Seeing the available experience on the panel change to 0.001002, Chen Yu's eyes flashed!
"Hell yeah!"
At 0.001 experience per second, this was pretty damn fast.
Chen Yu did some calculations.
"It takes 1,000 seconds to gain 1 experience point. A minute is 60 seconds, ten minutes is 600 seconds, and twenty minutes is 1,200 seconds. In other words, I can get a point in under twenty minutes."
"In three hours, I can break through to the Qi Refining First Layer!"
Nice, very nice!
He no longer had to worry about being refined into a Spirit Charm Coin.
Chen Yu nodded,
thoroughly satisfied.
He stopped thinking about all that nonsense.
He settled into meditation,
then began practicing the "Qi Guiding Art."
Chen Yu seemed to become a black hole, wildly drawing in the dense yin energy around him.
He went through the motions of guiding the yin energy into his body, but yin energy was not spiritual energy, after all. Once the "Qi Guiding Art" drew it inside, it quickly vanished like evaporating water vapor.
Only experience remained.
Notifications appeared.
[Cultivating...] [Experience: +0.001.] [Experience: +0.001.]
"So chilly..."
[Cultivating...] [Experience: +0.001.] [Experience: +0.001.]
"Awesome, fucking awesome."
He kept at it.
The surrounding yin energy continuously entered Chen Yu's body, turning into experience.
The only downside was that his physique was rather weak at the moment. After absorbing yin energy for too long, he grew cold all over and had to stop occasionally to warm himself up.
Time
slowly passed...
Under ideal conditions, Chen Yu could gather the 11 experience points needed to reach the Qi Refining First Layer in three hours. But his cultivation was not uninterrupted, with cooldown periods after each bout of bliss, so the actual time he spent cultivating far exceeded three hours.
Before he knew it, night had fallen. Chen Yu checked the system panel.
[Name: Chen Yu.] [Age: 18.] [Level: Mortal (-1/10) (11 experience points required to reach the next level).] [Spiritual root: false spiritual root.] [Martial skills: None.] [Cultivation art: "Qi Guiding Art."] [Currently available experience: 11.200002.]
"I finally have 11 experience points!"
Seeing the amount of available experience remaining on the panel, Chen Yu grew excited.
The next second, a man's excited shout suddenly rang out through the silent Mass Burial Grounds: "System, add those points!"
A string of strange laughter followed.
"Heh heh heh..."
Fortunately, nobody else passed through the area, or they might have developed an inner demon.
After he allocated the experience, notifications appeared before Chen Yu's eyes.
[Experience allocated!] [Attributes updated!] [Name: Chen Yu.] [Age: 18.] [Level: Qi Refining first layer (0.2/20).] [Spiritual root: false spiritual root.] [Martial skills: None.] [Cultivation art: "Qi Guiding Art."] [Currently available experience: 0.]
As all 11 experience points poured into his level, Chen Yu immediately felt a warm current flowing through the meridians throughout his body. The cold in every part of him was swept away, the aching in his lower back was healed, and even the foggy, swollen feeling in his head vanished completely.
It was like going from a middle-aged man whose body could no longer keep up with his desires straight back to eighteen, when his energy was at its peak.
"Ha! I broke through! Qi Refining First Layer!"
Chen Yu excitedly savored his light, powerful body.
He tried mobilizing the spiritual power inside him. A gentle, warm stream flowed through his meridians and gathered in his fist, which he then punched sharply forward!
Whoosh-
His fist whistled through the air.
"Too bad early-stage Qi Refining doesn't let me project spiritual power outside my body, and the Dao Sect hasn't taught me any martial skills either. I can't cast a spell for fun like they do in cultivation novels." Chen Yu lowered his fist, somewhat disappointed.
The first through third layers of Qi Refining comprised the early stage.
The fourth through sixth layers of Qi Refining comprised the middle stage.
The seventh through ninth layers of Qi Refining comprised the late stage.
"It takes 20 experience points to advance to the second layer..."
At this point, Chen Yu noticed the change on the panel, but it stirred little emotion in him.
"Whatever. Cultivating here is incredibly fast anyway. Even with the experience requirement doubled, it'll only take six or seven hours. There are still seven days until the assessment. More than enough time."
Chen Yu was no longer panicking at all.
He turned to look around.
Night had fallen, making this place with its dense trees even darker.
Yin energy was gathering.
"This is seriously creepy... If someone suddenly jumped out, I'd drop straight to the ground..."
He had been fine before thinking about it.
But once he did,
Chen Yu kept feeling a chill down his back.
It was as though something utterly terrifying lurked in the boundless darkness.
The horror movies he had watched in his previous life took turns surfacing in his mind: red wedding dresses, faceless women, the sound of opera singing...
His steps grew faster and faster.
In the end, Chen Yu practically jogged all the way out of the Mass Burial Grounds.
Fortunately, he had already reached the first layer of Qi Refining.
His physique had improved considerably.
Soon, Chen Yu caught sight of the familiar stone house.
The solitary stone house stood at the foot of the mountains. Behind it, only the black silhouettes of peak after peak could be seen in the darkness, while a vast river of stars stretched across the sky above.
The stone house's door was closed, but a dim yellow light shone inside.
The sight eased his mind considerably.
Chen Yu kept walking forward.
As he drew closer, he saw a slender, shapely silhouette cast against the stone house's paper window. The figure's hands moved to either shoulder, and with a gentle tug, a piece of clothing slipped naturally down her body...
"Gulp..."
Standing outside, Chen Yu widened his eyes at the sight and instinctively swallowed.
He thought to himself:
The original owner had been reserved
by nature. In three years of cultivation, he had neither befriended the other Registered Disciples nor made any enemies. Although people had initially envied him for having a fair-skinned, beautiful Dao companion, she had been assigned by the sect, after all. Moreover, the Dao Sect explicitly forbade any fighting between Registered Disciples, whether in public or in private. Anyone caught would be seized and refined into a Spirit Charm Coin in an instant, so no conflicts had ever broken out.
Judging by that, this body's condition most likely has something to do with that succubus Dao companion!
So I absolutely have to keep myself under control!
With a heavy heart, he walked to the door and placed his hand against it, but did not push it open immediately. He hesitated for a moment.
Then a voice came from inside. "Why aren't you coming in?"
Her voice was soft and tender, like silk brushing over moonlight.
Chen Yu promptly pushed the door open.
The room was quite bare, containing only a stone table, two wooden stools, and a bed.
A candle sat on the table, its flame flickering.
Chen Yu looked toward the bed. In the dim yellow light, two long legs as smooth and delicate as jade lay crossed, the slit in her skirt reaching the top of her thigh. Thin black silk clung to her waist. Reclining on the bed, the woman watched him enter with her beautiful eyes and gave him a gentle, bashful smile.
"...My husband."
Her vermilion lips parted slightly. Her clear, silvery voice sent tingles through him, making his heart itch.
Her name automatically surfaced in Chen Yu's mind.
-Yun Miaozhen.