Pay to Win

Han Liqi stood up from his seat and closed his curtains. With the windows not letting through any light, his office became much too dark for his taste. He exited the room and strolled around the mansion.

His secretary followed him a step and a half away, while the servants of the mansion greeted them respectfully.

He was on his way to another appointment that required a meeting outside his mansion. He passed by the courtyard.

The walls stood tall as usual, the grass danced with the wind, armored men guarded the entrance, and trees surrounded the whole yard, while a small boy sat in the center of it all.

"This rascal is already cultivating. Here I was worrying whether or not he'd even read it." A smile was on his face as he told his secretary.

"I'm sure the young master has grown diligent."

"Ah, really? He never showed this much diligence when it came to sword training."

"Hmm, cultivation is naturally endearing to young children."

"..."

Han Liqi stayed silent. He remembered when his father practically forced him to practice cultivation when he was the same age as Han Ganxing. In the end, he reached the peak of the first centera the next year, and entered the next centera half a year later.

His wife, however, only took a year to go from no cultivation to the second centera. He was trying to guess which of the two of them would his son have inherited his talent from.

'My wife would have been one of the most talented practitioners. It's a shame... Ah, there's still Shi Caiqing's little brat. She only took the length of the Winter Season to enter the second centera, that genius. That reminds me, their engagement... When is Shi Caiqing planning to announce it?'

While he was stuck in his thoughts, a gust of wind suddenly blew in his face. Leaves and blades of grass were forcefully plucked out and brought by the small hurricane forming with Han Ganxing at its center.

"He's entering the first centera...! How long has it been since I've given him the manual?" Han Liqi's eyes grew large. Even though the first centera was only the entrance to cultivation, it would still take days, nay, sometimes weeks for someone to enter it. Even Shi Wenyang, who was hailed as the most talented of the new generation, needed two days to break in.

"It- it's only been about 4 hours." Even the usually calm and collected secretary couldn't help but gape her mouth at the scene before her.

Looking at the wind gradually decreasing, he saw the figure of his son slowly appearing in the middle of the fog. He couldn't stop himself from laughing.

"Ha, hahaha! Who would've thought this son of mine would actually enter the first centera in 4 hours! Honestly, neither did I!"

The secretary smiled along, but her mind was still jumbled.

While Han Liqi appreciated his son's heaven-defying talent, said son looked at his interface.

"Can I adjust it now?"

Han Ganxing closed his eyes as he dragged the rectangle across the bar. He couldn't bear to see it fail!

As his hand moved a centimeter away from where it was, he didn't know whether or not the Cultivation Level Adjustment Bar worked. He slowly exposed his eyes...

"It, it worked!"

Instead of Level 1 of the first centera, his cultivation level was Level 2!

"Can I move it further?"

Feeling a bit of rush, he dragged it all across.

Inside him, he could feel the amount of energy rising. It multiplied exponentially!

Essentially, if, for example, Level 1 of the first center indicated a drop of water, then Level 2 would indicate 10 drops, Level 3 would have 100 drops, and so on and so forth.

Han Ganxing brought it all the way to Level 20, so he would have 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 drops... Basically, an ocean's worth of water!

"The heck?!

Level 20?

I thought it was only until Level 10!"

Han Ganxing read the notice on the interface quickly as the qi in his body continued to rise dramatically.

"Notice: You have overloaded the adjustment bar to an amount which mortal beings cannot handle. Please proceed with caution. There is a risk of forced reincarnation."

"Forced reincarnation? Death?!"

The sense of urgency multiplied in his mind. He got rid of the notice as fast as possible and opened the adjustment bar again, this time dragging it backwards. He put snugly in Level 10, the actual top level of this centera.

"...I actually dragged it past the edge of the bar. It didn't warn me about this. Hai...

In any case, as I am now Level 10 First-Step Centera, I should make my way to Middling Centera."

Middling Centera was the second centera. It focused not on collection, but on purification of the qi.

The qi absorbed by practitioners would normally be murky as it had mixed in with impurities in the air. Thus, during the second centera, one had to filter out the dirt that came with the qi. The levels in this centera were based on the percentage of qi which was pure against the dirt mixed within.

Han Ganxing closed his eyes once more, sensing the qi in his body.

"Eh...? There's not much impurities in this qi. Where did the qi that I didn't manually absorb come from? It's already pure!"

Han Ganxing was really delighted. He only needed to work on the qi that he absorbed to enter the first centera in the first place.

That amount was just a drop of water compared to the rest of the qi. After just a few minutes of cultivation, he had already filtered out all the visible dirt on his qi.

The passersby, Han Liqi and his secretary, were still reeling in from the shock they received earlier. As they readied to continue walking, another gust of wind blew from the direction of the courtyard.

This time, the wind was of a murky black color.

"...The Middling Centera?!" The secretary couldn't believe her eyes. She heard a thud beside her.

Han Liqi was lying on the floor, unconscious.