The First Acceleration of the Dao Fruit

The "curse scare" from the neighboring cell E-98 that night kept Xu Qian on edge for several days. He even mulled over whether to find a way to swap to a different block and put some distance between himself and that ticking time bomb.

But on second thought, Zhou Kang had just started to form a decent impression of him, and proposing a block change now would make him look too cowardly and easily arouse suspicion. Besides, he'd spent so long cultivating Block E, painstakingly learning most of the prisoners' temperaments, delivering meals smoothly. Starting over in a strange block would be a loss outweighing the gain.

"Forget it, at worst I'll bring a few extra blankets on night shifts, wrap myself up tight, and pretend I can't hear or see anything." Xu Qian could only console himself like this, etching "stay far from E-98" into his mind as his highest code of conduct.

Life had to go on regardless. He refocused his main energy on his "core business"—playing the role of "meal delivery expert" by day, and returning to his dorm without fail by night, wrestling with those ghost-scrawl-like oilcloth patterns in his mind.

Progress with the Mad Old Man, Ding Seventeen, remained slow. Xu Qian, using meal and water deliveries as excuses, had nearly worn the old man out with his Qi Gazing Technique, yet found no new clues. The sharp Azure Qi deep within the old man's body stayed hidden, and his behavior remained as erratic and patternless as ever. The oilcloth under the bowl was unchanged too, its patterns showing no variation.

Xu Qian even began to wonder if he'd misjudged things initially. Was the oilcloth really just a madman's random doodle? Was that Azure Qi merely a residual shadow from the old man practicing some moves in his youth?

But the faint "Sharpness" intent transmitted by the Longevity Dao Fruit whenever it occasionally deduced the patterns made him think otherwise.

"Maybe... the approach is wrong? Or this sword art is too profound, and my meager skill can't even find the door?" Xu Qian could only guess.

He didn't give up. Since his nights were free anyway, cultivating the Dao Fruit and absorbing Sha Qi was automatic, requiring no full concentration. The remaining time, he spent repeatedly tracing and mimicking those patterns in his mind, guiding the Dao Fruit in its deductions.

The process was excruciatingly dull. Like playing a puzzle game with no hints, no progress bar, and no way to even know if you're right. Most of the time, he felt he was wasting effort—his mimicked movements still clumsy, the Dao Fruit's feedback faint to the point of nothingness.

A month slipped by in this seemingly fruitless repetition.

That night, as usual, Xu Qian sat cross-legged on his hard bed, his body automatically absorbing wisps of Yin Sha Qi while his consciousness sank into his mind. He faced the most deeply impressed pattern—something like the foundation of a "First Stab"—and performed his Nth-plus-one imitation and intent guidance.

He imagined holding an invisible sword, following the trajectory of those scrawled lines, thrusting forward. His spirit, intent, even the faint sense of Qi within his body, all tried to align.

Once, twice, thrice...

Just as he mechanically repeated it who-knows-how-many times, his mind starting to wander, nearly ready to give up and sleep—

A sudden change occurred!

In his Sea of Consciousness, the Longevity Dao Fruit, which had been spinning steadily like a star, radiating a warm, clear light, trembled—without warning, ever so slightly!

Not the fine adjustments from previous deduction attempts, but a more fundamental vibration, as if some internal gear had been nudged.

Then, Xu Qian clearly "felt" that the Dao Fruit's automatic circulation—originally like a slow, steady stream, slowly and constantly cycling to increase his cultivation—had abruptly sped up by a tiny margin!

Just a tiny margin!

If the previous automatic cultivation speed was "1," now it was roughly "1.01" or "1.02." The improvement was negligible; if Xu Qian weren't mentally linked to the Dao Fruit with extremely keen perception, he'd hardly notice it!

But it had indeed accelerated!

At the same time, a realization naturally surfaced in Xu Qian's mind: he hadn't directly obtained the Mad Old Man's sword art. Rather, his month-long continuous observation and imitation of those patterns, which contained some "Sword Dao True Meaning," and his constant guidance of the Dao Fruit in deduction and analysis, was like "feeding" the Dao Fruit a certain high-level "knowledge nourishment."

Quantity had led to a qualitative change.

When this "nourishment" accumulated to a certain point, it had passively optimized a small part of the Dao Fruit's underlying operational logic, making its automatic cultivation cycle slightly more efficient!

[No way! It can do that?!] Xu Qian's eyes snapped open, his face filled with disbelief and delight!

He'd originally thought "one year of cultivation per year" was a fixed value, at most slightly accelerated by absorbing Sha Qi. He never imagined that learning and analyzing external "profound knowledge" could fundamentally boost the Dao Fruit's "work efficiency"!