Fang Xing threw the fresh weeds into his mouth and gobbled them down in seconds while Freckle-Boy and Ghost-Face watched on in disbelief and horror.
"Don’t disturb me without a good reason!" Red-eyed, Fang Xing slammed the door shut behind him and locked himself in the wood cabin.
The boys looked at each other and agreed that Fang Xing must have gone out of his mind. The weed was called "Hwa’jin1", and a single leaf consumed by a fully-grown man could make a woman cry from pleasure for an entire night, to say nothing of a whole handful of them. To be consumed by a boy who had yet to even hit puberty….
What the hell did he want to bang?
Seated in the lotus position, Fang Xing could feel an irresistible urge rising up from his lower abdomen while a small bulge stood up noticeably against the front of his pants. Remembering the instructions in the Qing-Yun’s Qi Formation, Fang Xing attempted to take the Jing he’d just devoured and circulate it throughout his veins. He repeatedly pushed it through his body before directing it into his lower dantian2, trying to compress and reshape the Jing into a force that would push open his pores to receive Qi.
The enormous amount of Jing tortured Fang Xing as he tried to restrain the unruly energy contained within him. Red veins burst in his eyes, and his lips cracked under the strain. ‘I can do it!’ Fang Xing thought to himself, enduring the burning sensation throughout his entire body while focusing on keeping the Jing on its correct path.
Twenty minutes passed.
An hour passed.
Still seated in the same position, Fang Xing’s face was flushed in an unnatural tone of purplish red. Something inside him was rapidly changing.
As he concentrated on keeping the Jing on its path, he began to feel a faint but refreshing sensation tickling at his senses. As this progressed, however, the heat and violent energy was replaced with an agonizing ache coming from his meridians.
"So I guessed it right…." Aching all over, Fang Xing carefully converted the last trace of Jing.
He’d been skeptical this would work at first, but this made him excited. It had just been a freakish idea he’d come up with when he saw the weeds Freckle-Boy had in his hands. It was an idea stemming from a sentence in the Book of Revelation concerning Qing-Yun’s Qi Formation.
Using his studies on the flow of circulation illustrated in detail in the Qing-Yun’s Qi Formation, Fang Xing had concluded the first step into cultivation required building up Qi through meditation. Those lucky enough to be born with exceptionally high aptitude could even passively accumulate Qi with every effortless breath and movement they made.
It was not rare for most people—such as Wang Zhi—to make zero progress in feeling Qi despite seven years of effort, and most of these people would only die in vain trying. The only method for these ordinary people was to rely on an outside energy to force Qi into their bodies, but even then, their path of cultivation was usually short-lived—most only went as far as the lower tiers of Spirit Stage.
Jing was a condensed form of essence that contained the energy to create life and usually went undetected while existing peacefully within the body. Most people couldn’t feel the existence of Jing, and even when they could, it was only after years and years of conscious accumulation. Fang Xing, on the other hand, was bold and quick-witted, and he dove headfirst into what he thought might work without much hesitation. It was fortunate that it was a risk worth taking, but in reality, he was just one of the lucky few who’d made it through.
If there was too little to be felt, then make it plentiful!
After three Hwa’jin weeds, it was most definitely plentiful. The burning sensation was the most literal reaction to a copious amount of Jing, and it was then that Fang Xing began his attempts to condense and convert it. Although the Qi produced by this process would be practically nothing in the end, it was still something.
Without enough determination and stamina to control oneself, this method could result in dangerous instability, dealing terminal damage to internal organs and even the mental state. Despite his young age, Fang Xing was ruthless not only towards those who might pose a threat to him, but also towards himself.
Grrr….
As the aching sensation slowly eased, Fang Xing’s stomach growled out as loudly as if he hadn’t eaten once in the past three days. It turned out that when converting Jing into Qi, a large amount of the user’s own energy and vitality was also used up in the process. The first and most obvious sign was the dizziness and hunger.
"Argh, I need something to eat, fast!"
As Fang Xing sluggishly pushed himself up, his hands accidentally landed on the Book of Revelation. "Huh?" As soon as his hands made contact with the book, he felt a slight tremor throughout his meridians before the book disappeared right before his very eyes. The sudden event left Fang Xing stumbling slightly, and he worked to regain his balance.
"Where did the book go?" Fang Xing scrambled through everything around him, unable to believe the book had just disappeared into thin air. He was sure it was there just a second ago.
‘Qing-Yun’s Qi Formation. Suitable for Spirit Stage. A manual for beginner cultivation….’
Just as he’d grabbed the Qing-Yun’s Qi Formation to see if the Book of Revelation was hidden beneath it, that very familiar description had flashed across his mind.
"What the…." It took some time before Fang Xing was finally convinced the book had made its way into his mind. "You’ve got to be kidding me…. An entire book? How is that even going to fit in my brain?" While lingering on the thought of his brain exploding due to having a whole book crammed inside it, Fang Xing rubbed his empty stomach and finally walked outside the wooden cabin.
Night had already fallen, and the gang cautiously watched the wooden cabin while gathered around some food and wine. They were scared Fang Xing would come out of the cabin either insane or murderous, and so were intentionally quite some distance away.
"Did he really eat all of it?" Wang Zhi asked in disbelief while taking a sip from his wine. He’d asked the same question three times already, yet he was still unconvinced.
"Not only that, he swallowed them whole! He didn’t even bother chewing!" Freckle-Boy—still horror-struck—whispered while glancing nervously towards the cabin.
"Oh dear…. I’m certain he couldn’t endure it even if it was just one, let alone all three of them! He’s… he’s not—you know—into that sort of thing, is he? I mean, if he’s had so many, he’ll need to let it go with someone!" Wang Zhi shuddered at the thought before looking at Ghost-Face standing next to him. "Hey, Ghost-Face, we’ll all be counting on you!"
Ghost-Face dropped his half-eaten pork leg and desperately cried out, "I—I ain’t no good! It’ll hurt! H— how about… how about Freckle-Boy? You go!"
"No! That won’t work!" Freckle-Boy recoiled at the suggestion. "You’ve got the palest skin out of all of us; you’re the pretty boy here! You’re the best hustler we can find—there’s no better option!"
"What hustler?" a husky voice asked, causing all five daotongs to shrivel up in fear. Before they knew it, Fang Xing had already walked to where they were hiding and—in high spirits—sat down to savagely devour the rest of the pork as though nobody was watching. His face, however, was noticeably pale and strikingly contrasted by the light of the bonfire.
For Fang Xing, it felt as though everything inside him had been used up. It was if his appetite had transformed into a black hole, and it didn’t seem to be satisfied no matter how much he ate. After some time, he finally stopped and washed down the last bit of pork with a couple shots of wine. Although he was still feeling hungry, his stomach was already too full to accept more.
"From today onwards, make sure to bring me three— no, one will do…. Bring me one Hwa’jin weed each day. I don’t care where it’s from or how you get it, whoever brings it to me first each day can be pardoned from their entire day’s worth of work. Oh, and we need to improve our meals a little, too! What’s with this? How is this enough? We will double… no, make it triple the amount of meat as well."
Everyone gazed blankly at Fang Xing, none of them having any idea what he was up to. As the oldest, Wang Zhi was the first to come to his senses and asked, "This is already… five pounds of pork. We’re going to triple this?"
"Yep! That’ll do for now." Fang Xing nodded. "We can always add more if it’s still not enough!"
"But… we don’t have enough silver for this…."
"Then go sell yourselves," Fang Xing ridiculed, acting as if nothing was out of the ordinary. "Weren’t all of you just arguing over who was the best hustler?"