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  Days bled into weeks as Xiao Feng’s life fell into a routine that he found wasn’t unlike his college life. He had no doubt that he would’ve woken up each day tired, as was tradition amongst any college student, if it wasn’t for his enhanced constitution that recuperated at a pace that he was still getting the hang of. Each day he had a set of goals to work towards, most short-term with a few long-term and just like people back on earth didn’t become a doctor, lawyer or engineer in a day or two, neither had Xiao Feng reached the point where he could call himself an alchemist designate.

  But he was getting closer to that goal. With every passing day, the effort he was putting in was accumulating into experience and the improvement he was seeing only motivated him to try harder. Xiao Feng had to admit that the allure of truly earning the designation of an alchemist enticed him more than his marketing major ever had, even if the comparison was unfair given the nature of the two disciplines. If there was a novelty to Qi, to cultivation and to an entire world where one could refine pills to heal the deadliest of wounds and refine their body to a point where neither blade nor bullet was capable of penetrating their skin, it had yet to run out and he wasn’t certain if it ever would.

  The kneading method had never been too challenging for Xiao Feng given the advantage he possessed due to the essence cultivation art, but now it felt like second nature to him. The weaving technique was a good deal more complex, but with the advantage of improved Qi control in his soul space and the growth that came with repetitive practice, the drain on his concentration had fallen to a comfortable degree. Shielding ingredients was now something he did instinctively and his efforts with the Warrior’s Temperance cultivation technique were paying off, given that he had no more problems with sustaining it.

  From fifteen cycles to a consistent twenty-eight, that was how far he’d come in a month. He was still a far cry away from his predecessor’s whopping eighty-two cycles despite cultivating from within his soul space and he had admittedly, plateaued at twenty-eight cycles, with the one attempt he had at pushing past the threshold resulting in him fainting only to be woken up by a throbbing headache and feeling like his body had been trampled over by an elephant.

  Xiao Feng hadn’t even known that it was possible to faint while he was in the soul space, but his predecessor had explained that the body and soul was inextricably linked until one reached the Nascent Soul stage, which meant that stressing one beyond it’s limits would carry over the consequences to the other. That knowledge had made him see his soul space in a new light, for where he had seen it as immensely useful, it was also incredibly dangerous given that he could choose to ignore pain in his soul space. In his case, while his body was powerful enough to handle dozens more cycles of the Warrior’s Temperance technique, his will was not powerful enough to support such an exertion and it had, in effect, run dry.

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  If there was one area in which Xiao Feng hadn’t progressed at all in the last month, it was in his understanding of the Flowing Wind Art’s Second Form— Raging Gale. Drawing upon his predecessor’s muscle memory, even having his guidance through the process as he tried to tap into the tyrannical nature of the gale, to violently sweep away those that dared to impede his path, Xiao Feng had swung his blade, time and time again, only to muster a weak breeze each time.

  It was as if the nature of the gale was conflicted with his own and no matter how many times he tried to channel a furious intent through his blade, directing the wind under his control to sweep outwards into an unstoppable force of nature that would uproot trees and sunder boulders in it’s path, for no more reason than crossing it’s path— it was as if the wind, the Dao of Wind, could tell that his intent lacked the ruthlessness of his predecessor’s blade, seeing his attempts at a facsimile of his teacher’s intent as a shoddy imitation at best.

  More than once, Xiao Feng had proposed skipping forward to practicing a different form, but his predecessor had been adamant in his refusal, even going as far as to clearly state that he would be unable to learn any of the other forms until he mastered the Second Form of the Flowing Wind Art.

  As disappointing as the flat refusal had been, Xiao Feng’s combat skills hadn’t stagnated over the past month. His sparring sessions with Lianhua and Alchemist Jun had been incredibly helpful for him and despite what they believed, the skill gap between them was far closer than they knew.

  What Lianhua saw as Xiao Feng going easy on the duo was him getting increasingly familiar with the muscle memory that had been etched onto his body, through thousands of repetitions and what had to be hundreds upon hundreds of hours of conditioning, sparring and training that his predecessor had no doubt painstakingly committed to.

  The determined onslaught from the two alchemists as they took breaking through his guard as a personal challenge forced Xiao Feng to push himself to keep up with them, only to realize that he had deflected a sword thrust from an angle he shouldn’t have seen coming; had instinctively dodged a blow when he had wanted to parry, positioning himself in a way that let him counter the lacerating slash that erupted from a different direction as the purpose of the two-pronged attack revealed itself.

  Lianhua and Alchemist Jun were no doubt improving, but Xiao Feng’s growth was exponential in comparison as he learned what his predecessor’s body, that had been honed into a weapon for the Martial Division of the Frontier Sect was capable of. So much so that he had come to not only enjoy sparring with the two, but he also actively looked forward to it.

  Alas, there would be no sparring done today and neither did Xiao Feng expect to have time for the Warrior’s Temperance cultivation technique.

  For today, was the day Xiao Feng would finally start refining the Beast Bonding Pill with it’s true ingredients.

  And he only needed to succeed once.

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