Mysterious Purple-Skinned Gourd!

"I got lost. Senior Sister Qin brought me here to register," Chen Huai'an said after a brief hesitation.

"Then are you close with Senior Sister Qin?" the disciple pressed.

Chen Huai'an did not know how to answer, but he knew that the more one said, the more likely one was to slip up. He hemmed and hawed, glossing it over vaguely and leaving plenty to the imagination.

Even so, the disciples who had pricked up their ears to eavesdrop looked at Chen Huai'an with envy.

After all, in an immortal cultivation sect, who would not want someone powerful to lean on?

The Azure Cloud Sect's servant disciples lived in connected stone houses, one room for each person.

There were tens of thousands of servant disciples, and their batch alone numbered several thousand.

What surprised Chen Huai'an was that he actually heard news about Su Wanying.

Su Wanying possessed a Supreme Water Spiritual Root. Her appearance caused quite a stir within the sect, even alarming the Qingyun Sect's sect master, who took her in as his last disciple.

As the Qingyun Sect master's disciple, Su Wanying had soared to the heavens in a single step, making countless people green with envy.

Chen Huai'an could not help sighing. This was what they meant by fate playing tricks on people.

Once, the two of them had been childhood sweethearts, innocent and carefree, and their families had even arranged a betrothal for them.

But now, their circumstances and the roads ahead of them were as far apart as heaven and earth.

At that thought, Chen Huai'an tasted bitterness in his mouth. He lifted the Purple-Skinned Gourd at his waist and took a gulp of water, only to discover that it was sweet as honey upon entering his mouth, with an endless aftertaste.

"Huh? Why is this water so sweet?" When Chen Huai'an had filled it with water from the stream in the Azure Cloud Sect's Rear Mountain Forbidden Area, he had also taken a few drinks. It had definitely not tasted like this.

After drinking the water, he felt warmth spread through his entire body. Every pore seemed to relax, and he felt comfortable all over.

"This gourd is definitely a treasure." After drinking the water, Chen Huai'an stroked the Purple-Skinned Gourd in his hand, shock appearing on his face.

It was one thing that the gourd could hold so much, but even the water inside seemed to have mutated.

It was refreshing and sweet, and after drinking it, his entire body felt wonderfully at ease.

He truly seemed fated with gourds. After all, before his cheap old man had left years ago, he had also left Chen Huai'an a Purple Jade Gourd pendant as a keepsake.

Chen Huai'an subconsciously reached up to touch his neck, only to find his chest completely bare. There was nothing there.

"Wait, where's my pendant?"

Chen Huai'an's brows furrowed into the character for river once more. "Could the gourd in my hand be the gourd pendant Father left me? But that can't be right. How could a thumb-sized pendant become this big? Could this thing grow bigger and smaller?"

Just as Chen Huai'an was pondering the gourd's origins, his vision suddenly went black. The next second, he appeared in a misty world.

"Huh? Where am I? Damn, why is there a pool of water here?" Chen Huai'an saw that the water was a deep jade green. He could not help reaching out to touch it, then tasted some with his thumb. The water was sweet, leaving an unforgettable aftertaste.

This water tasted exactly like the spring water he had just drunk.

After observing it, Chen Huai'an discovered that this pool of water was like a spring eye.

"Could it be that I entered the inside of the Purple Jade Gourd?" When Chen Huai'an had studied in Huai Tree Village, he had read some strange tales and supernatural storybooks. Besides, now that he was in the Qingyun Sect, he did not find any strange thing happening to him all that strange.

The space was not very large, with roughly an acre of visible ground. A layer of gray mist filled the surroundings, hazy and impossible to see through. When he reached out to touch it, an invisible wall of air blocked his way.

"How am I supposed to get out?" Chen Huai'an wandered around this strange space once, but found no other exit and had no idea how to leave.

Just as Chen Huai'an was thinking about how to leave, he felt a wave of dizziness. Then he returned to the stone house where the servant disciples lived.

Looking at the Purple-Skinned Gourd in his hand, Chen Huai'an became even more certain that he had entered the gourd's inner space just now. Only that could explain why he had used it to hold water earlier and had not managed to fill it even after nearly an hour.

Yet no matter how hard he thought about it, he could not understand how he had muddleheadedly entered it just now.

"I wonder if I'll be able to enter again next time." Chen Huai'an did not continue studying the Purple-Skinned Gourd's space. What he needed to do now was cultivate as quickly as possible. If he failed to reach the First Stage of the Body Tempering Realm within a year, he would be expelled from the Qingyun Sect.

The gourd was already in his hand and could not run away. Once he entered the Body Tempering Realm, he could slowly figure it out.

Perhaps he had drunk too much water just now. The warmth had turned into restlessness, and he felt so overheated that he wanted to find an outlet to vent it.

Chen Huai'an paced back and forth in the stone house before taking out a Body Tempering manual issued by the Qingyun Sect.

This Body Tempering manual had ten levels. It taught one how to follow the circulation routes recorded in the Basic Body-Tempering Formula, using inner force to temper the body.

Chen Huai'an had never cultivated martial techniques or methods in Big Locust Tree Village. As for the Qingyun Sect's Body-Refining Formula, he found it as baffling as looking at flowers through fog.

The more Chen Huai'an read, the worse he felt. His body seemed about to explode, and he simply could not calm his mind.

In the end, he could only try practicing some rustic farmer's moves used by ordinary people, throwing punches and kicking his legs to burn off his energy. After finishing a set of farmer's moves, Chen Huai'an did not feel the slightest fatigue. Instead, he was full of vigor, and he also felt much stronger than before.

Chen Huai'an came to a conclusion: the water in the Purple-Skinned Gourd could not be drunk carelessly. Drink too much, and his body would feel swollen and uncomfortable.

But there was no denying that both the gourd and this mutated spring water were good things!

The next day, Chen Huai'an and several other servant disciples went to the Servant Peak dining hall to eat.

Through the conversations of several servant disciples, he finally learned that the first step of Body Tempering was drawing qi into the body and tempering the flesh.

These servant disciples did not have much talent. The best among them only had Mid-grade Spiritual Roots, but even so, their perception of the spiritual energy of heaven and earth was countless times better than his Five Elements Mixed Spiritual Root.

Every one of them looked arrogant and disdainful, completely looking down on someone like Chen Huai'an with a Five Elements Mixed Spiritual Root.

They barely bothered to respond to his questions.

After observing and asking around in many places, Chen Huai'an learned that they had not managed to draw qi into their bodies and temper their flesh either.

If one could casually draw qi into the body and temper the flesh, immortal masters in this world would surely be as numerous as crucian carp crossing a river.

After asking around, Chen Huai'an was rather dejected.

Cultivation was too difficult! It could only be described as harder than climbing to heaven!

Even servant disciples in the outer sect with good talent needed at least two or three months to draw qi into their bodies and reach the Body Tempering Realm.

Many outer sect disciples needed external aid to draw qi into their bodies, such as Body Tempering Pills. Through medicinal pills, they could increase their body's vitality and speed up their perception of the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

Newly admitted disciples, whether outer sect disciples or servant disciples, would receive two Body Tempering Pills to assist their cultivation, so that they could draw qi into their bodies as soon as possible.

To enter the cultivation state quickly and accelerate cultivation, one had to possess abundant cultivation resources.

Yesterday, because he had drunk the water from the Purple-Skinned Gourd, Chen Huai'an's body had become unbearably hot, leaving him no time to take the pills.

Seven days was not much time. He had to properly make use of it.

He had to make it into the top three. What he needed was cultivation time, not hard labor.

After leaving the dining hall, he returned to his stone house.

During these seven days, even if it cost him his life, he had to sense the existence of qi.

His aptitude was poor, he was old, and a clumsy bird had to fly first.

Otherwise, he would have to do dirty, exhausting work in the Azure Cloud Sect, with no extra time left for cultivation!

The Body Tempering Pill was about the size of a peanut, black as coal, and smelled like the scorched bottom of a pot. Yet beneath that was a faint medicinal fragrance. This was the lowest-grade Low-grade Body Tempering Pill.

After Chen Huai'an swallowed one, he did not feel the pain of his meridians tearing apart. His body grew a little warm, then very quickly went still.

"No way. Could this Body Tempering Pill the sect gave me be fake?" Chen Huai'an lamented.

Taking this Low-grade Body Tempering Pill did not feel nearly as potent as drinking the water from the Purple-Skinned Gourd.

Chen Huai'an had asked around. When ordinary people consumed a Body Tempering Pill, their whole bodies would swell and heat up as if they were about to burst. Then, borrowing that force, they would calm their minds and use the medicinal power to open their meridians, making it easier for spiritual energy to enter their bodies.

It sounded very much like how he had felt after drinking the gourd water yesterday.

With one Body Tempering Pill remaining, Chen Huai'an did not hurry to swallow it. Instead, he placed it inside the Purple-Skinned Gourd.

Chen Huai'an wanted to see what changes would occur if he put the pill into the Purple-Skinned Gourd.