Chapter 13: Drawing Qi into the Body

Unlike the training of physical strength, where he could consume spiritual beast meat to increase power and soak in medicinal baths to fortify his physique, the cultivation of control relied entirely upon himself.

This process demanded the utmost concentration without a single trace of carelessness; in the words of the Eldest Senior Sister, it was about finding the right feeling, controlling power through the body rather than the spiritual terrace.

What Lu Yang needed to do was to grasp the tofu naturally, without deliberate intent.

By the end of the day, Lu Yang was covered in the scent of bean dregs from head to toe, and his eyes, having been focused on the tofu for so long, had nearly crossed.

Fortunately, the puppet possessed rich experience; after giving Lu Yang two slaps, his eyes returned to normal.

When it was time to eat, Lu Yang looked at the table full of tofu and fell silent.

Stir-fried tofu, deep-fried tofu, steamed tofu, tofu pudding, tofu boiled in soy milk...

The raw materials were all the tofu that Lu Yang had smashed during the day, and he heard that the tofu pudding and soy milk were gifts from an enthusiastic shopkeeper.

Lu Yang thanked his ancestors for eight generations.

Lu Yang knew that if he could not control his strength for a day, he would not be able to change to other dishes for a day.

In other words, either he or the tofu would definitely be finished.

The tofu was by no means an ordinary item; long-term consumption could regulate a cultivator's balance of the five elements, making their breath long and continuous, and their endurance last longer during battle, with countless benefits.

But no one could stand eating tofu every single day.

Having no choice, Lu Yang buried his head in his food, thinking about how to better control his strength tomorrow.

...

The fast-asleep Lu Yang felt a piercing white light shining on his face, forcing his upper and lower eyelids tightly together, his expression distorted, and only after slowly adapting to the intense light did he attempt to open his eyes.

This was a pristine white space, surrounded by dense fog, with only a small area around Lu Yang clearly visible, and he could not find the source of the light.

"Where is this?" Lu Yang panicked slightly; he was sleeping in the Wendao Sect where experts were countless, and the Eldest Senior Sister was just next door, so who could silently drag him into this mysterious space?

Was the other party good or evil?

A magnificent voice drifted out from the mist, distant and deep, as if speaking from ancient times, echoing across the river of time.

"Young man, this is a temporary space constructed by this seat, which no one can perceive."

Lu Yang's heart skipped a beat; the other party's methods were unimaginable, and he could only pin his hopes on the possibility that they bore no malice toward him.

"This seat has witnessed eternal eras and seen countless supreme experts whose cultivation dominated the world, yet in the end, none could escape the erosion of time, their passionate blood of fighting heaven and earth turning into a final sigh before death."

"No matter how exceptionally brilliant they were, this seat remains carefree and unbound, existing eternally." The other party's voice was ancient and hoarse, faintly carrying a trace of weariness from the emptiness of countless ages.

The existence of this peerless powerhouse was already beyond Lu Yang's imagination.

"Today, on a whim, this seat calculated with fingers and found that you share a destiny with this seat, thus summoning your soul to this temporarily constructed space of inheritance."

"This space contains all the cultivation methods, pills, secret manuals, and insights required from the Qi Refining stage to the Tribulation Transcendence stage... everything you could need; at every stage, you will be able to unlock a portion of this seat's inheritance."

Lu Yang breathed a sigh of relief, seeing that the other party appeared friendly, and clasped his hands politely to ask, "Who might Senior be?"

Senior laughed three times and stepped out of the thick fog.

Senior had a clean face, fair skin, and a square head—it was a block of tofu.

The Tofu Senior came closer and closer, speaking faster and faster: "I am the Tofu Celestial Venerable, and this is the learning of my entire life; the more tofu you eat, the faster your cultivation will rise, building a solid foundation, allowing you to challenge those above your level, embracing beauties on both sides, and ascending to the peak of the continent will not be a problem..."

Lu Yang broke out in a cold sweat and snapped his eyes open, sitting up from the head of the bed, looking around blankly at the pitch-black surroundings, silent as a graveyard, before finally breathing a sigh of relief.

"So it was a dream, thank goodness it was a dream."

Lu Yang felt the chilling sweat on his back, his heart still pounding with lingering fear.

...

Yun Zhi slowly opened her eyes, a blue line of light withdrawing from Lu Yang's room back to her fingertips.

"This way, he should cultivate even more diligently," Yun Zhi murmured to herself.

When her master taught her, he had said that appropriate pressure could be transformed into motivation, driving a person to strive for self-improvement.

Yun Zhi herself was a successful example, so she felt her master's words made a great deal of sense, and thus used a dream-entering spell to give Lu Yang a tiny bit of pressure.

"The lines provided by the Eighth Elder are somewhat embarrassing; I wonder how he usually says them out loud."

Yun Zhi was good at consulting others; all the steps and lines in the dreamscape were written by the Eighth Elder, who had also guaranteed that it would definitely work.

...

After another period of time, Yun Zhi saw that Lu Yang could pinch the tofu without any effort, throw it high into the air, and catch it steadily; he could even use the tofu as a beanbag, tossing it back and forth with the puppet.

The softly textured tofu seemed like a part of his body, controlled with total ease.

"To handle the light as if it were heavy, you have achieved it; this stage is over."

Lu Yang smiled; he was no longer the person he used to be. With the continuous practice of pinching tofu, his restless heart had also gradually calmed down.

Without any need for mental techniques or mantras, he could do this naturally.

"What do we practice next?"

Lu Yang was no longer pursuing the same progress as his fellow disciples; he believed that the Eldest Senior Sister making such arrangements for him must have her reasons.

Yun Zhi revealed a rare, faint smile: "Consolidate your cultivation of the Qi Refining stage."

Lu Yang froze, pointing to himself: "The Qi Refining stage? Me?"

He did not know when he had reached the Qi Refining stage; didn't the books say that drawing Qi into the body required the guidance of a senior, the transmission of cultivation methods, closing the five senses, and clearing the meridians before succeeding?

If one's talent was poor, auxiliary pills were even required.

He had not met a single one of those conditions.

The Eldest Senior Sister had never told him how to draw Qi into the body, nor had she transmitted any astonishing immortal cultivation methods, and he had never closed his five senses to use some unknown sixth sense; as for his meridians, he did not recall clearing them.

Disciples of the Wendao Sect naturally did not need pills to draw Qi into their bodies; they were all geniuses chosen from thousands, and if they needed the help of pills to enter the Qi Refining stage, they might as well withdraw from the Wendao Sect voluntarily.

Lu Yang believed he would not need pills either, but the problem was, how on earth had he already reached the Qi Refining stage?

"Three days ago, in the early morning," the Eldest Senior Sister prompted.

Lu Yang suddenly recalled the morning of three days ago.

He had woken up very early that day, facing the morning light with his eyes closed, thinking about how exactly he could grasp the tofu.

As his thoughts deepened, he slowly lost perception of his surroundings, as if turning into a rising stream of clear Qi roaming between heaven and earth, after which his consciousness sank back into his body, and his entire being suddenly became clear and enlightened, as if a warm current of Qi was flowing within his dantian.

It was also precisely that time that he successfully grasped the tofu.

He remembered that the Eldest Senior Sister was not present when he practiced pinching the tofu; it turned out she had been observing him from a place he did not know all along.

"It seems that feeling was drawing Qi into the body," Lu Yang murmured to himself, immersed in the memory.

That feeling was truly wonderful, like being up in the clouds, wrapped in warmth, so comfortable that one did not want to open their eyes.

Unwittingly, he had already fulfilled his small wish, drawing Qi into his body and becoming a cultivator of the Qi Refining stage.