With a sweep of his storage ring, Martial Uncle Lu produced a large pile of spirit herb packs in front of each of them.
“The first stage is skin refining. These are the spirit herb packs for the skin refining stage. Use them exactly as you did during the previous stage.
There are thirty packs in total. Once you have finished soaking in all of them, your skin refining will be considered complete.
At that point, the toughness of your skin and the speed at which wounds heal will reach the maximum intensity possible for your current cultivation level.
This will continue to improve as your cultivation grows in the future.”
...
After devouring an entire plate of food in the dining hall, Gu Ningyun discovered that her appetite had increased yet again.
Well, no wonder the food in the dining hall was free.
With Xiaoyao’s mandatory body refining classes, one's appetite skyrocketed. If she had to pay for this herself with spirit stones, she wouldn't be able to afford the consumption.
Wen Xuan finished the last bite of spirit beast meat and raised her small arms.
“Do you think if we keep training like this, we’ll end up growing huge muscles?”
Jiang Yao nodded, his voice sounding a bit excited. “Definitely! I once saw a body cultivator in a duel.
He was holding a meteor hammer, his body covered in bulging muscles. With one swing, he sent a spell cultivator flying. It was so cool!”
Wen Xuan’s eyes lit up. “That sounds amazing! In the future, if I’m unhappy with someone, I’ll just roll up my sleeves and show off my muscles to intimidate them.
If anyone messes with me, I’ll send them flying with one punch!”
Wait, what? Intimidating muscles?
How big would those muscles have to be? What if she became so muscular that she lost her flexibility and couldn't run fast anymore?
Gu Ningyun suppressed the tickle in her throat and struggled to swallow the spirit lotus root soup. “Cough, cough! Cough, cough...”
A pale blue cloud-patterned handkerchief was handed to her from across the table. Gu Ningyun’s hand trembled as she took it and wiped the corner of her mouth.
Wen Xuan patted her back to help her. “Did you choke? We don't have any more classes today, so there's no need to eat so fast.”
“I don’t think it’s because she was eating too fast,” Mu Chenze said with a playful expression.
Once Gu Ningyun caught her breath, she said, “I’m fine now, Wen Xuan.”
She looked at the girl, who was only half a head taller than her and had delicate features, and hesitated for a moment.
“Um, Wen Xuan, do you really want to be covered in muscles?”
Wen Xuan looked a bit confused. “Is that not good? Once you have strength, you can protect yourself.”
As she spoke, she peeked at Gu Ningyun and muttered, “And I can protect my friends, too. It’s a good thing.”
Gu Ningyun didn't notice her subtle glance.
Oh, so that was the reason.
“The sect’s body refining herbs should be specially formulated according to the physical differences between men and women.”
Gu Ningyun recalled her observations. “So, no matter how intense our training is, we shouldn't end up with that kind of physique.
However, the effects of the body refining definitely won't be lacking. Even if we can't use muscles to intimidate people, it should still be possible to punch someone and send them flying.”
Wen Xuan looked a bit disappointed but managed to say, “I guess that works, too.”
...
Cloud Residence, cultivation chamber.
Gu Ningyun sat cross-legged on the central meditation mat.
Her cultivation technique had been running automatically all day. The spirit energy and star power in her body had been compressed to their limit. All she needed to do was actively circulate her technique to break through to Qi Refining level one.
She began to circulate the 《Xiaoyao Wind Records》, guiding the spirit energy and star power from her dantian into her Ren Meridian and beginning the Minor Orbit circulation.
Following the star power with her divine sense, Gu Ningyun discovered that as the star power passed through her acupoints and meridians, it would also branch off and merge into them.
At this moment, all the acupoints within her Ren and Du Meridians, as well as the meridians themselves, had traces of silver light hidden within them, emitting a vast and mysterious aura.
Furthermore, compared to tempering with only wind spirit energy, the addition of star power made her meridians and acupoints wider and more resilient.
They could now withstand more spirit energy and star power, allowing for a faster circulation speed.
Looking at her dantian, its capacity was now twice what it had been at the start. Because she had been compressing her spirit energy and star power, her dantian had been tempered even more thoroughly than her meridians.
The silver threads within the dantian walls were also brighter and more densely packed.
By now, the spirit energy and star power had completed one full orbit. The breakthrough was imminent.
Gu Ningyun quickly adjusted her state and silently recited the technique. As the circulation of spirit energy and star power accelerated, a massive amount of energy entered the cycle through the fifty-two acupoints and flowed into her dantian.
A soft pop sound, like a drop of water hitting a pool, echoed within her.
Gu Ningyun’s dantian expanded by another fold, and she successfully entered Qi Refining level one.
However, she did not stop her cultivation. She continued to circulate her technique, and after twelve more Minor Orbits, she completely stabilized her cultivation at Qi Refining level one.
The content for the next stage of the technique appeared. To break through to Qi Refining level two, she first needed to open the Lung Meridian of Hand-Taiyin, one of the twelve primary meridians.
But since Gu Ningyun had undergone the cleansing the marrow, the meridians in her body were already open.
Furthermore, she ate spirit food every day, and after soaking in the body refining herbs, she would drink an appropriate amount of spirit spring water.
As a result, no new impurities had formed within her body or meridians.
Therefore, if she wanted to continue her cultivation and break through to the second level, she wouldn't need to spend time opening her meridians.
She only needed to continue the Minor Orbit circulation and accumulate spirit energy as before.
Considering that the Minor Orbit circulation did not pass through the Lung Meridian of Hand-Taiyin, Gu Ningyun decided to temper it to the same level of strength as her Ren and Du Meridians and her dantian.
Then, she would wait until the spirit energy and star power in her dantian were compressed to their limit again before breaking through to Qi Refining level two.
Gu Ningyun circulated the 《Xiaoyao Wind Records》, guiding her spirit energy and star power according to the newly revealed method for opening meridians.
The spirit energy and star power flowed through Zhongfu, Yunmen... all the way to the final acupoint, Shaoshang.
Because it wasn't a complete cycle, Gu Ningyun didn't draw in much energy.
The two energies washed directly through the Lung Meridian of Hand-Taiyin, merging completely into the eleven acupoints and the meridian itself.
Under such efficient tempering, the gap between the Lung Meridian of Hand-Taiyin and her Ren and Du Meridians was rapidly closing.
Meanwhile, on the side of the Ren and Du Meridians, since she wasn't actively circulating her technique to absorb energy, the 《Record of Primordial Stars》 dutifully performed its role, driving the 《Xiaoyao Wind Records》 to operate automatically.
Compared to before her breakthrough, the speed of this automatic circulation had increased by one-twelfth.
...
During this time, Gu Ningyun attended classes by day and cultivated by night. Unnoticeably, another six days passed.
Yesterday, when Jun Luo went to submit his ancient script translation task, Gu Ningyun went along and earned two hundred points.
Unfortunately, Martial Aunt Yang was worried they might lose sight of their priorities and become so obsessed with earning points that it would affect their classes, so she only allowed them to take on a task once a month.
The next time she could earn points would be after the first stage assessment.
Over these six days, Gu Ningyun had nearly mastered the threading the needle exercise. She could use her spirit energy to thread half a box of needles into any shape she desired.
As for the other half of the box... uh, they had been shattered by her wind spirit energy during practice.
Given her current divine sense strength, she could only handle half a box of needles at once.
However, compared to seven days ago...
To be precise, compared to before she started the spirit energy application class, her divine sense strength and proficiency had improved significantly.
During the class on the eighth day—
Gu Ningyun circulated her spirit energy, and ten thin strands of energy emerged simultaneously from her index finger.
The strands flowed flexibly toward the box, weaving through it. In a short while, the ten strands were fully threaded with needles.
Gu Ningyun coiled the spirit energy into circles and stacked them one by one on the table.
What she didn't know was that from the moment she simultaneously produced ten strands of spirit energy, Martial Aunt Yang’s gaze had been fixed on her.
Rate on N.U.
