Chapter 199: Converging Streams
Early one morning, knocking could be heard at Li Lang’s door. He opened the doors to find Xiao Dong there.
“Have you stabilized your cultivation?”
“Yes, Teacher, but I don’t feel that I have the accumulation to break through, yet. Didn’t Teacher Long accumulate over a year?”
“From what I observed, his Qi capacity didn’t increase from the time he reached the peak of Energy Gathering to when he began his breakthrough. Neither did mine throughout all this time. I believe everyone in the ninth stage is capable of breaking through.”
“Believe?”
“Unfortunately, it’s not so easy to say with certainty regarding any matter. Your participation now will help with that, but enough about that. Come in.”
Xiao Dong took in a deep breath to renew his determination as he stepped inside. He found the interior more spacious than he expected. It was due to the lack of furnishing Li Lang had added, despite having one of the four large houses to himself. Compared to the students’ dorm where they had to share a smaller house, the contrast was stark.
Another factor may be due to the lack of servants in the house. A traditional rich merchant household would employ many such servants to cater to their needs. However, Li Lang’s manor only hired cooks to address their nutritional needs, while the other tasks were left to the inhabitants themselves.
This was because the group decided they had too many secrets to involve too many outsiders. Cooks could be confined to the kitchen area, but regular servants would frequent the entire estate. They couldn’t afford one of them accidentally overhearing something they wanted to keep hidden.
After all, there were numerous unknown cultivator techniques to make mortals talk. It was the height of foolishness to believe a mortal could keep secrets from a determined cultivator.
Li Lang led his student toward a wooden platform he used for cultivation. It was like a low coffee table, but large enough for both of them to sit on it with some room to spare.
“I’ll cut to the chase,” Li Lang said. “What I’ll have you do starting today is to create a certain technique that is customized to you alone. The goal of this technique is to aid you in breaking through, which means directing the flow of Qi to your dantian. To give you a refresher, here is a sketch of what your meridian channels look like based on our previous tests.”