Days and months didn’t matter when it came to cultivation. At some point, Wei Yuan finally met Zhang Sheng again. Half a month had passed since their last meeting.

He was incredibly excited to meet his master—at least, until he saw the coldness and impatience etched on the man’s face. He knew then that his shifu was still angry. But who or what on earth could infuriate the man for a month straight?

Wei Yuan didn’t dare to ask. He simply stood and waited for Zhang Sheng to check his homework and cultivation progress. Over fifty days had passed since he started developing his image; longer than even the longest time ever one had taken to develop an image. But forget using up the shadow on the moon, it hadn’t even budged an inch since making its appearance.

Every time Wei Yuan thought about his cultivation progress, he could not help but feel a little guilty and worried. It was because his image was only eight zhang long after all this time. Its size was barely passable, but the speed at which it was progressing was unsatisfactory to say the least. As if that wasn’t bad enough, his image was now completely devoid of extraordinary phenomena. That’s right. Somehow, the red line on the jade toad’s back had disappeared during one of his medicinal baths.

Generally speaking, there was only one explanation as to why this was happening—his insight was lacking. After all, it couldn’t possibly be that his jade toad was fake, and all the washing had caused it to fade in color, right?

Surprisingly, Zhang Sheng wasn’t surprised to hear that Wei Yuan was still developing his image. He then ordered him to manifest it.

Wei Yuan did as he said and channeled his method, manifesting the Jade Toad Full Moon Painting in his sea of consciousness.

The image was somewhat big, and... that was it. The ground was barren, the rock was devoid of any luster, and even the jade toad possessed a dismal complexion. The only unusual thing about his image was the shadow on the moon.

Everyone who could cultivate the Jade Toad Full Moon Painting was a bearer of great fortune, and one’s fortune was mainly reflected by the moon. Naturally, the extraordinary phenomena manifested by the various types of great fortunes were outstanding as well. For example, the images the previous generations had left behind included dragons, phoenixes, qilins, and other exotic beasts; ritual tripods for sacrificing to the heavens, greenish mountains of unfathomable heights, multi-storeyed immortal palaces, and more. To put it bluntly, every single one of these images could scare the life out of a person and leave them with nothing but envy—which was precisely the point. Why else would anyone bother to record their images in the books?

On a related note, the swarm of gods and devils on Bao Yun’s moon deserved a spot in the disciples’ cultivation insight as well. In fact, it would rank somewhere near the top.

In comparison, Wei Yuan’s shadow was positively unpresentable. Its actual effects weren’t all that impressive either. The foundation converted from its fortune was unusually poor, and it was only passable after Ji Liuli had refined it.

Zhang Sheng didn’t say anything after reviewing his image. He simply moved on and tested Wei Yuan on his history and techniques instead.

History was Wei Yuan’s forte, so he answered every question his master had thrown at him as easily as he drew breath. However, technique was a much broader and varied subject, not to mention that his foundation wasn’t solidified yet. He had also spent almost all of his time on consuming lunar essences and none on techniques.

They were still reviewing his homework when suddenly, someone knocked on the door. A servant stepped inside and placed a letter on a shelf before taking his leave. He never said a single word.

The writing on the letter stated: To Zhang Sheng.

The scholar grunted knowing that someone had purposely delivered the letter knowing that he was here. He couldn’t be bothered to guess who was the sender either. He opened the envelope and produced a piece of paper. One look at the paper was enough to cause the tip of his eyebrow to twitch slightly.

Wei Yuan was curious about the contents of the letter, but his master shifted his position and blocked it completely from view. Still, his sharp eyes caught a glimpse of a long, long string of numbers and the word “taels” at the end of it. Did it have something to do with immortal silver?

After reading the contents of the letter, Zhang Sheng summoned a fireball and burned it all to ash. He then looked at Wei Yuan and asked, “Has Ji Liuli been refining your foundation this entire time?”

“Yes. She said it will take three months.”

He wondered why, but he felt like his master nearly let slip a sigh of relief when he heard his answer.

Zhang Sheng then placed a jade bottle on the table and said, “This is the Vigor Nurturing Pill. It can greatly replenish your vigor and accelerate your cultivation speed. Take one every three days. There’s enough to last you for a month.”

“Thank you, Master!” Wei Yuan bowed in thanks, but the pressure inside his chest grew a tad heavier.

At the Palace of Absolute Beginning, pills and medicine were an indispensable part of one’s cultivation. In terms of the Dao of pill-making alone, the Palace was unmatched even in the entire cultivation world. Many of the pills produced by the Mother Nature Monastery were famed for their potency and mild side effects. For example, the Vigor Nurturing Pill could greatly accelerate one’s progress in the Body-tempering stage—especially the tempering of the flesh. One pill could make up for ten days of hard work. Not only that, its side effects were so mild that one could consume them almost indefinitely. It would not be an exaggeration to call it the panacea of body-tempering.

Everyone had a use for a godlike medicine like this, so it was expensive as a matter of course. A single pill cost one hundred and twenty immortal silver, and its price only ever went up. Only a core disciple descending from the main branch of an aristocratic family could afford to consume it daily like your everyday meal.

Wei Yuan could only afford one Vigor Nurturing Pill if he saved up his monthly allowance for a whole year. That was why he had never even considered buying it before. Although Zhang Sheng was looking at him with utter disdain right now, the bottle of Vigor Nurturing Pill revealed his true feelings.

After setting down the pills, the scholar said, “I’ll return next month.”

“I have one more question, Master.” Wei Yuan hurriedly called out to Zhang Sheng and voiced his thoughts. “The time I’m taking to develop my image has exceeded the longest record. What should I do now?”

“Keep cultivating as long as the shadow on the moon still exists. You don’t need to consider anything else.”

Wei Yuan’s anxiety finally settled after receiving a sure answer from Zhang Sheng. But before he could see him off properly, his master had already taken off into the sky and vanished in an instant. It seemed like he couldn’t be bothered to exchange another word with him.

Wei Yuan threw himself into cultivation immediately after Zhang Sheng had left. His progress was already lagging much further behind the others. Naturally, he couldn’t afford to waste even a minute; a second. The urgency had only increased now that his master had given him the Vigor Nurturing Pills. Without exaggeration, every single pill sat inside his chest like a boulder.

As expected, rain started falling in his image as soon as he consumed the Vigor Nurturing Pills. It couldn’t compare to the Chonglou Sea Pacifying Pill, but it still greatly enhanced the speed at which he was consuming lunar essence. To be specific, it was over ten times his normal cultivation speed.

Another thing to note was that the size of the jade toad and the moon influenced his consumption speed as well.

For the next thirty days, Wei Yuan kept consuming lunar essences. At the end of the month, Zhang Sheng arrived as promised and delivered him a new bottle of Vigor Nurturing Pills. This confused him because according to the regulations, the monthly allowance of a Dao Foundation disciple was in the hundreds, and a Trueman’s was in the thousands. In other words, this bottle of Vigor Nurturing Pills was worth one year of Zhang Sheng’s monthly allowance.

Although the regulations also stated that a genius disciple was afforded a slightly better allowance than your average disciple, it could not possibly surpass that of an Avatar Trueman. Assuming that Zhang Sheng kept sending him a bottle of Vigor Nurturing Pills each month, it was only a matter of time before his master went bankrupt.

As soon as Zhang Sheng showed up, the servant who delivered the letter last time appeared on time and delivered a letter that looked exactly the same as last month’s. Just like last time, his master burned it as soon as he read everything. After that, he took one glance at Wei Yuan’s image and left in a hurry, not even bothering to check his homework anymore.

Wei Yuan had the distinct feeling that his master was boiling with irritation. He was just bottling it all up. His irritation only got worse after he read the letter. He could literally see wisps of sword qi threatening to burst out of his master’s body. However, his master valued his face above anything else, and it would be suicide to prod him about something he didn’t wish to answer. Having studied under him for quite a few years, he knew better than to trigger his master.

In the fourth month, Wei Yuan consumed lunar essence and Vigor Nurturing Pills while worrying about his image’s progress and Zhang Sheng’s purse.

In the fifth month, he consumed lunar essence in a state of total focus.

In the sixth month, the jade toad consumed lunar essence.

In the seventh month, he pondered on the life of a toad.

In the eighth month, he decided that the life of a toad wasn’t worth it.

Also, Zhang Sheng didn’t bother opening the envelope this month. He directly ripped it in half.

In the ninth month, the centralized learning students somehow got into a fight with the Traditional Party disciples. Bao Yun and Cui Yu appointed themselves as the leaders of the Reform Party, rounded up everyone, and went looking for trouble. As expected, they got into a fight. Wei Yuan couldn’t miss this as a matter of course, but he was the only one still developing his image while everyone was starting to temper their body. Naturally, he got beaten blue and black for his troubles.

......

In the twelveth month, the jade toad gave up on thinking altogether[1].

......

1. Poor guy is just drooling like a mental patient at this point. XD ☜