Trueman Fen Hai hummed a small tune the entire way back to his residence. He then went straight to his study and rummaged through his treasure shelves for a bit; setting aside the most valuable mystic artifacts, pills, and natural resources that used to occupy the center space of the shelves. After boxing them all up and jotting down their material, function and price accordingly, he then searched through the entire house until he finally found a jade toad at a forgotten corner of his storeroom.

From a Trueman’s perspective, the material and the craftsmanship of the jade toad were perfectly ordinary. It could slightly improve one’s luck and the fengshui of a place, but this the Green Cliffs That Hang Over An Empty Valley. Its fengshui was already perfect. Thus, the jade toad was essentially worthless.

Despite this, Trueman Fen Hai carefully placed the jade toad that most would consider a waste of space even as an ornament at the center of his treasure shelves. He even gave it a proper wipedown.

Three tiny immortal swords used to occupy this space. Now, it had been moved aside.

The successful manifestation of his image caused a tiny splash among Wei Yuan’s fellow classmates. That was it. True Lord Xuan Yue had personally sealed off the oddities regarding his image, and no one beneath his level could see through it. Naturally, the students had no way of learning the truth.

As curious as they were, they quickly put the matter behind them.

According to the history books, the biggest ever Jade Toad Full Moon Painting boasted a length of twelve zhang and a middle-level extraordinary phenomenon. Although Bao Yun’s image was only eleven zhang and smaller than the record holder’s, it came with a top-tier extraordinary phenomenon. Overall, her image had really surpassed all of her predecessors.

Cui Yu’s image was only six zhang long, but its extraordinary phenomenon was almost top-tier, and the boon he received was an immortal sword’s sword qi. Thus, his overall combat power was pretty high, not to mention that it could be higher with the backing of the Cui Clan. One could say that his Dao Foundation was almost certainly going to be Heaven-tier.

On the other hand, Wei Yuan had taken an unprecedented amount of time to develop his image. His unnaturally slow cultivation speed was clearly a sign of poor innate talent. Besides that, his foundation potential was only seven chi and nine inches. In the outside world, he would be praised as an unexcelled prodigy, but in the Palace of Absolute Beginning, he was only average. On top of that, he came from humble origins and so did not enjoy the luxury of an intelligence-awakening secret art or refinement of his foundation. That was why his classmates all thought that he was a little stupid and would need at least a couple more years before he reached full mental maturity.

If his foundation and insight were lacking, and his cultivation method wasn’t suitable for him either, then it wasn’t impossible for him to take over a year to develop his image.

Outside of the Palace of Absolute Beginning, there were countless mediocre individuals who could cultivate the Jade Toad Full Moon Painting for decades and still fail to forge a Dao Foundation.

His classmates all assumed that this was a sore spot for Wei Yuan and tacitly agreed not to mention it after the first time. In truth, they had heard of cases like him all too often even if they were too young to have witnessed one themselves. There were countless disciples from humble backgrounds who had made a stunning debut when they first joined the Palace, only to be gradually overtaken and even surpassed by the aristocratic disciples in the long term. In fact, many of them lost their resolve because of this. Thus, there were actually very few grassroot cultivators who ultimately became a True Lord.

Currently, the forecast on the class’s mood was calm with a hint of nervousness. Everyone was tempering their bodies and sprinting along the track known as cultivation, terrified of being outdone by their peers.

Everyone was ambitious and arrogant at this age, not to mention that Ji Liuli was constantly fanning the flames by comparing them to the students of the Traditional Party. Every time they attended her class, the woman would tell them who among the Traditional Party had achieved a breakthrough or received a treasure from their families, essentially lighting a flame under their asses and driving them to cultivate with all their might. “Did you know that the Traditional Party is blah blah blah blah” had become such a wearisome sentence that they were growing calluses in their ears.

After True Lord Xuan Yue had sealed off the otherworldly fortune, Wei Yuan finally embarked on the path of body-tempering.

On the same day they left the Skyblue Hall and returned to his house, Zhang Sheng had told him everything he needed to pay attention to at each stage of the Body-tempering stage in detail. The first step was refining one’s flesh; transforming one’s physical body into the base of an immortal embryo. This was the first step toward transcending mortality, thus the body would undergo a dramatic transformation. His speed, strength, and endurance would all greatly increase.

This was something he literally felt in his bones during the fight against the Traditional Party. After his classmates started tempering their bodies, their strength had increased to the point where he, someone who was born with godlike strength, could not endure.

After telling him everything he needed to know, Zhang Sheng placed three bottles of Vigor Nurturing Pills on the table and instructed him to cultivate on his own. Then, he left in a hurry.

Unlike before, the three Vigor Nurturing Pills weren’t meant to be consumed over three months. Instead, it was ten days. From this point onward, he was going to eat three Vigor Nurturing Pills per day instead of one per three days.

Wei Yuan didn’t waste even a moment after Zhang Sheng was gone. He immediately threw himself into cultivation. Once more, he transformed into the jade toad, but the moon above his head was now perfectly clean. He stared at it for a bit and decided that it would take some time getting used to.

There was no need for him to get used to what he was about to do next, however. The jade toad opened its mouth, and an obscene amount of lunar essence spilled down from above. It instantly filled its mouth to the brim and even spilled out a little. The jade toad struggled a little to swallow this much lunar essence at once and let out a burp when it finally managed to do so.

The reason so much lunar essence had poured down from the moon was because of the three Vigor Nurturing Pills, of course. In fact, lunar essence alone wasn’t enough to express their full potency. A downpour had broken out inside his image as well.

The jade toad adjusted its posture a little so that the full moon, its mouth, and its butt formed a straight line. Then, it opened its mouth and received a mouthful of lunar essence. This gulp went much smoother as it didn’t need to perform a swallowing motion. The lunar essence had passed through its throat and entered its stomach directly.

And so the jade toad drank a whole night of lunar essence. Morning came before it knew it.

When Wei Yuan awoke from his meditation, he noticed that many parts of his body were itching slightly. It was his flesh and blood regenerating into something new. The image in his sea of consciousness had changed as well—a small patch of the ground had become tangible. Looking at its size, it would probably take six to seven hundred days to materialize everything.

This was after he consumed three Vigor Nurturing Pills, and this was the maximum amount of potency he could withstand. The jade toad literally could not consume more lunar essence even if it wanted to. However, three Vigor Nurturing Pills contained enough potency to save him for weeks of cultivation. He should not be progressing this slowly.

Wei Yuan brought out the copy of True Lord Tun Yue’s cultivation insight and went through it carefully. A long time later, he ultimately confirmed that something had gone wrong with his cultivation.

Only a small portion of the spirit qi converted from the lunar essence he consumed and the potency of the medicine were applied to his body. The rest of it had disappeared somewhere. Wei Yuan had no idea where, only that it hadn’t leaked out of his body. No, it felt as if some formless thing inside his body had absorbed it all.

For his first cultivation session at the Body-tempering session, judging by the volume of the image he had materialized, Wei Yuan’s cultivation speed still surpassed that of an ordinary disciple significantly—he was popping the Vigor Nurturing Pills like candies after all. However, Wei Yuan’s image was way, way, way bigger than your ordinary disciple’s image. Percentage wise, he was progressing at an excruciatingly slow pace.

Generally speaking, it took an ordinary student about three or four months to fully temper their muscles and tendons. If they were talented and enjoyed a steady supply of pills, they could potentially finish their refinement within a month’s time.

Wei Yuan... Wei Yuan could only pretend that he couldn’t see his progress.

No longer did Zhang Sheng show up once per month. Instead, he showed up every ten days with three bottles of Vigor Nurturing Pills in tow. He also conversed a lot more with Wei Yuan, and that was unquestionably a good thing.

On the other hand, the taste of the Vigor Nurturing Pill was seriously starting to wear on his sanity. To put it bluntly, it tasted like s...

It didn’t bother him much in the past because it was just one pill per three days. But now that his regimen had turned into three pills per day, the experience was so, so much worse than before. For starters, the stench and taste was way stronger since he was consuming three in one go. Worse, it lingered for a long time before fading. Wei Yuan could barely stand the sight of it after just a few days of this new regimen. It was worse than mindlessly consuming lunar essence two-third of a day everyday.

But as disgusting as it was to consume, a single Vigor Nurturing Pill could save him ten or so days of cultivation. Three Vigor Nurturing Pills basically increased his cultivation speed between forty and fifty times over. He had to eat it no matter what.

Wei Yuan reckoned that a lot of people had complained about the taste of the Vigor Nurturing Pill before. But for whatever reason, the Mother Nature Monastery refused to change it.

He started maliciously speculating about the old codgers’ refusal to enhance the flavor of the pill. They probably thought that the Vigor Nurturing Pills would be sold out no matter how many they made. In that case, why bother going through the extra trouble to improve the taste? The Mother Nature Monastery wasn’t a restaurant after all.

Every time before his cultivation began, Wei Yuan would curse the Mother Nature Monastery in his mind. Every time after his cultivation ended, he would curse them a second time. But curses aside, he still had to take his pills and swallow his lunar essence. And so the days passed, one after another.

There was one last thing that had gone against Wei Yuan’s expectations. His once-per-week “baptism” session with his big senior sister hadn’t ended as promised. When he asked her how much longer it was going to continue for, Ji Liuli had changed her tone saying that the path of refinement was endless, not to mention that Wei Yuan’s foundation was flimsier than most.

Thus, he had to eat pills, swallow lunar essences, and be bathed by his big senior sister as well.

It was around this time Wei Yuan realized that the path to immortality wasn’t just long and arduous. It was also dull, repetitive, and mixed in with all sorts of weird stuff.

He wondered if the lofty Truemen and True Lords were okay in their heads.

And so the months flew by, and the passage of time grew slower and slower for Wei Yuan. Every night felt several hours longer than it really was.