96 Penalty Has Worn Off

Lan Xiang watched without paying much attention to the matches. Instead, his mind was on a whole nother matter.

"Lan Zhou, my cousin."

He recalled the last time he saw Lan Zhou, lying on a hospital bed half-dead. At that time, all he felt was pity for someone who was once his playmate, back when they were children.

"How did that frail little punk get so strong?"

He thought of several theories.

One was that the injuries he had been inflicting on himself were on purpose for tempering his body. After his last hospitalization, he was finally ready.

Another theory that Lan Xiang had was that Lan Zhou practiced dark techniques, or Lan Peng forced him to.

Lan Xiang didn't really have a good impression of his uncle, so doing something like this wouldn't be out of left field if it were the actual case.

A third possibility was that Lan Zhou's situation was not unlike his own, where his sudden increase in strength was due to a transmigration or a system. If that was the case, then he would certainly be a formidable opponent.

"In any case, he didn't need to cripple Little Hailu like that... Either he wasn't used to his strength and had no control over it, or he has a more sinister plan involved.

Well, I'll make sure that whatever he's planning to do next, he's not going to be able to."

Lan Xiang's state became solemn as he gradually forgot that he was in the school tournament in the first place.

Ye Qingle noticed his decreased attention and waved her hand in front of him repeatedly.

"Hello? Lan Xiang, are you there? ...Hmm. Seems like he's preoccupied with something else."

She decided to stop bothering him.

Meanwhile.

"Hm? Master is here."

Xuan Zhizhu noticed that Lan Xiang had unknowingly arrived inside his own mind. He didn't seem to notice that he had fallen so deep into contemplation that he went inside his mind.

"Oh! This is the perfect opportunity. I have to ask him while he's here."

She stopped her cultivation and floated towards Lan Xiang.

"Master, greetings! Master? Hellooo~"

Lan Xiang gradually opened his eyes.

"Wha? Where am I?"

"You're back here, in your own mind."

He saw the pale hand waving in front of him, and eventually Xuan Zhizhu's whole frame.

"Oh... How did I get here? I didn't even touch the thing."

"You mean the marks on your arm?" Xuan Zhizhu chuckled. "Silly, those marks are my entrance and exit. They're also proof of the contract between us. You can come and go as you please, whether or not those marks are there. This is your mind space after all."

"But... whatever." Lan Xiang sighed. "So, what did you want?"

"Well..."

Xuan Zhizhu started talking about Lan Xiang's formless qi.

"Qi is, by nature, formless. Only when it's given form are cultivators able to control it. There are also rare cases where Qi forms its own mind and controls itself, like me. And yet, you can control formless qi, and with so much precision too... How?"

Lan Xiang thought this was the perfect opportunity to earn teach points.

Xuan Zhizhu, despite having the strength of a Level 10 Cultivator, had actually never cultivated at all before. Now that she was a being of pure Qi, the potential of her strength was way too high.

He decided to impart to Xuan Zhizhu the 'How to Cultivate for Dummies' technique.

+5 teach points.

+5 teach points.

+5 teach points.

...

Teach points: 55

"And so, that's how I cultivate."

Xuan Zhizhu stared at Lan Xiang, starry-eyed. She had never heard such a revolutionary way of cultivating! It was like he was a hundred years advanced!

"Master, can you tell me who made this technique?"

"Erm..."

How to Cultivate for Dummies Revised ver.

Gold level technique

Average cultivation speed: Godly

Strength increase: Extremely high

Element: Convertible

Founder: Lan Xiang (3 weeks ago)

Advance: 750 t-pts. (Penalized, cannot advance)

Sell value: 400 t-pts.

"It's me! I am the founder of this technique!"

At least it says so on the system...

Xuan Zhizhu's eyes sparkled even more when she heard that he was the one who made the technique. Even though she had been living for over a century, she had never seen a genius such as Lan Xiang.

On the other hand, Lan Xiang looked at the amount of teach points he had and sighed. He was a bit disappointed with the amount he gained.

"Only 50 for teaching Xuan Zhizhu a Gold level technique? If that's the case, this is gonna take forever."

Lan Xiang started to brainstorm for other ways to spread his knowledge.

"--! Does it work through the internet?"

He thought of posting some of his more inferior techniques on the internet, the ones that weren't necessarily cultivation techniques. That way, they wouldn't be blocked by the government.

"If it works, even if only a hundred people see my post, I'd get a lot more than teaching people in real life one by one."

Lan Xiang decided to test it out later.

And so, he left his own mind space, leaving Xuan Zhizhu to her own devices.

Now that she had knowledge of his cultivation technique, she should grow much stronger than now.

He woke up in a daze, still seated in the gymnasium. However, the tournament already ended.

"...and the winner is, blah-blah-blah..."

Wen Hushui's voice didn't reach Lan Xiang as he poked Ye Qingle's shoulder.

"Hmm? Oh, you're finally awake."

"What? How long was I out?"

"You missed the whole tournament. It was maybe about two or three hours long."

"You're saying, I've been immobile for three hours?" Lan Xiang's body felt stiff all of a sudden. "Ouch, ouch!"

"Aiya, this is the result of that bad posture you had. Tsk tsk tsk." Ye Qingle shook her head.

'Next time I visit Xuan Zhizhu, I should probably be in a better position than I had just now.'

.....

The next day.

"Notice: Status effect [Penalized] has worn off."