Lady Cultivator

Mo Tiange found a chance to visit Kuang Zhu to ask him about Shui Linbo’s injuries. Senior Martial Brother Kuang Zhu was as calm and cold as ever after his forming Gold Core. He treated her neither warmly nor coldly at her present status. Under Mo Tiange’s sincere invitation, Senior Martial Brother Kuang Zhu finally agreed to go check Shui Linbo at his leisure.

The cultivation techniques medical cultivators used were different from what Dharma cultivators used. The former paid more attention to warming the body meridian vessels and dantian, similar to techniques used to maintain one’s health in the secular world, but their techniques were much more powerful. Senior Martial Brother Kuang Zhu had entered the Core Formation realm and understood cultivators’ conditions very well. Even if he couldn’t heal Shui Linbo’s injuries, he could at least provide some suggestions.

After handling these miscellaneous affairs, Mo Tiange formally moved to Qin Xi’s cave.

Qin Xi’s cave wasn’t as big as Mo Tiange’s, but it also wasn’t small. It had a Pill-Concocting Room, Tools-Refining Room, and Spiritual Beasts’ Room. Aside from that, there were several small caves that had originally been prepared for his disciples. The two of them might not accept many disciples, so these caves were enough.

However, a life shared by two people wasn’t the same as a single person’s life anyway. Qin Xi also specifically prepared one more Closed Room in case, while his original Cultivation Room was shared by both of them.

After cultivating together in the Virtual Sky World, they knew they wouldn’t influence each other while sharing the same Cultivation Room. Therefore, they could share one room without having to use another.

However, on the topic of where they would normally cultivate, the two of them held different opinions.

“Do we need to set up the Cultivation Room like this? We can cultivate in the Virtual Sky World anyway, right?”

Upon hearing Mo Tiange saying this, Qin Xi sighed and said, “Tiange, maybe you didn’t notice that there’s no pressure for you to cultivate in the Virtual Sky World, but that isn’t the case for me.”

Mo Tiange was stunned. “Pressure?”

“Yes,” Qin Xi answered. “Your Spiritual Roots of the Origin and your Art of the Origin can bring out the best in each other in the Virtual Sky World, but for me, it’s only when I cultivate using the Art of Three Primordial Cycles in the Virtual Sky World that I don’t feel pressured. The rest of the time, no matter whether I cultivate using my Pure Yang Technique or other magic arts, the pressure is pretty big.”

“I didn’t anticipate this…” Mo Tiange felt this was inconceivable.

Qin Xi frowned and said, “I’ve been thinking about this issue for a long time, but I can’t figure it out. If we go ask Master, with his knowledge, we might get some advice from him, but…”

Both of them trusted Lord Daoist Jinghe, but a secret was no secret if too many people knew about it. Therefore, they only planned to help their Master heal with other excuses without intending to tell him about the Virtual Sky World.

Qin Xi continued, “I thought to myself for a long time that perhaps it’s because the spiritual aura in the Virtual Sky World is too rich. The cultivation techniques I practice were mostly revised by later generations, while only the Art of Three Primordial Cycles was passed down from the Distant Past era. What’s more, I only have two spiritual roots… Tiange, I’m different from you.”

The tone of his last sentence was one of helplessness. They were indeed different. Both Tiange’s qualifications and cultivation techniques came from the Distant Past era, and her Virtual Sky World was also from the Distant Past era, so she could almost be considered a cultivator from the Distant Past era. But Qin Xi was different. He was a pure cultivator of his time, and he only cultivated using the Art of Three Primordial Cycles.

Mo Tiange also sighed. She knew that what Qin Xi said was true. Furthermore, he was a Nascent Soul cultivator now and understood many things better than she did.

But hope arose in her eyes, and she said, “My predecessor Yuan Bao also cultivated using the Pure Yang Technique just like you, but he could cultivate smoothly in his Virtual Sky World… We’ll find a way!”

“En.” Qin Xi smiled. “I never doubted that, but we might have to wait longer.”

Looking at Mo Tiange, a lot of things flashed through Qin Xi’s eyes. His love for her, reluctance, helplessness, and confusion.

He used to think that his woman would be well protected under his wings, but Tiange showed him that what she wanted wasn’t protection; she wanted empathy and to move forward with him. Even though he had now formed his Nascent Soul and was strong enough to protect her, he felt more and more helpless. She wasn’t as high as him in terms of cultivation level, but he couldn’t cultivate with her now.

For Tiange, the Virtual Sky World was the best place to cultivate, but it didn’t seem to be a good option for Qin Xi.

But also, Tiange wasn’t wrong either. Yuan Bao could cultivate in his Virtual Sky World, so Qin Xi must be able to do that too. So what was he missing now?

Yuan Bao had a Pure Yang Constitution. Qin Xi wasn’t born with one, but under his transformation with the Yang Spiritual Bead, he was able to almost develop a similar constitution. Yuan Bao mainly cultivated using the Pure Yang Technique, and Qin Xi had also reached a high level while cultivating using the Pure Yang Technique. Yuan Bao was in the Deification Realm, which was incomparable to Qin Xi’s cultivation level…

Right! A twinkle flashed in Qin Xi’s eyes. Qin Xi discovered that being in the Nascent Soul realm made him much stronger than he was in the Core Formation realm. While in the Nascent Soul realm, the tenacity of cultivators’ meridian vessels and the capacity of spiritual aura were more than a hundred times higher than in the Core Formation realm! Accordingly, the spiritual aura required for cultivation also increased to a terrifying level for Nascent Soul cultivators. This was what happened after the transition from the Core Formation to the Nascent Soul realm, so what about the transition from the Nascent Soul to Deification Realm? Yuan Bao could cultivate in his Virtual Sky World like a fish in water—was it because he had reached the Deification Realm and the spiritual aura in the human world was no longer sufficient for his cultivation, while the Virtual Sky World was perfect for him?

If so, they would be in trouble again. Other things might be easy to accomplish, but it was very difficult to enhance one’s cultivation level. It had been tens of thousands of years since a Deification cultivator appeared in the Celestial Pole. Qin Xi wasn’t sure if he could advance to the Deification Realm or not!

“What’s wrong?” Mo Tiange asked.

Qin Xi sighed and explained to her what he had been thinking.

Mo Tiange was also lost in thought.

They originally thought that their Dual Cultivation partnership was a match made in heaven. With the Yin and Yang Dual-Cultivation Technique Yuan Bao gave to them, it would be easier to cultivate in the future. But when things came down to it, problems that had never occurred before would surface. In that case, they could only maintain their original cultivation pace, unable to take advantage of their situation.

The most important thing was that in the Distant Past era, there were many cultivators who could become real immortals. With Mo Tiange’s state, even if she couldn’t fly to heaven and become a real immortal, she would at least be able to cultivate to become as powerful as Zhong Muling, but what about Qin Xi? Qin Xi was a talented cultivator of his time, but it would be difficult for him to break through the bottleneck required to reach Deification.

“Whatever, forget about it,” Qin Xi said. “I think perhaps everything will be easily resolved after you reach the Nascent Soul realm. There’s still a lot of progress in regards to cultivation for us to make—we can’t even master the Yin and Yang Dual-Cultivation Technique completely at this point.”

“En.” Mo Tiange agreed. They still had a lot of time and there was no need to worry.

Qin Xi was now a Nascent Soul cultivator who would have a lifespan of two thousand years if he maintained steady cultivation and a healthy body. With the help of Longevity Pills refined from spirit herbs in the Virtual Sky World, Qin Xi’s lifespan could even be over two hundred thousand years. He was just over two hundred years old now.

Core Formation cultivators usually had a lifespan of six hundred to eight hundred years. Mo Tiange had also taken some Longevity Pills, so she could live to be more than one thousand years old. But she was confident in her speed of cultivation. She believed she could reach the Nascent Soul in one hundred or two hundred years, and in that case, her lifespan would be prolonged… They had plenty of time to resolve these problems slowly.

“There’s one more thing.” Mo Tiange remembered. “What do you think of Shui Linbo?”

Qin Xi wasn’t present during Mo Tiange and Shui Linbo’s conversation, but his divine sense had never left Mingxin Residence, so he clearly understood what they talked about.

Qin Xi thought for a moment and said, “Aside from the fact that her history is impossible to prove, nothing else seemed amiss.”

Mo Tiange nodded as this was also what she concluded. Shui Linbo said she came from the Eastern Sea and met Mo Tiange once, but at that time, An’an from the Shui family was very young, and Mo Tiange didn’t recognize her at all. This meant Mo Tiange had no way to confirm whether Shui Linbo was the little girl from the Eastern Sea.

Other than that, everything else she said was verifiable. It wasn’t difficult to investigate an itinerant cultivator’s background with the manpower of Xuanqing School, and Mo Tiange had actually ordered the Steward’s Hall to do it in secret.

“Don’t worry too much.” Qin Xi comforted her. “She’s just a Foundation Building cultivator. The entire Shangqing Palace is under the control of Master’s divine sense. If there’s anything amiss about her, Master would’ve warned us.”

“En.” Mo Tiange nodded. Perhaps she and Qin Xi were inexperienced, but Master was an old fox who lived up to his name. Even though he was badly injured, it was impossible for a Foundation Building cultivator to cheat him. It was also hard for a low-ranking cultivator to lie under the pressure of high-level cultivators.

After pondering for a while, Mo Tiange suddenly laughed. “We’re actually worrying because of a Foundation Building cultivator, alas!”

Qin Xi also smiled and said, “We have to be careful. If she’s just a normal disciple, there would be no trouble even if she was sent by other sects. But Zhenji likes her, so things are different here. Zhenji’s my only disciple, and he’s also your nephew. As the closest member of the younger generation to us, Zhenji wants to perform dual cultivation with Shui Linbo, which changes the significance of Shui Linbo’s identity.”

“En.” Mo Tiange suddenly came up with an idea and said, “Right, if she’s trustworthy, I can accept her as my disciple. I remember her qualifications are five spiritual roots, so maybe she can cultivate the Art of the Origin.”

Qin Xi couldn’t help smiling. “The Art of the Origin? Are you sure you want to accept her as your disciple because she has five spiritual roots? Not because you also like her and want to comfort Zhenji?”

Qin Xi was right. Mo Tiange bowed her head with some embarrassment. But after thinking that she didn’t do anything wrong, Mo Tiange continued confidently: “I’m a Core Formation cultivator now, so I should have a disciple. At least I can have someone running errands for me.”

“Yes, you should.” Qin Xi nodded and said, smiling, “But Master Daoist Qingwei, you’re a talented cultivator who’s formed your Gold Core before a hundred years old. You’re Lord Daoist Jinghe’s last disciple and Lord Daoist Shoujing’s dual cultivation Dao companion, so what disciples can’t you take? Yet you want to take a half-dead disciple with only five spiritual roots?”

“…” Mo Tiange uttered a hollow laugh and had to admit it. “Fine. If Shui Linbo heals, Zhenji will likely perform dual cultivation with her. I’ll accept her as my disciple then as a gift to Zhenji.”

“En.” Qin Xi agreed but then he stressed, “Make the decision later. We should at least find out her background and ascertain that she’s trustworthy.”

“Rest assured. I understand.”