"Me!"
Bai Jin'er grew nervous again and stammered out an assurance. "I've taught plenty of junior brothers and sisters to draw qi into their bodies. They... they all managed just fine!"
They managed just fine...
Could the problem be with this Great King?
Chun Xiaobai scratched his forehead, looking baffled.
"What's usually the fastest someone can draw qi into their body?"
Bai Jin'er thought for a moment before answering. "The Azure Cloud Sect's record for drawing qi into the body belongs to a prodigy senior sister in the Inner Sect. I heard she... entered the Dao in a single breath."
"That fast?!" Chun Xiaobai looked astonished.
Entering the Dao meant more than simply drawing qi into the body.
Drawing qi into the body only meant sensing spiritual qi; entering the Dao meant guiding spiritual qi into the body, circulating it through a greater celestial circuit, and successfully breaking through to the first layer of qi refining.
That person had done it in just a few seconds?
He had already simulated several hundred circuits in his mind according to the cultivation method's instructions. Forget drawing qi into his body-he hadn't even gotten a feel for what spiritual qi was.
Still unwilling to give up, he immediately asked, "Then what's the slowest?"
"If you only mean sensing the first wisp of spiritual qi..." Bai Jin'er hesitated, but told him the truth. "Even a disciple with the poorest comprehension can draw in their first wisp of spiritual qi within... three days at most."
"Uh!"
Chun Xiaobai's spirits instantly sank.
Honestly, his comprehension wasn't poor. Quite the opposite-back on the mountain, the second and third chiefs had always praised his heaven-defying comprehension.
Whatever the martial technique, he never needed to read its underlying method. He only had to imitate someone else's movements once to get it almost exactly right.
Could it be... because I don't have a spiritual root?
But he had asked Fang Yuan about this.
Sensing qi had nothing to do with spiritual roots. Their only function was to convert spiritual qi into one's own spiritual power.
Supposedly, as long as your household owned a mine, even someone without a spiritual root could buy "Spirit Conversion Pills" and use medicine to convert spiritual qi, entering the Dao and practicing Immortal Cultivation all the same.
"All right, all right. Go back for now." Chun Xiaobai waved irritably.
"Let this Great King figure it out himself."
"Oh!" Bai Jin'er stood up, wanting to offer some comforting words, but though her lips parted, she ultimately said nothing.
She carefully withdrew, gently pulling the door to the meditation chamber shut behind her.
She knew this was quite possibly because of Chun Xiaobai's mixed spiritual root, yet something about that didn't seem right.
She had practically chewed up the method and fed it to him.
She had broken it down and explained every last detail for nearly two hours. Even someone with the worst mixed spiritual root should have sensed a tiny trace of spiritual qi by now.
Then the confusion on her face gave way to worry.
Chun Xiaobai was only a menial disciple, yet he had now slipped into the Outer Sect. If the Disciplinary Hall discovered him, the lightest punishment would be the destruction of his cultivation and expulsion from the sect.
At worst, they would treat him as a spy sent by another sect and extract his soul to refine it.
At that thought, her pretty face paled again, and she couldn't help glancing back at the cave abode.
Such things had happened before.
Those disciples of unknown identity lurking within the sect, whoever they were, had all been seized by the Disciplinary Hall and subjected to soul extraction and interrogation. Every one of them had met the miserable fate of having their souls scattered into nothingness.
Once Senior Brother Chun... enters the Dao, I'll persuade him to leave, Bai Jin'er silently resolved.
Inside the cultivation room, Chun Xiaobai scratched his head and ears, unable to make sense of the ins and outs of Immortal Cultivation.
"Do I really have to pack up and go back to the Black Wind Stronghold to wait around until I become emperor?"
But that didn't seem right to him either.
He wasn't falling asleep during meditation because he loved sleeping.
Rather, he could distinctly feel drowsiness naturally welling up in his mind whenever he followed the method of the Azure Cloud Manual.
That drowsiness swept over him like toppling mountains and overturning seas, impossible to suppress. It was even more powerful than the hypnotic scriptures recited by the old Daoist below the Black Wind Stronghold.
He also knew that other people gained clear minds and keen awareness as soon as they entered meditation.
Yet he was the exact opposite.
The moment he entered meditation, his eyelids started fighting each other as though he'd swallowed ten pounds of knockout powder.
"Can this Great King really only practice those mortal tricks?"
But what good would that do?
No matter how skilled you are, you still fear a kitchen knife!
It was like taking a straw dummy into battle against a ranged mage who could shoot blades-pew, pew, pew. You could see them but couldn't reach them, leaving you no choice but to take a beating.
"No! No!"
"I, Chun Xiaobai, the sole heir of the Black Wind Stronghold for three generations, have been gifted since childhood! How could I stumble on the road of Immortal Cultivation?"
He sprang to his feet and began feeling all over his body.
He wanted to find what had caused that dull pressure in his head earlier today, after which the entire world had slowed down.
He felt around for ages but found no wounds on himself.
Then he did a handstand.
It didn't seem to be a problem with the blood vessels in his brain either.
Next, he checked his own pulse and found that it was steadier and stronger than before.
That was probably because taking those pills had improved his physique.
If there's nothing wrong with my body, could some ancestor who cultivated immortality really have realized his descendant was about to be hacked to death, suddenly manifested, and possessed me to lend me his powers?
Even if that were possible, he didn't believe any ancestor had so little to do that they would bother watching over him.
Chun Xiaobai stood straight up, waved his hand, and took a longsword out of his Storage Bag.
Gripping it in both hands, he treated the landscape painting hanging on the wall before him as Zhao Wuyuan, imagining the man slashing at him with a sword.
He hurriedly focused his mind, stared fixedly at the painting, and tightened his grip on the longsword!
"Buzz!"
That dull pressure in his head struck again!
Immediately afterward, a shiver ran through his whole body. Looking up, he discovered that he could perceive everything with perfect clarity-the furnishings in the cultivation room, and even the flowers, trees, chirping insects, and birdsong in the courtyard within a hundred meters.
"Holy... crap!"
He clenched both hands into fists and threw a punch, the rush of air raising a piercing whistle.
The furnishings in the cultivation room rattled and hummed.
"Not only have my six senses improved, but my strength and speed have risen to an unbelievable level too!"
"Could it be... I've activated some kind of 'rampage' mode?"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!"
"Why's the room suddenly spinning?"
Chun Xiaobai suddenly felt a dizzying whirl of heaven and earth. His vision grew muddled, his body swayed, and he toppled straight to the floor.
He hurriedly relaxed his mind, and the "rampage" mode disengaged on its own.
But immediately afterward, an overwhelming hunger surged through his body.
Chun Xiaobai hurriedly struggled to pull out a bottle of pills. Without even checking the name, he uncorked it and poured them into his mouth.
Only after the pills entered his stomach did that overwhelming weakness gradually fade.
"Goddammit, so entering this state burns through my own strength at a frightening rate."
Once he recovered, Chun Xiaobai plopped down on the floor. After catching his breath, he began analyzing it carefully.
"Could this be some kind of special physique awakening?"
Before you continue