Chapter 110: Life 62, Age 83, Martial Master 1
The following year, I held the prince back from advancing to Martial Master. He wasn’t happy about the delay, but there was no meaningful difference between advancing at age 19 and advancing at age 20. Instead of advancing a year earlier, it was much more important for him to take that time to cultivate his soul.
I didn’t have any knowledge of soul cultivation, and I wasn’t willing to attempt practicing it myself, so all I could do was provide the prince with a technique manual and allow him to learn how to cultivate it on his own.
After he started doing so, I never heard him talk about bringing that girl back to the palace to be his woman again, so that matter seemed to have been successfully dealt with, but I wasn’t sure what the cost would be. The soul cultivation technique said that he would feel detached from the world, which could complicate future matters, but I had no choice but to try and deal with such issues as they arose.
After a year of improving the strength of his soul, I helped CaoHan advance to Martial Master. I would have waited longer if I could have, but we were out of time, and stagnation had started to become a real risk.
Once he broke through to the Master realm, we decided that he would set a pace that would allow him to advance steadily while still meeting his goal of reaching Grandmaster before 30.
I did my best to ensure each meridian he formed was as perfect as I could make it, but pill toxins were still an issue. Advancing to Martial Master allowed CaoHan to requisition a supply of Meridian Builder Pills, but they were also only Mid-Purity. Even limiting him to one pill per meridian, the foundation we were able to forge was far worse than either of us would have wished.
At 28 years old, he ascended to Peak Master. All that was left was constructing his dantian and compressing his qi.
This was where we hit a roadblock. His earth affinity was still only mid nine-star, and with a peak seven-star affinity, I didn’t have enough control inside of his body to help him advance to Grandmaster.
After giving it some thought, I decided I had enough credits in reserve that I could spend a few on an upgrade I would need in the future anyway.