
Unlike Qi Nurturing Technique accompanied by the incantation, the movements alone merely left Yun Ye drenched in sweat, with almost no qi refined.
This was Qi Nurturing Technique that had not even reached the entry level. Just as in his past experiences, it had no effect whatsoever.
Then Yun Ye practiced the normal Qi Nurturing Technique once more.
But unlike a complete practice session, this time Yun Ye carefully experienced the changes in his body while silently reciting the incantation.
Because he was distracted, the result was that the effect of Qi Nurturing Technique was greatly reduced, producing only around 40 percent as much qi as under normal circumstances.
Finally, Yun Ye did not chant the incantation. Instead, he directly imagined qi being refined while practicing the movements.
The result was quite interesting. This time, Qi Nurturing Technique was not ineffective; its effect was merely greatly reduced, reaching only around 10 percent efficiency—lower even than the distracted practice while chanting the incantation.
After that, Yun Ye repeatedly practiced Qi Nurturing Technique through imagination. To his astonishment, as he grew more proficient, his cultivation efficiency rose rapidly, soon reaching 80 percent of the effect of normal cultivation, with room for further improvement.
This situation further enriched Yun Ye's understanding of "cultivation."
From Yun Ye's perspective, cultivating Qi Nurturing Technique through imagination was actually more difficult than silently reciting the incantation.
Directly reciting the incantation aloud was even easier than silently reciting it.
The reason he could rapidly bring the Imagination Method up to the level of normal cultivation with the incantation was that he had firmly memorized the movements and practiced them to an extreme degree, allowing him to devote his entire mind to imagining.
For a beginner, however, even without having to perform any other movements, imagining a real object in one's mind was difficult.
The Imagination Method was not something that worked by simply imagining a rough outline. One needed an extremely vivid understanding of the sensation of qi and of the feeling of qi being refined. That required long-term practice to perfect.
Once completed, however, its enhancement far exceeded Yun Ye's imagination.
The 100-percent threshold was crossed rapidly.
It had only just been created, yet after a month of Yun Ye's improvements, its effect had already reached 150 percent!
Yun Ye faintly sensed that the so-called secret Qi Nurturing Technique was actually a process of moving from simple to complex and constructing a more three-dimensional, clearer cultivation process, rather than endlessly relying on the same auxiliary incantation.
If one failed to comprehend this point, Qi Nurturing Technique would probably remain forever at a low level, making Great Success difficult—let alone perfection.
Compared with his excavation of the Imagination Method, Yun Ye had no way to improve the body-refining movements. His accumulated knowledge was insufficient to let him modify them.
Basically, with even a random change, the efficiency of the entire Qi Nurturing Technique would plummet. Blindly trying every possibility was nothing but a waste of time.
As for modifying the movements, he would wait until he had gained a sufficient understanding of this world's cultivation system.
All the instructors at the Prominent Learning Hall possessed the ability to modify the movements of Qi Nurturing Technique. When offering guidance, they would adjust the movements according to each person's situation. If it were only one or two people, one could say they were simply exceptionally talented.
But if everyone possessed that ability, then it was probably some kind of common knowledge. Yun Ye's level was simply not high enough, so he could not understand it.
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