Chapter 116: Time for a Test

Chapter 116: Time for a Test

A dimly lit room. A gently swaying curtain.

A mysterious black cat perched on the sofa.

A blue fish with an eerie gaze lurking in a water basin.

And at the center of the room—a handsome man, bare-chested, radiating confidence.

"So… this is what opening meridians feels like?"

Chen Huai’an clenched his fists and took a deep breath.

The wind hummed softly by his ears.

The grass on the windowsill was green.

The bananas on the table smelled like bananas.

The cat litter box… was still just as foul-smelling.

Then—

Faster than words could describe—

Chen Huai’an suddenly opened his eyes, stepped forward, and threw a straight punch at the wall!

BANG!

"AOOOOUUUUHHH—!!!"

A miserable howl echoed through the entire apartment complex.

Countless neighbors shuddered, wondering if someone was slaughtering a pig.

Baji remained silent for a moment—then continued licking its paw.

Little Qing blew a bubble, flicked its tail, and sank back into the water.

—

Ten minutes later, Chen Huai’an sat on the couch, his swollen fist wrapped in medicinal ointment.

While applying the ointment, he had figured it out.

It wasn’t that his meridian opening had failed—

It was that he didn’t have a proper internal cultivation technique.

Without an internal technique, he had no spiritual energy.

He had never practiced martial arts.

He didn’t work out.

His body lacked strength.

Without spiritual energy reinforcing his strike, his punch was basically pointless.

Besides that—he had noticed another issue.

After opening his meridians, the spirit stone bracelet on his wrist had completely dimmed.

It wasn’t that the opening process consumed the spirit stone’s energy.

It was that his acupuncture technique required spiritual energy to circulate—which he didn’t have.

"More importantly… my injuries aren’t healing quickly anymore."

Chen Huai’an stared at his swollen, baozi-sized hand and finally understood.

Back then, his fast recovery wasn’t because of his cancer cells—it was all thanks to the spirit stone bracelet.

For a while, he had fantasized about developing some kind of monstrous, mutated arm, like K9999 from King of Fighters, a massive bio-weapon that could punch demons into oblivion.

How cool would that be?

But now… it looked like he had no choice but to become a proper cultivator instead.

Sigh.

The curse of being exceptional.

When you have too many great choices, it’s inevitable to feel a bit regretful about the paths you didn’t take.

—

Chen Huai’an opened the game, checking on Li Qingran and Yue Qianchi, who were cultivating on the flying boat.

He zoomed in on Li Qingran’s face, studying it like he was admiring a priceless porcelain artifact.

If there was a word to describe her—it could only be "stunning."

It was that feeling—

That feeling of your student days, when you would sit under an old campus tree, watching the shadows dance through layers of leaves.

A girl sat there, slowly turning the pages of a book.

A breeze lifted her hair, and with a gentle, fleeting smile, she tucked a loose strand behind her ear.

She didn’t know you.

You didn’t know her.

But that single moment could define an entire summer.

Everyone had probably encountered someone like that in their youth.

And for Chen Huai’an—Li Qingran was that kind of person.

Just looking at her was a pleasure.

Without thinking, he reached out and poked her cheek.

Her skin dimpled under his touch, as if he had actually touched her in real life.

"...Amitabha. Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form!"

Chen Huai’an pulled himself together and opened the talent menu.

The Tideborn Technique, which had previously been greyed out and unavailable, had now fully lit up—

Meaning he had met the requirements to cultivate it.

"Kekekeke!"

"I will make the heavens bow before me!"

Chen Huai’an tilted his head back and laughed wildly, opening the Tideborn Technique.

A genius like him, a chosen one of destiny, would definitely figure out how to cultivate in just one day.

As the saying goes—one small step in Qi Refinement, one giant leap to Immortal Lord!

Suddenly—

Whoosh!

The sound of rushing waves echoed in his ears.

For a moment, he felt as though he were standing before a vast, boundless ocean, watching waves crash against the shore.

Within the swirling tides, he saw a vague silhouette of a cultivator, surrounded by spiraling spiritual energy, every movement causing the sea to rise and fall, the sun and moon to shift.

But just as quickly as the vision appeared, it vanished.

In its place, an ancient, oceanic-patterned scroll unfolded before him.

[Tideborn Technique – First Volume: Wave Watching]

"To begin cultivation, one must first empty the mind, calm the breath, and connect the five points of the body to the ground, establishing harmony between heaven and man. This posture aligns with the dual forces of yin and yang, bridging the Three Realms, forming the foundation of entry…"

The first page was filled entirely with dense text.

Chen Huai’an stared at it for a moment.

Then, in silence, he pulled up Baidu Translate.

Sure, he could cultivate.

But first, he needed to translate all this nonsense into normal human language.

Otherwise, with his terrible liberal arts knowledge as a science student, he wouldn’t understand a single word of this.

—

"Just now… I think Master touched my face?"

Li Qingran opened her eyes, her long eyelashes fluttering twice as she felt the lingering warmth on her cheek.

A rosy blush spread across her face, and her ears burned.

She glanced at her senior sister, confirming that it was definitely her master who had touched her.

First of all, her senior sister was fully focused on refining spiritual energy within the Advanced Spirit Gathering Formation.

Second, the force felt completely different.

Master’s touch was delicate and careful, as if he were cherishing something fragile.

Unlike her senior sister—who would squish her cheeks into ridiculous shapes while laughing her head off.

"Master rarely checks on me, and I was just… cultivating…"

Li Qingran pouted slightly, furrowing her brows.

"I missed my chance to talk to him…"

Then again—

"Wait, that’s not right. Master would definitely prefer that I focus on cultivating. If I was serious about my training when he came to check on me, he’d probably be happier, right?"

"But… that means I won’t get to talk to him…"

She let out a soft sigh, fidgeting with her fingers.

If she focused too much on cultivation, she’d miss her chance to know when Master visited.

But if she didn’t cultivate, she’d get scolded by him…

"Ugh… so complicated~"

—

[Qingran.]

A familiar voice suddenly rang in her ears.

Li Qingran’s eyes brightened, and her lips curled into a crescent-moon smile.

She looked up into the sky.

"Master! You’re here!"

Feeling his gaze on her, she hurriedly explained herself—

"Master, I really was cultivating just now! I just trained for too long, so I wanted to rest a little bit…"

[Mhm.]

Li Qingran hesitated, sensing something was off.

"Master… do you have something on your mind?"

Her heart clenched slightly.

She could tell that her master seemed a little down, his voice carrying a hint of weariness.

—

Chen Huai’an was indeed exhausted.

He had spent half an hour trying to understand the Tideborn Technique—

And he still couldn’t even figure out the first step.

It was all written right there, but reading it felt like a tiger trying to swallow the sky—he had no idea where to even begin.

Even learning the Green Lotus Sword Manual hadn’t been this frustrating.

That technique had diagrams, clear-cut steps, and the added bonus of VR-assisted learning through the game helmet.

But the Tideborn Technique?

Nothing.

Just a wall of classical Chinese text that made his brain hurt.

And when he ran it through Baidu Translate, the result was a complete mess—like half the meaning had been lost in translation.

Now he understood why it took the Demon Slayer Bureau ten years to decipher breathing techniques.

Even though the Tideborn Technique was a system-generated method, and all the characters were recognizable Chinese, he still couldn’t make sense of it.

But he couldn’t just leave it untouched.

So he came up with a brilliant plan.

Seeing that Li Qingran had stopped cultivating, he casually said—

"Qingran, how’s your progress with the Tideborn Technique?"

"Explain it to me in detail, so I can check if you’ve been cultivating correctly."

Li Qingran’s eager eyes sparkled as she heard his voice again—

And then, his next words struck her like a heavenly decree.

[Qingran, you’ve been cultivating for some time now. The Tideborn Technique is deep and mysterious… so today, I shall TEST you!]