In Zhang Xiaohua's dream, the flickering echoed the stars in the night sky. From that boundless starry firmament, countless strands of star power seemed to answer a summons, surging over in an instant as though crossing time and space.
Before long, countless strands of star power once again filled and wound around Zhang Xiaohua's body. The hundred thousand pores all over him, crying for nourishment, opened wide as if they had glimpsed a feast, drinking it in to their hearts' content.
After the star power and vital energy entered his body through his pores, they became tiny beyond perception. In his sleep, Zhang Xiaohua unconsciously circulated the first-level cultivation method of the "Carefree Heart Sutra," driving them through the meridians along the prescribed route.
As before, the star power was slowly refined into pure vital energy. The vital energy drawn in alongside it fused with the vital energy transformed from the star power, then was refined by that flickering, leaving behind only an even purer vital energy. This pure vital energy was stored within Zhang Xiaohua's middle dantian. Yet although much star power and vital energy entered his body, under the flickering, his meridians purified them to a horrifying degree. Seven or eight parts out of ten were stripped away. In the end, only a trace of vital energy remained—but its purity was... terrifying!
All of this proceeded quietly while Zhang Xiaohua remained unconscious. Yet that exquisitely pure vital energy was simply too little, so little that Zhang Xiaohua still could not sense it. Not until dawn the next day, when the rising sun emerged, did Zhang Xiaohua open his eyes and shake the dew-soaked clothes on his body. Even then, he had no idea what gains he had reaped from his night of labor.
Zhang Xiaohua looked around, remembered