Chapter 36

Chapter 36: Snakes Are Lustful by Nature, Foxes Are Charming by Nature

***

“…It’s nothing.”

After a slight hesitation, Su Wanqing frowned slightly, but ultimately didn’t voice her request.

“Eh? Really nothing?”

Lin Muyu blinked her bright eyes, staring at Su Wanqing with a puzzled expression, trying to read something from her face.

“I’ll think of other ways…”

Su Wanqing’s voice was full of conflict, and she turned her head slightly to the side, preventing Lin Muyu from seeing her expression clearly.

This only made Lin Muyu more curious.

“Just tell me, I’ll do my best to help you!” Lin Muyu asked coquettishly.

“No need.”

Su Wanqing declined indifferently.

This request… she really couldn’t bring herself to say it.

Lin Muyu thought for a moment, then said playfully:

“Alright then, as long as it’s not something excessive, you can tell me anything~”

This sentence was quite tactful, on the surface it was agreement, but actually left herself room to maneuver.

After all, Lin Muyu really couldn’t think of anywhere Su Wanqing would need her help.

She was just a little cannon fodder in the Qi Refining stage right now, unable to do anything.

Unless…

That shouldn’t be possible, she had promised not to be so presumptuous again.

Lin Muyu dismissed the thought in her mind.

Before long.

The flying sword stopped in front of several strange towers.

Each tower reached high into the clouds, level with the heavens.

“So tall!” Lin Muyu looked up at these towers that seemed to have no end, exclaiming in amazement.

In her previous life, she had gazed up at man-made skyscrapers, but those buildings were far from as shocking as these towers that pierced the clouds.

Like the difference between a mayfly and a great tree.

“These are the foundation of Qinglan Sect, the Ancient Cultivation Towers. Legend says they were miraculous artifacts discovered by the first sect master of Qinglan Sect from branches of the World Tree.”

Su Wanqing sheathed her Frost Sword, explaining in a cold tone.

“Ancient Cultivation Towers? World Tree?”

Lin Muyu mulled over these two terms, which she hadn’t seen in the novel.

It seemed this world was much larger than she had imagined.

‘Could it be that this world isn’t some trashy web novel written by a group friend?!’

‘Or perhaps this was a real world from the beginning?’

A seed of doubt slowly planted itself in Lin Muyu’s heart.

It gave her an impulse to explore the truth of this world.

“Over there, the Divine Wood Tower. Each person gets about one day of free time per week. If you want more cultivation time, you need to exchange it with spirit stones and merit points.”

Su Wanqing’s cold words awakened Lin Muyu from her reverie. She hurriedly followed Su Wanqing’s steps to the front of the tower.

There weren’t many people in front of the tower, so it was soon Lin Muyu’s turn.

“Take your disciple token.”

Su Wanqing handed Lin Muyu the jade pendant in her hand, which was like green mutton fat jade.

“Three hours of cultivation will be enough. I’ll come back to pick you up.”

Lin Muyu caught the disciple token with her hand, stroking its smooth texture.

Then, following the instructions, she pressed the jade token against a small square frame in front of the towering tower.

‘Why does this feel like clocking in at work?’

Before Lin Muyu could react.

In an instant, a gentle golden light enveloped her, and a strange dizzying sensation struck.

In the blink of an eye, she found herself in an unfamiliar place.

“Is this the internal world of the tower? Such rich spiritual energy.” Lin Muyu looked around curiously, murmuring.

As soon as she entered this world, Lin Muyu’s skin felt the rich spiritual energy, which was exceptionally comfortable.

This was a dense forest, and as far as the eye could see, there were emerald green giant trees.

Not far away, there was an open space filled with blooming flowers.

A 3-meter stone monument stood silently in the center of the flower bed.

“You shall cultivate for one day. If you wish to leave early, touch the boundary monument. Remember not to stray far from the boundary monument.” A voice as majestic as the Heavenly Dao rang out, echoing for a long time in this world.

“Boundary monument?”

Lin Muyu walked forward somewhat curiously, circling the boundary monument twice to examine it carefully.

The hard stone monument was carved with obscure and difficult to understand characters that Lin Muyu couldn’t quite comprehend.

“What is this?”

A bloody mark at the bottom of the stone monument caught Lin Muyu’s attention.

“This is… a footprint? A canine animal’s footprint?”

“How could there be bloody animal footprints here?”

Curious, Lin Muyu studied the footprint carefully for a while, but unfortunately gained nothing.

“No, time is limited. I need to focus on cultivation.”

Lin Muyu looked around.

“Since I can’t go too far from the boundary monument, I’ll cultivate next to it.”

Lin Muyu found a relatively flat patch of grass, sat cross-legged on it, and silently began practicing the breathing technique Su Wanqing had taught her.

The breathing technique was a required method for Qinglan Sect disciples in the Qi Refining stage. Disciples needed to become proficient in using spiritual energy before they could establish their foundation.

Foundation Establishment was the watershed between sect disciples and rogue cultivators.

Because after Foundation Establishment, one could cultivate mental techniques. Sect disciples could cultivate complete mental techniques, while rogue cultivators could only spend enormous amounts of money seeking incomplete mental technique fragments to cultivate.

Lin Muyu had entered the Qi Refining stage by borrowing the original body’s power, which was essentially taking a shortcut.

Currently, she needed to use this world’s rich spiritual energy to consolidate her foundation.

Closing her eyes, focusing her mind.

Operating the breathing technique.

In an instant, the dense light green spiritual energy particles around her became visible and began competing to flow into Lin Muyu’s body.

Lin Muyu quickly mobilized the spiritual energy remaining in her body, controlling the meridian gates, slowly guiding the external spiritual energy along her meridians, step by step transforming it into her own spiritual energy.

What surprised Lin Muyu was that when she circulated her spiritual energy through the great circulation, it was extremely smooth, not at all like what the breathing technique described, the sluggishness that should occur during the first circulation.

‘Could it be that my meridians were opened for some reason?’

Lin Muyu couldn’t help but recall the strange swelling pain that appeared in her meridians after being forced into “dual cultivation”…

After the swelling pain came a sense of smooth flow.

“Could it be that dual cultivation is beneficial to me?!” Lin Muyu thought with some surprise, her face gradually turning crimson.

After all, her spirit root’s three-in-one fusion seemed to have been obtained after… that happened.

“No, I must cultivate through my own ability. How can I take the crooked path?”

Lin Muyu steadied her mind slightly, shaking off some unreliable thoughts in her head, and began to concentrate wholeheartedly on cultivation.

One circulation, two circulations…

The spiritual energy circulated to the 7th circulation.

The spiritual energy in Lin Muyu’s body became increasingly solid, no longer ethereal like air as before.

“About 2 hours have passed, there’s still 1 hour left for continued cultivation!” Lin Muyu roughly calculated the time.

After entering the Qi Refining stage, not only had her five senses become more acute, but her mind had also become sharper, making her time estimation unusually accurate.

Just as Lin Muyu was about to close her eyes and continue circulating spiritual energy, a fluffy thing silently rolled into her arms.

“!”

“What is it?”

Lin Muyu was startled. She had just observed the surroundings, and there wasn’t even an insect here.

She quickly opened her eyes and looked at the furry ball in her arms.

She saw a snow-white little fox curled up in a ball, looking at Lin Muyu with its cute little eyes, timid and fearful.

Lin Muyu’s heart immediately melted, and she put away her wariness.

“Such a cute little fox! But it seems to be injured?”

She looked at the little fox’s small paw, where the bloodstain bloomed like a bright red flower against the white snow, very conspicuous, and still dripping blood.

“Good little fox, let big sister bandage it for you.”

Lin Muyu didn’t hesitate to tear off a corner of her skirt hem and bandaged the little fox’s leg.

However, busy with bandaging, she didn’t see the cunning flash that passed through the little fox’s eyes…