Chapter 3 Come and Train with Me!

In the bathroom, Yan Yu, having finished his shower, dried his body, his thoughts also quietly shifting into motion.

With the arrival of Zhao Yuanzhen and Mei Yingxue, the curtain of the Spiritual Energy Resurgence was set to be gradually lifted.

In the next three months, the official sector that successfully established a cooperative relationship with Mei Yingxue would use the massive amount of cultivation resources collected nationwide to train the first batch of cultivators internally, adopting a cost-indifferent trial-and-error approach.

This group of cultivators was mainly composed of military personnel, characterized by absolute loyalty, so it was certain he wouldn't be able to join them.

On the national college entrance examination physical on May 12, an additional tube of blood will be drawn during the blood test, aiming to detect the presence of "Spiritual Energy" in the bloodline.

If one is born with a Spirit Root within, even without any cultivation knowledge, the innate energy, the congenital qi, is naturally present in the blood and would be detected by the equipment.

Out of the 10 million college entrance examination candidates, only about 400 with Spirit Roots would be sorted out. Then, based on the location of their college entrance examination registration, they would be gathered in Shuzhong Prefecture, Shengjing Prefecture, Jinling Prefecture, and Xingwang Prefecture to be cultivated separately.

The construction of cultivator academies in the west, north, east, and south preliminarily established the embryonic form of the domestic Cultivation World's power structure.

And this first batch of "cultivator undergraduates" was like the students who entered university after the resumption of the college entrance examination in 1977; many of them later became influential figures wielding great authority.

This meant that in three months' time, Yan Yu must make it through the screening at the college entrance examination physical.

However, he had no Spirit Root within his body, so he needed to obtain the Silken Bond Technique from Zhao Yuanzhen and cultivate Spiritual Energy in advance.

In his past life, even with a mere mortal body, he relied on his experiences fighting through mountains of corpses and seas of blood, trying to eradicate the rebellious cultivators, single-handedly saving the day. Yet, he ultimately failed by a single move and died harboring resentment... That missing move might just be the difference between a cultivator and non-cultivator.

"If I become a cultivator in this life, whoever dares to stand in my way had better check how many heads they have resting on their neck—it might not be enough for me to chop down!"

Yan Yu wiped his damp hair with a towel and pushed open the door to leave the bathroom, only to see Zhao Yuanzhen sitting on the floor, meditating and practicing breath control.

"You can go and take a shower," Yan Yu said, pointing to the bathroom.

"Thank you for the kind offer," Zhao Yuanzhen spoke with a bowed head and obedient eyes, "but I have the Purification Spell."

"With the Spiritual Energy of this world so impoverished, you still have True Yuan to use the Purification Spell?" asked Yan Yu with an amused smile.

Zhao Yuanzhen was silent for a moment, then sighed.

As Yan Yu had noted, the Spiritual Energy in this world was indeed too thin. Even after prolonged meditation and breath control, she had recovered very little True Yuan—using it on the Purification Spell was indeed too extravagant.

With that thought, she obediently nodded and silently got up to take her shower.

Yan Yu, however, picked up his backpack and began to do his homework.

Although his soul was from an adult in the future, his body was that of a high school senior attending day school.

Since he was hiding a demonic woman at home, he had to avoid attracting attention.

Otherwise, if he didn't turn in his homework and his grades dropped, the teachers would notify his parents. If his parents traveled from home to Lin'an Prefecture and found out that he was hiding a demonic woman, the ensuing situation would become extremely troublesome.

Of course, he couldn't explain to his parents, "There's no need to worry about the college entrance examination; after all, the future belongs to cultivators." Otherwise, they would probably have him sent to a psychological counseling center.

After hastily finishing his homework, Yan Yu saw Zhao Yuanzhen, freshly bathed and wearing the pajamas he provided.

The upper part of the pajamas was snugly filled while the lower part hung loose—it was clear that the demonic woman had substantial assets for doing evil. If not strictly supervised, she was sure to bring disaster to the nation and harm to the people.

"Thankfully, since I've taken her into custody, countless lives are spared from her harm—this is a truly good deed!" Yan Yu thought to himself.

Seeing Yan Yu blatantly sizing up her figure, Zhao Yuanzhen felt a slight displeasure within her heart, but she did not say much.

Now, forced to depend on someone else's roof and seeking shelter from her sect to evade Mei Yingxue's pursuit, this was a time to swallow her pride. Naturally, she couldn't afford to mess up the grand scheme over her so-called maiden modesty.

She sat beside Yan Yu and saw him holding a strange pen and writing something, she asked curiously,

"Are you doing homework?"

"You know about homework?" Yan Yu asked in surprise.

"Just joking, I can recognize a few characters," said Zhao Yuanzhen. She picked up the Chinese test paper and saw he didn't react, then she carefully began to read.

How odd, why is it all vernacular? So verbose. And the characters, why are there so few strokes?

"Is Little Master trying for academic honors?" she said with a pleasing smile.

"Just call me Yan Yu," Yan Yu thought to himself that her calling him "Little Master" made him sound like a young monk, "Studying is not about seeking fame, but for cultivating one's moral character. Haha, you've been raised in the Demonic Sect since young and don't understand the ways of the world. I don't expect you would understand this reasoning."

Zhao Yuanzhen felt snubbed and hated him inwardly, but she kept her composure and swallowed her pride, making a mental note to settle the score later:

"...On my first day after crossing over, although Yan Yu helped shelter me on behalf of his sect, he insulted me in every way possible and ordered me around like a servant—utterly hateful!"

"Now that I am under someone else's roof and power, I can only temporarily feign compliance and preserve my useful self. If there's a chance someday, I must repay this debt tenfold!"

She had intended to ingratiate herself with this young man, to sweeten his existence with her presence, to grind ink for him, at least to deceive his trust first.

However, this world was too peculiar: lamps shone without fire, no need for added fragrance; pens did not require ink grinding, automatically producing ink... which left her with nothing to do.

After much thought, she took the grapes that had been washed beside her, peeled them carefully, and fed them to him.

As Yan Yu ate her grapes, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was off.

This demoness was known for her capricious moods, acting on a whim, her temper flipping faster than flipping a book. Now she was currying favor, which definitely meant something was up!

After finishing the last problem on the test paper, he set the pen aside and asked,

"Spit it out, what do you want?"

"Cough," Zhao Yuanzhen, whose thoughts were abruptly read by him, could only cough and adapt on the fly, saying,

"I'm just curious, young master... Yan Yu, it seems you have no magical powers, could you be using some secret technique to conceal your cultivation level?"

"I haven't officially started cultivating yet," Yan Yu thought to himself that he was about to bring it up and she had preemptively asked it, so he responded, "Master said the techniques he practices are not suitable for me."

Upon hearing this, Zhao Yuanzhen used the insight and instincts cultivated in the Demonic Sect environment to immediately guess the truth.

What does it mean by 'the techniques are not suitable'? Most likely, your master thinks your cultivation talents are inferior and doesn't plan to pass on the true inheritance to you!

She threw the grape-containing basin aside, with no intention to continue serving this worthless person anymore. Just as she was about to sneer and mock him, she heard Yan Yu speak again,

"Master said, the most suitable technique for my cultivation is the 'Silken Bond Technique' on you."

"What?" Zhao Yuanzhen immediately became panicked.

If it were a mere mortal peeping at this secret legacy technique, she would have slapped them without a second thought, bringing a Mighty Celestial Dragon down upon them, cracking skulls with her bare hands, showing them what 'a toad lusting after swan meat' truly meant.

But with a powerful master of strategy and calculation behind Yan Yu, if he was scheming for the 'Silken Bond Technique', how exactly could she refuse?

It seemed... she couldn't refuse at all!

If he had specifically requested this technique, it also meant he had already factored it into his calculations.

Even if she stubbornly refused, she likely couldn't resist the ghostly powers of a great strategist, and she might end up trapped in a life-or-death situation one day, crying and screaming to willingly offer the secret technique just to plead for her life.

Reason told Zhao Yuanzhen that whether she wanted to give up the secret today or not, she had to give it. If she didn't drink this toast, the next cup would be a penalty.

But emotionally, the idea of giving up the 'Silken Bond Technique' without gaining any advantages was something she simply couldn't accept.

Seeing Zhao Yuanzhen's eyes darting around, Yan Yu also knew what she was struggling with, and immediately pulled out his trump card,

"Master also mentioned, if I told you this, you would be reluctant, so he asked me to remind you of another matter: the 'Silken Bond Technique' can be practiced alone or with a partner, and theoretically, the speed of progress and power of the technique are far superior when practiced with a partner than alone."

Zhao Yuanzhen was stunned for a moment, then had an epiphany, as if enlightenment had dawned upon her.

The Qi Refinement method of the 'Silken Bond Technique', after several refinements, now could use puppetry to complement the practitioner's lack of natural talent.

The speed of absorbing and refining Qi is constrained by the innate limitations of the body, hence precious treasures are used to create puppets, "pulling strings" to let the puppets refine Qi which then nourishes the cultivator's True Yuan, thereby bypassing the shackles of inherent cultivation talent.

The ancestor who created this secret technique was naturally a figure of astonishing brilliance.

It was said that she fell in love with a man who had no Spirit Root and couldn't cultivate, living a mere hundred years. The ancestor then exhaustively created this unconventional technique, to grant her beloved cultivation and longevity—that was why, from the beginning, the 'Silken Bond Technique' was actually a dual cultivation version.

String-Pulling was not originally about manipulating puppets, but about pulling the strings of affection.

But dual cultivation comes with a prerequisite: both parties must trust each other without reservations.

Dual cultivation is not a one-way energy absorption; the True Qi must constantly circulate and carry out cycles between both individuals, leaving them utterly defenseless throughout the process.

If one harbored malicious intent and struck unexpectedly, the outcome for the other would be dire, if not fatal.

Given the cutthroat competition of the Demonic Sect, finding a trustworthy dual cultivation partner was exceedingly difficult. As a result, later generations added countless annotations to the original text of the 'Silken Bond Technique', eventually using puppets to circumvent the requirement for a human partner.

While this reduced the efficiency of Qi Refinement, it was safer and more reliable, to the point that no one even practiced the original version anymore.

With this realization, Zhao Yuanzhen's mind was enlightened.

The master strategist had not taught Yan Yu other techniques, not because he did not like him, but because he had already calculated clearly: Yan Yu was to dual cultivate the 'Silken Bond Technique' with me.

Even his previous guidance to Yan Yu to save me, and the protection from Mei Yingxue's pursuit afterward, were not out of any "kindness," but rather aimed at this very dual cultivation goal!