“Why is the spiritual Qi growing fainter?” The white-garbed Cai Yue, who dressed like a young lord, awoke from her cultivation.
She was the daughter of Cai Lan, the head of the Blood Skull. She was at the late Lesser Heaven stage, only one step away from entering the Heaven stage, and the reason why she had been practicing day and night for the past week was that she hoped to make the breakthrough as soon as possible.
Not long ago, the Blood Skull had had a conflict with the Dark Moon. Cai Yue had joined the battle, but sustained injuries.
She attributed her injuries to her low cultivation base, and thus had been rather eager to improve.
She had used that cultivation room many times long before Nie Tian came along. Therefore, she knew those rooms and the intensity of the spiritual Qi in them like the back of her hand.
The sudden change disturbed her cultivation and significantly undermined the rate at which she took in spiritual energy.
She endured the change and continued to cultivate for a while. However, she discovered that not only did the intensity of the spiritual Qi in the room not recover to its original level, but it even kept deteriorating.
Cai Yue had never been known for her patience, so she put her cultivation on hold and walked out of her room.
“Little lord.” The moment she walked out, s.h.i.+ Qing, administrator of the first floor, trotted to her and asked with a flattering smile on his face, “Shall we call it a day?” s.h.i.+ Qing thought she had finished her cultivation for the day.
“Uncle s.h.i.+!” Face cold, Cai Yue asked with a punitive tone, “Is there something wrong with my cultivation room? Why is the spiritual Qi on the decline?”
s.h.i.+ Qing stood aghast. “How can that be?!”
Cai Yue gave a cold harrumph. “You’re welcome to take a look for yourself!”
“Alright, let’s me check it out.” With these words, s.h.i.+ Qing followed Cai Yue into her cultivation room. Eyes narrowed, he carefully examined the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth in the room.
It took only a few second for s.h.i.+ Qing to realize the anomaly. Then, he said, “I can’t believe that you’re right!”
Face filled with dissatisfaction, Cai Yue asked, “What’s going on, Uncle s.h.i.+? What’s wrong with this cultivation room? I don’t usually have such a zest for practicing cultivation. If I tell my father about this, I’m afraid he won’t let you off easily!”
s.h.i.+ Qing’s expression flickered as he hastily apologized to her and said, “Please hold on a second.”
He stepped to the center of the room where there was a jade column. Then, he gently placed his skinny hand on it as he unleashed his psychic awareness.
A short while later, s.h.i.+ Qing opened his eyes. With a strange expression on his face, he muttered, “I can’t believe that the spiritual Qi is flowing to that other room...”
“Just what exactly is going on, Uncle s.h.i.+?” asked Cai Yue.
s.h.i.+ Qing pondered for a while before explaining with a bitter face, “Little Lord, you should know that the two cultivation rooms on each floor are actually connected to one another. Beneath the rooms lies the spell formation that summons power from the spirit stones we put there and transmits it to the rooms.
“If the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth in one room is consumed faster than the speed at which it is being replenished, a hidden spell formation will be triggered, and the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth will naturally flow over from the other room to balance out the difference.”
Upon hearing these words, Cai Yue immediately realized what was happening. “So you’re saying that the man in the other room is consuming the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth past the output capacity of the spell formation?
“The spiritual Qi in his room is running so low that the spiritual Qi in my room flowed to his?”
s.h.i.+ Qing had a strange expression on his face as he said, “Yes, it appears so. However, we built these two rooms to meet the ultimate speed at which Lesser Heaven stage cultivators can absorb spiritual Qi. Even cultivators at the peak of the Lesser Heaven stage couldn’t possibly absorb spiritual Qi faster than our spell formation produces it.
“This seems impossible.
“No one has ever triggered that hidden spell formation ever since it was set up.”
s.h.i.+ Qing’s words intrigued Cai Yue. She asked, “Uncle s.h.i.+, are you sure that man is at the Lesser Heaven stage?”
“Of course!” s.h.i.+ Qing said with a serious expression. “I examined him when he came. He’s at the late Lesser Heaven stage. I can’t be mistaken.”
Cai Yue snorted and said, “Do you know who he is? He stole the spiritual Qi that’s supposed to be mine. I won’t let him off easily!”
“He’s Li Ye’s friend,” s.h.i.+ Qing said with a bitter expression.
“He’s that fatty’s friend, so what?” Cai Yue’s tone wasn’t pleasant at all. “If Li Ye dares to stop me, I’ll beat him up too!”
“Little Lord, the problem is that, technically, he hasn’t done anything wrong.” s.h.i.+ Qing had a headache over the tough situation. “Even though he overconsumed the spiritual Qi, he paid for the cultivation room, so we must honor the rules. Those rules are what hold up our reign. Since he’s not in violation of them, we can’t just go in there and arrest him.”
“I don’t care!” Huffing, Cai Yue stormed out of the room in an attempt to settle things with Nie Tian.
“Don’t!” s.h.i.+ Qing hastily stopped her and urged pressingly. “If you do this, others will laugh at us and take the Blood Skull as a rabble of stingy men. Listen to me, Little Lord. At least wait for him to come out of there. He only rented the room for twenty hours. As you know, if a cultivator is interrupted in the middle of his cultivation, he may very well fall into Qi deviation.”
After hearing these words, Cai Yue, who was already standing in front of Nie Tian’s cultivation room and ready to barge in, finally came to a stop and fell into silent pondering.
A moment later, Cai Yue said, “The spiritual Qi in my room is too faint, and I’m too distracted to practice cultivation. I’ll wait for him here! I’ve got to see how special this guy really is, and what made him dare to steal the spiritual Qi from my room!”
Standing beside her, s.h.i.+ Qing continued to reason with her with a bitter smile on his face. However, after a while, he found that it appeared that Cai Yue wasn’t listening at all, and thus gave up.
After things were calmed, s.h.i.+ Qing focused his glittering eyes on the cultivation room Nie Tian was in, his mind filled with questions.
As far as he knew, a situation like this would only happen when a middle or late Heaven stage expert used a Lesser Heaven stage cultivation room.
However, he was completely certain that Nie Tian was only at the Lesser Heaven stage. The speed at which he consumed the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth astonished him.
In Nie Tian’s cultivation room.
Nie Tian condensed another spiritual energy ball using the technique he had learned from the mysterious land, and then channeled the pure spiritual energy within it to his spiritual sea.
The three vortexes of spiritual energy were rotating madly to generate more refined spiritual power and push it to the edges of his spiritual sea.
The speed at which Nie Tian advanced in the cultivation room was already much faster than when he had cultivated in his residence. Adding in the incantation that he used to form the spiritual energy b.a.l.l.s, the speed of his advancement was further boosted.
He had a feeling that the speed at which he improved here was approximately twenty times faster than before.
The fact that he only had to pay five spirit stones for one hour was absolutely worth it.
Originally, if he hadn’t used his secret technique, the advancement in his cultivation he would achieve within one hour inside the room would be less significant than that which he could achieve cultivating with five spirit stones outside, but the time he would spend to achieve such progress would be much less.
However, using the spiritual energy ball technique, he had improved his cultivation efficiency dramatically. Therefore, the total amount of spiritual energy he absorbed within one hour turned out to be far greater than what he would have been able to obtain using five spirit stones outside.
Seeing that his spiritual sea was expanding rapidly, Nie Tian was rather pleased. He went on to form more spiritual energy b.a.l.l.s and devoted himself to absorbing the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth.
Meanwhile, the numerous spirit stones that had been laid under the floor of the two Lesser Heaven stage cultivation rooms rapidly ran dry and turned into rubble.
Time pa.s.sed quickly.
As time pa.s.sed, the amount of spiritual Qi left in both rooms grew thin, and then, Nie Tian suddenly woke from his cultivation, since he was no longer able to form another spiritual energy ball with the thin amount of spiritual Qi.
Confusion stretched across Nie Tian’s face. “What’s happening to the room?”
At the same time, grim expressions could be seen on the faces of s.h.i.+ Qing and Cai Yue, who had been waiting for Nie Tian to come out of the room.
A member of the Blood Skull, who was responsible for filling the spell formation with spirit stones, approached s.h.i.+ Qing and whispered in his ear, “Sir, the 350 spirit stones we’ve laid under the first floor cultivation rooms have already run dry.
“300 of them were consumed after that person went into one of the rooms.
“The speed at which the spirit stones were consumed was even faster than we could refill the spell formation with new ones. Should we keep refilling?”
s.h.i.+ Qing frowned as he waved his hand and said, “No!”
Cai Yue stamped with fury as she said, “Even I can only consume 50 spirit stones by cultivating for 24 hours within one of the rooms! That guy has only been in there for 12 hours, but he has already consumed 300 spirit stones!
“Uncle s.h.i.+, how many spirit stones did he pay?”
“100 spirit stones for twenty hours,” replied s.h.i.+ Qing.
“I suspect that he intentionally hid his true cultivation base in order to take advantage of us!” Cai Yue blurted furiously.
Just as she was about to break into the room and demand an explanation from Nie Tian, Nie Tian walked out of the room.
He didn’t look at Cai Yue. Instead, he gazed at s.h.i.+ Qing, and with a puzzled look in his eyes, he asked, “The twenty hours’ time isn’t up yet, right? Why is there not a bit of spiritual Qi in the room already? Don’t tell me that the Blood Skull’s cultivation rooms are usually like this, breaking down from time to time.”
Upon hearing these words, s.h.i.+ Qing’s face suddenly twitched.