Life as a Rogue Cultivator

Chapter 267: Tenth Layer of Qi Refinement

Day after day Liu Xiaolou kept at it, blowing that flute till his lips went numb. The little shimmer of light that peeked out from the instrument slowly grew. At first you couldn’t even tell what you were looking at. It was just this wobbly bubble of light that kept changing shape. But after a couple of weeks, the bubble had grown to about the size of a kid’s head, and it had taken on a soft, pale yellow glow.Liu Xiaolou kept playing the Nurturing the Soul tone. Every time he played, birds would settle on the branches around him and beasts would gather to watch. Meanwhile, that glow inside the flute grew a little more each day.

After one month, the light had stretched to more than two feet long.

After two months, it reached three feet. And had split into two tightly connected parts, one large and one small.

After three months, the glow had grown to about three and a half feet. The two connected shapes kept developing. The smaller one split into two little branches, while the larger one split into five.

By the fourth month, it had stretched to four feet. Each branch sharpened in detail. The smaller part now looked like a head with pointed ears, and the larger part had begun to form limbs and a tail.

After five months, the glow had become much clearer. It was now obvious that it was the phantom of the dead spirit leopard. Its actual body still hung from the tree branch below, dried out and withered by time.

By the sixth month, the leopard’s eyes, nose, ears, mouth, claws, and tail had all fully taken shape, and faint brown markings were beginning to ripple across its body.

After half a year of hard practice, Liu Xiaolou finally succeeded in nurturing the soul.

He’d played the Nurturing the Soul tone hundreds of times by now. So many that, no matter how beautiful the tune was, playing it every single day made him feel like he might throw up. Honestly, what made him happiest right now wasn’t the successful cultivation of the spirit leopard’s soul, but the fact that he could finally play something else.

The leopard’s phantom was still faint, small, and not yet fully clear. To make it strong enough to fight, he would need to play the third tone -- .

But that was long-term work. The effectiveness of the tune depended heavily on the strength of the cultivator, and with Liu Xiaolou’s current level, even the best performance of Soul-Fortifying would only help the leopard’s phantom a little. So from here on out, he’d have to devote most of his time to improving his own cultivation.

So he pulled a spirit stone from his Qiankun Pouch and, following the True Mysteries Technique, began absorbing spiritual energy, converting it into true qi, and using it to break through his acupoints.

In this little world under the tree demon’s shadow, Liu Xiaolou’s cultivation routine was very disciplined. Every morning, he would play the Soul-Fortifying tune once to help the spirit leopard’s phantom grow. This piece was bold and stirring. Nothing like the gentle, soothing melody he’d played before. As a result, the birds no longer came, and the animals no longer gathered. However, the tree demon reacted more: its branches trembled and swayed, even without any wind.

From late morning until dusk, he held a spirit stone and continued cultivating his meridians, working hard to open one acupoint after another, steadily pushing toward the ninth layer of Qi Refinement.

In the evenings, he would play the Soul-Fortifying tune one more time, then sit down to whatever the demon tree had tossed him for dinner. Most days it was birds, snakes, mice, and all kinds of fruit. Every now and then, though, he’d get something downright creepy. Like a wriggling giant centipede or a fat, glossy beetle.

Every so often, the tree demon would toss him something with a bit of spiritual energy.

His favorite, though, was a type of unknown red berry packed with spiritual energy. A handful, maybe a dozen or so, was worth almost half a spirit stone. Unfortunately, no matter how carefully Liu Xiaolou searched through the demon tree’s little patch of land, he could never find where those berries actually grew.

There was also a thumb-sized grub. Fat, disgusting to look at, but surprisingly delicious once he bit into it. Every mouthful burst with rich, savory juices, no worse than the Su family’s famous Osmanthus Fragrance wine. If he could eat those regularly, he probably wouldn’t even need spirit stones to cultivate.

Unfortunately, the berries and the grubs weren’t something he could get every day, which was a real pity.

The reasons he was able to focus so well on his cultivation, aside from wanting to escape as soon as possible, was that, for some unknown reason, the unopened points along his Hand Greater Yang Meridian had become much easier to clear. It felt as if someone had already “loosened” them for him. Liu Xiaolou suspected it might have something to do with the demon tree’s branches having once burrowed into him to siphon off his blood essence.

He broke through the Xiaohai acupoint in just six days. After that came Jianzhen, which took seven days, then Naoshu in five. Tianzong took him six days, and Bingfeng five. Quyuan, being a major acupoint, took nine days, which was still much faster than anything he’d managed before.

Then came Jianwaishu, Jianzhongshu, Tianchuang, Tianróng, Quanliao, all the way until the final barrier: the Tinggong acupoint.

He’d originally planned to spend a full month just loosening Tinggong, but it only took him nine days. With that, the entire Hand Greater Yang Meridian flowed through in one go.

From Xiaohai to Tinggong, he cleared thirteen acupoints along most of the meridian in less than three months. It was unbelievable, twice as fast as what he’d achieved back on Ganzhu Ridge.

With that, he officially stepped into the ninth layer of Qi Refinement

After spending so much time in the mountains, he’d lost all sense of time. There was no one to ask, so he could only estimate. And by his guess, he should be around twenty-six by now.

Qi Refinement, ninth layer, at twenty-six. Not bad at all.

He pushed stray thoughts aside and kept going. The ninth layer of the True Mysteries Technique required cultivating the Foot Lesser Yin Meridian, starting from Yongquan and ending at Yufu, with a total of twenty-seven acupoints to open. This meridian had far more acupoints than the earlier ones, and many of them were major ones with their own primordial pools -- Yongquan, Dazhong, Zhubin, Siman, Shangqu, Tonggu, Youmen, Shenfeng, Lingxu, Shenzang, Yufu... the list went on.

At his old cultivation pace, even assuming he had plenty of spirit stones, it would have taken at least two to two and a half years to clear them all.

But like the previous meridian, this Foot Lesser Yin Meridian also seemed to have been loosened and partially opened by the demon tree’s branches, making the cultivation surprisingly easy.

Yongquan took only seven days, then Rangu and Taixi just five. Dazhong needed eight days, but Shuquan, Zhaohai, Fuliu, and Jiaoxin all took only four. Zhoubin finished in seven. Then came Yinggu, Henggu, Dahe, and Qixue... these were downright unbelievable, each taking only three days!

By the time Liu Xiaolou opened up Siman, he had already cleared half the entire meridian in just two months.

And as his cultivation skyrocketed, the spirit leopard’s phantom also grew stronger, fuller, clearer, and more livelier. It was now about the size of a young leopard.

He pressed on, grinding away at it, breaking through one acupoint after another -- Zhongzhu, Shangqu, Shiguan, Yindu.

Another two months slipped by, and in one go he opened the final acupoint, Yufu, successfully breaking through to the tenth layer of Qi Refinement!

The tenth layer of True Mysteries Technique was supposed to be the toughest stage of all. It focused on the Foot Greater Yang Meridian, a full sixty-seven acupoints in total. Normally, you’d need three to five years to clear it, but Liu Xiaolou didn’t feel it was difficult at all. This meridian had been loosened up as well.

In one month, he cleared eight acupoints -- Jingming, Zanzhu, Meichong, Qucha, Wuchu, Chengguang, Tongtian, and Luoqu. So fast that he would wake up laughing even in his sleep.

But the good times came to an abrupt end. The spirit stones were completely used up, and the Bamboo Leaf Green that once filled half his storage space was gone too.

For a while, Liu Xiaolou’s cultivation just… stalled.

He felt pretty depressed about it. But after sulking for a bit, he accepted reality.

He summoned the spirit leopard phantom from his flute and took a careful look at it. It was nowhere near as impressive as the giant serpent phantom that Badong’s cultivator once had, but it had finally started to take shape.

Over five feet long, with lifelike expressions and fur that matched the real leopard’s colors perfectly... everything about it was stunning.

As expected, the phantom kept evolving as his cultivation grew. Now that he’d reached the tenth layer, the phantom was clearly stronger than it had been at the eighth or ninth layer.

After studying it for a long while, Liu Xiaolou made up his mind. He would cultivate the phantom for another three months. Then make his escape!