40 Exam Preparation

Li Kai mostly left me to train by myself for the next three months. My cultivation base was already way higher than it needed to be. The techniques required more training to bring out their true strength. At the same time, the unexpected gain of the Frostfire Sutra gave me a whole new form of martial arts to practice. Li Kai made another comment about my abilities being broken when he found out I conjured a set of martial arts techniques out of thin air. He was going to teach me one of the sect's martial arts, and he still would, but the Frostfire Sutra would give me an edge in the entrance exam.

Most of the interactions I had with Li Kai were sparring. He'd restrain himself to the strength of a body-tempering realm cultivator and then fight me using some of the common techniques used in the sect. The first time he reduced his strength to qi-gathering, he didn't make that mistake again.

Under the pressure of the spars and with the help of my new sea of soul I managed to train the Frostfire Sutra from initial success to minor accomplishment to great accomplishment and finally perfection. I also fully mastered the Frostfire Martial Arts.

Frostfire Sutra (Supreme-Spirit Grade) [Perfect]: The frostfire martial arts. +200% Fire Damage, +200% Yin Damage, 200% increased chance of inflicting freezing condition, 200% increased chance of inflicting burning condition. 1000% increased chance of inflicting frostbite. The opponent's resistance reduces the chance of inflicting a condition.

Cost: 8 qi per minute

Frostfire Burst Attack: +2000% Fire Damage, +2000% Yin Damage, 200% chance of inflicting freezing condition, 200% chance of inflicting burning condition. 1000% chance of inflicting frostbite.

Cost: 50 qi

I also managed to perfect Solomon's Shroud. I managed to raise muted presence to great accomplishment by keeping it active all the time, much to Li Kai's annoyance. He was still the only one who could catch sight of me, but it gave him a headache to do so. He also had to be alerted to find me. I spent an entire day right in front of his face once and he never found me.

My new favorite prank was to move items people were actively using. Oh, you thought your ink and quill were to your right? You thought wrong, it's to your left now. This was usually how Li Kai would discover me, everyone else just got progressively more irritated when their items kept seeming to move. Only a few ever figured out there was a prankster at work but they still didn't see me.

Kinetic Burst I only raised to minor accomplishment. It didn't have combat utility, so it only coincidentally raised as a consequence of using it for my baths. I did set time aside to learn static Slash as well. it's a shame Fred didn't have many electric techniques, I would've loved to have gained a Thunder Sutra too. I tried learning Spark as well, a utility technique for starting fires with a spark of electricity. It was immediately absorbed by Static Slash. There was no need to learn Spark when Static Slash could already do that and more. I managed to train Static Slash to great accomplishment before the entrance exam.

Static Slash (Legendary-Spirit Grade) [Great Accomplishment]: Coat your sword in electricity. +50% Electric Damage. 50% increased chance of inflicting paralysis condition.

Cost: 4 qi per minute

I was not idle regarding my cultivation either. I opened all of the remaining 99 branch meridians. Each gave an additional +1 to my qi and physical attributes as expected. I then stuffed them full of qi just as I had my major meridians, resulting in an additional 108 being added to my qi. I could feel my entire body itching. The next step was to let the qi in your meridians wash over the body and do an initial refinement of every inch of the body. This would be the stage when my efforts to establish a firm foundation would pay off. I could not continue, however. I wasn't one hundred percent certain that my concealment technique would be able to disguise a major realm difference. In theory, it should, but to be safe I would wait until I was at the sect to advance. Three months of longevity was a small cost to pay for my safety.

I didn't forget about Rosie's present. I almost did, but she reminded me by stealing my storage ring right off my finger. After I caught her, I pulled out the beast cores one by one and started feeding them to Rosie. I thought she would need to suck on them like a jawbreaker or chew on them like a bone, but they seemed to melt almost immediately in her mouth.

After experiencing my own advancement and knowing that there was a gap been human knowledge and reality, I told Rosie to hold on as long as she could before advancing. This was counter to instinct, most beasts would want to advance as soon as they could. Rosie trusted me though and held back her advancement. Around 9 cores in I could see that she was extending some effort to avoid advancement. We continued and at 12 cores she had her brows furrowed. At 14 cores she was trembling, I could feel her pain transmitted through our bond.

I stopped and asked her if she wanted to advance or continue eating cores. To my surprise, she wanted to continue consuming cores. She pointed at me and then herself. Her meaning was clear. She had watched me cultivate. More than that, she could feel it through her bond. Her meaning was that she wanted to do the same as me. I was surprised that she was suddenly showing such tenacity, until now she had just been a little glutton, not showing much interest in working hard to improve. But of course, I should've realized, it wasn't that she didn't want to improve, she just didn't know how.

I asked her to wait a moment while I checked her condition. I didn't know if Rosie could consume 108 more beast cores safely. I sent my qi-sense inside her. To my surprise, as much as her meridians were different, they were also the same. She had opened her 12 main meridians and 2 bonus meridians just like I started with. I could even sense qi leaking into branches, 108 of them.

I noticed something else, the qi was leaking wildly from the meridians. Her meridians weren't as strong as mine, that was the cause of her pain. She was pushing past her limits on sheer willpower. Talent? Physique? Providence? Rosie was bothered with none of these things. She would accompany me on my journeys and to do that she needed strength, she knew that clearly. So what if her body was weak, her talent trash, and her luck miserable? She would claw her way to my side if necessary, she wasn't getting left behind. She didn't want to be just an ornamental pet, she wanted to be my comrade in arms. I could feel her fierce desire through our connection.

I couldn't disrespect such a passion coming from my furry friend, but I was worried she might kill herself, so I called Li Kai over for his opinion.

"I've never seen something like this before. A beast's advancement is limited by their bloodline and their resources. Rosie's bloodline is weak. Demonic foxes are not that strong. In ordinary situations, she may have been able to advance to Beast Viscount at most. That's what I expected of her. But already she's pushed past the 9 beast cores I expected her to eat. I don't know if that will be harmful or beneficial to her though. Since she's already pushed past her limit, we may as well continue to see the end result. I'll watch for any signs of qi deviation." Li Kai said as he examined Rosie.

And so we continued to feed Rosie beast cores, one by one. Every nine cores, Rosie would show signs of instability and we would stop and wait for her to regain control of her qi. As we continued, Rosie's tremors got worse, she started panting heavily with her tongue hanging out. Eventually, she couldn't even stand and just lay on her side while we fed her cores. It pained me to see her suffering so much, I could feel some of the pain through our bond, but I knew it was nowhere as intense as she was suffering. I kept asking her if she wanted to stop, but she was stubborn.

At the last set, even Li Kai thought Rosie was suffering too much for us to continue. But she wasn't in qi deviation and she was still stubborn to boot. Upon seeing that she wasn't willing to relent, Li Kai taught me a method to allow me to share Rosie's pain which would help ease the pain she was experiencing. As I slowly eased the connection between us open the pain I was experiencing rapidly increased, while I could see visible relief in Rosie's face. This was more pain than I had ever experienced in either life. This was the kind of pain I expected to experience at some point in my cultivation but never did because my talent was too outstanding. Every nerve in my body was on fire.

We fed Rosie the last beast core and finally, she could advance. Both Rosie and I were in terrible pain. She somehow struggled back to her feet. Then bright light encompassed her as the qi restrained in her meridians was finally allowed to wash over her. I felt relief immediately and noticed I was lying in a pool of my own sweat on the ground much like Rosie had been. I didn't know when I had collapsed. The silhouette of Rosie's form grew larger in the light until eventually, she could stare me straight in the face while standing on all four paws. My first thought was that I finally had a mount worthy of the great Zoey Seeker. I could feel the cringe through my connection. Rosie was not pleased with the idea.

The light gradually dispersed revealing a much more handsome fox than went into the light. Rosie's fur was sparkling crimson red accented with boots as black as the darkest night and a pure white belly. She now had five red tails, tipped with black points.

Li Kai commented even before I could say anything, "Interesting, she seems to have improved her bloodline to the crimson fox lineage. Her potential is greater, but if she intends to keep pace with you, each and every advancement is going to be just as painful."

I immediately felt guilty for having such ridiculous talent. Rosie was in for a rough life. I fed the remainder of my beast cores to Rosie, and Li Kai added some more to the pot as well. These cores were now too weak to advance Rosie's cultivation, these were for stabilizing her advancement. Rosie was now one level above me at the first level of beast lord which was a beast baroness. After Rosie finished eating her fill, she shrank down to the size of a fox pup. I picked up the little cutie and she dug herself into my robes and found a cozy spot to sleep just above the sash tying my robes together. Of course, how silly I was to think that Rosie would be my mount after she learned to control her size. Clearly, I was Rosie's mount.