Chapter 52: Emberglow City
After speaking with the demonic cultivator, Jian Beiyun, the trio decided to accept his offer.
From their investigations, they found out that Jian Beiyun was a famous member of the Nightmoon Valley, a demonic cultivator sect that was widely known to be just in their conduct. As much as the righteous sects tried to paint all demonic cultivators in the same brush, it wasn’t possible to control the information as tightly within a neutral territory that bordered the Demonic Cultivator Territory.
It was only when the three kids corroborated this information from multiple sources that they became open to Jian Beiyun’s offer.
They also dug a lot of information pertaining to demonic cultivators and their rogue peers that earned them their infamous reputation. However, many details about what the Demonic Cultivator Territory was like were missing, as most people hadn’t been there.
After accepting the offer of heading to Emberglow City with Jian Beiyun, they had to wait until the end of the week for their new escort to finish up his business. Li Lang didn’t mind, as he could use the time to earn more money from refining pills and exploring the new stage of cultivation he recently arrived at.
“Is there really no way to measure exactly how much remaining Qi I have?” Li Lang sighed as he sat down in his lab.
“No, master. There isn’t such a tool or technique to my knowledge nor yours that can measure it precisely like you wish,” the artifact spirit responded regretfully.
Shaking his head, Li Lang stared down at his hand, which was giving off a soft glow. He had begun testing out his capabilities as someone who had stepped into the fourth stage of Energy Gathering.
While the Qi enveloped his limbs, he was testing how much the expenditure was. So far, it was so minuscule it was hard for him to measure by feeling alone. He knew it did expend some Qi, but it quickly refilled naturally, so it was hard to get an accurate grasp.
At least my cultivation is progressing smoothly thanks to Elder Cao’s lessons…
Now that Li Lang was in the middle stages of Energy Gathering, his cultivation method had slightly differed from before. While he continued to gather more ambient Qi and stuffed it into his body, he now needed to do so while maintaining control of the Qi enveloping him as well.
It allowed him to absorb more by using up his reserves by wrapping Qi around his entire body while absorbing more to replace the expenditure. When he was done, his external Qi would return, and ‘jam’ into his body, exerting a stronger force than he could with just Qi manipulation to push his Qi capacity one step further.