A few weeks later…

  The day of the duel.

  When Xiao Feng looked back, he had to admit that the past month felt like it had passed by him in a blur. It was hard to believe that only a short while ago, he believed that he had reached a plateau when it came to the Warrior’s Temperance cultivation technique, with him considering twenty-eight cycles with the technique to be his natural limit.

  It had made sense of course, since the Warrior’s Temperance cultivation technique was a brutal test of willpower and determination and it needed the will of a martial cultivator to withstand it. Or so Xiao Feng had thought, but the truth had turned out to be a little different. After entering into a bond with Nova, Xiao Feng had found that the gruelling determination he’d needed just to barely reach twenty-eight cycles was no longer asked from him.

  On the twenty-eighth cycle, where normally his arms and legs should have felt like lead and his body feeling like it should not be able to sit upright and instead collapse on itself, all while his meridians ached from the strain they were being subjected to— all Xiao Feng had felt was a light heaviness and a mild ache in his meridians.

  So he had kept going, kept pushing his boundaries until he felt the same level of resistance from his body until he did not even realize whether it was hours that had passed or days and he had even lost count of which cycle he was on. Only when his arms and legs once again felt like they were shackled down by many times his own body weight and his meridians felt like they were being torn apart did Xiao Feng stop, not wanting to pass out.

  The final result, as tracked by his predecessor, was a hundred and eight complete cycles, which had left behind his own record of eighty-two in the dust.

  It was safe to say that his predecessor had been as utterly blindsided by the development as Xiao Feng himself was and it would have been worrying if they hadn’t already ascertained a reason for the miracle that had happened to him— no matter how difficult it was to believe. But if natural Qi affinity, an aspect that was determined by the heavens from one’s birth and one that a cultivator could not influence no matter how hard they tried, could be exchanged through the unique bond he and Nova shared, then it was difficult to deny that the same could be true for natural talent as well.

  So unless they were given reason to believe otherwise, their working theory was that Nova’s clearly superior talent had somehow spilled over to Xiao Feng and brought him to an equal level, or at least close to it.

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  A theory that was ironically enough, brought into doubt when he started practicing the second form of the Flowing Wind Art, because to both his and his predecessor’s surprise, he failed.

  Despite having gained talent, it appeared that the Second Form of the Flowing Wind Art, Raging Gale, remained out of his reach. It was the tyrannical nature of the Second Form that kept giving him pause, for Xiao Feng simply did not know what it meant to have a desire so intense that it did not matter if it was ally or enemy standing before him, for all that impeded him would be blown away by a force that only knew what it meant to charge.

  Since his predecessor believed that there was no point in trying to master the other forms without first comprehending the Second Form, Xiao Feng had to accept the fact that he was stuck when it came to the Flowing Wind Art. Yet, that did not stop him from practicing with the sole form he had reached mastery over and as he began to train more intensively on his own, he discovered that his reflexes and reaction time had improved explosively and when that was coupled with his Dancing Breeze, he had reached a level that he believed himself decades away from.

  His predecessor believed that as things currently stood, he was capable of guarding against attacks made by him at his zenith, which was a tremendous compliment from one who had fought demons on the frontlines. Well, as long as he focused on defense and didn’t panic, anyway.

  Even his soul space had entirely transformed, which had been a surprise and a half. His college campus still stood tall, which Xiao Feng was grateful for as it was one of the few reminders of home he could hold onto, but his lush college lawns had been replaced by blackened, cracked earth, its surface devoid of any signs of plant or beast life. The landscape was uneven, its muted rises and dips occurring without any noticeable pattern and if Xiao Feng was to peer into the distance, he could see colossal shadows that lay at the borders of his soul space, flickering out of existence the moment he focused on them.

  Thankfully, the skies had remained untouched and the cheer of a sunny day had not been taken away from him, even if its light never reached the blackened earth.

  Either way, it was clear that the space was no longer his alone and that he shared it with Nova. If there were any other effects of the shared soul space, he was yet to discover them unless the improved reflexes, reaction time and the change in his talent could be attributed to it.

  Even his alchemy skills had improved, mostly due to the improved reflexes and reaction time, though that was still no substitute for practice, training and experience.

  His understanding of the Essence Cultivation Art had seen the least change, perhaps because it was an incomplete art. Which was disappointing, but not unexpected.

  Xiao Feng had grown tremendously in the last few weeks, more so than anyone around him besides Nova and his predecessor realized.

  Now, all there was left was to show it to Alchemist Zhi and the world at large and finally, prove his talents as an Alchemist so he would not be forced to leave the Alchemist Division in the future.

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