Chapter 22: The Second Floor

Unaware that he was being observed by the Han family elder, Li Zhen engaged in a fierce duel with Coach Wu.

His impatience grew; despite his opponent only being at the third level of Qi Refining, Coach Wu matched him in strength and reaction speed. No matter how much force Li Zhen exerted or how fast he tried to attack, he couldn’t best Coach Wu.

It felt as if there were an invisible barrier before his sword technique. He could sense it but couldn’t touch it, let alone break through it.

“Stop!” Coach Wu said, flicking away Li Zhen’s attack with a flourish of his blade.

Li Zhen retreated and sheathed his practice sword, realizing he had indeed become too agitated.

“I apologize, Coach Wu! It seems I’ve been too impatient,” he hurriedly confessed.

“Young Master Li, this is actually good news. Given your temperament, such restlessness suggests you’re on the cusp of a breakthrough in your swordsmanship. Your eagerness indicates you have set higher goals for yourself!” Coach Wu replied with a smile.

“How can my swordsmanship achieve a minor breakthrough?” Li Zhen asked, feeling validated by Coach Wu’s explanation.

“Hard to say!” Coach Wu shook his head before elaborating, “Your time practicing swordsmanship has been too short. Even though you’ve had frequent sparring matches, these are just a form of practice, not true combat. Without actual sword battles, it’s very difficult to achieve even modest proficiency in such a short period!”

Li Zhen understood his situation well. In truth, even when sparring with Coach Wu, given his superior physical strength and quick reflexes—combined with the fact that Coach Wu held back—their sessions were merely improving his familiarity with the sword.

If he weren’t so impatient, through long-term practice, he would naturally break through eventually.

However, this “long-term” was typically measured in years—a concept that seemed incredibly distant for Li Zhen, who had only trained for about one and a half months.

For ordinary cultivators, achieving modest proficiency in swordsmanship after several years of dedicated training might be considered quite efficient.

Cultivators have an immense amount of knowledge to master, and advancing in swordsmanship requires innate talent. Few cultivators can actually refine their skills enough to reach even basic mastery.

“It seems I was simply too hasty,” Li Zhen sighed helplessly.

Witnessing Li Zhen swiftly adjust his emotions, Coach Wu couldn’t help but marvel at the young man’s composure.

A hint of jealousy crept into Coach Wu’s thoughts as he contemplated Li Zhen’s innate talent with the sword. It had taken him a decade of arduous training to reach mastery, whereas it had taken the younger version of himself two years just to achieve modest proficiency.

After completing his practice session, Li Zhen didn’t immediately leave the Going Beyond Swordplay hall. Instead, he requested a cultivation simulation.

In the dedicated simulation room sat a state-of-the-art simulator. Li Zhen took a seat within it, first activating private mode using his identity bracelet before ceasing his use of the Qi Concealment Art. This allowed the simulator to perform a full scan of his body.

Under private mode, all data generated by the simulator remained confidential. Additionally, users could choose to have their information permanently deleted from the system upon completion.

The simulator conducted a comprehensive scan, quickly projecting a virtual representation of Li Zhen’s body onto his retinas. Various statistics materialized across different areas of this holographic display.

These figures included details about his spiritual roots, internal spiritual energy levels, mental state, skeletal structure, muscle composition, meridians, and more.

Based on these scanned metrics, the simulator would calculate the probability of successfully advancing to the next level of cultivation.

Li Zhen was on the verge of promotion, his spiritual power having reached 9.88. Ever since witnessing Cheng He’s fate, even for the simplest advancement from the first to the second level of Qi Refinement, he insisted on using the simulator to calculate his chances of success.

In truth, Going Beyond Swordplay’s simulation room could only process data for cultivators in the early to mid stages of Qi Refinement.

Simulating the data for late-stage Qi Refinement cultivators required significantly more computational power; within Yunxi County, there were but a handful of locations with simulators capable of such calculations.

Li Zhen had also noticed that the simulator failed to detect the dragon heart. Perhaps its grade was too high for this particular device to register.

“The probability of successfully advancing to the second level of Qi Refinement is 99%. This result is for reference only!” the simulator announced.

” Ninety-nine percent, not a hundred,” Li Zhen murmured, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “It seems advancing to the second level still carries some risk!”

“Hold on, with the dragon heart, I should at least add another tenth to my chances of success!” he realized, remembering the dragon heart’s potential impact.

With an apparent chance exceeding one hundred percent, Li Zhen decided that there was no need to bother his teacher with supervision. He would attempt the promotion to the second level of Qi Refinement at home tomorrow.

When it came to cultivation, Li Zhen had his own unique approach.

If not for the Qi Concealment Art, which allowed him to hide his spiritual energy aura, he wouldn’t have considered advancing to the second level of Qi Refining so soon. Instead, he would have waited until either Han Wenqin or Yu Nan advanced first.

Had he possessed high-grade spiritual roots, there’d be no question; his talent would naturally attract major powers eager to protect and nurture his growth.

However, Li Zhen currently only had mid-grade spiritual roots. While these were indeed remarkable in Yunxi County, they weren’t exceptional enough to warrant protection from powerful factions.

Take Cheng He, for example. When he openly displayed his mid-grade fire elemental spiritual root, it earned him praise but also drew attention from the Demon-Worship Cult.

Of course, Li Zhen was unaware of the true reason behind Cheng He’s lack of interest from influential backers. Seeing how even someone with a mid-grade spiritual root like Cheng He faced challenges, Li Zhen dared not reveal his own abilities too easily.

This is why he hesitated to let the Dragon Heart Space devour half of the low-tier second-rank Winged Wood immediately. Instead, he contemplated selling the Winged Wood, feeling that his current spiritual foundation sufficed.

At least while in middle school, he couldn’t afford to stand out too much and risk drawing the eye of demonic entities.

The next evening found Li Zhen at the dinner table with his family, as usual.

“Mom, Dad, I’m off to cultivate!” he said, setting down his bowl.

“Son, your dad has contacted an old friend and is planning to buy you a bottle of Qi Guidance Pills!” Father Li announced with a smile, sharing some good news.

“Dad, there’s no need to purchase Qi Guidance Pills for me!” Li Zhen hastily declined.

He did indeed want pills, but not to consume them. His goal was to have the Dragon Heart Space devour them, testing its ability to process medicinal pills.

However, he didn’t wish for his parents to spend their credit points on this. In his previous life, as a child, he had been frail, leading his parents to exhaust much of their savings on medical expenses. They likely hadn’t had time to rebuild their financial reserves.

“Your father originally planned to save up credit points for a Boundary Breakthrough Pill,” Mother Li explained. “But seeing that there were only two such pills at this year’s auction, he thought it might be better to prepare more resources for you!”

“What’s the point in all this talk?” Father Li waved his hand dismissively. “Our son is gifted; he’ll naturally surpass us one day. We can only support him through the early stages of Qi Refinement. After that, he’ll have to rely on himself!”

In truth, given their age and considering that cultivators typically live well past 120 years, both parents were still relatively young—barely forty years old.

If Father Li could advance further, reaching the intermediate stage of Qi Refinement, his efficiency in growing spirit rice would increase several-fold. This would, in turn, multiply their family income many times over.

Li Zhen desperately wanted to produce that mid-grade Boundary Breakthrough Pill but couldn’t figure out how to explain it.

He’d have to wait for some time, at least until he found an opportunity where taking out the mid-grade Boundary Breakthrough Pill wouldn’t seem too abrupt.

Entering the cultivation room, he first cleared his mind and manipulated his identity bracelet. His personal information appeared before his retinas:

The ‘Foundation Qi Refining Technique Version 17’ began to operate, drawing in the accumulated spiritual energy from throughout the day within the cultivation room towards him.

This ‘Foundation Qi Refining Technique Version 17’ only absorbed spiritual energy corresponding to the highest quality spiritual root, so despite having three types of spiritual roots, there wasn’t a separate type of spiritual power for each one in his dantian.

The azure wood-type spiritual energy was extremely pure; as external spiritual energy passed through the technique, it transformed into this azure wood-type spiritual energy and entered the dantian, filling the last remaining bit of space.

A sense of fullness rose within him, as if not even a speck more of spiritual energy could be squeezed into his dantian.

Realizing he had reached a critical moment, he directed a new stream of converted azure spiritual energy into the dantian. The resistance wasn’t as strong as he imagined.

As this azure spiritual energy entered, the vortex inside his dantian exploded, its force expanding his dantian to three times its original size.

Disordered spiritual energy now ricocheted around the spacious dantian. Li Zhen hastily guided these energies while maintaining the operation of the ‘Foundation Qi Refining Technique Version 17’.

Only when this disordered spiritual energy once again formed into a vortex did he finally have a chance to feel the changes within himself.