Qi Refining Seventh Layer

Time hurried by, and more than ten months passed in the blink of an eye.

Inside the Jade Tower.

Steam curled above the bath, its Spirit Spring water clear to the bottom, a faint fragrance wafting through the air.

Fang Hong reclined against the edge of the pool, comfortable all over, his eyes closed as he rested his mind.

Behind him, Su Yao, wrapped in a length of snow-white silk, was massaging the acupoints on his head.

She knelt beside the pool, her snow-white, jade-like feet bare. Her rounded, upturned peach-shaped buttocks rested lightly on the soles of her feet, her small, delicate toes drawn together, her soles a faint pink.

"Husband, does that feel good?"

Su Yao's voice was gentle and pleasing, a languid, lingering charm gracing her eyes and brows.

"Do you mean now or just before?" Fang Hong asked leisurely, his arms resting along the edge of the pool.

Su Yao's face was shy and alluring. Remembering their wild, sensual antics just before, she could not help inwardly spitting in bashful reproach.

Over these ten months, neither of them had taken a single step outside the Yin-Yang Sect, and they spent the vast majority of their days cultivating.

Fang Hong strictly observed their agreement of once every seven days, but each time he managed to come up with plenty of new tricks, leaving Su Yao both embarrassed and intrigued and excited.

Sometimes, she even emerged from seclusion of her own accord to seek Fang Hong out, full of anticipation.

Gradually, it became once every seven days, seven rounds each time...

Through diligent cultivation and hard practice, both had made considerable progress.

So far, Fang Hong had refined a total of seventy-five drops of Netherworld Heavy Water magical power, reaching the Qi Refining Seventh Layer.

Su Yao was one step ahead of him and had already entered the Qi Refining Eighth Layer.

In addition, Fang Hong had made considerable progress in swordsmanship.

Within the illusory space of the Flower Moon Painting Album, he could now exchange more than thirty moves with Yan Suyue!

However, his swordsmanship seemed to have reached some sort of bottleneck. No matter how hard he tried, he could not overcome Yan Suyue's subsequent sword moves.

He realized that he had already laid a solid foundation in the fundamentals of the sword, and no further breakthrough would be possible in the short term.

The gap between him and Yan Suyue lay in his mastery of swordsmanship, as well as such sword-related divine abilities as sword intent and Sword Light Separation.

With his current cultivation realm, he would not be able to employ them anytime soon.

Four months earlier, Fan Jingyun had brought him the Parasitic Phantom Orchid as agreed.

After two failures, Fang Hong had finally succeeded on his third attempt in preparing the [Lust] potion, one of Kunxu's Seven Great Medicines.

However, he had yet to find anyone on whom to test its effects.

Moreover, considering the aftereffects of the Seven Great Medicines, he had to exercise the utmost caution when using it.

There was another matter weighing on his mind.

Just now, while he was bathing with Su Yao in the pool, his Fate Card had reacted.

He roughly knew that his trial period had expired, but with Su Yao beside him, he had not yet had a chance to examine it closely.

After lingering affectionately beside the bath for a while, the two rose and dressed.

With the Fate Card on his mind, Fang Hong said a word to Su Yao, then went alone to the quiet room on the second floor to begin his solitary time of "Contemplative Meditation."

Inside the quiet room, he sat cross-legged on the Golden-Silk Meditation Cushion and held out his palm. Streams of light converged, and in an instant, an exquisitely beautiful card appeared.

Sure enough, the line of writing on the back of the Fate Card had changed-

[Permission to travel to and from the Myriad Worlds Ancient Boat: activated]

His divine sense lightly touched the line of writing, and a mysterious understanding came to him. He immediately knew that with a single thought, a strand of his divine sense could use the Fate Card to travel to the Myriad Worlds Ancient Boat!

Not only that, but the Fate Card could also store various treasures and bring them aboard the Myriad Worlds Ancient Boat, allowing him to trade with others there.

I have to get transmigration insurance no matter what. There's no choice about that.

He pondered inwardly. Within the Fate Mirror in his sea of consciousness, the candlelight remained steady, showing no unusual signs regarding his journey to the Myriad Worlds Ancient Boat.

He took a deep breath, and a strand of divine sense settled on the Fate Card.

The next instant, the Fate Card suddenly turned into a dazzling streak of light and vanished in a flash.

In a corner of a vast, resplendent hall stood a great cauldron nine feet tall. Neither metal nor jade, it was emerald green, its surface polished enough to reflect a person, and covered in Vermilion Bird Script.

Immortal light suffused its mouth, and a brilliantly shining card flew out.

As though being inflated, the card slowly expanded. Countless rays of light surrounded it, and amid flickering spiritual radiance, it transformed into a human figure bearing Fang Hong's appearance.

He looked around curiously and saw that, apart from this great cauldron, there were eight other identical ones in the hall.

One stood at the center of the hall, light blazing like flames within it, its radiance clearly far more imposing than that within the mouths of the others.

Illuminated by this great cauldron, the hall was as bright as day and utterly silent.

This is the Myriad Worlds Ancient Boat?

Just as Fang Hong was wondering to himself, another Fate Card floated out of a great cauldron not far away.

With a flash of light, that Fate Card transformed into a pretty, slender woman.

She looked about twenty-five or twenty-six and wore a well-tailored apricot-gray skirt suit. Beneath the narrow skirt were shapely, slender legs clad in black stockings. To the crisp clicking of her high heels, she walked briskly toward Fang Hong.

"Hello, you're Fang Hong, right? Welcome to the Hetu Company. I'm the boss's assistant, Zhou Xueying."

The woman was not tall, reaching only Fang Hong's chin. She extended her hand and tilted her head up slightly, greeting him politely and efficiently.

Fang Hong shook her hand and asked with a rather indifferent expression, "Where's the boss?"

A trace of helplessness appeared on Zhou Xueying's face. She pointed at the great cauldron in the center of the hall and said, "He hasn't shown his face once since I joined. Apart from recruiting employees, I handle everything else for him."

Fang Hong could not help frowning.

Reading his expression, Zhou Xueying raised her eyes and said, "It seems you've noticed too. Quite a few sects and powers in the Canghuan Realm can detect the spiritual signature of us Transmigrators' Fate Cards, and they're very unfriendly toward us."

Unfriendly doesn't begin to cover it...

Fang Hong nodded without saying more.

Looking as though she no longer had the energy to complain, Zhou Xueying sighed. "Resign yourself to it. We're all in much the same situation. Newcomers like us are easily fooled by unscrupulous bosses like him. That's also why he's never dared show himself."

A thought stirred in Fang Hong's mind, and he asked, "Sister Zhou, did you encounter any danger when you first transmigrated?"

Zhou Xueying glanced at him, a look of reminiscence appearing on her face. "How could I not have? When I first transmigrated, I was practically in a certain-death situation. Fortunately, I awakened a hidden talent and survived by luck. Most of our other colleagues at the company went through much the same thing."

She paused, her voice somewhat subdued. "A few of us colleagues suspect that the boss probably recruited quite a few Transmigrators, but only a handful of us actually survived."

Feigning surprise and confusion, Fang Hong probed, "What's a hidden talent? Why don't I have one?"

Zhou Xueying gave him a curious look. "You haven't awakened a hidden talent? Generally speaking, during the early stages after transmigrating, Transmigrators have a certain chance of awakening a hidden talent if they're caught in a tremendous life-or-death crisis. If you didn't awaken one, how did you pull through?"

Fang Hong shrugged. "Maybe I was just lucky."

Realization dawned on Zhou Xueying. "I remember now. Your onboarding information showed that you have heavenly virtue nobleman in fate. You must have relied on an auspicious deity's protection to turn danger into safety."

"Perhaps." Many questions welled up in Fang Hong's mind, but for the moment, he did not know where to begin.

The Hetu Company was somewhat different from what he had imagined.

Fortunately, Zhou Xueying answered almost every question he asked, and he learned a good deal of useful information with almost no effort.