Tang Yue focused her mind and calmly tried to feel the mana energy surrounding her.
She could immediately feel a thick wave of energy swirling around her, bit by bit seeping into her body and nourishing it.
She then tried to focus deeper on the energy wave and concentrated on the individual mana particles within it.
Millions of bright specs of energy thrummed alive responding to her beck and call.
They were the basic units of life that enriched everything living in this world.
As Tang Yue inhaled and exhaled calmly focusing on these minuscule specs of mana, she could slightly see some sort of aura wrapped around each mana particle.
Gasp!
Tang Yue clenched her fist and focused more on this aura.
Some of the particles had a fiery warmth emanating from them, some had a nurturing and healing flow, some had a cold frigid feeling, and some even had a tinge of darkness to them.
What the old man said was absolutely accurate!
Mana could be assimilated into her body as a form of the elemental essence itself.
And it looked like she was naturally able to sense the essences of fire, ice, water, and darkness elementals.
[Not bad.] The old man muttered.
[Now start absorbing only the fire elemental essence.]
[And once you absorb and attune your body to this elemental essence, you can use your mental energy to command this concentrated essence and wield it as a magic spell.]
[This is why it is important to improve your physical, mental, and soul strength and cultivation base at the same time.]
[One just cannot function without the other.] He explained.
Tang Yue nodded and slowly started sucking in the fire elemental essence.
Maybe because of her higher mental strength, she willed her body to change something that was almost involuntary and it listened.
The snake contently nodded in satisfaction.
[I am imparting you some basic elemental spells. Practice these only after you consolidate a fire essence mana core.]
The system chimed in and finished its instructions.
"Waaah!" Tang Yue was very touched by this sudden affection from her eccentric Master.
Before the old man could resume his normal attitude again, she wanted to push her luck a bit more.
She licked her lips and nervously asked the system. "Master, ahem. My sword skills are a bit shabby. How about…"
[Sure, do you want to spin the lucky wheel now?] The system interjected mid-sentence.
Tang Yue could only smile bitterly in reply. It looked like the teaching session had come to an end.
"Meh. Whatever." She knew that she couldn't force the old man to do anything for free, so she went back to her new cultivation practice.
Since she was a beast she was able to naturally absorb mana into her body without any effort at all.
But now that she was consciously only cultivating the fire essence, it slowed her down a little bit.
Nevertheless, she could already feel her fire magic and her attunement to the fire elemental growing stronger and stronger.
For the next couple of days, Tang Yue did not step out of the Crown's quarters and focused mainly on her cultivation.
Since she was able to do this in his serpentine form as well, she didn't forget to combine her cultivation sessions with binge eating sessions.
As for her contest matches, she readily gave her jade slip to Lotte so that he could keep an eye on it and inform her in case any match was scheduled for her.
Though Tang Yue highly doubted that this would happen, thanks to her dazzling display on Day 1.
In fact, she was able to peacefully work on her progress for two whole days, before her jade slip glowed again and she was called for the next match.
"About time." The snake chuckled and walked over quickly.
After having monotonously cultivated for the last two days, she cracked her knuckles and skipped to the contest venue eagerly.
As soon as Tang Yue reached the royal training grounds, a bright and bubbly voice sounded, calling her over. "Sister Tang."
Luckily, this time around, it was a friendly face that had greeted her.
The pleasantly surprised snake revealed a bright and beaming smile in response and walked over to
Adrianna, who perhaps was the only friend she had in the elven lands. "I haven't seen you in a while, sister!"
"Ha Ha. I heard all about your accomplishments in the contest and thought I should come and support you." Adrianna giggled.
"You too, sister?" Tang Yue sighed bitterly.
"Ha Ha. Sorry. Sorry. I was just teasing you. I am sure you have your reasons for participating so strongly in this contest."
"Actually I wanted to come to talk to you in person, but since you are living with his highness now, I couldn't just walk over to you."
"I can see that you badly want to participate in the labyrinth exploration. I myself am traveling with one of my father's teams. You are very welcome to join us."
Adrianna smiled and very warmly extended her an invitation.
Tang Yue couldn't help but be surprised.
Even though Adrianna was also one of the royal consorts, she had never treated her badly and had always been supportive and helpful.
So she had quite a good impression of her.
But now she was going above and beyond by generously inviting a weakling like her to be in her team.
Tang Yue was very touched. However, she quickly rejected her offer.
"Sorry sister. I already promised someone else that I will be going with them." She lied.
She didn't want to be a burden and take advantage of the one person treating her so well. So she politely declined the offer with a white lie.
"Ah~ Is that so? Never mind then." Adrianna looked slightly disappointed, but she didn't force the issue.
"Good luck then sister! Hope you come in the top 10!" She smiled again and clapped her hands, cheering for Tang Yue.