Chapter 9

As abundant spiritual qi filled his body, his entire being began to resemble that of an immortal.

His skin, which had originally been tanned by the sun when he cultivated his body, had become much whiter.

Li Ming felt the changes in his body and was greatly elated.

Now, he had a strong body and an ever-growing spiritual qi vortex…

He did not expect that he would unintentionally become someone who cultivated both body and qi.

He did not know if this was an unprecedented feat, but most people would need to spend a lot of time and energy just to practice one path.

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If they had the spare time, they might as well just focus on building their foundation faster and improving their strength.

On the contrary, Li Ming was someone who chose to go through things slowly. He felt that there were connections between the martial dao and immortal cultivation.

The spiritual qi from qi cultivation could nourish one’s body and allow it to recover from damages much faster.

Meanwhile, as one’s body was improved by body cultivation, their body would become more conducive to the absorption of spiritual qi.

This was probably the way of the heavens, giving people a way to make up for what was lacking.

Now that Li Ming had reached the fourth level of the Blazing Sun Body Tempering Art and the fifth level of qi refining, he became even more confident.

Most importantly, after he acquired the entry [Lifetime of Qi Refinement], refining qi was finally no longer useless for him.

After his breakthrough, he was in a good mood. He picked up and read the [One Qi Art], acquiring a new understanding of it.

As he flipped through the pages, on a small path in the bamboo forest, a young girl in green clothes walked out from the shadows of the bamboo.

She was full of smiles when she saw Li Ming.

“Senior Brother Li!”

Li Ming was reading a book when he heard a sudden voice call out to him. He looked up and smiled. “Junior Sister Chen.”

Chen Qingke was just passing by. When she saw Li Ming in the bamboo forest, she came over to say hello.

However, when she got closer, she discovered that compared to the past, Senior Brother Li’s spirit had completely changed.

She focused her attention and suddenly exclaimed, “Senior Brother Li, your strength has increased! Congratulations!”

After Li Ming reached the fifth level of the qi refining stage, his overall aura also changed.

From Li Ming’s aura, Chen Qingke could easily sense that his strength had obviously increased by a large margin.

“I was just lucky,” Li Ming said with a faint smile.

In front of a monstrous genius like Chen Qingke, he had nothing to be proud of.

She was a girl blessed by the heavens who had perfected her qi refinement within a year and was about to break through to the foundation establishment stage.

Chen Qingke smiled.

The fifth level of the qi refining stage was naturally not something that she considered strong.

However, it was a good thing for her when she saw that her senior brother had improved. She felt that perhaps her senior brother was finally pulling himself together.

Suddenly, Li Ming saw the expression on Chen Qingke’s face calm down and then change to a frown.

He followed his junior sister’s gaze and saw a familiar face that he saw a few days ago. Duan Xiuwen had come again.

When Duan Xiuwen passed by, he saw that Chen Qingke had come looking for Li Ming again. He was very unhappy and could not help but follow her.

He walked out from behind Li Ming and glanced at him.

“Oh? You’ve improved. Not bad, not bad. You’ve finally broken through, hahaha.”

“Although it isn’t a big improvement, it’s at least better than last year when you did not make any progress.”

“Hm… You’re an inner sect disciple, but you aren’t even as good as an outer sect disciple. I really don’t know how you still have the face to stay in the sect and eat and drink for free.”

Duan Xiuwen spread his hands out wide and said proudly.

Li Ming did not take Duan Xiuwen’s mockery to heart.

Rather than wasting time dealing with him, he might as well read the [One Qi Art] and see if he could obtain more qi cultivation entries.

As for his sarcasm, Li Ming cared about it even less.

Chen Qingke’s eyebrows furrowed in disgust.

“What does it have to do with you? Get lost!”

Duan Xiuwen gritted his teeth in anger.

Why is Junior Sister Chen siding with this body cultivating trash?

He looked at Chen Qingke’s disgusted expression, and his heart burned with jealousy.

With a cold face, he turned around and left.

…

“This guy is like a piece of chewing gum in one’s hair, so annoying.”

Chen Qingke warned Li Ming, “”Senior Brother Li, you have to be careful of this guy. I think he holds a lot of hatred toward you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Li Ming replied. “He’ll eventually stop bothering me/”

Chen Qingke nodded. Before she left, she said, “If you ever need any help, you can look for me any time.”

“…Thanks, Junior Sister Chen.”

Li Ming knew she meant well, but he really did not need any help at the moment.

After saying goodbye to Chen Qingke, Li Ming returned to his cave abode and took out the cultivation techniques he had borrowed previously. He was preparing to return them to the scripture depository.

He had memorized all of these cultivation techniques by heart and had cultivated them to a proficient level.

In the following period of time, Li Ming planned to cultivate these cultivation techniques to the major success stage.

And so, he headed to the scripture depository while carrying four cultivation techniques.

After returning the books, Li Ming fell into thought.

The commotion caused by his body refinement was getting bigger and bigger. He needed to find an open space to test out his power.

On his way back to his cave abode, Li Ming sensed a malicious gaze and looked toward the source of the malice. It was Duan Xiuwen again.

He was standing in the middle of the road with his arms crossed, and it was obvious that he had come with ill intentions.

“This guy is really like a piece of chewing gum in one’s hair. He’s like a ghost that won’t stop following me,” Li Ming muttered and turned to leave.

“Senior Brother Li, hasn’t your strength improved?” Duan Xiuwen snorted.

“If you’ve got the guts, how about we exchange some pointers and see how strong you’ve become after all these years of body cultivation!”

Li Ming glanced at Duan Xiuwen and shook his head.

He did not want to fight Duan Xiuwen at all. Defeating such an opponent would not be of any benefit to his cultivation.

He went around Duan Xiuwen and continued on his way back to his cave abode.

The few steps carried some semblance to the Wind Lightning Steps, leaving Duan Xiuwen unable to react in time.

Li Ming was not worried about Duan Xiuwen sneak attacking him.

After all, the sect’s law enforcement hall did not exist just for show.

Duan Xiuwen gritted his teeth and looked at Li Ming gloomily.

“How about we place a bet? We’ll bet on the qi sea pill that the sect distributes!”

The qi sea pill was a very valuable pill for qi refinement cultivators. Normally, inner sect disciples would only receive three to five pills a month.

In order to encourage Li Ming to fight him, Duan Xiuwen did not hesitate to take out these pills that would help him break through to the foundation establishment stage.

Li Ming remained unmoved.

His current foundation was body cultivation, so he did not need any qi cultivation resources at all.

He ignored Duan Xiuwen’s words and left.

Looking at Li Ming’s back, Duan Xiuwen was even more furious.

He failed to make Li Ming fight him, leaving him unable to use his power. Because of that, he was left feeling very sullen!

“Hmph, I’d like to see how long you can avoid me…!”

…

Li Ming did not take Duan Xiuwen’s provocation seriously.

He had just returned the body-tempering cultivation techniques. Now, he could go back and consolidate his body cultivation.

Body cultivation, which was seen as a small path by others, was a broad and open path in Li Ming’s eyes.

This time, he did not choose to practice at the entrance of his cave abode.

After all, the commotion of his body cultivation was growing larger and larger.

After returning to his cave abode, Li Ming went directly to the rear mountain of his cave abode.

The terrain here was more open. When he arrived, he immediately began to use the sun to practice the Blazing Sun Body Tempering Art.

“Absorb the blazing sun and temper one’s body!”

Streams of blazing sun true qi were absorbed into Li Ming’s body.

According to the momentum of his fists, bursts of flames erupted.

With flames enveloping his fists, he looked extremely overbearing as he punched about.

In the rear mountain, a white-robed figure passed by.

One could tell from her white clothes that she was an elite disciple of the Divine Will Sect.

Seeing that someone was practicing a martial dao cultivation technique, this senior sister had her curiosity piqued and could not help but go closer and watch.