This Is Literally the Qi Refining Stage (Thanks to Qing Cha Yan Yan Wan for the Alliance Leader sponsorship)

Su Tingxue ate shaved ice while she explained all this. Once the shaved ice was finished, she had finished telling it all, right on time.

The two of them rode their bikes back to school. After listening to the description of the Cultivation World, Zhou You felt exceptionally relaxed. A gate to a new world slowly opened for him, and even the evening didn't feel sweltering anymore; instead, it felt rather refreshing.

The treetops overhead rustled, mirroring Zhou You's bounding mood.

By this time, Zhou You didn't feel quite so stuffed anymore; he just felt a bloating in his stomach, which was a bit uncomfortable.

Had eating shaved ice abruptly on a scorching hot day upset his stomach?

Before he could even figure out a way to expel the bloating, the gas transformed into a wisp of pure spiritual energy that coursed through his entire body. His acupoints opened up, and his meridians cleared.

His body underwent a wonderful change he had never experienced before. His pores opened, his mind and vision grew clear, and he felt utterly renewed-he even pedaled the bicycle with more vigor.

Since a professional happened to be right beside him, Zhou You recounted his bodily changes to Su Tingxue. Su Tingxue slammed on the brakes and ran over to a roadside convenience store to buy an unopened bottle of mineral water.

"Unscrew it with one hand."

Zhou You gripped the bottle with one hand, feeling rather apprehensive inside, knowing what this signified.

His thumb and index finger pinched the cap, while his remaining three fingers gripped the bottle body, his force steadily increasing.

The cap, which had initially looked as though it were cast as a single piece, grew loose. When Zhou You gritted his teeth and applied his maximum force, the connecting bridges snapped.

The cap was completely unscrewed.

One of the hallmarks of the Qi Refining Stage: unscrewing a bottle cap with one hand.

"Am I in the Qi Refining Stage now?"

Su Tingxue nodded reluctantly.

Zhou You wore an excited expression. He had finally advanced to the Qi Refining Stage!

Originally, when Su Tingxue listened to Zhou You describe his condition, she was already eighty percent sure he had advanced to the Qi Refining Stage; the remaining twenty percent of uncertainty was due to her common sense.

Now that the bottle cap had been unscrewed, that remaining twenty percent of common sense vanished like smoke.

She recalled how she had gone through seclusion and meditation, making thorough preparations just to advance to the Qi Refining Stage, and only then had she succeeded in one fell swoop.

As for Zhou You, he had broken through while riding a bicycle.

And he was riding my bicycle, at that.

The two returned to the school. Before parting ways, Su Tingxue pulled out her mobile phone. "Let's add each other on QQ so it's easy to get in touch. I'll scan you."

Zhou You turned both of his pants pockets inside out to show her. "I didn't bring my phone."

"You didn't bring it?" Su Tingxue was astonished. Are there really people who don't bring their phones these days?

Although No. 2 Middle School strictly prohibited bringing mobile phones, it was, after all, a day school, and quite a few students brought their phones to and from school.

"It's just that at school, you both need to study and squeeze in time to cultivate. I was worried that if I brought a phone to school, I'd just focus on playing with it and neglect my cultivation and studies, so I simply decided not to bring it."

Hearing Zhou You put it that way, Su Tingxue felt a slight pang of shame; she sometimes even snuck her phone out during breaks to play with it for a bit.

"Just add my QQ directly, 29..."

Su Tingxue searched for the QQ number, and a single result popped up. The name was "Swimming This Week," and the avatar showed a little figure swimming energetically.

"Right, that's me."

When Zhou You sneaked back into Class Three, evening self-study hadn't started yet. Chu Xiaoyao was surreptitiously reading the comic book Zhi Yin Man Ke that had been offered up to Zhou You as tribute.

She blocked it with a massive stack of textbooks, opening the comic to only one page while folding the other page behind it. This minimized the exposed area and lowered the risk of getting caught by the teacher, while she also glanced toward the door from time to time to guard against the sudden appearance of the head teacher.

Zhou You originally wanted to walk over quietly and give her a fright, but since Chu Xiaoyao could even spot the head teacher, how could she possibly fail to notice Zhou You?

"Done driving away ghosts?" For some reason, Chu Xiaoyao's tone sounded a bit strange and huffy.

Zhou You sat down, failing to notice anything amiss, and excitedly recounted the ins and outs of the whole affair-from the intersection that frequently saw car accidents, to Su Tingxue calling him along to deal with the Sight-Obscuring Ghost, and finally to both of them having their vision blocked by the Sight-Obscuring Ghost. The process had been both suspenseful and thrilling.

Nuomi listened from the side, substituting herself into the perspective of the Sight-Obscuring Ghost, and also found it quite thrilling.

To think, after listening to the whole story, Chu Xiaoyao merely curved the corner of her mouth in a disdainful smile. "Su Tingxue hasn't mastered her cultivation; her Yin-Yang Heavenly Eye has only reached the surface level. Can she really not deal with a ghost just because her vision is blocked?"

Zhou You was taken aback. "What do you mean?"

"As people who cultivate, how can one be shackled by the five senses? How would that make us any different from mortals? Use the heart as the eye, crowned with yin and yang, and you can perceive heaven and earth. A mere Sight-Obscuring Ghost-how could it ever block the mind's eye?"

Zhou You opened his mouth, not daring to rashly voice an opinion. Chu Xiaoyao's words seemed to carry profound meaning, far beyond what he could comprehend.

Seeing Zhou You thoroughly awed, Chu Xiaoyao felt quite satisfied with her impromptu speech.

She was merely a disciple of DragonTiger Mountain, far inferior to the Grand Supreme Elder of the Carefree Sect.

She unscrewed the cap of the mineral water bottle, tipped the bottle down, and filled the cap to the brim with water without spilling a single drop. Her technique was practiced and smooth.

Chu Xiaoyao picked up the overflowing, trembling bottle cap as if holding a cup of tea, shook her head while gently blowing on the cap, and then slurped it down in a single gulp.

The taste was not bad.

"So then, how did you guys deal with the Sight-Obscuring Ghost?"

Zhou You recounted how his soul had projected out, how he first beat up the Sight-Obscuring Ghost and then ate it, and how eating it had left him a bit stuffed.

Upon hearing this, Nuomi curled up into a ball and shivered with fright. If the Sect Master got anxious with hunger, wouldn't she end up eating her too?

Considering that she was the Vice Sect Master, she wouldn't actually do something like that, right?

"Right, after I finished digesting it, I advanced to the Qi Refining Stage." Zhou You had no intention of bragging; after all, the Free and Unfettered Female Emperor was right here, so there was no room to brag in front of her.

Seeing that Chu Xiaoyao showed no expression of surprise after hearing this, Zhou You's heart settled completely. It seemed that eating the ghost hadn't meant something was wrong with his body.

Chu Xiaoyao spoke casually, entirely unbothered, treating it all as a trivial matter. "Normal. You reap what you sow; humans eat meat and grow strong, and your soul eating a ghost will increase its soul strength, which feeds back into your physical body and ultimately elevates your realm. The principles are all similar. On the Primordial Continent, this is called dietary therapy."

"So that's how it is."

"What changes did you experience after becoming a Qi Refining Stage cultivator?" Chu Xiaoyao asked.

Zhou You flexed his body, rolling up his sleeves to reveal muscles that weren't really visible. "Strength, speed, reaction time, and so on. My physical fitness has improved in every possible aspect."

Speaking of the changes, Zhou You was quite excited. It was completely incomparable to the half-step Qi Refining Stage.

Come to think of it, what was a half-step Qi Refining Stage cultivator down to its core other than a mortal who had just begun to cultivate? Could they even be considered cultivators?

Only now, in his current state, could he be considered a proper, orthodox cultivator.

"As for Soul Projection, let me give it a try."

Chu Xiaoyao had stated that after entering the Qi Refining Stage, Soul Projection would no longer just manifest the upper half of the soul, but would emerge completely.

Zhou You tried it right on the spot. He controlled his soul, and his body suddenly felt light. He stepped backward, his entire person completely peeling away from his physical form. He appeared slightly transparent, very similar to Nuomi's state.

"It worked!"

Zhou You looked at Chu Xiaoyao, but Chu Xiaoyao remained as blind to him as ever. He looked at Nuomi, scaring the latter into thinking he was about to eat her; Nuomi hastily raised her hands, cried out in tears, and yelled "Sect Master!" as she tried to make Zhou You recall a non-existent camaraderie among fellow sect members.

"Sect Master, I'm the Vice Sect Master! I don't taste good."

A flurry of dark lines crossed Zhou You's forehead. "I'm not planning to eat you."

Oddly enough, every time he saw Nuomi previously, he had never felt hungry, yet after encountering the Sight-Obscuring Ghost, he had been ravenous.

Once his soul had completely detached from his physical body, Zhou You felt as though a cord connected the two. It felt vague and indistinct; if he tried to sense it carefully, it seemed non-existent and hard to detect.

When he walked in the opposite direction, moving further away from his physical body, the sensation of that cord grew increasingly distinct. After walking a mere three steps, the cord gave a feeling of being "pulled taut," holding Zhou You back and refusing to let him leave.

Zhou You grew pensive. It seemed the soul could not travel too far from the physical body, with three steps being the absolute limit.

Perhaps once his cultivation realm increased, would his soul be able to travel even further?

Zhou You returned his soul to his body and recounted his recent experience to Chu Xiaoyao.

"This is different from the characteristics of entering the Qi Refining Stage that Su Tingxue told me about." This question had been bottled up inside Zhou You the entire way, and he could finally ask Chu Xiaoyao for an explanation.

Instead of answering, Chu Xiaoyao slurped another capful of water before asking unhurriedly, "What are the characteristics of the Qi Refining Stage according to her?"

"She said there are two characteristics. One is the enhancement of physical fitness-I've experienced this myself, so there's no problem there. But the second characteristic is being able to introspect oneself and see one's own meridians."

"Su Tingxue said you can naturally introspect yourself, but I can't do that."

Chu Xiaoyao slurped yet another capful of water, frowned, and offered some guidance. "Then try using Soul Projection to look inside your body?"

Zhou You did as she said. He used Soul Projection, stepped half a step back out of his body, and then bent down, poked his head, and stretched straight into his body. His internal organs, blood, and blood vessels could be seen with absolute clarity!

"Hey, I can actually see my meridians!" Zhou You said after his soul reintegrated.

Chu Xiaoyao's brow relaxed, and she said earnestly, "Then that matches up. Your physical fitness has improved, and you can introspect yourself-it completely fits the characteristics of the Qi Refining Stage. This is literally the Qi Refining Stage."

Yet Zhou You remained doubtful. "Still, the self-introspection Su Tingxue talked about isn't like what I did, right?"

Zhou You felt that Su Tingxue's self-introspection didn't involve physically drilling her soul into her body to look at the layout of her meridians.

Chu Xiaoyao waved a hand, having already arrived at an answer. This time, she didn't need to drink water to feign composure.

"The cultivation technique this seat taught you is the one from the Primordial Continent, while what Su Tingxue learned is this world's cultivation technique. The cultivation methods of the two realms are merely slightly different; in the end, they lead to the same destination by different paths and point to the Great Dao."

"So that's how it is." Hearing this, Zhou You felt a sudden surge of enlightenment, knowing he could always count on Chu Xiaoyao for the answers.