‘It is quite big,’ Lan Feng said approvingly while looking around. ‘This cave will be able to gather quite a lot of qi.’ Hui Yue had a feeling that it was caused by having both himself and Lan Feng cohabiting within his body.

‘Sit down, cross your legs, and form your hands into the Bird hand seal,’ commanded Lan Feng. Hui Yue was a bit surprised at first but quickly followed the given order. He sat down with crossed legs and made the hand sign as told.

‘Steady your breath and follow the blood out towards your skin. When you reach the outer layer of your body open up a suction force and keep moving at a steady pace until you have gone a whole circle through your body then return here to your dantian,’ Lan Feng explained the best he could. Hui Yue gave a slight nod before his consciousness turned into a streak of light that made its way through his veins sucking up essence from outside.

It took him half an hour to go a full circle around his body, and when he returned to the dantian, he had a small mist of essence that was hanging around his consciousness, similar to a low valley that gathers mist early in the morning.

Lan Feng nodded content at the sight.

‘Sit down like before; now make sure you use the Bird hand seal. Do not open your eyes no matter what happens,’ he ordered, and was satisfied when he saw how Hui Yue followed his directions with no questions asked.

‘Keep breathing steadily. With each breath inhale some of the essence around you. Let it spin in a cyclone inside of you until it has turned as white as newly fallen snow. The whiter it is, the purer the quality,’ Lan Feng gave the final order before he stopped talking. The orb of blue fire was quiet as he spent his time observing Hui Yue refining the essence he gathered.

Hui Yue ended up spending five hours refining the essence. When he finally finished, all the essence around him had vanished; instead, it was replaced by a fine thread of qi. It was of the purest white. So white that it was shining and it kept swirling around itself in the middle of his dantian cave.

Hui Yue was exhausted but gratified. The amount of effort he had put in had only amounted to a single qi thread that looked so alone inside the empty cave.

However, this single qi thread was the product of Hui Yue’s hard work, and he felt great satisfaction within his heart.

‘Well done Hui Yue. That is a very good quality qi,’ Lan Feng said happily. He had never seen qi this pure before. Hui Yue had spent more time refining it than even Lan Feng expected. ‘Rest for today; we will do it again tomorrow. This will take a lot of time.’ Hui Yue nodded. Although he wished for the possibility of being a great talent, he quickly acknowledged that he needed to be realistic. Being a great talent was not very likely.

The days went by one after another. Hui Yue spent around six hours every day absorbing essence and refining it into qi. He wanted to absorb energy twice a day, but Lan Feng would not allow him to because the refinement took a lot of energy. If he were to try twice a day, the quality of qi was likely to drop.

Upon hearing the reasons, Hui Yue acquiesced. He wanted only the highest quality qi possible.

Deep inside he was grateful for the help the phoenix was giving him, and their initial enmity had almost completely dissipated. In return, Lan Feng was slightly less haughty towards Hui Yue as he was astonished by the boy’s perseverance.

Hui Yue never complained as he struggled day after day while absorbing the essence and refining it. Hui Yue’s qi was of a quality much purer than his own had been before, and the fact that Hui Yue followed any order given caused Lan Feng to take a liking to the stubborn young man.

Apart from refining qi, Hui Yue began to understand that he was born into a poor family. He had no siblings, but his parents were both young. His mother, named Hui Lifen, was younger than Hui Yue had been in his previous life; leaving Hui Yue feeling rather odd about the whole situation.

His father, Hui Guang, was earning money by going into the forest and collecting medicinal herbs. Nevertheless, he could only gather low-grade medicine as they had the least amount of danger. Both of his parents were Student ranked cultivators; his mother was a four star while his father was a seven star Student.

Lan Feng said it was the result of not cultivating, but by passively absorbing essence during their everyday life. It was likely that everyone from his village was ranked somewhere in the Student level because they did not have the resources or knowledge to seriously cultivate. Even if they managed to reach the nine star Student rank, the quality of their qi would be too poor to allow for any breakthrough.

Everyone who worked in this village lived by gathering medicinal herbs and once a month they would travel towards Riluo City and sell them.

As none of them were cultivators, they would be given the absolutely lowest price possible for the herbs, but that was enough for everyone in the village to survive. Even if they were poor, everyone helped each other, and the whole village was incredibly friendly.

Hui Yue’s new mother looked after their shack while growing vegetables. During the day she also helped look after the few animals that the village raised. She would bring Hui Yue with her on her daily chores to watch over him, but Hui Yue would usually be sleeping.