Early Romance Is a Good Thing!

At the sight, the Yellow Springs Demon Saint felt even more exhilarated than if he had broken through to Dou Di!

It hadn't been easy. That blockhead had finally caught on!

True, the young lady had made the first move, but the boy hadn't backed down at the last moment. That was progress!

Back in bed, Wu Bai was still dazed. He hadn't expected to be the one on the receiving end.

"Heavens, what am I doing?"

He got out of bed and washed his face with cold water before slowly regaining his usual composure.

Well, it was just a teenage romance. He just happened to have a beautiful girlfriend with long silver-white hair, a slender, tall figure, and an aloof face. No big deal.

With that thought, Wu Bai began cultivating.

The Yellow Springs Demon Saint watched his disciple quietly from the side. Seeing that smug look on Wu Bai's face, he couldn't help rolling his eyes.

The night passed uneventfully.

"Huh? I cultivated all night. Why am I not sleepy at all?"

Wu Bai opened his eyes and looked at the dim light outside, astonished by the change in himself.

Before, a sleepless night of cultivation would have left him drowsy and exhausted. He would have needed four or five hours of sleep to recover.

"Your Soul Power has grown to the level of a Fifth-Rank Alchemist. You've begun to reach the state of Full Spirit, No Need for Sleep."

The Yellow Springs Demon Saint answered his disciple's question with a straight face.

To tell whether the boy's Soul Power had grown, he only needed to check the changes in his own.

After all, they shared a special connection.

"Full Spirit, No Need for Sleep?" Wu Bai seized on the key point.

"That's right. Once your Soul Power reaches a certain level, sleep is no longer something you need every day."

"But—"

"I know what you're going to say. You could go more than ten days without sleep before, too, but afterward you still had to sleep for a long time to make up for it."

"So what's different about Full Spirit, No Need for Sleep?"

"You don't have to make up for lost sleep, provided you haven't expended too much energy. If every day were like yesterday, you'd only need a few hours with your eyes closed to rest each month."

"From what you're saying, Teacher, this isn't a cultivation realm?"

"Correct. It's a state of being, a remarkably complete one, though only on the level of the soul."

"So there's one for the body too?"

"Correct. I call the corresponding physical state Full Vitality, No Lust."

"Huh? Does that mean you lose interest in women?"

"Fool! Lust and attraction aren't the same thing!"

"Oh..."

Wu Bai nodded. He understood what his teacher meant.

He liked beautiful women and wanted to fool around with them. That was attraction, perfectly normal, not lust.

Only when someone indulged his desires so excessively that he felt miserable without sex and couldn't even settle down to cultivate—that was lust.

The sun slowly rose, lighting up the entire academy.

Hand in hand, Wu Bai and Han Yue headed for the dining hall.

After breakfast, they parted ways. She went to class, and he went back to cultivate.

At sunset, Wu Bai went to meet her after class.

As an outstanding student, Han Yue didn't have classes every day. Much of the time, she and Wu Bai would go back to her quarters to cultivate.

They both showed restraint and avoided getting too intimate. Neither wanted to end up with a baby at Jia Nan Academy.

At the same time, they were rather childish. Even for a short walk, they insisted on going together, taking forever about it...

That was how single people saw it, anyway. Wu Bai used to think the same.

What mattered most in a relationship was being there for each other. It might have looked like they were wasting a lot of time, but it barely affected them.

In fact, Wu Bai went from Eight-Star Dou Zhe to Nine-Star Dou Zhe in less than a month and a half!

Han Yue advanced two levels in just over a month, reaching Four-Star Dou Shi.

Their speed led Wu Bai to a conclusion: a normal relationship like theirs was a tremendous boost to both their cultivation!

Yeah, teenage romance is a good thing!

If schools hadn't banned teenage romance, he could have gotten into Tsinghua and Peking University in his previous life.

That was what Wu Bai thought, anyway.

There was no denying it: the comfort they found in each other had made their cultivation far faster than before.

Wu Bai, in particular, had begun to reach the state of Full Spirit, No Need for Sleep. He could devote more than twenty hours of every day wholeheartedly to cultivation.

But none of that solved everything. Becoming a Dou Shi was still a considerable hurdle for Wu Bai.

After dinner, the two went for a walk, their favorite time together.

As they neared their quarters, Han Yue remembered something she had almost forgotten.

"Bai, my mentor asked me to ask you: can you refine a Purple Heart Barrier-Breaking Pill?"

"I can, but the quality won't be great."

As he spoke, Wu Bai took out the purple pill he had refined half a year earlier. A wisp of its fragrance drifted into the air.

"You can show this pill to your mentor. If he thinks it's good enough, I'm happy to do it. But if he can wait, it'd be better to give me a little more time. Once I advance to Dou Shi, I'll have a better chance of refining a Purple Heart Barrier-Breaking Pill, and the quality will improve too."

Han Yue took the pill and examined it carefully. "Isn't this a normal Purple Heart Barrier-Breaking Pill? I've seen the ones Mr. Zhu Qian contacted people about before. Most looked like this."

"Really?"

Wu Bai blinked, which Han Yue found especially endearing.

"Of course. You're just too demanding of yourself. Plenty of Fourth-Rank Alchemists go their whole lives without producing a single finished Purple Heart Barrier-Breaking Pill."

"I see. Then help me figure out what I should charge." Wu Bai looked at Han Yue as the realization dawned on him.

He was a complete novice and knew nothing about this sort of thing. Miss Han Yue knew far more than he did.

Han Yue nodded. She and Wu Bai were on the same side; she couldn't let him get shortchanged.

"By the customs of the Dou Qi Continent, anyone who asks an Alchemist to refine a pill generally has to provide three sets of Medicinal Herbs for each pill."

"They also have to prepare a gift to thank the Alchemist for taking the job, whether or not the pill is successfully refined."

Hearing this, Wu Bai couldn't help marveling at the lofty standing of Alchemists.

After a moment's thought, Wu Bai had an idea:

"Let's do this. We're new here, and we don't have any powerful people to rely on. We need the academy mentors to look out for us, so let's waive the gift. Three sets of Medicinal Herbs per pill will be enough."

"Mm, you're right. It's important to stay on good terms with people at the academy. Some people only respect power, not kindness, but you're an Alchemist. If anyone disrespects you, you can simply refuse to refine pills for them."

Han Yue's eyes shone. She hadn't expected this "little brother," who was even younger than she was, to handle things so maturely and think them through so carefully.

More importantly, when he'd spoken just now, he'd said "we."