Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

At eight o’clock at night, the visiting time of the special ward ended.

Although Li Yao and Xue Yuanxin were both in good moods and willing to talk overnight, Li Yao was still driven out of the room by the resolute nurse.

In the campus, Li Yao was walking to the visiting scholars’ dormitory led by Xie Anan.

”Thank you very much for your help today, Miss Xie Anan.” Li Yao smiled. ”You’ve spent an entire day accompanying me. I do appreciate it.”

Blushing, Xie Anan replied, ”You are very welcome. You saved me on Iron Plateau without considering your own life. I did nothing except show you around. That’s not worth mentioning.”

For some reason, maybe because he had saved her life before, Master Sand gave her a familiar and reliable feeling, as if they had known each other since long ago.

The ridiculous worries before she picked him up in the morning were long gone.

”You don’t need to work as a tour guide in the coming few days anymore. With the help of my mini crystal processor, I will get familiar with everything slowly.”

Li Yao knew that most students in Flying Star University were very diligent. Wasting too much of her time on him would do her training no good.

While talking, he noticed that the girl was looking around anxiously. Li Yao found it quite odd. ”Miss Anan, is there anything else that you need to attend to tonight? If you do, you can go back now. The dormitory area is not far ahead. I can walk there by myself.”

”No. No.” Xie Anan’s face was red. She waved her hands and replied, ”I’m good. However, would you please wait for me for five minutes?”

Naturally, Li Yao nodded.

Xie Anan stood on her tiptoes and looked around. She found a small flower bed in a corner nearby. Squatting next to the flower bed, she took out a parcel of chopped meat from her pocket.

Li Yao remembered that Xie Anan had asked the kitchen to prepare it for her when they were back in the hospital.

Cultivators had different eating habits. Some secret arts required ’blood food’, in other words, raw ingredients that had not been cooked. Most kitchens had a lot of them prepared. Li Yao had not found it strange at the time.

At first, Xie Anan sprayed a circle of fragrant powder on the grass. She then took out a vintage wooden box, which she opened carefully and tilted it onto the chopped meat.

From the wooden box, more than ten dark purple ants crept out.

Li Yao raised his eyebrow high. ”This is…”

Xie Anan poured all the ants inside the wooden box out. There were approximately twenty of them.

The ants had been hungered for a long time. Now that they smelt the aroma of flesh and blood, they immediately feasted upon the food.

Cracking noises were echoing as if they were some twenty pinchers opening and closing instead of twenty ants. The scene was quite appalling.

Xie Anan observed the ants eating the meat carefully. Now and then, she would extend a finger and push the wandering ants back to the meat.

Her hands were quite fast. Before the ants bit her, she had already retracted them.

”They are Purple Ring Sword Ants. I’ve been feeding them in order to train my hand speed, but they are not so easy to deal with. They have to eat at this hour every day, or they will starve. At noon today, their feeding time was already delayed. So, sorry, I had to stop for a while. Ouch!”

While Xie Anan raised her head and explained to Li Yao, an extremely large Purple Ring Sword Ant bit her hand hard while she was not concentrating.

The girl jumped to her feet in the excruciating pain. She gasped, producing hissing sounds, and she was waving her hands faster than a fan.

However, it was much better than last time she was bitten by a Purple Ring Sword Ant, when she foamed and passed out instantly.

Seeing that she recovered after only several seconds and bent down again to organize the Purple Ring Sword Ants while gritting her teeth, Li Yao was even more surprised. He asked unconsciously, ”Purple Ring Sword Ants? It must be very painful to be bitten by them. How did you come up with such a training method?”

Xie Anan focused her attention on the Purple Ring Sword Ants in front of her. In less than three minutes, the chopped meat was eaten up by them.

The Purple Ring Sword Ants, after having a delicious dinner, immediately escaped to various directions.

However, the circle of powder that Xie Anan sprayed on the grass was the most fearful thing for the Purple Ring Sword Ants. It blocked them like an invisible wall.

The Purple Ring Sword Ants were even more furious now that they had nowhere to run. They were rubbing their tusks hard, creating strange metal noises!

Xie Anan bulged her eyes. Without blinking, she snatched the Purple Ring Sword Ants one by one and put them back into the wooden box.

”It is indeed very painful to be bitten by them. However, the improvement on hand speed is very significant, too. My hands right now are twice as fast as half a year ago!”

Xie Anan stood straight and said proudly, ”This is a secret art I learned from a super refiner. He was the most brilliant genius that I’ve ever seen and the idol that I admired most. However, since the riot of The Temple of Immortals, he has never seen or heard anymore. Perhaps he has perished.”

The girl couldn’t help but pout her lips in regret.

”Well…” Li Yao scratched his chin, deep in thought. ”How many Purple Ring Sword Ants can you train with right now?”

”Thirteen!” Xie Anan replied proudly, before she stuck out her tongue somewhat in embarrassment. ”But I’m likely to be bitten every other minute with thirteen Purple Ring Sword Ants. Sometimes, three or four of them bite me at the same time. Hahahaha. I can only handle eleven Purple Ring Sword Ants flawlessly right now.”

”Three or four Purple Ring Sword Ants biting you simultaneously?” Li Yao was stunned. ”Do you not feel pain?”

”Of course, I do!”

Xie Anan extended a finger and let a Purple Ring Sword Ant crawl on it. The bouncing muscles on her fingertip and the flowing spiritual gas froze the Purple Ring Sword Ant like invisible amber.

However hard the Purple Ring Sword Ant bit, it was not able to reach her skin.

Xie Anan raised her finger and watched the glittering insect in purple armor wholeheartedly, before she said, ”But this is how training works. It is either painstaking or exhausting. How can anybody succeed in training by lying on bed while eating and drinking casually?”

”But such a method of training is too cruel.” Li Yao was somewhat confused. ”Miss Xie Anan, as I recall, you are from a major noble family of refining, and there must be many secret arts within the Refining Department of Flying Star University, too. They wouldn’t be half as painful as the one you are practicing right now.

”Why did you give up the easy secret arts in favor of such a cruel technique?”

Xie Anan slid the last Purple Ring Sword Ant into the wooden box. She took a long breath in relief and sat down beside the flower bed. She opened her hands and said, ”There’s no other way. Although I am from a noble family of refining, I’ve known that I am not gifted in the arts of refining since I was a kid.

”I’ve always been the least talented one compared with Sister Long Yunxin as well as the siblings and cousins of my own family, not to mention Master Sand and Master Li Yao whom I saw before.

”When I was little and trained with other people, everybody else could understand many secret arts simply by reciting them several times. But as for me, I had to cling to my crystal processor for three days and three nights trying to swallow it whole, and sometimes I failed to understand the secret arts even after doing that.

”The only shining point about me is that I am determined, and I am willing to remember many things by repeating them. When I was seven, I already memorized the entire ’Encyclopedia of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures’.

”However, by repetition, the best I can do is be admitted to Flying Star University.

”When I came to Flying Star University, I discovered that my classmates were all one-in-ten-thousand geniuses. I was no match for anybody at all. However hard I worked, I was always the tail-ender in my class.

”Nobody gave me any pressure. Even my family did not have high hopes for me. As long as I could graduate smoothly and work as a common refiner in the family business, it would be good enough for them. However, I did not want to succumb to my fate!

”Even though I cannot rise like a star in a Skyhill Sword Seminar like the super genius refiner Li Yao did, at least—at least I want to participate in a Skyhill Sword Seminar like Sister Long Yunxin. I want to feel the burning rivalry on the match field in person and the palpitation when I am competing with the best experts of the trade!

”Training with Purple Ring Sword Ants is naturally very painful. If my purpose is to increase my hand speed, there are a lot of other secret arts in the Refining Department that are more secure, more reliable, and less painful.

”However, I—please don’t laugh at me, Master Sand—can barely understand the secret arts. Even if I am going to train with them, the effect will be little to none. Ten days of my training might not give me as much improvement as those geniuses would have in one day.

”The training method with Purple Ring Sword Ants, on the other hand, does not require much understanding. As long as one can hold back the pain, it will be fine. Such a method is perfect for a dummy such as myself. Haha!

”After Li Yao rose to fame in the Skyhill Sword Seminar, many students in Flying Star University and Heavenly Saints Institute learned to train with the Purple Ring Sword Ants. But as far as I know, I’m the only one who has persisted for half a year!

”Other people often laughed at me, or maybe it was just a kindly reminder, saying that the training method with the Purple Ring Sword Ants is only suitable for super geniuses like Li Yao, that it is not suitable for people of little aptitude like myself at all.

”But it’s not like that in my eyes.

”Maybe, the gap between me and Li Yao is greater than the distance between two Sectors. Maybe, my lifelong training will be less fruitful than one tenth of his achievements.

”But at the very least, if Li Yao can train with the Purple Ring Sword Ants right now, I can do the same however unintelligent I am.

”Maybe, after I train myself for twenty years, I will have more Purple Ring Sword Ants under my control than Li Yao did months ago. Haha. Hahahaha!

”Besides…”

The girl changed her topic and said somewhat embarrassedly, ”I haven’t heard any news about Li Yao for a long time. Maybe he has indeed passed away. If that is the case, I should pass on his training method.”

Li Yao couldn’t help but cough. He said, ”Are you so desperate to become a master of refining?”

”I don’t care about being a master or not. I guess I will never become one considering my lack of talents. Haha!”

Xie Anan licked her finger, which was still red because of the biting of the Purple Ring Sword Ant a while ago. She gave Li Yao a brilliant smile and said, ”It’s just that I love the arts of refining. I just love then even though I know I’m not gifted at them.”

”Okay.”

Li Yao was silent for a long time. Illuminated by the dim street lamp, his lips curled into an equally brilliant smile as the girl’s.

”I’ve changed my mind,” Li Yao said with a smile. ”Miss Xie Anan, I would have to ask you to show me around the campus of Flying Star University. I’m afraid a lot of your time will be wasted. Do you mind?”

”Absolutely not. You’re very welcome.”

Xie Anan shook her head hard. She thought for a moment and said somewhat embarrassedly, ”But if possible, can you let me stand by and listen to your discussion with Master Xue next time?”

Li Yao found it amusing. ”Can you understand our conversation?”

Xie Anan’s face turned red again. She lowered her head and looked at her feet while she replied, ”Maybe I will suddenly get the hang of it someday while I’m listening…”