The Science of Cultivation [Xianxia]

Chapter 38: New Direction

A lone child was sitting with crossed legs atop a tree stump, sweating profusely. He had his eyes closed and was concentrating so immensely that his expression was that of pain.

If one watched carefully, one would be able to see one of his fingers giving off a soft but unstable glow. The glowing was a sign that he had successfully expressed his Qi externally.

The boy took in a deep breath as he tried to force more Qi out and envelop his skin with it. The harder he tried, the more his Qi wavered.

Just as he believed he was about to succeed in stabilizing his Qi, a wooden stick came flying from behind him. Having been caught completely off guard, it landed squarely on his back. The attack immediately broke his concentration as he flinched from the pain, disrupting all the progress he had made so far.

“Not good enough. You’ll never master it if you need to concentrate so hard to control just a sliver of Qi.”

The boy opened his eyes and turned to the speaker.

“Elder Cao, I’m already trying my best. I just can’t get the hang of controlling my Qi when it leaves my body.”

“...I guess you’re already doing well for someone with grade one aptitude. With only five spiritual roots, your sensitivity to Qi must be much lower. With that into consideration, your progress is already impressive after only ten months. However, it is not nearly enough if you want to win that Ascension Pill in the sect competitions.”

“How did you know that, Senior?”

“It wasn’t very hard to guess with the contents of our discussion. Anyway, I don’t think it’d do you any good if you continue to proceed as you have been. Cultivation isn’t so easy that you can succeed by just holing up somewhere. I believe the key to your breakthrough is to gain experience in combat. You may not be able to win the Ascension Pill this time around, but I recommend you take part in the combat section of the sect competitions.”

“…Are you saying cultivation was meant for combat in the first place and I have neglected it?”

“...Not exactly. Cultivation doesn’t have one singular purpose, but the stimulation and urgency of combat definitely help one gain the inspiration they need. There is a reason why cultivators are so prone to duels and fights. It is the whetstone that hones themselves.”

“I see. Thank you for your guidance, elder.”

“You’re welcome. I’ve heard you’ve contributed significantly to the sect’s supply of low-level pills, so you deserve at least this much, even if I hadn’t promised you my time before.”

Hmm, I see the elder and possibly the sect won’t treat me badly as long as I continue to benefit them. However, I have no intention of taking an Ascension Pill to become a full-time alchemist. I’ll have to start thinking about what to do in the near future…

“That’s it for today. I won’t have time to spare until the sect competitions are over. I bid you good luck.”

Once Elder Cao disappeared from view, Li Lang began making his way back to his dorm. He would only cultivate outdoors like this when Elder Cao was around, as it wasn’t convenient for her to guide him in his room.

For the past ten months, he had been cultivating, refining, and checking in on the experiments that he had left with Wei Ping.

There hadn’t been much progress except that he got slightly taller, and they had recruited even more test subjects to take part in his cultivation experiments.

Thankfully, no one else had died from the experiments, although one did get too sickly to continue.

The data they had gathered so far wasn’t that encouraging, but Li Lang still persisted.

I wanted to gather data for at least a year before exploring the other ideas, but I think I can start now… Maybe it’ll help me before the sect competition starts.

By now, almost every other disciple in his age bracket had at least broken through to the middle stages of Energy Gathering. Rumors had been spreading about his low aptitude, and few disciples bothered to approach him, but he didn’t care. Li Lang refused to simply give up on an Ascension Pill no matter how abysmal the chances were.

With that said, Li Lang knew his limits. If he followed the current course, he knew he didn’t stand a chance.

There was a huge gulf between those in the lower stages of Energy Gathering and those in the middle stages. The ability to control Qi outside their body greatly empowered them, allowing them to not only strengthen their skin but also the weapons they wielded.

It was practically useless for Li Lang to wield a weapon in the competitions if he couldn’t break through. His opponent would easily demolish any weapon he wielded. He would literally be fighting unarmed if things continued.

Maybe I should aim for two birds with one stone and take a combat mission around Xiang Yang and hope it is enough to stir me toward a breakthrough.

With a plan in mind, he did just that.

It was quite difficult for Li Lang to find a mission to fight a Qi beast that even he could handle because their threat level was so low, it wouldn’t have become a request in the first place.

That was why the mission he took was not for hunting down any particular beast, but a whole pack of them.

However, before Li Lang got to the mission, the first stop was Xiang Yang to oversee the experiment.

“Wei Ping, how are our subjects doing?”

“B-boss, welcome back. I w-wrote down everything like y-you told me to.” Wei Ping replied, as he handed a booklet over.

Li Lang took his time reading over the reports while Wei Ping went off to brew tea to welcome his boss into his abode.

Inside the booklet was the recorded information from every test subject they had up to date, including any feedback they had while they cultivated. The longest any subject consistently cultivated as instructed was only a month because, after that, the auto-analyzer showed all their bodies showed signs of deteriorating in some fashion.

Many were even bedridden but recovered after some time, while serious cases were rare, but not entirely absent.

After a full ten months, there had been just over a hundred test subjects now which barely satisfied Li Lang.

However, the preliminary findings from the experiments all pointed to one thing. Despite all the effort the subject had put into cultivating despite the sharp pain, they did not gain any measurable benefits from it.

“B-boss? Are you o-okay?”

“I’m fine. I’m just trying to parse this and decide on our next direction. I knew going into this it wasn’t going to be so easy or else someone else would’ve figured it out by now. Give me a few minutes.”

So either it isn’t possible to increase someone’s Qi tolerance through training, or that they hadn’t been subjected to enough stimulant…However, their bodies all show severe signs of cell destabilization for some reason, so that shouldn’t be true. Nothing showed up on their blood tests too…

“Let us go check out the latest round of subjects who had fallen ill.”

“Understood, t-they’re ready to have t-their blood drawn.”

The two soon exited Wei Ping’s house and arrived at the home in the back streets of Xiang Yang. The lady who answered the door stared at them with unkind eyes.

“Hmph!”

She didn’t say anything and made it clear she wasn’t fond of them.

“Ma’am, as we discussed. We’re here to see Grandpa Chu.” Wei Ping respectfully declared.

She stepped out of the way, which the two took as a gesture of acknowledgment, and stepped inside. The woman walked them further in and pointed at a room before taking her leave.

Opening the door, the two children arrived at the bedside of an elderly man who was sleeping with labored breaths.

As Wei Ping got ready to draw the old man’s blood, Li Lang suddenly stopped him.

“...We won’t be taking his blood this time. Let me try something else. Get ready to feed him a Recovery Pill.”

Li Lang shook his head as he beat himself over having done this so late. He knew the process of cultivation involved Qi burrowing space in one’s flesh to hold the Qi itself, so he should’ve taken samples of that much sooner.

He went ahead and cut off a small piece of flesh from the old man, and Wei Ping quickly shoved a pill into his mouth. The bleeding instantly stopped, and Li Lang discreetly commanded Ruby to take the piece of flesh into his lab.

Now then, let’s see if something shows up here. My only other direction is strengthening the spiritual roots, but I have no idea how to get started on that without a unique physique.