Chapter 30: First success of training

Translator: GGP

Liu Ming, though he was looked down upon with disdain as if he were a country bumpkin, did not get angry. Instead, without further hesitation, he entered his own field, selected ten of the plumpest spirit husks, and harvested them with the standard talisman sword he carried with him.

He then took out a yellow cloth from his bosom, carefully wrapped the spirit husks, and headed towards the dense forest.

An hour later, after completing his task, Liu Ming returned to his dwelling.

After sitting down at the table, he unwrapped the bundle, spread out the spirit husks, and began to inspect each one carefully.

Each of these spirit husks was half a foot long, and the grains on them were each the size of a soybean, though there were only seven or eight grains per husk. The husks were all gleaming golden, as if forged of pure gold.

After looking for a while, Liu Ming lifted his hand to break off a grain from a spirit husk and rubbed it gently between his hands.

The husk crumbled away like paper, revealing a greenish, translucent grain, which he brought to his nose for a gentle sniff, releasing a faint and refreshing fragrance.

Liu Ming was secretly pleased, and without any hesitation, he retrieved a small clay jar from another room, poured some clear water into it, and then deshelled all the grains from several spirit husks and put them into the pot.

With one hand he lifted the jar, while his other hand formed incantations with a single hand, all the while chanting silently.

With a “bang,” a burst of intense red flames surged out from the palm of his hand, fiercely enveloping the clay jar and burning vehemently.

It was the newly learned Fire Flame Art.

Before long, a rich fragrance of rice filled the air from within the jar, wetting the appetite of anyone who smelt it.

Liu Ming reduced the flames slightly, and after waiting for a moment, feeling it was about time, he abruptly extinguished the spell with a “pfft,” and then quickly placed the scalding-hot jar on the table and flipped open the lid.

A layer of rice, crystal clear as snow, immediately appeared, steaming fragrantly before him.

Liu Ming took a wooden spoon that had been prepared earlier, scooped heartily into the jar, removed most of the grains in one go, and brought a mouthful to his lips.

Though the grains appeared scorching hot to the eye, as soon as he took a bite, a uniquely smooth sensation filled his mouth.

Then, as if alive, the grains squirmed and rolled down into his stomach, the flavor more magnificent than anything he had ever tasted.

Unable to resist, Liu Ming polished off the rice in the jar in record time.

But the next moment, he immediately felt a searing heat burst forth from his abdomen, spreading rapidly to his limbs.

“Eh, what’s this…”

This heat was clearly the extremely pure essence of heaven and earth, Yuan Energy!

Without a second thought, Liu Ming immediately sat down cross-legged on the spot and began to practice his breathing and cultivation.

An hour later, when he finally opened his eyes again, his face was full of surprise.

The brief cultivation session had increased his magic power more than a full day of hard practice would have.

The spirit rice had an unexpected effect of aiding cultivation, which was indeed a surprising discovery.

No wonder that Li Zong had said there might be unexpected benefits to farming.

If he could eat this kind of spirit rice several times a day, wouldn’t his cultivation speed be able to increase manifold?

However, after letting this thought swirl in his mind a few times, Liu Ming immediately shook his head, dismissing it.

Not to mention that such spirit rice was undoubtedly extremely rare and ordinary disciples would not be able to obtain it from the sect, but the feeling of fullness in his belly was even stronger than that from the hunger-relieving pills; it was likely that even with an ample supply of spirit rice, a person would only be able to eat it once every six or seven days.

As such, the most it could do was to increase one’s cultivation speed by one-sixth or one-seventh.

This level of improvement was far inferior to the effectiveness of his talent in performing two tasks with one mind.

Having thought this, Liu Ming’s initial excitement naturally subsided somewhat.

He stored away the remaining spirit husks and returned to his cultivation room to sit cross-legged.

In the previous near-month period, he had merely used the Nether Bone Secret Formula to convert the original Yuan Energy in his body into magic power, thus the process of cultivation was unusually smooth.

Now that the Yuan Energy in his body had been completely converted, if he wished to continue increasing his magic power, he could only do so by arduous and gradual self-cultivation.

Liu Ming had learned from the two cultivation texts that the higher the level of the magical mantra, the more mental effort it demanded during regular practice, with much of the time being spent on recovering spiritual power.

Of course, generally speaking, with the advancement of cultivation level, a practitioner’s spiritual power would also gradually strengthen.

Therefore, the same magical formulas would have vastly different cultivation speeds between novice disciples and those in the middle to later stages of sect disciples.

But for fundamental sect techniques like the Earth Spirit Art, novice disciples generally need to practice for five or six hours before they must stop and rest for the same length of time in order to continue cultivating.

When Liu Ming used his talent of multitasking to practice the Nether Bone Secret Formula, however, he did not have to worry about this at all; he could practice non-stop for five to six days and nights, and after a good day’s sleep, return full of energy to the next round of cultivation.

His cultivation time was nearly more than double that of other disciples.

Liu Ming also learned from those two books of cultivation insights that, when it came to actual cultivation effects, he was unable to compare with those with six spiritual meridians or nine spiritual meridians.

In the same amount of time spent on cultivation, the effects of his three spiritual meridians were just over half as effective as those of six meridians, and only a third as effective as the nine meridians disciples.

Thus, even though Liu Ming spent far more time cultivating than other disciples, his actual increase in mana and cultivation speed were only equivalent to that of a disciple with six spiritual meridians.

It was no wonder then that those Spirit Masters were only interested in disciples with more than six spiritual meridians and paid no attention to those with three meridians.

With such a stark difference in cultivation effects, if he were a mountain sect leader, he too would concentrate resources on disciples with six spiritual meridians.

From this, one could imagine how terrifyingly fast Gao Chong, who possessed an ‘Earth spiritual meridian,’ would improve once he began cultivating.

With his twelve spiritual meridians, he would cultivate four times faster than the average disciple with three spiritual meridians.

Even with Liu Ming’s talent for multitasking, he could barely keep up with half the cultivation speed of the other.

As for some attributes like Thunder spiritual meridians or Wind spiritual meridians, they didn’t have much use in cultivation, but when casting some secret techniques or spells of the same attribute, they would display an astonishing amplification of power, hence they were also highly valued by the sect.

Furthermore, due to bloodlines or other innate reasons, some cultivators might naturally possess some special talents.

Some of these talents could increase cultivation speed, some allowed the cultivator to learn secret techniques that were otherwise impossible for ordinary people, while others had even more esoteric and strange effects.

The variety of these abilities was so vast that they had not yet been completely cataloged by the cultivating world and were temporarily collectively called “spirit bodies.”

The occurrence of spirit bodies was even rarer than those nine spiritual meridians and attribute spiritual meridians.

However, not all spirit bodies were useful to their possessors; in fact, most of the known types of spirit bodies were insignificant and worthless.

So thinking about it, Liu Ming’s multitasking talent could also be considered a kind of spirit body, albeit reluctantly.

But his ability was somewhat different from the general spirit bodies, as other spirit bodies were innate from birth, while his multitasking talent had emerged later due to an accident.

Whether there was any correlation between the two or if they were entirely different matters, Liu Ming himself was unable to judge.

At this moment, as he thought about these things in his room, he naturally felt somewhat depressed, but fortunately, his will was steadfast, far beyond that of ordinary people, and he quickly suppressed the distracting thoughts and started to practice the Nether Bone Secret Formula.

Half a year flew by!

During this time, aside from the routine sect missions and exchanging for a few more practical spells at the Spirit Law Hall, Liu Ming did not take a single step outside.

He was solely dedicated to the arduous practice of the Nether Bone Secret Formula, allowing his mana to soar at a breakneck speed.

One day, while Liu Ming was cultivating, his body suddenly trembled. The sound of metallic clashing boomed from within his body, and, opening his mouth, a thick black gas billowed out, swirling into a black tempest that enshrouded him.

Within the tempest, numerous black tendrils whipped wildly, but with a flash, they disappeared without a trace.

A clear chant emerged from within the wind and, following a low shout, the tempest abruptly ceased, revealing Liu Ming’s standing figure once again.

“This first layer of the Nether Bone Secret Formula is finally complete. Heh, a year’s time? For me, half a year was enough.” Liu Ming lifted his hands and saw faint black qi twining around his fingers, a slight smile appearing on his face.

Suddenly, he raised his hand, and on his wrist, the tiger bite ring flickered slightly before he flicked a finger towards the distant wall.

With a “puff,” a black jet of wind shot out, boring a small hole into the wall out of thin air.

Seeing this, Liu Ming was overjoyed.

Such power was almost comparable to that of a top-tier Qi cultivator, which suggested he truly entered the initial phase of the Spiritual Apprentice level.

With that, he could finally begin practicing the secret technique “Soul Refining Lure.”

Just then, a continuous “dong, dong” bell sound suddenly came from outside the room.

Liu Ming was startled, quickly stepped outside, and looked up towards the mountain peak.

He saw that the bell sounds were resounding from the top of Jiuying Mountain, each ring louder than the last, totaling nine.

“Nine sounds in succession? Could today be the day of the Jiuying Mountain minor competition!” After hearing the bell, a look of surprise emerged on Liu Ming’s face.

At that moment, he saw several grey clouds flying up from the foot of the mountain, heading straight for the mountain peak.

Seeing this, Liu Ming hesitated for a moment before forming a hand seal and casting a spell, conjuring a grey cloud beneath his feet and rising into the sky.

A short while later, around seventy to eighty Inner door disciples had gathered in the plaza on the peak of Jiuying Mountain, all watching with somber expressions the three people at the center.