Ever since imprisoning Nalan Yanran that night, Xiao Yan had begun living a low-key cultivation life.
Every day, he hid inside the Portable Space to cultivate.
Without Medicine Elder absorbing his Dou Qi, his talent had returned once more.
Moreover, because his past-life memories had awakened, his soul perception seemed to have more than doubled.
Combined with the fact that the heaven and earth energy within the Portable Space was twice as dense as outside, his Dou Qi improved rapidly.
Time flew by, and half a year soon passed.
Inside the Portable Space, Xiao Yan sat cross-legged in a tub of emerald medicinal liquid, his upper body bare as he cultivated.
Suddenly, he opened his closed eyes, and two beams of white light shot from them. They lasted for over a minute before fading away.
Xiao Yan slowly exhaled a breath of stale air, a faint smile appearing on his face.
"Finally, nine stages of Dou Qi."
With a splash, Xiao Yan stood up from the tub, allowing icy droplets to roll down his fair body.
"Pervert!"
At that moment, a delicate cry rang out.
It was Nalan Yanran.
The place where Xiao Yan cultivated was just outside the courtyard where Nalan Yanran was imprisoned.
He lowered his head and glanced at his shorts, soaked through by the medicinal liquid and clinging tightly to his body, making his impressive manhood especially conspicuous. It was indeed rather indecent.
But what decent girl climbed a wall to peek at someone else cultivating?
After half a year of imprisonment, Nalan Yanran seemed to have accepted her fate.
At first, she had gone on a hunger strike for several days in protest, but later, unable to bear the hunger, she secretly ate again.
However, within the Portable Space, none of her every movement could escape Xiao Yan's perception.
Xiao Yan began changing clothes right in front of Nalan Yanran. The young woman spat in embarrassment, her face flushing as she pulled her head back behind the wall.
Who knew how many times they had gone through such a scene?
As Xiao Yan changed clothes, he said, "Nalan Yanran, the people from the Misty Cloud Sect withdrew from Wutan City over a month ago."
In the courtyard, the young woman leaned against the wall, with little change in her pretty face.
Almost every so often, Xiao Yan would report intelligence about the Misty Cloud Sect sending people to search for her.
At first, she had been full of hope, but as time passed, she went from hope to despair, and then from despair to acceptance.
"You're Xiao Yan, aren't you?"
Nalan Yanran asked from within the courtyard.
Xiao Yan had never revealed his identity.
"Heh, you guessed it. Being imprisoned by the man whose marriage proposal you once looked down on—does that feel awful?"
Xiao Yan said with a light laugh. "If you hadn't come to the Xiao Household to break off the engagement, I wouldn't have imprisoned you. You brought all this upon yourself, Nalan Yanran."
"Is it wrong for me to want a free marriage? Is it wrong for me to want to choose my own partner?"
Nalan Yanran's voice suddenly rose.
With a flash, Xiao Yan appeared in the courtyard and stood before Nalan Yanran, staring directly into her eyes.
He sneered. "To seek a free marriage, did you have to trade away my dignity and my father's?"
"If you wanted to break off the engagement, there were countless ways to do it. Yet you insisted on using the Misty Cloud Sect to pressure the Xiao Household and force me to annul it."
"How was that fair to me or my father?"
"Just because I was useless and the Xiao Household was weak, we had to accept that injustice?"
"Now that I'm stronger than you, you're imprisoned. That's fair, isn't it?"
Xiao Yan's cold words left Nalan Yanran pale. She lightly bit her lip and said in a low voice, "But none of that happened, did it? Why are you being so harsh?"
Xiao Yan chuckled. "I know you too well, Nalan Yanran. If I hadn't imprisoned you in advance, everything I said would have become reality."
"We've never even met since childhood, much less lived together. What makes you think you know me?"
Nalan Yanran lifted her chin defiantly.
Naturally, Xiao Yan would not say that he knew her through a book.
"Things have come to this. Just live here obediently. Once I have the strength to contend with the Misty Cloud Sect, perhaps I'll let you leave."
He could not be bothered to explain, and with a flash, he left.
"Actually, if you let me go now, I won't let the Misty Cloud Sect make things difficult for you or the Xiao Household."
In the courtyard, Nalan Yanran twisted the hem of her clothes between her fingers and murmured softly.
Five days later, inside the Portable Space, within Medicine Elder's courtyard.
Watching Xiao Yan successfully condense a Dou Qi Vortex and become a Dou Zhe, Medicine Elder let out a soft breath.
He had originally planned to refine Qi Gathering Powder for Xiao Yan, but Xiao Yan had refused.
He had thought the boy was being overconfident, but it turned out that he had still underestimated Xiao Yan's soul perception.
Xiao Yan smiled faintly. He had great confidence in his soul perception.
He had first transmigrated to Blue Star, then to the Battle Qi Continent, and had also absorbed the soul of the original Earthling.
It could be said that he had lived four lives, and his soul perception was four times that of an ordinary person.
Even the slightest improvement in soul perception created an obvious gap, let alone a difference of fourfold.
"Teacher, now that I've become a Dou Zhe, I can cultivate a technique. Take out that evolving technique you mentioned."
Xiao Yan smiled broadly and held out his hand.
"Have you really thought this through? For the Flame Mantra to evolve, you must absorb Heavenly Flames. You've seen how tyrannical my Bone Chilling Flame is. Absorbing Heavenly Flames is extremely dangerous. One careless mistake could cost you your life."
Medicine Elder spoke gravely.
Xiao Yan smiled. "You've seen my fire-attribute constitution. Not cultivating the Flame Mantra would be idiotic. Besides, I even dared to imprison the young sect mistress of the Misty Cloud Sect. Is there anything I wouldn't dare to do?"
"Your constitution is indeed suited to cultivating the Flame Mantra. Perhaps you truly can cultivate this extraordinary technique successfully."
Medicine Elder was also full of amazement at Xiao Yan's miraculous constitution. He often marveled that the boy was deeply blessed by fate, a favored son of heaven.
Over the past half year, Xiao Yan had often lit great fires and then sat amid the flames to cultivate. This was also one reason he had broken through to the ninth stage of Dou Qi so quickly.
By now, Xiao Yan could even approach within half a meter of the Bone Chilling Flame and cultivate by absorbing the heat it emitted.
Slightly excited, Medicine Elder took out a black scroll. The technique's obscure description stated that several Heavenly Flames could be used in conjunction to temper a body capable of housing a soul. With a new body, he would essentially be reborn.
With Xiao Yan's talent, his chance of rebirth might truly be possible—and the odds were high.
The instant Xiao Yan touched the black scroll, a massive flood of information surged into his mind.
Only half an hour later did Xiao Yan finish absorbing the information about the Flame Mantra.
He sat cross-legged, preparing to transform the ordinary Qi Vortex within his dantian into a Technique Qi Vortex.
The first step was to construct a "Spirit Rune" at the center of the Qi Vortex.
Different techniques produced different Spirit Runes. The Spirit Rune was the core of a Technique Qi Vortex.
The Qi Vortex's efficiency in absorbing and converting Dou Qi, its maximum Dou Qi storage, the quality of its Dou Qi, and the speed at which it released Dou Qi were all determined by the Spirit Rune.
The higher the grade of the technique, the more complex the Spirit Rune it constructed, and the more powerful the Technique Qi Vortex became.
The Spirit Rune formed by the Flame Mantra was exceptionally ingenious and advanced. It was open-ended, capable of absorbing Heavenly Flames to evolve.
Since the Flame Mantra began as merely a low Huang-tier technique, its Spirit Rune was also extremely simple.
In only an hour, Xiao Yan successfully constructed a strange flame-shaped Spirit Rune at the center of his Qi Vortex.
The next step was to drive the Qi Vortex into rotation. As it spun, the Spirit Rune released strange ripples that transformed the entire Qi Vortex.
After more than another hour, a brand-new Technique Qi Vortex took shape.
Compared with a basic Qi Vortex, the Technique Qi Vortex absorbed and converted heaven and earth energy more efficiently, stored more Dou Qi, produced higher-quality Dou Qi, and released Dou Qi from the vortex faster.
Within the Technique Qi Vortex, the milky-white Dou Qi had also transformed into pale-yellow Dou Qi, stored at the vortex's center.
Xiao Yan opened his eyes, and pale-yellow light shot from them, taking more than a minute to dissipate.
Having become a Dou Zhe, he could next begin learning Alchemy.
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