"Hmph! If you won't give me pills, I'll get the ingredients and refine them myself!" Li Xiaoya kicked the large tree beside the road hard and snapped in anger. With that, he stormed off toward the market on Heavenly Capital Peak.
Over the past three years, Li Xiaoya's basic cultivation routine had hardly changed. His afternoon reading and writing lessons no longer required Senior Brother Liu Hang's constant guidance; he could read and study on his own. He had already read quite a few of the books in Liu Hang's study, and their frequent discussions made for a fairly satisfying life.
It was the seated meditation and breathing exercises that truly frustrated him. He had neither the grand ambition of attaining immortality nor any interest in slaying demons and vanquishing evil, yet Heavenly Venerable Daoling and Senior Brother Liu Hang kept forcing him to practice cultivation methods. The first year had been all right. After the Marrow-Washing Liquid had cleansed his marrow, his cultivation had progressed rapidly. Once he reached the third level, however, his progress became astonishingly slow. Despite Liu Hang's instruction, Li Xiaoya was still a boy at heart. A year ago, he had already reached the peak of the third level of the True Cultivation Stage, but throughout the year since, no matter how hard he tried to break through from early true cultivation to middle true cultivation, he had failed. Several times, just as he was about to succeed, the surrounding five-element spiritual qi had fallen into uncontrollable chaos, disrupting his breakthrough. Twice, he had even suffered cultivation deviation. Fortunately, Senior Brother Liu Hang had been beside him to stand guard, preventing any serious harm. Even so, the agony of those deviations had left him feeling as though he were dying and coming back to life.