"Brother Chu, you’re far too courteous with people like that." As they walked along the small path to the Dean’s office, Jiang Kuo still seemed rather indignant.
"It’s irrelevant." Chu Bai’s expression was as calm as ever. To him, Li Han was merely a speck of dust on his path of Cultivation. Once brushed aside, his heart remained perfectly clear.
He glanced at the deepening twilight and said to his three companions, "I still have important things to attend to today, so I’ll take my leave."
Chu Bai wasn’t about to fall behind on his training schedule—three sessions a day, each in a different location.
「More than twenty days later.」
Chu Bai once again stepped through the doors of the Scripture Pavilion.
This time, he didn’t stop before the shelves of miscellaneous offensive Magic Techniques on the first floor. Instead, he walked straight toward the bookshelf for Defense Techniques.
His grueling battle with Zhang Shan had taught him the importance of a good defense.
[Guardian Shield]
This was the Magic Technique Chu Bai had selected after carefully comparing his options.
Unlike thick but clumsy techniques such as the Stone Wall Technique, the Guardian Shield was condensed from pure Magical Power of the Guiyuan Technique. It formed a palm-sized, circular shield that could be moved at will anywhere within a three-foot radius of his body.
The core advantage of this Magic Technique lay in its compatibility.
Guiyuan Magical Power was inherently neutral and balanced, allowing it to mimic various elemental properties.
This meant that when the Guardian Shield faced a Fire Element attack, its surface could instantly become frigid and dense. When facing a Gold Element attack, it could become pliable and unpredictable.
More importantly, the Guardian Shield’s defensive power increased with the purity of a Cultivator’s Magical Power. For someone like Chu Bai, who had reached Mastery in his Cultivation Technique, it was practically tailor-made.
’Spirit Water Needle for offense, Formless Cloud Hand for control, and Guardian Shield for defense.’
Clutching the newly inscribed Jade Scroll, Chu Bai’s mind was perfectly clear.
These three Magic Techniques formed a rudimentary but synergistic set, balancing both offense and defense.
He then invested a portion of his Daoist Merit earnings into his Cultivation.
One Daoist Merit point per day for a serving of the cheapest Spiritual Cuisine.
But in Chu Bai’s eyes, this was the most cost-effective treasure available.
With every mouthful of Spiritual Cuisine he consumed, his [Nourishing and Exquisite] Fate Chart would activate.
He could feel his meridians widening day by day, and his once-constricted spiritual apertures gradually loosening and smoothing under the nourishment of Spiritual Qi.
He saved up all his remaining Daoist Merit with a single goal in mind: Pills.
He didn’t lack comprehension, so he had no need to worry about bottlenecks.
’I just need to speed up my Cultivation progress a little...’
Time flew by in this rhythm of extreme self-discipline and near-monotony.
As winter set in, the Daoist School was blanketed in a layer of pristine snow.
At the summit of a lone peak on the Daoist School’s back mountain.
The frigid wind howled, sharp as a blade, kicking up sheets of snow that shrouded Chu Bai in a hazy white mist.
He had already been sitting there in silent meditation for a full six hours.
Over the past two months, Chu Bai had become something of a ghost at the Daoist School.
Aside from attending classes and completing his duties, he had refused nearly all social invitations.
Zhou Tong had even complained that it was easier to get a meeting with the old relic in the Dean’s office than it was to see Chu Bai.
But only Chu Bai himself knew just how terrifying the power accumulating within him had become.
On the panel deep within his Sea of Consciousness, the progress bar in the Realm section was nearly full.
[Qi Cultivation First Layer: 99/100...]
The progress bar had just reached this point. A breakthrough was imminent.
The first-floor Spiritual Cuisine he had been eating every day wasn’t high-grade, but what it lacked in quality, it made up for in quantity.
He discovered that as his aptitude slowly improved, the meridians that once required ten circulations of his technique to expand now only needed three.
’Compared to those Noble Sons, my start was slow after all.’
’But I have my own path. As long as I keep making progress, I won’t lose.’
Taking a deep breath, Chu Bai retrieved an exquisite little bottle from within his robes. It contained the Qi Gathering Powder he had exchanged for ten Daoist Merit points.
It could increase the speed of one’s Qi intake, which was even more useful for someone like Chu Bai who already had an edge in that area.
The moment the Pill entered his mouth, it transformed into three scorching torrents of energy.
An ordinary Cultivator would have had to treat this moment with extreme caution, carefully guiding the medicinal power to assail their bottleneck.
But Chu Bai had no need to do so.
[Acquired Fate Chart: Non-stop Rushing, Unceasing Labor]
For him, bottlenecks in his Realm or Cultivation Technique simply didn’t exist.
As long as his progress bar was full, everything else would simply fall into place!
A vast and majestic aura suddenly erupted from within Chu Bai.
The medicinal power, which should have been rampaging violently through his meridians, became as docile as a lamb, surging frantically along the pathways dictated by the Guiyuan Technique.
CRACK—
A crisp cracking sound seemed to echo from the depths of his Sea of Consciousness.
It was the final, mournful cry of the barrier to the Qi Cultivation First Layer as it was obliterated by sheer, overwhelming progress.
In the next instant, the Spiritual Qi of the world seemed to be drawn by an unseen force, forming a small vortex atop the lone peak and converging madly upon the point between Chu Bai’s eyebrows.
Qi Cultivation Second Layer—achieved!
Chu Bai felt the total volume of Magical Power within him more than double in an instant. His already profound Guiyuan Magical Power deepened in color, even taking on a faint, almost imperceptible metallic sheen.
His Divine Sense also underwent a qualitative transformation.
Previously, his Divine Sense could only scan a radius of about thirty feet. Now, with a single thought, every blade of grass, every tree, every gust of wind, and every falling snowflake within a hundred-foot radius was rendered in his mind with picturesque clarity.
This sense of absolute control made him roar into the sky. The sound echoed across the landscape, shaking the accumulated snow from the treetops in a soft cascade.
[Name: Chu Bai]
[Realm: Qi Cultivation Second Layer (1/100)]
[Cultivation Technique: Guiyuan Technique (Mastery 315/500)]
[Skills: Spirit Water Needle (Mastery 149/500), Formless Cloud Hand (Mastery 36/200), Guardian Shield (Skilled 32/200)]
Looking at the updated panel, Chu Bai slowly rose to his feet, brushing the frost from his shoulders.
It had been just over three months since he enrolled.
From a Lower-class Youth who couldn’t even afford tuition, to an elite student of the Daoist School at the Qi Cultivation Second Layer.
This leap was not just one of Realm, but of social class.
He knew very well that while the Qi Cultivation Second Layer wasn’t considered the absolute peak within the entire Daoist School, that was only if you included the senior, upper-year students.
Among the new students, the number who had broken through to the second layer by this point could be counted on two hands, and most of them were from the direct lineage of Noble Families with profound cultivation heritages.
And he had done it in less than seven months.
A month before the Daoist School’s entrance exam, he hadn’t even started Qi Cultivation, and now he had already broken through to the next layer.
’The half-year grand tournament... and a spot in the Spirit Pavilion.’
Chu Bai looked toward the main peak, his eyes filled with an unprecedented confidence.
He had now shored up all his weaknesses.
With skills for offense, control, and defense in hand, backed by his Qi Cultivation Second Layer foundation and his slaughter-focused [Seven Kills Fate]...
He was no longer planning to just be a spectator in the upcoming half-year grand tournament.
’I have to fight for a high ranking.’
’Getting a head start now will let me stay ahead later. The more resources and attention I receive, the smoother my future development will be.’
’Especially now, when I’m so short on resources... ’
He was determined to enter the legendary Spirit Pavilion, a place said to be capable of fundamentally altering the properties of one’s Magical Power.
The cold wind still howled, and snowflakes filled the vast sky.

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