Volume One: Another World Chapter 24: I Want to Have Dinner with Him

Three blocks of pitch-black wood, to the naked eye, resembled thunderstruck timber. Flickers of blue-green light occasionally danced across their surfaces, but if one closed their eyes and reached out with their senses, each block was nothing more than a fist-sized mass of azure energy, shot through with flickering lightning.

“Only geniuses have the right to speak,” Li Yu murmured to himself.

He acted as he spoke. Having just now drawn out only a wisp of energy, this time he held nothing back, unleashing his full power upon the thunderstruck wood. The fist-sized energy orb visibly shrank before his eyes.

Were an outsider to witness this scene, their jaw would surely drop. At this stage, everyone’s absorption of spiritual energy was excruciatingly slow—without reaching the seventh rank, when the spiritual power liquefies and washes the body, the meridians inevitably accumulate impurities, hampering both the circulation and absorption of energy.

At this stage, most people expend half or more of the energy they absorb just to open and stabilize their meridians, yet Li Yu was able to draw every bit of it into his dantian.

With his inner vision, he watched as the power of his heart aperture generated a steady stream of vital energy, which blended seamlessly with the lightning energy he absorbed. The energy then settled in his dantian, with almost no loss of spiritual power.

With a single thought, the energy in his dantian responded as he willed.

“Not bad. Let’s absorb the other two as well,” Li Yu thought with some delight. Energy flowed within him, and he could feel his strength growing by leaps and bounds. He reckoned that even the massive stones in Stone Village could now be tossed aside with ease.

The piece of thunderstruck wood in his hand no longer glimmered with blue light. It looked like an ordinary chunk of timber; indeed, when he reached out with his senses, he could detect no trace of lightning energy within.

Li Yu picked up another block and began channeling the Guide Technique, drawing the energy within into his body, fusing it with his vital force—he skipped the steps of opening the heart aperture and dantian entirely.

Time crept by.

A notification from the system chimed in his mind.

[Three hours of double experience have been reached. The system has now deactivated double experience by default.]

Incidentally, since being taken to the Qing family’s domain, Li Yu had not neglected his daily check-ins during his brief returns to Blue Star. His diligence had earned him a Marrow Cleansing Pill and three hours of double experience.

Before heading back to Blue Star, he would always set his phone to record video from a hidden spot, so he could later check if anyone had entered his room in his absence.

“System, why haven’t I felt the effects of double experience?” Li Yu wondered aloud. The time had already passed, yet he sensed no difference.

Had he wasted a round of useless experience?

[Please take a close look at your dantian.]

His dantian?

Li Yu gazed inward, and within his dantian, he found not one, but three fist-sized energy orbs. At first glance, this made sense—until he remembered that the second block of thunderstruck wood had only been half-absorbed when the system interrupted him. Even counting a whole second block, there shouldn’t be three full orbs.

“Could it be that double experience also affects material energy? That the energy I cultivate is doubled under its influence?” The thought struck him. He had been so focused on absorbing the energy from the thunderstruck wood, he hadn’t noticed the anomaly within his dantian. To think, the double experience had directly doubled the energy he absorbed!

Rubbing his chin, he found himself looking forward to his next check-in reward. His first had been the Marrow Cleansing Pill, followed by basic proficiency and double experience in rotation over the last six days. What would the seventh day bring?

He covertly checked the time on his phone—three hours until dinner. After a moment’s thought, he decided to use up his remaining three hours of double experience, then continued absorbing the energy from the thunderstruck wood.

...

“Young Master, would you like to eat now?” Little Jade knocked softly at the door.

“Yes, open the door to air out the room. I’ll be right there,” Li Yu replied.

Little Jade had been assigned to attend to Li Yu and had been briefed beforehand. The room had been silent all afternoon, and she guessed he must be cultivating. As she entered, she kept a careful eye out.

“What a dense surge of spiritual energy,” she thought in awe. As a sixth-rank cultivator, her senses were sharp, and in her eyes, lightning seemed to surge all over Li Yu’s body.

Her gaze fell upon the three pieces of thunderstruck wood, now utterly devoid of lightning energy. Little Jade’s lips parted in astonishment. “Has all the lightning energy been absorbed?”

If it were her, it would take several days to deplete a single block of such wood.

“Little Jade, could you get me a few more of these?” Li Yu pointed at the thunderstruck wood. He had just tried absorbing ambient spiritual energy, but compared to directly drawing in lightning-charged energy, the conversion came with a slight loss—about one to three percent.

This was somewhat vexing; the energy within the thunderstruck wood was far more convenient.

“I’ll have to request more, but it shouldn’t take long,” Little Jade nodded, then asked, “Young Master, have you already opened your heart aperture and reached the ninth rank, the Mortal Transcendence Realm?”

Perhaps the surge in energy was the result of his opening the heart aperture?

Li Yu replied, “I should be at the eighth rank. I’ve finished everything in the booklet.”

“The True Master’s Eighth Rank? That’s impossible!” Little Jade exclaimed.

The Qing clan boasted over a million members, and the quickest any young master or lady had ever opened their heart aperture—even with abundant resources and elders constantly cleansing impurities from their bodies—had taken nearly a month.

And what did he mean by ‘finished everything in the booklet’? She, for one, had toiled for four years to achieve the ‘opening of the eight extraordinary meridians’ mentioned in the manual.

“Heh, you really don’t believe me, do you?” Li Yu chuckled, knowing it was pointless to argue further. He willed his spiritual power to circulate, and then… nothing happened.

Little Jade reminded him, “Young Master, releasing spiritual energy externally is a sixth-rank technique.”

Although those at the eighth rank could, by virtue of their heart aperture, link it to their dantian and store absorbed spiritual power, it could only be released externally at the sixth rank. Otherwise, the moment it was released, it would disperse back into the world.

Li Yu lowered his hand, a bit embarrassed—this was something he hadn’t realized.

But the smooth way he circulated spiritual energy within his body did not escape Little Jade’s notice. She was a bit flustered, but found herself more inclined to believe Li Yu’s claim of having reached the eighth rank.

A ninth-rank cultivator would not be able to control the flow of spiritual energy at all.

...

Not long after, an urgent document was placed atop the stack of priority files on Qing Heng’s desk.

Finishing his current work, Qing Heng looked up and saw Li Yu’s name marked on the file. He mused, “Is there an issue with the cultivation method?”

He had only assigned the technique that morning, expecting the next file bearing Li Yu’s name to appear in a month or so. He hadn’t anticipated a report by evening.

Qing Heng’s brow furrowed as another possibility occurred to him. “Or did something go wrong during cultivation?”

“It’s good news, my lord,” said the man in the black robe. This time, he made no move to hide in the shadows, but stood to the side, his expression complicated.

“Good news, then that’s all right.” Qing Heng smiled. “Qing Yi, when did you learn to speak in riddles?”

He read through the file, pulling out several hairs from his beard without noticing, then quickly read it again.

“Eighth rank?” Qing Heng set the document down, his expression equally complicated.

At this rate, would the boy reach sixth rank tomorrow and the fourth the day after?

Qing Heng smiled at the absurdity of the thought, but the storm raging in his heart would not be so easily calmed. After a moment’s silence, he declared, “We haven’t had dinner yet. Arrange it—I’ll dine with him tonight!”

Qing Yi acknowledged the order and was about to leave when Qing Heng stopped him.

“On second thought, invite all the elders to join us.”

A public trial by the elders in the square, ten-odd specialists examining him, and now mastery of a lightning-based technique with outstanding talent—Qing Heng was certain there could be no mistake with the Thunderblood lineage. The only question now was how they should treat him going forward.