13 Consolidating Gains 1

He didn't waste any time, once he got back to his pathetic little hut. And quickly retrieved the Golden Summer Eagle Blood Essence from his cache. It was rather clear, after Elder Ming's little warning with regards to his age, he didn't have too much time left. So he certainly couldn't afford to waste what little he had!

Besides, that rumor that he had passed on, about Elder Ping trying to snatch him over, was not some spurious invention of his. Which was why he had taken such pains, to cling onto Elder Ming's thigh, to escape such a move.

After all, everyone in the Outer School knew about what sort of experiments Elder Ping was doing. Even if they didn't have all the details, the fact that none of the six Outer School disciples that he had transferred in had survived more than six months was a little glaring.

However, Ping Jiexian was a little too junior, in rank and in his martial arts, to contend against the obnoxious Elder Ming Guanhe. And Qin Feng was listed as one of the latter's helpers. It was unlikely that they would break out into fisticuffs because of him, but it was unlikely that Elder Ming would let the younger Elder get away with it.

Not if he still wanted to get his hands on Qin Feng's Purple Blood Ginger leaves!

Whatever would happen after he handed all of it over was still uncertain. But he was certainly not going to sit around, and wait for it. He was just a small step away from entering the Lower Initial Realm, and once he did ...

He was already overdue, in leaving the School. Qin Feng had quietly kept his head down, so that everyone would think that he was afraid to venture out of Heaven Sword School on his own. And that he would accept just about any post that was thrown at him, just so that he could stay.

Well, they could not be more wrong!

Most disciples would do their best to get themselves up to the Basic Qi Accumulation Realm as quickly as they can, so that they can start building up the reserves in their body. The same reserves, the qi, that everyone needs to actualize the martial arts moves that they use.

But that is actually not the most basic, the bottom-most layer in the cultivation world!

There is actually another layer - the Foundation Layer, which every martial artist would have to start from. It was not very difficult to get through, to be honest. If the Basic Qi Accumulation Realm is as thick as a slice of bread, the Foundation Layer is only as thick as a piece of paper.

Or a layer of butter that is spread onto the same slice of bread.

Well, the bread would taste largely the same, no matter how carefully the butter had been spread, but it did make a difference, once the slice was in one's mouth.

And Qin Feng has been diligently working on that, making sure that every inch of butter had been carefully spread out, so that he would have as perfect a Foundation as he could manage.

And it had taken him all of two years to do it!

That was something that he had learned from the Old Man, before he began walking down this road. And since Qin Feng had gotten onto the track because of him, it was only reasonable to pay attention to every little lesson that he felt he had to teach.

Which included understanding every idiosyncrasy of his own body:

Qin Feng smiled as he examined his own body. His true body, and not a puppet like the one that he wore, whenever he left the mountain. He had painstakingly put this one together, using all of the tricks that he had learned. So it was clearly the most advanced body that he could create, using the methods that he knew.

It had been a bit of joke, at first, when he first began the project to creating a body of his own. The one that he had taken over was clearly not to his taste, and he had almost puked the moment that he realized that Old Man Snow Mountain had simply picked up a more or less intact body from the remnants of a war that had taken place between two Sects.

And, of course, given his practical bent, the Old Man had chosen the most powerful one that was lying around after the battle. And the most intact one. It would give him less to do, no doubt. And he had been hoping that Qin Feng would be so grateful to be alive again that he would not mind the fact that it was blind in one eye, and had half of his teeth missing!

Not to mention the fact that it was close to seventy years old!

Why would a teenage boy be content with a body like that? It was too ridiculous to even begin to imagine!

So naturally, Qin Feng had protested the moment that he found out what had happened. And griped ceaselessly at the fellow responsible making that stupid choice for him. How was he to know that the Old Man had no real choice? But he persisted until the Old Man finally gave in, and came up with a somewhat questionable solution for him:

He would teach Qin Feng how to refine his own replacement body, and give him the resources that he needed to do that!

Unfortunately, it would result in Qin Feng having to grow up all over again, from infancy. And he would have to take care of himself until he was old enough to start training himself. That was why he ended up convincing the Old Man to help him turn that new seventy-year-old body of his into a puppet!

That should be enough to keep him safe enough, he decided, until he was ready to make his move, and claim what the Old Man had promised him.

But now, with all that was going on, it seemed like he couldn't afford to wait any longer. Not with what was going on in the School, and in the lands around it. He would have to try to get that inheritance into his hands straightaway!

So he slipped the first drop of the Golden Summer Eagle Blood Essence onto his tongue and swallowed. It burned all of the way down his throat, and he felt the warmth spreading through his body immediately. Was it as effective as that?

Then he turned his head back to his cultivation, and began to Breathe.

He was not going to waste a moment of what time he had left!

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