Before Anji knew it, the sun had already gone down. She had a very busy day after waking up. The gardener sent the potted persimmon plant to her room as she requested right away. However, Anji could not check on it imdiately because she had to visit the sect’s shrine. True to Gu Ying’s description, many inner and outer disciples prayed for Anji’s safety. Her appearance created waves within the sect as rumours spread quicker than wildfire that the youngest princess had returned.
Anji received all the congratulatory greetings and grew weary of smiling at so many unfamiliar faces. The sect elders, who were normally busy, paid a special visit to see Anji in the evening after her dinner. Her parents also had a lot of things to tell Anji. Many things in her usual routine would change now that she chose to embark on the path of a cultivator. Even Sect Leader Bai had a few words to add at the dinner table.
By the ti Anji agreed not to take any shortcuts on the path of cultivation and explained how much she had learned under Yan Ping, it was already close to her regular bedti. As for her teacher, Anji only learned how the blind prophet had to recuperate in the secluded depths of the mountain. Her father refused to divulge more information, which ant the situation was serious enough to require top secrecy. Anji secretly activated her Heavenly Eyes to confirm the side effects of those who helped her stabilise her golden core.
With the slightly enhanced Heavenly Eyes, Anji could finally differentiate between the Heavenly, Divine and Supre cultivation levels. However, to her shock, her father’s core was a deep blue that was almost purple. She wasn’t too sure if he was at the early Transcendent or late Radiant stage. However, it was a far fall from the middle Divine Core stage that he was in. Unlike her teacher, her father had only been there to help her open the sealed gate. Yet, he had fallen by at least two cultivation levels. Her teacher had been there the whole two months. Moreover, she played a huge role in the final stages of stabilising her energy when Grandpa Jin ran rampant. Although her father refused to inform her about her teacher’s condition, Anji felt that her teacher might not be at the Radiant Core level. The drastic drop in her teacher’s cultivation base could prove dangerous if others found out. Hence, she had to enter secluded recuperation with the protection of the Celestial Dragon Sect before she returned to the Mystical Qilin Sect.
This gave Anji enough reasons to break her promise to her shifu and secretly practise cultivation with Grandpa Jin’s guidance behind her father’s back. It wasn’t as if her cultivation base would drastically increase after a few sneaky practice sessions. With her unique core, the golden dragon reassured Anji that it was about ten tis harder for her to make progress than an ordinary cultivator.
After ensuring she was finally alone in her room, Anji thought it felt odd to sleep on such a comfortable mattress after spending two months in the hut with her shifu. Part of her thought it would be impossible to fall asleep even if she weren’t secretly training. She had finally gotten used to the slightly hard bed in the little hut. It wasn’t easy to adjust to the sinking feeling of this soft feather mattress again.
Crossing her leg in the darkness and hugging the potted persimmon plant, Anji inhaled deeply and slowly exhaled to slow her mind down. Although her qi circulation quantity still needed to be improved, it was still enough to do what she wanted to do.
Fwoosh!
As soon as Anji completed one cycle of qi circulation in her ditative state, she could access her inner world easily. Grandpa Jin seed to be sleeping, even if he was a flicker of consciousness from the original golden dragon.
"Wake up!" she patted the sleepy golden dragon scale gently. "I’m here. You promised to tell how to use the dragon pearl you gave to help my father and shifu recover quicker."
Although it was only a golden scale that shared the original dragon’s knowledge, it still retained the golden dragon’s personality and grunted with irritation at getting woken up from a good nap. He should have known that this lost child would be a handful to raise. Anji was still young and starry-eyed, with little understanding of the world. Her enthusiasm ant he could not have any private ti. It was probably why the nosy Qilin and the other mythical beasts did not rush to snatch up this potential candidate.
"Why are you in such a hurry? You still have thousands of years left before ascending with your rate of cultivation. I was having a good nap!"
Glaring at the golden scale in disdain, Anji silently disapproved of its attitude. Thanks to the curse that had been forced on her, she might have unlimited ti. However, her shifu and father did not. Unlike the powerful golden dragon, they were mortals who worked hard to uphold justice in the chaotic murim world. The least this golden dragon could do was teach her how to help them recover quickly to their forr cultivation base.
"Have you forgotten what you did?" she huffed. "If it weren’t for you insisting on rging with my core and fusing with it simultaneously as my Initial Core awakening, neither my father nor shifu would have to suffer such terrible drawbacks for helping . I might be an immortal soul because of your borrowed pearl. However, my body is still as weak as tofu!"
The child’s anger quickly humbled the lazy golden dragon, who wisely remained silent. She was not wrong. Having a child as smart as Anji as his charge was both a blessing and a curse. While she learned everything quickly, she was also very particular about the littlest things, ensuring he had no chance to cut corners. He took a peek at her mories and learned that Anji’s nagging habit ca from her teacher’s influence in the past two months. Part of the golden dragon was reluctant to help her. However, the Qilin would throw a fit and disrupt his peace if he let the only successor of the Qilin’s candidate die.
Such was life. It was troubleso.
"Argh! Stop yapping! I get it!" the golden dragon scale trembled in Anji’s palm and shot a ray of light at the middle of Anji’s forehead.
The ray of light did not hurt. However, Anji felt as if her head had been cramd with knowledge that would have taken years to learn. The golden scale waited for her to reorganise her newly acquired knowledge about accessing soul energy and rging it with life energy. Although Anji’s ridian pathways and body were weak, her golden core and soul were strong.
"Try mixing the soul’s energy into your golden core and circulate that energy in your ridian pathways to dilate the narrow cores your teacher made. It works temporarily, but you should be able to expel more internal energy."
There were two ways to imbue the persimmon plant with life energy that inspires vitality and promotes qi recovery. The first way was to steep it in an environnt dense in qi slowly. This was the most common thod for cultivating spiritual herbs. However, the downside was the ti it would take and the low success of evolution.
The second way was what Grandpa Jin wanted Anji to try. Instead of imbuing it and charging it with energy, slowly waiting for the persimmon plant to adapt to its new environnt with its will, Anji would transfer energy directly into the persimmon plant and alter its natural structure a little at a ti. Of course, changing the structure of the entire plant would take too long. Anji wanted to harvest so leaves by tomorrow. Hence, she would try changing the structure of each leaf she wanted to harvest.
"Can you sense the distribution channels in the leaf?" the golden scale yawned. "If you can sense that, you can start transferring energy into the distribution channel of the leaf slowly using the qi coming from your Stomach ridian and Root Chakra."
Chakra. It was sothing new Anji had learned recently. Her Heavenly Eyes were a by-product of accessing her third Eye Chakra, but she had no control over the various chakra gates until recently. Grandpa Jin taught her how to synchronise every chakra gate with a different sound frequency so that she could access it simultaneously. However, coordinating both life and soul energy was still difficult for Anji. She could only alternate between them at her level of proficiency.
Sleepily, the golden scale monitored Anji’s progress as she borrowed energy from the environnt and converted it within her golden core to be mixed with so of her soul energy. The dragon pearl acted as a large cooking pot to properly lt and mix both types of energy before sending it back to Anji’s golden core to be distributed in her body.
With careful control, the new fusion energy recharged and repaired Anji’s body as it travelled through her ridians. Only a little went to the persimmon plant, but that amount was enough for the fragile foliage. Any excess from the persimmon plant was returned to continue the other half of its circulation in Anji’s body before it returned to the core, ready to be expelled to the environnt.
Keeping an eye on the ti carefully, the golden scale refused to let Anji know how much she would benefit from this training thod. Strangely enough, this child would work harder for the sake of other people than for herself. If he had told her to practise this cultivation thod to graduate from the Initial Core stage, she would never have been this hardworking and would have opted to follow her father’s guidance instead.
Throughout the night, Anji kept at it and slowly harvested the leaves imbued with her spiritual energy. By the break of dawn, she had harvested all but three leaves left on the shrub. It was hardly enough, but it would have to do until the little sprout grew more leaves.
"Why stop here when you can help the plant grow more leaves quicker?" the dragon yawned. "If done correctly, you could accelerate the growth and nature of the persimmon plant along with its fruit and leaf developnt. It takes longer than modifying each leaf alone. However, it’s better in the long run. You’d be able to eat persimmons from this little bush in a year if you keep at this every night."
Anji felt distrustful of this golden dragon. After tricking her once upon their eting, she had her reservations. However, the golden scale did not seem to be lying, even if it was withholding information from her. She did not know what Grandpa Jin wanted from her. However, they share a mutually beneficial co-existing relationship at the mont. He would never harm her physically, so she decided to try that tomorrow.
Stretching and falling asleep an hour before it was ti to wake up, Anji missed seeing how the modified persimmon leaves crinkled and curled into little balls, siphoning all the nutrients of its physical carrier to retain the dense spiritual energy within.
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