Chapter 251: Cultivation Is Difficult
"How about Yujia and Yanzi share a room?" Grandma suggested.
"No!" They refused at the same time.
Xie Yujia had been humoring Zhao Yanzi, but the latter's attitude began to get on her nerves. That was why she immediately showed her opinion even though she knew Zhao Yanzi wouldn't agree to share a room with her.
Grandma was surprised at their answer. In her eyes, gentle Xie Yujia and adorable Zhao Yanzi were supposed to like each other.
"Then... What's your suggestion?" Grandma asked after a moment of hesitation.
Hao Ren busied himself with clearing the table and didn't join the discussion. Obviously, placing Zhao Yanzi and Xie Yujia together was a bad idea. Although Zhao Yanzi didn't regard him as her Fuma, she would try her best to protect her right as his 'owner.'
"How about Grandma and I sharing a room and Zi sleep in one room by herself. I'm afraid we will disturb each other if I share a room with Zi," Xie Yujia said.
Grandma was about to nod when Zhao Yanzi yelled, "Grandma, I want to sleep with you!"
She was determined to oppose everything Xie Yujia suggested. She walked up to the stairs to Grandma's side.
Xie Yujia gave in. "Ok. I'll sleep in the middle room."
The middle room was Hao Zhonghua and Yue Yang's room. It was a big room, and she had meant to give it to Zhao Yanzi as a favor.
However, Zhao Yanzi thought Xie Yujia tried to get close to Grandma by offering to sleep in Grandma's room. Anyway, she felt she must guard Grandma against Xie Yujia's schemes.
In her heart, Hao Ren was like a doll she neglected each day when it sat on the head of her bed. However, when some other kid came to her home and tried to take the doll from her, she would do everything she can to stop it.
"Ok, that's settled. Yujia, your room is next to Hao Ren's, and if you have any problems, you go to him. And I will keep this little girl company tonight." Grandma pinched Zhao Yanzi's pink and soft cheek.
Hearing Grandma's words, Zhao Yanzi was nervous again. "Right, with Grandma and I sharing a room, Xie Yujia will be free to do whatever she wants. What if she gets up and goes to Hao Ren's room in the middle of the night?"
But she had promised to share a room with Grandma and couldn't go back on her words. She had made her bed and must sleep on it now.
"Ok, let's go wash up and call it a night." Seeming to have noticed the hostility between the girls, Grandma tried to smooth things over.
"Ok. I'll help Ren clean the dishes." Xie Yujia walked to the dining room.
Zhao Yanzi gritted her teeth and glared at Xie Yujia as if she wanted to jump on her from the stairs.
Ignoring Zhao Yanzi's displeasure, Xie Yujia walked to Hao Ren's side and began to help him clear the table.
"Come into the room, Zi. I'll tell you stories." Grandma held Zhao Yanzi's hand and started for her room.
Zhao Yanzi looked up at Grandma's friendly face, feeling morose.
"If Ren dares to bully you, you tell me, and I'll deal with him." Caressing Zhao Yanzi's delicate face, Grandma took her into the room.
In the dining room, Xie Yujia was efficiently clearing up the dirty dishes. Then, she put them into the sink in the kitchen before washing and letting them dry.
"It's late, and I'm going to bed now. Tomorrow we have classes," drying her hands with a small towel, Xie Yujia said.
"Ok." Hao Ren looked at her and was at a loss for words.
She walked to the stairs, and Hao Ren heard her soft steps on the floor and a soft click when her door closed.
Looking at the surging black sea outside, Hao Ren sighed slightly. Shutting the doors of the cupboard, he also walked up to the second floor.
Zhao Yanzi and Grandma were talking in their room, but they were two doors away with the door and windows closed. Hao Ren couldn't hear clearly what they were talking about even with his acute hearing ability. Not wanting to eavesdrop at their door, he gave up any thought of listening to their conversation.
He opened the window to a crack and let the humid sea wind come into the room. Then he sat down on the bed cross-legged and began cultivating the Light Splitting Sword Shadow Scroll.
The Light Splitting Sword Shadow Scroll absorbed the essence from nature to replenish the stock in his body while maintaining the balance of the five elements. By now, Hao Ren had unlocked 39 openings and was only one step away from Zhen-level.
He didn't know that Xie Yujia in the next room didn't sleep after her shower. She was also sitting cross-legged, cultivating.
Despite their different cultivation techniques, they both absorbed the essence in nature to nurture their bodies. It was a common cultivation technique among the human cultivators.
Surges of essence began to accumulate from the surrounding areas kilometers away from there. They came to the air above the house before turning into pure five elements sparks, flying toward Xie Yujia's room!
If any human cultivators had seen such a scene, they would have thought a Nascent Soul Realm Master was cultivating there!
Turning the chaotic essence from nature into the pure five elements essences before absorbing them into the body was the awe-inspiring cultivation technique that only Nascent Soul Realm Masters could manage.
However, this effect came from the Life Note in Xie Yujia's palm.
With the Life Note, cultivators could steal the life essence from nature and insert it into their own bodies. By condensing the Nature Essence into the purest elements and injecting them into her body, Xie Yujia was practicing a great technique!
The reason that the old Grandma planted such a powerful Life Note in Xie Yujia was not that she had great talent in cultivation; to the contrary, it was because Xie Yujia's cultivation talent was too poor.
Among the 100 percent Nature Essence energy, she could absorb at most one percent, which meant that 99 percent of the pure Nature Essence was wasted and would return to nature.
Besides, Xie Yujia was an inexperienced cultivator. Afraid that the salty wind would damage the furniture in the room, she had shut the windows tightly.
That was why the windows blocked the large amounts of pure Nature Essence that all cultivators coveted. Only a tiny part of it penetrated the windows in the form of faint light unseen to the naked eye and entered Xie Yujia's body.
In the room next to hers, Hao Ren was cultivating quietly while the Dragon Core in his body was absorbing the surrounding essence like a small engine.
Most of the Nature Essence blocked by Xie Yujia's windows began to enter Hao Ren's room through the open window.
The intensity of the essence in the room was so great that it could rival with Ninth Heaven.
Hao Ren shivered, and his Dragon Core began to absorb the large amounts of essence without having to condense them.
In his hidden space, Little White also sensed the change of essence intensity in the air, and it began to roll around desperately in the space. Usually, with the effects of the array formation, the hidden space's essence intensity was two or three times higher than that in the air outside. However, the current essence intensity in Hao Ren's room was 100 times higher than that of the hidden space!
Hao Ren was immersed in cultivating and was oblivious to Little White's frantic jumping in the hidden space.
With a bang, the most crucial 40th opening in the Dragon Core was unlocked. It was the result of the force of the surging essence!
Like the whirlpool currents under the power of an engine, the surges of essence pierced an opening in the Dragon Core!
Zhen-level! It was the equivalent to the Core Formation Realm for the human cultivators.
With the formation of the gold core, nature changed.
In fact, the air above the house was already tumbling due to the activation of the Life Note in Xie Yujia's palm.
The completely activated Dragon Core began to swallow the surrounding essence like crazy to replenish the lost essence in the Dragon Core. By now, 40 openings evenly positioned in the Dragon Core were connected to each other.
This was a small-scale array formation—Essence-Absorption Array Formation!
It was a unique feature of the Dragon Core and the reason why the dragon cultivators have a faster cultivation speed.
Ruff! Ruff...
Little White was tumbling in the hidden space, desperate to get out.
After the elevation of his realm, Hao Ren felt refreshed. Through the crack in the window, he shot out a beam of sword energy.
The white beam of sword energy shot into the sky and disappeared into the dark clouds. It flew hundreds of kilometers in the blink of an eye.
Hao Ren felt he had boundless Nature Essence at his command.
The feeling of Core Formation was totally different from that of the Foundation Establishment.
Sensing Little White's frantic movements in the hidden space, Hao Ren finally let it out.
It jumped out immediately and raised its nose in the air, absorbing the pure essence in the room desperately.
Boom!
Flames enveloped Little White's paws, and its body was filled of essence instantly!
Parts of its four paws turned golden.
It had successfully elevated into a Level 1 Spirit Beast.
In the next room, Xie Yujia lamented, "Why! Cultivation is so hard. I don't feel a thing after cultivating for such a long while."
She fell back onto the bed. Resigned, she pulled up the quilt and stopped cultivating.
She didn't know that she had absorbed less than one percent of the abundant Nature Essence. Most of the essence had returned to nature, and Hao Ren absorbed a small part of it, and Little White absorbed an even smaller part!
After elevating to Zhen-level, the equivalent of the Core Formation Realm, Hao Ren continued to circulate the Light Splitting Sword Shadow Scroll to solidify his realm. Meanwhile, Little White felt the fast disappearance of the Nature Essence; it barked frantically but couldn't do anything about it.
If the Nature Essence of such intensity could last a few more minutes, Little White would elevate from Level 1 to Level 2.
The night passed quietly. The second morning, Hao Ren heard someone knock on his door.
Sitting cross-legged, Hao Ren exhaled deeply before opening his eyes. "Who is it?"
"It's me. I made you breakfast." Xie Yujia's crisp voice sounded from outside the door.