Back in his courtyard, Shen Fei dismissed the servants who had come to attend him and slid the door bolt into place behind him. The room was dim. He sat down at the table, took the two porcelain bottles from inside his robe, and gently set them on the tabletop.
The porcelain bottles met the wooden table with a soft, muted thud.
He pulled the stopper from one bottle and tipped a Soul-Gathering Pill into his palm. The pill was pale blue-green, its surface shimmering with a faint halo. Its medicinal fragrance drifted into his nose with each breath, bitter and fresh, with a hint of lingering sweetness.
He studied the pill in his palm for a moment, knowing full well that this was an olive branch from Nie Li-and the most tangible help he could receive right now.
He could not yet fathom Nie Li's intentions, but raising his strength mattered far more than puzzling over another man's mind.
The Demon Beast Tide drew closer by the day. Every measure of strength he gained would give him a better chance of holding the city when the time came.
He did not rush to take the pill. First, he set himself a rule.
Only one pill a day. No greed, no exceptions.
In his previous life with the City Guard, he had seen plenty of cultivators desperate for quick results. They piled up their cultivation with pills, seemingly advancing at astonishing speed, but their foundations were hollow. Once they faced a true battle to the death, they often crumbled at the first blow.
He would not make such an elementary mistake.
From that day onward, Shen Fei's life divided into two halves as distinct as clear water and muddy water.
By day, he behaved exactly as he always had, rising at first light to report to the study in the front courtyard.
The steward had already sorted the previous day's purchasing ledgers and correspondence and stacked them on the low table where he usually sat. He took his seat and methodically sorted the letters, checking every incoming and outgoing sum in the accounts.
The Dark Guild had changed its supply routes again this month. Several unfamiliar faces had begun patrolling around the abandoned warehouse in the south of the city. Losses previously recorded under the Hundred Herb Hall's name had also been relabeled and transferred to a newly opened timber firm.
He committed every change to memory without letting any of it show on his face.
He checked the accounts at his usual steady pace. Whenever he reached something uncertain, he deliberately stopped the steward to ask a few questions, his tone betraying a little unfamiliarity with the family business. He looked every bit the eldest legitimate son who had only just begun handling routine affairs.
Shen Hong occasionally came to inspect the accounts. He would stand beside the table, leaf through a couple of pages in the sorted ledgers, and casually ask about the details of certain receipts and expenses.
Shen Fei always gave proper, unremarkable answers, discussing only what was in the accounts. He never extended the conversation to family decisions, much less volunteered any suggestions.
After several such visits, Shen Hong saw that he worked diligently and had no intention of overstepping his bounds. Gradually, he relaxed. Later, when minor matters came up, he would even casually instruct Shen Fei to handle them.
Shen Yue, meanwhile, visited twice.
The first time, he came for the storeroom key. Seeing Shen Fei buried in a pile of ledgers, he leaned against the doorframe and sneered that some people could spend every day guarding account books and still be useless. The family's future depended on cultivation and ability, not abacus beads.
Shen Fei did not even look up. He gave a couple of absent murmurs and let him talk.
Finding no satisfaction in that, Shen Yue took the key, flicked his sleeves, and left.
The second time, he brought two disciples from collateral branches with him and deliberately announced in a loud voice that his recent cultivation had brought him to the threshold of Silver Peak. In a little while, he would be able to attempt a breakthrough to Gold Rank.
His eyes kept flicking toward Shen Fei as he spoke, making his desire to show off perfectly clear. Shen Fei happened to finish checking an entry, so he looked up, offered a mild word of congratulations, and lowered his head to continue working.
That bland indifference only left Shen Yue choking on his frustration. He stayed less than two minutes before leaving with the others.
Only after everyone had gone did Shen Fei glance toward the doorway. He tapped the ledger lightly with a fingertip and checked the figures that had been interrupted once more.
To him, these verbal squabbles weighed no more than a sheet of paper. Strength held in his own hands was more substantial than anything else.
His real work took place at night.
Only after the residence had fallen completely silent, the night watchman had sounded the third watch, and all movement inside and outside the courtyard had ceased did Shen Fei sit cross-legged on his bed, take out a Soul-Gathering Pill, and swallow it.
The pill dissolved the instant it entered his mouth. A warm current slipped down his throat into his dantian, then quickly spread.
He closed his eyes and slowly circulated the Dark Prison Reincarnation Art, guiding the medicinal energy along the course of his yin meridians.
The Soul-Gathering Pill's effects were more sustained than he had expected. Most of an ordinary pill's medicinal energy dispersed through the meridians, with less than thirty percent actually absorbed by the dantian.
Yet once this Soul-Gathering Pill dissolved, its energy followed the route of his cultivation art. Most of it settled steadily into his dantian, turning into exceptionally pure soul force.
Combined with the dark-attribute spiritual energy absorbed through his cultivation art, the two forces mingled and washed over the inner walls of his meridians again and again.
At first, his meridians felt sore and swollen, as though fine sand were slowly grinding through his blood vessels. He did not hurry to circulate the energy faster. Instead, he deliberately slowed its flow, letting the medicinal energy soak into the meridian walls little by little.
His progress would be slower this way, but every bit of widening would bring genuine strength, leaving no hidden weakness from a hollow foundation.
He cultivated like this for four hours every night, stopping only after all the medicinal energy had been digested. His days became regular and dull.
Besides refining his cultivation, he set aside an hour every day to summon the Shadow Mantis. During the first few days of taking the Soul-Gathering Pills, he tried summoning his Demon Spirit and immediately noticed a difference.
Before, summoning it at full power had only lasted for the time it took two incense sticks to burn. Any longer, and he would feel his soul force draining dry.
Now, with abundant soul force in his dantian, the burden of summoning had eased considerably. He could comfortably sustain it for three incense sticks. If he conserved his strength while fighting a drawn-out battle, he could keep it up for half a quarter-hour and still have power to spare.
He was not content merely to extend the duration and began practicing coordinated attacks. He held his sword and pinned the opponent down from the front, while the Shadow Mantis crept through the shadows to flank them and strike at the right moment.
Before, his attacks had prized only speed, precision, and ruthlessness. They were rough methods forged through battlefield slaughter, concerned only with results and never with expenditure.
Now that he had a Demon Spirit to coordinate with, he instead learned when to hold back and when to release his strength. Every sword stroke carried just the right force and angle, keeping his opponent occupied while leaving the best possible opening for his Demon Spirit to attack.
For seven or eight days, his cultivation suddenly slowed. The barrier in his dantian was like a thick wall. Medicinal energy struck it and raised only a faint ripple, without the slightest sign of loosening.
Shen Fei did not force his way through. He knew this was a normal bottleneck, and brute force would only risk damaging his meridians.
He changed the rhythm of his cultivation. Even while handling family affairs during the day, he devoted a sliver of his attention to slowly circulating his cultivation art, absorbing medicinal energy at an unhurried pace and wearing down that barrier little by little.
At night, he deliberately pushed himself to his limits, making his soul force repeatedly swing between fierce depletion and slow recovery to temper its purity.
After several days of this, the barrier finally showed signs of loosening. That night, after taking a pill, he suddenly felt the wall in his dantian tremble during the tenth circulation of his cultivation art.
He steadied himself and did not rush into a fierce assault. Keeping the same flow as before, he washed over it again and again, like water dripping onto stone, neither hurried nor impatient.
Another five days passed, leaving only three pills in the bottle. That night, he took the third-to-last pill and circulated his cultivation art as usual.
As he completed the twelfth circulation, an extremely faint sound came from his dantian, as though something had shattered.
Pure soul force surged through the breach and expanded within his dantian, becoming considerably more substantial than before.
His meridians widened as well. The medicinal energy flowed without the slightest obstruction, and the dark-attribute spiritual energy circulated nearly fifty percent faster than before.
Gold Rank 2-Star.
He did not stop cultivating at once. He continued circulating his cultivation art, steadily stabilizing his newly gained soul force. Only when a fish-belly white glow appeared on the horizon and the sound of servants sweeping reached him from the courtyard did he slowly exhale and bring his cultivation to a close.
He got out of bed and walked to the bronze mirror. The person reflected in it looked much the same as always, with little change in his complexion. Only deep within his eyes was a restrained glint.
He immediately circulated his cultivation art and suppressed his aura back to Gold Rank 1-Star. He even deliberately made it a little weaker, leaving him looking no different from before his breakthrough.
Early the next morning, he went to work in the study as usual. The steward came in with fresh ledgers, glanced at him, and merely remarked that he had been looking a little more energetic lately, without giving it further thought.
Shen Hong came by at noon. He stood beside the table and glanced over Shen Fei, but noticed nothing unusual either.
After all, no one would imagine that someone who had only just reached Gold Rank 1-Star a little over a month ago could advance again in so short a time.
Shen Fei knew that the credit did not belong entirely to the Soul-Gathering Pills. The solid foundation laid by a year of battlefield slaughter in his previous life, the high-level cultivation art of the Black Prison Inheritance, and the medicinal boost of the Soul-Gathering Pills-only the combination of all three had made such rapid progress possible.
Even with the same pills, an ordinary cultivator without a sufficiently solid foundation could not absorb such potent medicinal energy. Instead, it would batter and damage their meridians.
He carefully put away the remaining two pills rather than continuing to take them. Having just broken through, stabilizing his foundation mattered most. Taking more pills now would be like pulling up seedlings to make them grow.
In the days ahead, he planned to first consolidate his foundation at Gold Rank 2-Star. Meanwhile, he would use his work sorting the accounts to thoroughly investigate the Dark Guild's new supply route through the timber firm.
There was also Nie Li. Having received such a generous gift, he could not keep playing ignorant forever. He had not yet decided how to respond, but he remembered the favor.
When a suitable opportunity arose, he would anonymously pass along a copy of the latest intelligence on the Dark Guild. That would count as repaying the gift.
His fingertip brushed over the timber firm's name in the ledger, and his gaze darkened. Nie Li had slapped the Sacred Family in the face at the Genius Tournament. There was no way Shen Hong would take no action.
Several unexplained expenses had recently appeared in the accounts. Their stated purpose was rewards for the family guards, but the amounts did not add up. Presumably, Shen Hong was secretly arranging men to cause Nie Li some trouble.
He had no intention of interfering in these matters or warning Nie Li.
The two sides fighting would actually benefit him. It would distract Shen Hong and make it harder for the Dark Guild to understand the situation within the city.
He only needed to maintain his own pace, grow stronger step by step, and gather intelligence piece by piece. Only then would he hold enough bargaining chips when the Demon Beast Tide truly arrived.
Sunlight streamed through the window and fell across the open ledger. Shen Fei picked up his brush and continued checking the next entry, his expression as calm as though nothing had happened.
There were still many days ahead. The road had to be walked one step at a time, and strength had to be accumulated little by little. He was in no hurry, and he could afford to wait.
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