The world spun around in circles as Xander stared at the wooden ceiling with a dimming gaze. A loud droning noise rang in his ears as someone shouted the end of the spar. “Are you done already, Junior Brother? We still have many pointers to share,” the boy said, smirking. He could barely make out his face, as colors splashed around in his vision, but from the sound of him, he could not have been older than fourteen. “Peh, that was pathetic. Barely managed to take five blows. Let us leave brother, this scum is not worth our time.” Xander heard murmurs all around him, words full of disgust and occasionally some of pity were thrown his way. The other boy walked out of the arena, but he remained where he lay staring at the roof above him. “Someone take Yuan to the Old Man, he seems to have hit his head hard.” A man spoke, as a few people walked over. Two pairs of arms lifted him up, carrying him through his daze. He could barely register their voices as he started to gather his wits.

Xander stared at the Old man, trying to keep his expression as sincere as he could. “Why so suddenly, Yuan? What about your dream of rising in your cultivation?” He took in a breath, trying to emulate a dejected Yuan as best as he could. “The spar has opened my eyes Elder. I had been trying to deny it all this time, hoping that effort would be enough, but the heavens do not grant blessings equally. I have been stuck at the third realm for months now, unable to break through to the second circle.” He sniffed once. “I have seen the truth. I am talentless. And this is as far as I will ever go. I had despaired thinking there was no path in life that I could take. But, the pill you granted me made me feel a sense of purpose.” He paused for a moment, realising that he was almost being genuine here. Having the memories of Yuan, even though he could tell the memories were not his, he still felt affected by them. Yuan’s frustration and defeat, and the realisation had all been true. Yuan may

Xander once again thanked whatever god was listening for that video he’d watched on a memorisation trick. It had saved his hide more than once when he’d had to remember all the unholy reagent names and chemical formulas for multiple step chemical reactions, and it continued to give even here as he read the alchemy textbooks. Rote memorisation was not something he enjoyed. It was dull and tedious and it led to no new information outside of simple memory storage, which could easily be taken care of by computers. Here though, memory had a much higher value. The easiest way of storing information was texts, and these Jade slates. The slates were far too valuable to be used for anything but cultivation techniques and such, so most of the information was kept in the books which took time, thus increasing the worth of memorisation. Going through Yuan’s memory, he couldn’t find if printing technology was a thing here or not, but from the amount of books and their standardised text fonts he s

Xander smiled as he watched Su Lin go still. The spirit herbs garden maintained by the sect was one of the most guarded locations in the outer sect. And one of the more difficult places to enter. “And what if I do?” Su Lin said, setting his broom aside as he turned toward him, standing completely straight for once. He struggled to hold his smile back, as his guess was proved right. “I may have something that could benefit both of us,” he said, digging into his pocket as he took out a single Qi refilling pill. He watched Su Lin’s eyes shift toward the Qi refilling pill as they widened in surprise. Outer sect disciples only got elixirs and pills for the first month. If they showed no signs of talent, then their support was cut off. Someone like him carrying pills around had a very specific image from an outsider’s perspective. Su Lin thought he was stealing them. “I’ve got more. But I need spirit herbs. You bring me spirit herbs and I give you five of these. You get to keep one fou

Qi reinforcement was useful, as it allowed him to study how things behaved when infused with his Qi. Xander lifted the spirit herb in his hand and examined the small plant. Aside from the Qi within it, there was nothing special about it. It was just a simple leaf. But then came the strange part. When a pulse of Qi flowed through the plant, its leaves began to shimmer. A very thin coating formed over the surface, giving it that shine. When he added more Qi, the glow grew brighter until it reached a saturation point. Pushing beyond that caused the plant to shrivel and die, as if its life had been drained away. It made little sense to him. The shimmer could have been caused by Qi agitating the plant into releasing some glowing chemical. Or it could have been a layer of Qi itself. But why did too much Qi kill it? Did Qi burn the plant from the inside? Normal plants behaved very differently. They barely reacted unless excessive Qi was forced into them. In that case, they often burst apar