[The candlelight flickered, casting your shadow on the wall and stretching it long.]
[You first picked up the Blazing Sun Art and opened it to the first page. A line of small, neat calligraphy met your eyes: "The blazing sun hangs overhead; all things return to ash. If the heart is like the blazing sun, nothing cannot be burned."]
[You recited it silently once and felt as though something in your chest had been ignited, growing faintly hot.]
[You dared not delay. Following the method in the book, you sat cross-legged with your palms, soles, and crown facing heaven, and began guiding the sparse spiritual energy within your body.]
[Two hours passed.]
[Four hours passed.]
[You opened your eyes with a complicated expression.]
[The Blazing Sun Art was indeed good stuff. This low-grade spirit tier mental cultivation method was countless times better than the cultivation methods you had practiced before. Correspondingly, though, circulating it freely was also countless times harder.]
[Liu Daye's words, "no aptitude for comprehension," haunted you like a ghost through simulation after simulation!]
[You ground your teeth bitterly, none too satisfied with your own spirit root or comprehension either.]
[But thinking it over carefully, you hadn't even had a spirit root before. And now? Weren't you already beginning to push toward the Xiantian Realm? One mere mental cultivation method couldn't defeat you!]
[If once wasn't enough, then ten times. If ten times weren't enough, then a hundred.]
[You made up your mind. Every day, aside from eating, you immersed yourself in the Blazing Sun Art and the Flame Sun Skill.]
[Dingbei Hou occasionally came to offer a few pointers. Whenever he saw you sitting cross-legged in the courtyard, fine beads of sweat seeping from your forehead, his expression held a measure of gratification. "Not bad. You're working even harder than I expected."]
[You said nothing and couldn't be bothered to explain anything. You simply cultivated in silence.]
[A month passed. You made little progress with either your mental cultivation method or your external training, but your relationship with the matron improved considerably. At least she no longer trembled with fear when she saw you, and occasionally she could even sit down and exchange a few words with you.
[The matron couldn't bear to sit idle. Seeing you spend all day buried in cultivation, she took it upon herself to put Qingyan Residence in perfect order. Under her care, the orchids in the courtyard grew lush and green, and the grapevine had been given a trellis and was putting out new shoots.]
[The days passed at this unhurried pace.]
[Until-Failure Is the Progress Bar to Success displayed its power for the first time!]
[In that instant, you felt as though something in your mind shattered with a crack.]
[A strange sense of clarity enveloped you. It was like gauze being lifted from before your eyes, or a long-blocked river channel suddenly bursting open, water rushing through with a roar.
[The moment you finished the circulation, you opened your eyes and slowly exhaled a long breath of stale air. It lingered in the air without dispersing, carrying a faint trace of scorching heat, like the white mist breathed out in winter, yet also like the embers left after a flame had burned.]
[You had mastered the first stage of the Blazing Sun Art.]
[With the mental cultivation method mastered, could the external training be far behind?]
[You went two days without eating, sitting cross-legged and repeating the method of the Flame Sun Skill over and over.]
[The matron carried your food back and forth outside the door more than a dozen times, wringing her hands with anxiety yet not daring to enter and disturb you. In the end, Dingbei Hou came. He listened through the door for a while, then waved his hand and said, "Leave her be," finally persuading the matron to leave.]
[On the morning of the third day, you opened your eyes.]
[You lowered your head and examined your palms. Beneath your skin, something like magma seemed to flow, flickering like red-hot coals.
You clenched your fists, and that heat sank down, gathering within your bones without revealing the slightest trace.]
[You had mastered the first stage of the Flame Sun Skill as well.]
[You stood up. Though your legs were somewhat numb, you felt incredibly refreshed.]
[You pushed open the door, and sunlight came crashing down over your head and face, warm and mellow, making you narrow your eyes.]
[The matron stood beneath the covered walkway with a bowl of congee. The moment she saw you emerge, her eyes lit up. "Miss!"]
["Mm." You answered, took the bowl, and finished it in a few mouthfuls before handing it back. "Is there more?"]
[The matron smiled so broadly she couldn't close her mouth. "Yes, yes, of course! There's still a whole pot keeping warm on the little stove!"]
[You drank three bowls of congee in one go, ate four steamed buns, and swept the plate of pickled vegetables on the table clean before setting down your chopsticks in satisfaction.]
[With your hunger and thirst satisfied, you planted yourself in the courtyard, took a deep breath, and began practicing the Sun-Burning Fist.]
[With the corresponding internal cultivation method and external techniques in place, you needed only a single run-through to perform the fist routine smoothly.]
[On the tenth run-through, you blasted out a punch. The scorching wave of air condensed into a line and shot straight out in the direction of your fist, striking the courtyard wall with a muffled thud.]
[The wall was fine, but the patch of moss on it instantly changed color, going from emerald green to withered yellow, as though it had been singed by fire.
[Dingbei Hou happened to witness this scene, and his footsteps abruptly stopped.]
["You-"]
[He managed only that single word before falling silent.]
[You weren't sure whether your progress was fast or too slow. You merely looked at him, trying hard to appear as though this were perfectly natural, and did not respond.]
[Only after a long while did Dingbei Hou suppress the jealousy churning in his heart. He gave a dry cough and sat on a stone stool, pretending nothing had happened. Fresh tea happened to have just been set on the stone table. He grabbed the purple clay teapot and poured it straight into his mouth, scalding himself until he grimaced, yet stubbornly refusing to make a sound.]
[Watching him, you tried to hold it in, failed, and let the corners of your mouth lift.]
["What are you laughing at?" Dingbei Hou shot you a glare, though there was little anger in his voice. "What's wrong with being a little jealous? It took me an entire year to get this far!"
["A year?" you repeated, genuine surprise in your voice.]
[You truly hadn't expected the speed you had painstakingly built up through Failure Is the Progress Bar to Success to be so much faster than Dingbei Hou's.]
[Dingbei Hou's talent was unquestionably excellent. He was only in his thirties, yet he already possessed the strength of the Houtian Ninth Level. If he hadn't died on the battlefield, he would definitely have become a Xiantian martial artist in the future!]
[Your question, "A year?" turned Dingbei Hou's face green. He set the purple clay teapot on the table, stiffened his neck, and demanded:
"What's wrong with a year? Back then, my mother even praised me as a once-in-a-century genius of the Li Household! In all of Great Xia, you could count on one hand the people who could reach the threshold of a spirit tier cultivation method in less than a year!"]
[You looked at him without speaking, but silence could wound as well.]
[Dingbei Hou's imposing air dwindled bit by bit. Finally, like a deflated ball, he slumped onto the stone stool and let out a long sigh.]
["All right, all right, I know what you want to say." He waved a hand, his voice tinged with self-mockery. "A genius? Who deserves to be called a genius in front of you?"]
[You opened your mouth, wanting to explain something, but didn't know where to begin.]
[Surely you couldn't say, "Don't be sad, my lord. I actually have a crippled spirit root, and all my cultivation was painstakingly piled up through the Simulator," could you?]
[Besides, although you had dealt Dingbei Hou a blow, you were genuinely happy too.]
Before you continue