Chapter Sixteen: Cultivating Yuan and Establishing Ranks

  When he returned home in the evening, it was already past midnight. At this time, Yue Zhangshi had been waiting for more than an hour in front of the dinner table, and the dishes had been reheated twice. When entering the door, Yue Yu still had some apprehension in his heart, after all, the excuse he and Ruan Li used to go out of the city every day was to play in the back mountain. However, Yue Zhangshi unexpectedly did not say a word of reprimand, which made Yue Yu even more uneasy. It wasn't until Yue Zhangshi went back to her bedroom to sleep that he finally put down his worries.

  In this era without electric lights, people generally went to bed very early. Before half past eight, the entire city of Yuejia was already dark except for those brothels. And in Ruan Li's house next door to Yue Yu, snoring sounds could be heard very early on.

  Yue Yu couldn't sleep, so he took the medicinal mud from the bronze cauldron and kneaded it into twenty small pills. After using his internal energy to force out most of the water content, he put each one into a porcelain bottle. Then Yue Yu remembered something Ran Li had told him on their way back to the city.

  He indeed has a younger sister, who is about one year younger than him. Due to being recruited by Byakuren Hall for training, they have not met until now.

  It turns out that Yue Yu's younger sister is much stronger than her older brother. Her internal energy has already reached the third level of martial arts, not extremely talented, but still outstanding. Unfortunately, the rules of the Yue family clan dictate that women, unless they are exceptionally talented, do not have the right to inherit their parents' property rights. Even in terms of martial skills, there is a tradition of passing it down to daughters-in-law rather than biological daughters.

  What Yue Yu is most worried about now is that his sister, who grew up with him since childhood, knows how much about his own affairs. If she knew everything, then how should he respond to Rong Li's questioning?

  Just thinking about this made Yue Yu extremely headache. If he had known earlier that he still had a sister, it would have been absolutely impossible for him to reveal his trump card to Ran Li so soon.

  Playing a young man who has encountered twists and turns, from then on striving to make progress, although it is also not easy. But it's still better than the current situation, where there is no way out.

  Tossing and turning in bed, he finally managed to temporarily put the matter aside. Yue Yu thought of the Pei Yuan pill he had refined himself, but wasn't sure how its efficacy compared to the original version. If it weren't for the relatively thin spiritual energy within the manor, and it not being a suitable place to take medicine, he would have liked to test its properties right now.

  The Jin family father and son were not willing to give up the fields in their house. At this time, it was because of the aftermath of his injury two months ago that he did not take action again. After a while, who knows what kind of means they will use? How should I respond?

  After repeatedly thinking about it, until the three watches drummed outside the house, Yue Yu finally fell asleep in a daze. And by the next morning, Yue Yu and Ruan Li spent an hour absent-mindedly on the training ground, then rushed out of the city together to the back mountain, almost making the old martial artist angry enough to storm off in public.

  When he arrived at the so-called 'Spirit Land', Yue Yu first took the fake 'Pei Yuan Pill' under Rong Li's protection, and soon after swallowing it, he felt a surge of heat rising from his lower abdomen. Yue Yu had originally tried to analyze the process by which the Pei Yuan Pill produced its effect, but what made him even more disappointed was that once the medicine was digested and absorbed, the medicinal properties entered his body and began to transform into a liquid substance centered on 'Bian Jing', which his auxiliary system could not analyze at all. It then entered the Foot Yangming Stomach Meridian system, mixed with his own yuanqi, and completed the absorption and transformation in several cycles of the twelve regular meridians.

  Later on, the 'primordial energy' in his body had gradually approached its peak state, and Yue Yu was forced to temporarily stop analyzing this conversion principle. Instead, he began to cultivate his skills with all his might, converting these primordial energies into Great Primordial True Energy. Unfortunately, his meridian intensity was limited, and after circulating for fifteen cycles, he had no choice but to stop cultivating, using the excess primordial energy to nourish and expand his meridians. And two hours later, when the medicinal effect had completely dissipated, the several necessary meridians on the current Great Primordial True Energy circulation route in his body not only became much more resilient but also slightly expanded compared to before.

  This made Yue Yu overjoyed, the expansion of his meridians meant that the amount of true energy flowing through his body at the same time would increase, and the toughness of the inner wall could increase the number of cycles he could cultivate. No wonder those martial artists in the city regarded Pei Yuan Dan as a treasure. If each one had such an effect, then even if it was 200 taels of silver per pill, he would be willing to exchange them.

  However, Yue Yu had also heard that the "Pei Yuan Pill" was most effective when taken for the first time. Each subsequent use would weaken its effect to some extent. If the degree of decline was too great, then another way out must be found in a short period of time.

  With this in mind, Yue Yu took out the small porcelain bottle from his bosom again and, under Ruan's astonished gaze, threw another "Pei Yuan Pill" into his mouth, crunching it with a loud crack before swallowing it down.

  Yue Yu knew that other warriors in the city would only take this medicine five times a month at most. After all, not everything in 'Pei Yuan Wan' was beneficial to the body. Moreover, some medicinal residues were left behind after the medicinal properties of 'Pei Yuan Wan' were converted into yuanqi and decomposed, lingering in the body. If too much accumulated, it would not only hinder the absorption of the medicinal properties of 'Pei Yuan Wan', but also cause great harm to the body. Therefore, ordinary people would wait for five or six days until their bodies naturally cleared out those harmful substances before taking another 'Pei Yuan Wan'.

  However, this is only the case for ordinary people. For someone with exceptional talent like Rong Li, who has a strong physique, taking it once every three days should not be a problem at all. Those high-level martial artists also have physical qualities that far surpass those of ordinary people. As for Yue Yu himself, the issue of residual toxins from the medicine does not exist. His auxiliary parasitic system already has the function of eliminating harmful substances from his body. With his analytical ability, he can clearly see the residual toxins from the 'Pei Yuan Wan', and they can be eliminated in a short period of time, so there is basically no need to worry. Some useless and harmful substances can even be completely eliminated before being absorbed by the stomach.

  And the result of this intake was indeed lower than before, but still barely acceptable. At this time, his body's meridian fatigue had slightly recovered. Plus the previous use of yuanqi nourishment, the intensity also increased. Yue Yu then once again urged the operation to turn the cycle, and when it just ended for the thirteenth time, the inner breath in the dantian had changed from its original pale white color to a silver-white color.

  Yue's eyebrows suddenly rose, knowing that his internal breath cultivation should have already advanced.

  In this world, before the Martial Artist class, all martial artists had no way to determine their internal energy level. They relied on their own feelings and a few 'Ranking Stones' passed down within their clan to evaluate their level. After the Martial Artist class, they learned how to release their true energy without relying on objects, which allowed them to evaluate levels based on the depth of their true energy color. However, authoritative ranking still relies mainly on the results of the 'Ranking Stones'.

  At this time, Yue Yu was using the auxiliary system's parsing ability to judge through color. Originally, his Da Hunyuan True Qi should have been a mixture of all colors. However, at the beginning of internal breath cultivation, the attributes of one's true qi were not yet apparent, and they were mostly colorless and transparent or white. Some time ago, Yue Yu had analyzed the physical bodies of all the servants in the mansion, including Ruan Li and Yue Zhangshi, to understand the different properties of various attribute true qi. In this regard, his understanding could be said to be much stronger than that of people in this world.

  The inner breath impacted the third level of the warrior, but Yue Yu didn't rush to run the fourth level of Gong Fa. Instead, he continued to follow the original route and ran it again. Until that true energy group was completely stabilized, he stopped the circulation of the week and started impacting the Ren Mai, those stagnant places on the operation line.