Taking Thousand-Year Whale Rubber

"Even if it's only a thousand years old, it was already here when my master took over this pharmacy. This stuff is incredibly potent. We might not even sell one piece in fifty years."

Seeing Lu Yi's disappointment, the pharmacy apprentice spoke again, making it clear both openly and implicitly that Thousand-Year Whale Rubber was more than enough for him.

After a brief consideration, Lu Yi ultimately spent three hundred Bronze Soul Coins at the pharmacy to buy a fist-sized piece of Thousand-Year Whale Rubber weighing three and a half taels.

"If any Ten-Thousand-Year Whale Rubber comes in, make sure to notify me!" Holding the golden piece of Whale Rubber in his hand, which was more than half impurities but was still at least three thousand years old in quality, Lu Yi spoke to the apprentice with delight written all over his face.

"Don't worry, don't worry. When the time comes, I'll have someone go straight to your school to find you. I won't go blabbing to anyone else!" Watching Lu Yi happily hold the piece of Whale Rubber with almost the strongest medicinal effect in the shop, the apprentice looked at him with a trace of pity.

He thought Lu Yi was definitely impotent from birth. Otherwise, no normal person would buy such a potent aphrodisiac just to suffer. Still, since Lu Yi had helped him get rid of this piece of Whale Rubber that had been sitting in the pharmacy for who knew how many years, he could play along.

But asking him to stock Ten-Thousand-Year Whale Rubber was absolutely out of the question. Unless Lu Yi was willing to pay more, even the thousand-year kind took who knew how many years to sell. If he bought ten-thousand-year Whale Rubber, it would probably rot in his hands for the rest of his life.

Lu Yi did not care in the slightest about the pharmacy apprentice's misunderstanding. What was a little misunderstanding? The Whale Rubber was what mattered most right now.

"Grandpa's money has only seventy Bronze Soul Coins left. Looks like I need to find a way to make money!"

After leaving the pharmacy, Lu Yi put away the Whale Rubber, patted the noticeably flatter purse, and spoke with a worried expression.

Although this piece of Thousand-Year Whale Rubber alone was enough to greatly improve his cultivation talent and increase the age limit of his Soul Rings by at least five hundred years—

Lu Yi had been poor for too long. Since he had the chance to improve his cultivation talent, why not raise it all the way to the top in one go?

How did that saying go again? Being invincible among those of the same rank only made one a genius; being able to fight above one's rank made one a monster.

Since he had the chance to become a monster, Lu Yi naturally was not content with being merely a genius.

Still, making money could wait for now. His most urgent task was to consume this piece of Thousand-Year Whale Rubber and turn it into part of his talent.

After carefully recalling the method of consuming Whale Rubber from his memories, Lu Yi headed straight for the small pond behind the academy.

He remembered that Whale Rubber needed to be softened with high heat before consumption in order to strengthen the body. There happened to be the stacks of firewood he had chopped that day beside the small pond behind the mountain, so he could burn them to heat the Whale Rubber.

He just did not know whether ordinary firewood would be enough to soften this high-quality piece of Thousand-Year Whale Rubber.

But burning it with firewood was the only method he had, so he could only give it a try.

By the time he arrived at the back mountain, it was completely dark. Wang Shu had already left, leaving only three stacks of firewood arranged in a triangle beside the pond.

"Phew... Luckily, the skills I learned from De Ye haven't gotten rusty. Otherwise, I wouldn't even know how to start a fire!" At midnight, it was so dark he could not see his hand in front of his face.

Looking at the bonfire he had finally managed to light, Lu Yi wiped his ash-covered face and let out a long breath.

He had been rubbing sticks together since it was still light outside, and only now had he finally succeeded in getting the fire started.

Who knew starting a fire by rubbing sticks together could be so difficult? Fortunately, he had succeeded in the end.

Lu Yi eagerly clamped the Whale Rubber with a split stick, then held it over the fire and slowly roasted it.

This Whale Rubber truly deserved to be a treasure taken from a thousand-year Soul Beast. Lu Yi burned through an entire stack of firewood before finally softening it into a half-solid, half-liquid gelatinous substance.

To prevent any waste, Lu Yi did not continue heating it. Ignoring how scalding hot it was, he stuffed it directly into his mouth and swallowed it.

Even the liquid Whale Rubber stuck to the wooden stick was scraped off with a stone shard, rolled into an egg-sized ball, and stuffed into Magikarp's mouth in one go.

"It's kicking in!"

Feeling scorching heat ignite in his lower abdomen, Lu Yi hurriedly sat cross-legged and began cultivating the Meditation Method he had obtained from Magikarp. This Meditation Method from Magikarp was a water-element Meditation Method.

When cultivating this Meditation Method, a cool sensation would travel throughout the body, making it easier to enter a meditative state.

At this moment, that cool sensation from cultivating the Meditation Method was Lu Yi's best weapon for suppressing the burning heat within his body.

"Bo~" Beside him, Magikarp stared with its dead fish eyes and smacked its lips at the strange taste in its mouth. Then it felt an unusual burning sensation inside its body. After blowing a bubble in disbelief, Magikarp swiftly dove into the water and began circulating its Meditation Method.

Lu Yi felt as though his body had become a furnace. Although Magikarp's Meditation Method could bring him brief moments of coolness—

That tiny bit of coolness was like a firefighter rushing from blaze to blaze. Fires were burning everywhere. You had just put out one spot, but before you could reach the next, the place you had just extinguished would burst into flames again.

"Argh! I can't take it anymore!"

Splash!

Unable to endure the burning sensation inside him any longer, Lu Yi jumped straight into the pond before him, hoping to use the water to suppress the blazing heat in his body.

Time slowly passed, and in the blink of an eye, morning arrived. Lu Yi lay by the shore, his fists covered in bruises and swelling. The injuries came from punching the mud at the bottom of the pond the night before to vent the medicinal power.

Sunlight fell across Lu Yi's face. He slowly woke from his sleep and looked at the unfamiliar sky before him, a brief look of confusion flashing through his eyes.

But he quickly recalled what he had experienced the night before and sprang up from the ground with excitement written all over his face.

Feeling the powerful strength inside his body, Lu Yi punched Wang Shu's stack of firewood and sent it collapsing. Then he threw another punch at a willow tree by the pond as thick as the mouth of a bowl. He felt like he could punch a cow to death.

But soon, the pain shooting through his fist and the fact that the willow had merely swayed violently a few times told him—

Kid, that was just your imagination.

Rubbing his aching fist hard, Lu Yi came to terms with reality and walked over to a stone by the shore that weighed over a hundred jin.

Then he easily lifted the hundred-jin stone over his head.

Bang! Slamming the stone heavily onto the ground, Lu Yi finally gained a clear understanding of his current strength.

He was now a little stronger than an ordinary adult man, roughly comparable to those strong adults who had spent years forging iron. Overall, the improvement was a little small. After all, a piece of Thousand-Year Whale Rubber had only brought him this much enhancement.

But considering that he was only six years old, his foundation had been too weak. Besides, a large portion of the Whale Rubber's effects had likely gone toward transforming his body, meridians, and such to strengthen his foundation. With that in mind, he could still accept this result.

After testing the improvement to his physical condition, Lu Yi released Magikarp.

"Bo~" Magikarp smoothly swam a circle through the water, blew a bubble at Lu Yi, then looked at him with those dead fish eyes.

Meanwhile, seeing Magikarp's bright, beautiful scales and its body length of at least one meter eighty, Lu Yi could not hide the joy on his face.

Magikarp's current size represented Lu Yi's combat power to a certain extent. A thirty-centimeter Magikarp using Tackle was certainly nowhere near as powerful as a one-meter-eighty Magikarp using Tackle.

After checking the improvements to both Magikarp and himself, Lu Yi prepared to test the improvement in his cultivation speed.

He was rather nervous about this. The original work had only said that Whale Rubber could increase the age limit a Soul Master could withstand for Soul Rings; it had not said whether it could improve a Soul Master's cultivation speed.

However, a Soul Master's cultivation speed was determined to a certain extent by their physical condition. Therefore, Lu Yi believed his cultivation speed should have improved as well. The main question was how great that improvement would be.

Lu Yi was not greedy about this. Even an improvement of just one level would greatly increase his cultivation speed. If it was two levels, then he could boldly declare that he was a genius at Nuoding Academy.