Zu An put up his guard. “Don’t tell me you’re going to beat me up?”
The Phoenix Nirvana Sutra increased his cultivation whenever he took a beating. However, he was at the eighth rank right now, so he needed a seemingly endless amount of ki. It wasn’t something that a light beating could fill up.
Mi Li rolled her eyes. “You’re now so tough I don’t even feel like beating you up. I’m talking about another power. When that Old Mi tried to possess you, his cultivation went inside of you. I sealed that, remember?”
“I do!” Zu An’s eyes filled with tears. “You said that it would affect my cultivation foundation and didn’t let me absorb it. I missed out a chance to immediately become amazing! I almost forgot about it after all this time.”
“Hmph, of course I had to interfere to stop you from ruining your own prospects,” Mi Li said. “However, you should be able to absorb it now with your current cultivation.”
“Really?” Zu An’s eyes lit up. “Then wouldn’t I be unstoppable in the capital afterward?”
He had only been around the fifth rank back then. With Old Mi’s cultivation, it would have been enough to take him to the master rank. Now, he was at the eighth rank, so wouldn’t that mean that he would at least reach the peak of the master rank? Or maybe even the grandmaster rank?
“Is there nothing but crap in that head of yours?” This was a way of speaking that Mi Li had learned from him during this period. She found it quite to her liking. “The doorstep from the ninth rank to the master rank is something you still need to cross yourself. Otherwise, it will similarly destroy your future prospects. Furthermore, once you reach the master rank, the increase in strength isn’t purely piling up cultivation, which makes it even less likely that you can jump straight to the grandmaster rank.
“That’s why I’ll undo a third of the seal this time. It should be enough for you to reach the ninth rank, and you’ll be able to awaken a bird.”
Zu An was disappointed. “Only a third?”
“The ninth rank… Who knows how many people get stuck at the eighth rank for the rest of their lives, yet you’re looking down on it,” Mi Li said in dissatisfaction.
Zu An said, “That’s only true if you use an ordinary person’s standard, okay? My goal is to become like those webnovels’ proud and invincible protagonists.”
“What kind of nonsense are you spouting? Do you want it or not?” Mi Li asked impatiently.
“Of course I do.” Zu An immediately changed his tone.
“Then focus.” Mi Li floated over to his side.
Zu An ordered Daji to continue with the foxfire pill refinement. She was capable of acting on her own anyway, so she could complete the task once she received instructions.
He calmed himself down. Then, he sensed Mi Li’s finger tap against his chest. Instantly, an incredibly vicious wave of ki appeared in his body. There was no time to think about where Old Mi’s cultivation was hidden, or why he couldn’t sense it all this time. He quickly used the Heaven Devouring Art the way Mi Li told him to and turned that surging ki into his own.
“It’s all thanks to that Heaven Devouring Art you obtained, or else it’d take an incredibly long time to assimilate the cultivation of another. There’s no way it would’ve been as easy as this,” Mi Li’s voice said by his ear.
Zu An nodded. He didn’t dare to be careless now, and focused on refining Old Mi’s ki. He could clearly sense formations appearing in his body one after another. Then, one after another, those formations lit up at a visible rate. The eighth rank’s first step, second step, third step…
When he broke through into the ninth rank, the formations no longer manifested in a specific portion of his body. Instead, his body seemed to have become a vast universe. The formations appeared in that vast expanse one after another. Then, they once again lit up one after another. The ninth rank’s first step, second step…
When it reached the fourth step, Mi Li spoke up. “Enough!” Her finger struck out, and then the surging ki instantly disappeared without a trace.
“Come on, give me a bit more…” Zu An was still immersed in that feeling. Such a feeling really was too wonderful.
Mi Li shook her head. “Too much is just as bad as not enough. Even though your absorption ability can help you increase your strength rapidly, your foundation can easily grow unstable. You sucked away all of Mosquito Daoist’s cultivation not too long ago as well, so you can’t take in too much right now. This should be the limit before your foundation is damaged.”
Zu An was a bit reluctant, but he trusted her judgment.
“What level is your cultivation at now?” Mi Li asked.
Zu An replied, “The ninth rank’s fourth step.”
Mi Li nodded. “Not bad. The eighth rank allows one to harmonize with the force of the world, while the ninth rank can already start to temper the soul. You’re now capable of short term flight, and you can wield things with your mind. That sword controlling technique Han Fengqiu used before was precisely one of the ninth rank’s abilities. Of course, different cultivators can control different things. Some control swords, some control blades, and some other things. You need to explore your own combat style on your own.”
“I can control flying swords?!” Zu An’s eyes lit up. How badass did those sword controlling masters look in those TV dramas? He subconsciously reached out his hand toward Daji, and then the golden hairpin she wore appeared in his hand. Daji gave him a look, but there wasn’t any reaction.
Mi Li was speechless. “Your first reaction is to use it to take advantage of girls? You really are a shameless pervert.”
Zu An chuckled in embarrassment. “I just wanted to test it out. By the way, why do I feel as if that force was a bit hard to control?”
“It’s something that you need to slowly get used to. As your cultivation increases, the farther you’ll be able to extend this skill, and the greater the strength you can exert. However, the degree of control and precision will depend on you. It’s not something that can be improved purely through increasing your cultivation,” Mi Li said.
Zu An couldn’t help but ask, “Then doesn’t that mean that someone at the first step of the ninth rank can be even more precise than one at the peak of the ninth rank?”
Mi Li nodded. “There is a chance in theory, but aren’t all cultivators who can reach the ninth rank geniuses to begin with? Which one of them would let someone else defeat them in that aspect like this? Furthermore, this control not only relies on talent; it also depends on battlefield experience across the different cultivation ranks.”
Then, her expression became serious. “Your cultivation rose too quickly, so you’re far from other cultivators in this aspect. Forget about a ninth rank’s telekinesis ability; you probably can’t even compare to a normal eighth rank in terms of borrowing the world’s strength. Your father-in-law, and that Cash Warrior who tried to assassinate you on your way to the capital… Even though their cultivation realms were ordinary, their technique and grasp over these areas left even me surprised.”
Zu An knew that what she’d said was true. Even though his combat strength wasn’t low, it was because he had relied on all manner of miraculous cheats. In terms of fundamentals, he was far inferior to those who had already remained at their cultivation realm for decades.
Mi Li was satisfied to see that he wasn’t behaving as frivolously as usual. She knew that he understood what she was saying. “But there’s no need to rush these matters; it’ll take time. Why don’t we check to see if you’ve awakened any of those birds first?”
Zu An realized that as well with a start. He immediately examined himself and saw that all the diagrams of the seventh layer had lit up, forming a new diagram. It had a chicken head, a fish tail, a snake neck, and a tortoise shell. It was dazzling gold in color. It looked similar to the phoenix he had seen in his previous world’s media.
He quickly looked at the right corner. Golden lines interweaved to form two simple characters: Golden Phoenix!
“It’s not the Fire Phoenix?” Zu An felt a bit disappointed. He had been aiming for the Fire Phoenix so he could continue his pill refinement.
When she heard what he said, Mi Li sighed as well. “The nine descendants of the phoenix have never been ordered. There have been all sorts of sayings. Some say that the Golden Phoenix is ranked fourth. Looks like you’ll have to wait for your next breakthrough to get the Fire Phoenix. There’s nothing that can be done about the ingredients this time. We’ll just gather them again in the future.”
Zu An felt that this was a letdown as well. After all, these ingredients weren’t easy to gather, especially the Purple Firmament Flower. It was something not even the imperial hospital had. He had no idea when he would find more again.
He was feeling disappointed, but he suddenly said, “Hold on!” He sensed some formation threads flickering inside of him. A new strange bird diagram was being formed.
Only now did he remember that the Golden Phoenix should have appeared during his eighth rank breakthrough. The reason it had never appeared was because he’d needed to advance to a certain level of the eighth rank first. Now, he was already at the ninth rank’s fourth step, so he had probably satisfied the conditions for the bird to appear for his ninth rank breakthrough.
Zu An couldn’t make out this weird bird’s exact appearance; he could only see flames. He could only vaguely make out feathers at their center.
Its name was written next to it in a few strands of flame: Fire Phoenix!
