Twenty days later, Su Twelve exhaled a breath of white vapor as his joints crackled all over, like beans popping in a pan.
His eyes were bloodshot and he had grown visibly thinner, looking extraordinarily exhausted. Yet, a faint smile spread across his face.
These past twenty days had felt like years to him, filled with incomparable pain.
But refining this Qi Gathering Pill yielded obvious results. The True Essence within his body had grown from the size of a grain of rice to that of a soybean.
Only now could he truly be considered a first-level Qi Condensation Cultivator.
“As expected, pills are truly good things! With my current cultivation, taking the Qi Gathering Pill requires me to endure tremendous pain, but my cultivation speed increases by more than tenfold in return. Figuring it like this, it is highly worthwhile!”
“I heard Senior Sister Xiao Yue say that Han Yu only took ten days to reach the first level of Qi Condensation. Although my speed isn’t as fast as his, it should be about the same as ordinary people.”
Su Twelve clenched his fists, his face full of excitement. He had no intention of comparing himself to anyone else. To him, raising his cultivation to the first level of Qi Condensation in such a short time was already an excellent result.
Suppressing his excitement, Su Twelve did not rush to continue cultivating.
“Although I barely managed to refine this Qi Gathering Pill, my Meridians suffered damage as a result.”
“If I don’t wait for my Meridians to recover before trying again, I will surely die.”
“But this works out perfectly. I can take this opportunity to practice the two spells recorded in the cultivation method. Otherwise, if I actually encounter danger, I won’t even have the power to protect myself.”
Su Twelve pondered silently. He swallowed a Lesser Restoration Pill to heal his injuries, then rose and walked out into the courtyard.
Recalling the details of the Fire Control Art, he attempted to circulate his True Essence and formed hand seals.
Whoosh, whoosh…
The next instant, a fist-sized ball of searing flame appeared in front of him.
The flame danced erratically, threatening to break free from his control at any moment. Su Twelve had no choice but to pour in more True Essence, but the more he did so, the more unstable the flame became.
In the blink of an eye, the True Essence within his body was completely drained.
The flame hovering in the air sputtered with a pfft and vanished into nothingness.
At the same time, Su Twelve’s body went limp and he collapsed onto the courtyard ground. Not only was his head covered in sweat, but he felt as though all his physical strength had been hollowed out.
The difficulty of the Fire Control Art and its consumption of True Essence far exceeded his imagination.
But Su Twelve was not someone who gave up easily. He sat cross-legged where he was and silently meditated to recover his True Essence.
The cycle repeated, dull and tedious. Most children his age would have struggled to endure the monotony, but Su Twelve was driven by sheer determination and never found it boring.
Gradually, his control over his True Essence became increasingly effortless. Through this constant process of depletion and replenishment, the True Essence inside him unexpectedly grew a fraction stronger.
This discovery brought Su Twelve immense delight.
In the blink of an eye, half a year had passed since he joined the Cloudsong Sect.
That evening, in the forest beside the Waste Pill Room, Su Twelve hunched over, leaning against a towering tree and gasping for breath.
Compared to half a year ago, his skin had grown noticeably darker, and his body was far more robust.
Three low-rank wolf demons, each ox-sized, scarred, and baring their fangs, slowly closed in on him.
Facing this crisis, he was neither hurried nor flustered. His hands rapidly formed seals as he drew upon the very last trace of his True Essence.
“Wind Summoning!”
“Fire Control!”
Accompanied by his low shouts, a fierce gale surged through the forest. Wind and sand obscured the wolf demons’ vision, allowing several balls of searing fire to strike their bodies.
Bang, bang, bang!
Amidst the flying sand, several clusters of sparks burst forth.
The three wolf demons had already been at the end of their strength. Unable to hold on any longer, they let out mournful whimpers and collapsed to the ground, dead.
Seeing this, Su Twelve did not rush forward. Instead, he sat cross-legged and meditated on the spot.
A moment later, he stood and hurled several more fireballs, smashing the wolf demons’ heads. Only then did he approach, deftly tying the carcasses together with a rope before heading back to the Waste Pill Room.
After half a year of cultivation, Su Twelve had not only become proficient in both spells, but the True Essence within his body had also grown from the size of a soybean to the size of a broad bean.
“I’m already very proficient with these two spells. It’s just a pity that I have too little True Essence; I can only cast them three times at most. Moving forward, I will still have to rely on bitter cultivation with Qi Gathering Pills. But before that, I need to collect the Essence-Nourishing Pills distributed by the sect.”
“Although I have the mysterious pill furnace and can produce as many Essence-Nourishing Pills as I want, it would inevitably arouse suspicion if a novice disciple like me delayed collecting his sect pills for too long.”
“Moreover, if possible, I need to find a way to investigate that black-clothed person’s true identity.”
Su Twelve walked along the path, silently forming his plans.
He had always been fairly clever. Over the past half year, although swallowing Essence-Nourishing Pills every day had not improved his physical constitution any further, it had made his mind increasingly agile. New chapters come out on novelping dot com first.
After taking the wolf carcasses back and changing into his sect-issued disciple uniform, he set off for the Pill Pavilion.
There was a Pill Pavilion on every peak. In principle, disciples could only collect their pills from the Pill Pavilion on their respective peaks.
The pills and other cultivation resources distributed by the sect were issued once a year, and disciples could go to collect them at any time.
In just a single hour, Su Twelve arrived outside the Pill Pavilion on Luofu Peak.
From the outside, the Pill Pavilion looked like a square courtyard. A plaque hung above the open main gates, bearing the three characters for “Pill Pavilion.”
Looking through the gates, one could see a massive pill furnace over five meters tall standing in the center of the courtyard. It was unknown what was burning inside, but wisps of smoke continuously curled upward, spreading a medicinal fragrance for several miles.
Su Twelve walked straight into the courtyard. There, he saw seven novice disciples around his age, all lined up to collect their pills with eager smiles.
Among them were the three children who had joined Luofu Peak alongside him on that very first day.
For the past half year, they had been learning to read and write. Only today had they finally passed their tests, and they couldn’t wait to run over and claim their pills.
Compared with Su Twelve, the other children looked much more childlike.
Seeing Su Twelve enter, the three children recognized him at a glance, all of them wearing expressions of extreme shock.
It’s that little beggar! He’s actually still alive?
None of the three had expected Su Twelve to survive alone in a place like the Waste Pill Room for so long.
The little fatty at the very back of the queue, Zhu Hanwei, raised an eyebrow and widened his eyes.
“Didn’t they say there were fierce beasts roaming around the Waste Pill Room? How come this little beggar looks even sturdier now?”
After muttering this softly, Zhu Hanwei paid him no further mind.
At the front of the line stood a heavyset menial disciple in his twenties, his broad face set in a cruel scowl.
A pile of medicine bottles sat in front of him. With his eyes rolling upward in clear impatience, he finished inspecting an identity token and shoved three bottles of pills into the hands of a square-faced child at the front of the line.
The square-faced child was ecstatic. The moment he received the bottles, he eagerly popped them open and poured the pills into his hand to examine them.
The next second, the square-faced child suddenly froze, his expression changing slightly.