Chapter 122 - Cultivation Methods
[ Jiang Mei's House ]
Xiao Fang and Jiang Mei spent their morning watching Su Yun train Xiao Hei through their bedroom window as they cuddled in their bed.
Since Xiao Hei already knew the basics, Su Yun was able to go straight to the more advanced stuff.
Xiao Hei created a clone then mobilized it. To attack Su Yun, after a while, Su Yun instructed Xiao Hei to fight her with her clone at the same time. So she did as she said.
Trying to fight while controlling her clone was much harder than it seemed, but Xiao Hei was quickly getting better at it. Eventually, her clone's movements became less mechanical and nearly indistinguishable from the original.
"Xiao Fei Lin is much stronger than she looks," Jiang Mei commented on their training session, but her words weren't as simple as she made it out to be.
"Mn, she's getting a bit too excited," Xiao Fang replied, intentionally not taking the hint.
He didn't think it was wise to reveal Xiao Hei's true cultivation realm because it was connected to his own.
Like Jiang Mei, Su Yun was actually considered a body cultivator because her body cultivation was in the Profound Body realm while her Spirit Cultivation was only in the Spirit Core realm. Since they were in the Profound Body realm, they could easily tell that Xiao Hei's body cultivation had exceeded the Body Refinement realm from her movements alone.
"Solid Body realm! I can't believe my disciple is so talented hahaha," Su Yun boasted, knowing that Jiang Mei could hear her.
Su Yun was certain that Xiao Hei was at least in the Solid Body realm, but until Xiao Hei went all out, she wouldn't know exactly what stage she was in.
"Shameless…" Jiang Mei said with black lines going down her head.
Xiao Hei gave Su Yun a confused look then said,
"But I'm not in the Solid Body realm…"
"You're not?"
Xiao Hei shook her head.
Su Yun suddenly remembered that Xiao Hei was a spirit pet.
'Ah... she probably goes by tiers,' Su Yun thought.
Tiered Beasts were normally categorized by tiers because they didn't have stages to their cultivation realms. As Cultivators need to make 9 breakthroughs to reach the next realm, Spirit Beasts only needed to make 1. So, when Xiao Hei told her that she wasn't in the Solid Body realm, Su Yun assumed that she went by tiers instead. This was a believable explanation to Su Yun because Xiao Hei's true form resembled a tiered beast, and also because she was certain that Xiao Hei was at least in the Solid Body realm.
"So that's how it is. For a moment there I was also convinced that she was in the Solid Body realm," Jiang Mei laughed as if she had just realized she was being pranked.
Of course, Xiao Fang knew that Xiao Hei was actually in the Profound Body realm, but he chose to change the subject.
"Do you think she's ready for the exam?" Xiao Fang asked Jiang Mei.
"I can't say for sure. She's a quick learner, but her observation skills seem to be lacking."
Xiao Fang agreed. All they could hope for was that she would get better with practice.
"I should leave, I have a few classes I need to teach today," Jiang Mei said as she stood up.
"They're making you teach before exam day?"
"Yeah, you can come visit if you want. Maybe you could learn a thing or two about concocting pills."
"I'll have to decline. I shouldn't be slacking the day before the exam," Xiao Fang just made up a random excuse.
Jiang Mei almost laughed.
"If you don't want to go, you can tell me. I know lectures aren't your thing."
Xiao Fang smirked, "It seems you already know me well."
Pill concocting was typically performed by women because it required a soft touch, delicate measurements, and a lot of patients. Xiao Fang didn't have any of those qualities. So he was convinced that he'd never learn the art of concocting pills.
Xiao Fang watched as Jiang Mei got dressed in front of him. He looked up and down her beautiful body, admiring the way she looked when she was naked.
Jiang Mei eventually noticed his lustful gaze, so she crawled back into bed then sat on his lap. She gently placed her hands on his face then gave him a passionate kiss.
His hands reached under her clothes to grope her round dumplings. Her butt felt so smooth, soft, and warm, that he was getting hard just by squeezing it. She had the kind of meaty ass no man would ever get tired of groping.
Xiao Fang started kissing her back. He was so turned on he was ready to let her have it, but then she suddenly stopped him. She separated her face from his then looked him in the eye.
"I'll see you later tonight," she said in a seductive tone.
"What a tease."
Jiang Mei smiled as if she pulled a prank on him.
With that, Jiang Mei got up and left. Then Xiao Fang stepped outside to meditate on the grass.
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Sometime later into Xiao Hei's training session, Xiao Hei stopped holding back, or at least she didn't realize it because she was having too much fun.
Xiao Hei's attacks started to get faster and faster. She didn't look like she was training anymore, but playing a game of tag. Su Yun thought it was a clever teaching method because it seemed to be helping her adapt to controlling her clone a lot faster than the standard teaching methods. But Xiao Hei was fast, and she only seemed to be going faster.
'Just how much is she holding back against me,' Su Yun frowned.
The stronger Xiao Hei was, the more difficult it was for Su Yun to see what she was doing wrong. She would need to focus less on identifying her flaws and more on simply dodging her attacks.
Suddenly, Xiao Hei's eyes became sharp. She had found an opening.
In the next moment, Xiao Hei pounced towards Su Yun with the full strength of her Profound Realm Body, and appeared in front of Su Yun in a blink of an eye.
!!!
Su Yun's eyes widened in shock, but she couldn't panic because she didn't have the time to.
Su Yun immediately jumped to the right to dodge, but Xiao Hei was able to adjust her attack path just on time to compensate.
"I got you," Xiao Hei said with a large grin on her face.
However, the moment Xiao Hei touched her, her hand went right through Su Yun's body.
"What!?" Xiao Hei thought in confusion.
Looking back, Xiao Hei saw that Su Yun was still standing in the same place as she was before. Her real body had never dodged to the right, she used an Illusory Body technique to make her think that she did.
"What kind of technique was that?" Xiao Hei asked with expecting eyes.
Su Yun stared at Xiao Hei with a strange expression on her face, because when Xiao Hei went all out, she inevitably revealed her true body cultivation realm.
'Profound Realm... Was I imagining it? No, I know what I felt. That was definitely the aura of a Profound Realm cultivator.'
This completely destroyed Su Yun's theory that Xiao Hei's cultivation path more closely resembled Tiered Beasts. She was no different than a normal human cultivator. However, for her to already be at the Profound realm seemed unbelievable, unless she was several decades older than she looked. This again wasn't too hard for Su Yun to believe because she didn't know anything about a spirit pet's lifespan. It could be more than double a human for all she knew.
Su Yun looked back at Xiao Fang who was meditating on the grass.
'Just where did he find this spirit pet from?' she wondered.
Getting no reply from Su Yun, Xiao Hei asked her question again.
"Master, that technique just now..."
"Huh? Oh right. It's called [ False Shadow ]. It's the 1st out the 3 levels of the Profound realm technique called [ Misdirection ]. Although it's a Body cultivation technique, you still need to be in the 1st stage of the Spirit Refinement realm to learn it."
Xiao Hei turned her head and looked at Xiao Fang with yearning eyes. Xiao Fang was deep into meditation so he didn't know what was going on. It was obvious what Xiao Hei wanted, but it wasn't like he could just breakthrough to the 1st stage of the Spirit Refinement realm whenever he wanted to.
Su Yun continued teaching Xiao Hei new ways to use her clone in combat, but she was still a long way from learning how to create more than 1 clone, but to make it easier on herself she created 3 clones to help her against Xiao Hei. The thing she felt Xiao Hei needed the most practice with was how to distinguish illusions from the real thing. Since she was learning the method, the only thing she needed was time, but time was limited.
...
Still sitting on the grass, Xiao Fang had his legs crossed into the lotus position and he had his qi continuously circulating through and around him. He spent the next few hours trying to make a breakthrough to the 9th stage of the [ Illusory body ] Spirit Foundation realm, but he was unsuccessful. He wasn't too disappointed though, because he was able to reach the 8th stage in 2 weeks. That itself was a major accomplishment.
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Xiao Fang's Cultivation Realm:
> Divine Sword: 1st stage profound Body realm
> Dual Cultivation: 6th stage Spirit Core realm
> Death Reaper: 1st stage Spirit Refinement realm
> Illusory Body: 8th stage Spirit Foundation realm
+ True Immortal Lightning Tribulation
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Xiao Fang sighed.
'I'm practicing too many cultivation methods,' he thought.
Similar to cultivation techniques, cultivation methods could also be categorized into specific types (offense, defense, support, area control, taboo, etc). Most people would only cultivate 1 or 2 cultivation methods, but Xiao Fang already had 4. From what he knew, his current method types were:
> Divine Sword - offense
> Dual Cultivation - taboo
> Illusory Body - support
He didn't know what type of cultivation method his Death Reaper method was. Just from the techniques written on it, he assumed it could be either an offense or support cultivation method. However, judging by the name alone, he wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be another taboo method