Begonia Manor was in unrest for the next few days as people were mobilized here and there.

Ning Xiaochuan took this opportunity to fully take over Begonia Manor as he arranged for the people that were once pushed to the side to become attendants.

These people were all once servants that had been bullied. Now that Ning Xiaochuan had promoted them and given them more authority, they were all incredibly loyal to Ning Xiaochuan.

Meanwhile, Maiden Yu Yan was promoted to Begonia Manor’s little housekeeper. She was as busy as a little bee every single day.

“Slam!”

Ning Xiaochuan chopped off approximately 1 pound of Blood-toad Wood. Then, he placed it into his palm, crushing the Blood-toad Wood into dust before absorbing it into his body.

Blood Qi was boiling in the Heart-nourishing Cauldron as it formed into droplets of Blood-toad Liquid.

As the Devil Sword absorbed the Blood-toad Liquid, veins started appearing on the sword. It released a unique Qi that carried a Qi that was different from the Combat Qi.

This Qi excited the Earthly Martial Qi hiding within his bloodstream, breaking it down into Combat Qi. This caused the Combat Qi stored in his Combat Atrium to become even denser.

On the other hand, Official Tian stood still as he stared at Ning Xiaochuan’s cultivation from a far distance. His gaze was filled with curiosity.

He became more and more curious about this youngster as he could feel that Ning Xiaochuan’s Cultivation obviously increased every day.

For the next few days, Ning Xiaochuan would spend 6 hours reading scrolls to further increase his knowledge on the Yulan Empire. Then, he would use the Blood-toad Wood to further his Cultivation, improving it drastically.

He finally broke through on the eighth day and his Qi reached Stage Nine.

As his Qi reached Stage Nine, his blood would cycle through his body seven times in a minute. It was like a giant river of blood gushing in his body.

His Combat Qi’s flow rate was incredibly quick. By gently moving his palm, he was able to form a huge Qi Sword and shot it out, splitting the pond into two.

The water in the pond gushed chaotically and it took quite a while for it to calm down.

Suddenly, Ning Xiaochuan felt a strange sensation within him. It was as if an eye had spawned behind his back, and he immediately jumped up and counter attacked with his sword.

Official Tian was so shrouded in his black robes that even his face was covered by it. The only thing that was revealed was his green eyes. Seeing that Ning Xiaochuan had discovered him and even shot out a sword towards him, he could not help but feel astounded as he started smiling coldly. “Not bad.”

He started gliding like a big black bird. As he stepped onto the dense Qi beneath his feet, he resembled an eagle that was attacking its prey.

As Ning Xiaochuan landed on the ground, he stomped on the ground and flew back up in the sky once more. Then, he released his Qi Sword once again. “Qi Sword Five Continuous Cleaves!”

Ning Xiaochuan released five continuous swords in quick succession, each one larger than the last.

In comparison to Qi Sword Three Continuous Cleaves, Qi Sword Five Continuous Sword was at least five times stronger as the Qi Sword was stacked in five layers, one after the other.

“Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!”

As the five Qi Blades reached Official Tian’s body, they broke down automatically, transforming into Heaven and Earth Qi before vanishing into thin air.

Ning Xiaochuan knew that his Cultivation was no match to this old monster. Hence, he decided to stop attacking. “Why haven’t you left yet?”

Official Tian said, “Leave? No, no. Begonia Manor is Marquis Jiange’s Residence’s property and it’s also a good hiding spot. Why would I leave such a place?”

Ning Xiaochuan was rather speechless. “Are you going to hide here forever?”

Official Tian was silent for a long time and did not answer Ning Xiaochuan’s question because he did not know how long he would be hiding here. “Young man, your Qi should only be at Stage Nine, right? Have you learned Mind Perception already?”

“What’s Mind Perception?” Ning Xiaochuan asked skeptically.

Official Tian asked. “If you haven’t learned Mind Perception, how did you notice that I was spying on you at your current Cultivation?”

Ning Xiaochuan’s expression remained skeptical.

Official Tian continued. “It looks like you really have no idea what Mind Perception is. Since I’ve got nothing better to do, let me give you a lecture on it! The heart is the pivot of a human’s blood circulation. On the other hand, the Combat Atrium is the pivot of a martial artist’s Qi.”

“As a martial artist cultivates, his heart becomes stronger. When the heart reaches a certain level, a new sense is born. It’s supernatural and knows everything, even nature itself. This is known as the Mind by many people.”

“Once a martial artist has learned the Mind, he’ll be able to see his surroundings even if he has his eyes shut. In fact, one can even see things and places the eyes can’t see.”

“Many powerful martial artists are able to see the fish swimming in the water miles away when they close their eyes. Some martial artists’ Mind can even sense other people’s thoughts, see through the past, and even predict the future. Naturally, one’s Martial Art Cultivation must reach a certain height in order to achieve these.”

“The perception of the Mind is also known as “tacit”, “God’s sense”, “inspiration”, and “clear thought”. In legends, the people who achieve this are believed to have their organs connected to God. Hence, Mind Perception is born.”

Ning Xiaochuan then recalled that his heart was known as the Seven-orifices Devil Heart and one of the orifices was the heart orifice¹.

In other words, he was born with a clear thought and naturally, Mind Perception.

It was no wonder that he could vaguely sense something whenever he was in trouble.

‘No wonder I’m able to see through my enemies’ Cultivation even though I’m weaker than them. When my enemies’ Cultivation is much higher than mine, I won’t be able to see it anymore. That must be because my heart orifice isn’t powerful enough yet.’

Official Tian continued. “Generally, one would only start learning the very basics of Mind Perception when one reaches the Secular Realm. Naturally, there are only a handful of people who can achieve this. Only those who have attained the Earthly Supreme Realm can fully utilize Mind Perception. Of course, there are some extremely rare talented and gifted people who pick up Mind Perception while they’re still in the Qi Realm. However, these people are extremely rare and you can’t even find one out of a million martial artists.”

The Cultivation Realms could be separated into Qi Realm, Divine Body Realm, Secular Realm, and Earthly Supreme Realm.

Each major realm could be separated into nine minor realms.

The Qi Realm was the most basic realm, and was also the realm most of the martial artists peaked.

The Divine Body Realm was also known as the Supernatural Realm. Martial artists who had arrived at this realm were incredibly skilled as they could be considered as transcending mortality. They were able to give birth to all types of unimaginable Divine Bodies that no martial artist in the Qi Realm could match with.

Not many martial artists could be seen to have achieved the Secular Realm. They rarely appeared and most of them possessed a high ranking. Their cultivations were so high that one would not be able to tell how strong they were.

Once one surpassed the Secular Realm, one would become an Earthly Supreme, which was done by entering the Earthly Supreme Realm.

Martial artists who achieved the Earthly Supreme Realm were also known as Martial Supremes by the commoners.

That was how the saying “One becomes a Martial Supreme when one surpasses Secularity” came about!

Ning Xiaochuan asked as he could not hold in his curiosity, “Has your cultivation reached the Earthly Supreme Realm?”

Official Tian glanced at Ning Xiaochuan before shaking his head. “Not everyone can reach the Earthly Supreme Realm. When your cultivation is high enough, you’ll realize just how difficult it is to reach that realm. The same goes for those high-ranking Nobles, not all of them are Martial Supremes. Yue Wuyang, that b*stard, if not for his luck… Do you really think he can achieve the Earthly Supreme Realm at the age of twenty-six? Truthfully, those who are able to reach the Earthly Supreme Realm before the age of sixty can be considered as the most talented martial artists. Hmpf!”

Official Tian’s grudge against Yue Wuyang was incredibly strong. He soon left the place angrily.

One month passed by. Although Ning Xiaochuan’s Qi had reached Stage Nine, he was not excited in the least. That was because advancing to the Divine Body Realm from Qi’s Stage Nine was a huge bottleneck. Many talented martial artists spent years, and some even decades, at this stage.

One needed more than just enough Qi in order to reach the Divine Body Realm. One required to go through a complete qualitative change, evolving beyond a mortal body to obtain a Divine Body.

What exactly was a Divine Body?

A commoner’s body consisted of flesh, blood, water, muscles, and bones. On the other hand, a Divine Body Realm martial artist would use this flesh and blood to build their Divine Blood and Esteemed Flesh, upgrading the water, muscles, and bones in them into Spiritual Water, Divine Muscles, and Divine Bones respectively.

Why would the monks from the Devil Sect want to eat human flesh? Especially the flesh of a Divine Body Realm martial artist?

That was because the flesh and blood of a Divine Body Realm martial artist was equivalent to Low-grade Mystical Medicine. Once they had eaten the flesh, they would be able to further increase their cultivations in the Devil Sect.

Humans were their medicine and food.

This was what made everyone frightened of the monks from the Devil Sect.

“One must activate the Three Great Hidden Vessels in order to reach the Divine Body Realm and open up the innate energy lying dormant within the body. Miracles will happen as your flesh and blood will transcend from mortality into a Divine Body.”

Ning Xiaochuan did not read anything related to the Three Great Hidden Vessels when he was reading Heaven and Earth Qi. The problem was that every martial artist’s hidden vessels were different and the path differed as well. One could only sense the path of the three hidden vessels and activate them once their cultivations reached a certain height.

There were hidden vessels within a human’s body?

Even if Ning Xiaochuan had not dissected a thousand corpses before, he had at least dissected eight hundred of them. Yet, he had never seen any hidden vessels.

Perhaps this was what differentiated a commoner from a martial artist. Take the Combat Atrium as an example, a martial artist had it but a commoner did not.

Ning Xiaochuan closed Heaven and Earth Qi and shut his eyes. He focused as he tried to find Three Great Hidden Vessels that were mentioned in the book.

This proceeded for an entire night. While the Qi in his body had increased greatly, he could not find where his hidden vessels were.

“It looks like I’ve got to buy a mid-grade Pill in order to advance to the Divine Body Realm in a short amount of time. Only a mid-grade Pill will quickly reveal the Three Great Hidden Vessels within me. However, mid-grade Pills can only be bought in the Imperial City.”

Ning Xiaochuan headed to Begonia Manor’s storeroom and took out all of the money within. There were a total of three silver plates, four thousand silver coins, and sixty-thousand copper coins. His carriage was fully loaded from it but in actuality, he only had about one million three hundred thousand copper coins.

“Bidding for a mid-grade Pill will start from one million copper coins and I’m not sure I’ll be able to get the cheapest one with the money I currently have. Furthermore, Begonia Manor will have no more cash if I were to buy a mid-grade Pill. Money… I guess it’s a thing everyone has trouble with no matter where.”

Ning Xiaochuan rode a carriage full of his “allowance” as he headed to the Imperial City with the intent of buying a mid-grade Pill.

To ensure that he had enough money, he had even chopped off a branch of Blood-toad Wood that weighed roughly 55 pounds. He then covered it in a big black cloth and placed it in the carriage.

An hour later, he arrived at the Imperial City.

…