After returning to the bamboo hut, Han Shuangjiang and Chu Huaixu parted ways.
The foxy-faced man walked into his room, sat cross-legged on the bed, and began to try cultivating the 'Sword Tempering Art'. He was a little curious about how much experience he could gain by "AFK cultivating" like this.
As of now, Chu Huaixu had spent a total of 79 experience points, with 121 remaining. To break through the second aperture, he needed 140 experience points.
It was worth noting that his character panel displayed "Freely Assignable Experience Points." The experience points gained from cultivating the 'Sword Tempering Art' could only be used to level up this specific technique. It could not be used to level up other techniques or [Skills].
After adjusting his state, Chu Huaixu took a deep breath, mentally preparing himself.
"It should be very painful this time too, right?" he thought.
Leveling up with a single click using experience points was equivalent to compressing the process of cultivating again and again, allowing you to reap the rewards in an instant. The reason it had hurt like being repeatedly run over by a motorcycle before was that he had experienced the total sum of pain from each cultivation session in a single moment.
Right now, Chu Huaixu was simply curious. "What does normal cultivation feel like?"
Yes, it wasn't that he was addicted.
The 'Sword Tempering Art' began to circulate within his body, and the spiritual energy of heaven and earth rushed towards him.
The reason the aperture-opening stage was not considered a proper stage of cultivation was that you couldn't retain spiritual energy in your body, and thus couldn't generate your own spiritual power. At this moment, the only function of this spiritual energy after entering his body was to help open the apertures.
Only when all nine of the human body's apertures were open could one unlock the Xuanhuang Secret Depository within the body and step through the gates of cultivation!
Throughout the entire aperture-opening stage, the most significant improvement was actually to one's physical qualities, which is why it was called the aperture-opening and body-tempering stage.
At this moment, as soon as Chu Huaixu began to circulate the technique, his body couldn't help but tremble slightly. He began to feel pain.
"How should I put this? It feels like countless hands are twisting my flesh?"
"Every single piece of flesh on my entire body!"
Damn it, are you trying to give me a full-body massage to expel dampness?
Just as Chu Huaixu's mind began to wander, he immediately felt the gathered spiritual energy show signs of dissipating. This made him realize why the 'Sword Tempering Art' had such a bad reputation in the "comment section"—it was either "Don't practice!" or "Heed the advice!"
"You mean I have to keep my mind stable throughout the entire cultivation process?"
You had to endure it for the whole duration, otherwise, you practiced in vain! If that happened, all the pain you'd endured would be for nothing.
Chu Huaixu immediately reined in his thoughts, adjusting himself as much as possible.
And as the cultivation deepened, he could clearly feel the pain index rising. This sour-and-sore sensation... it felt like those countless invisible hands weren't just twisting his flesh. After twisting the flesh, they were now wringing it left and right...
Chu Huaixu had thought that he would gradually become numb as time went by. But strangely, he didn't!
Circulating the technique for just one cycle felt like a year. He began to miss his days as a player.
Damn it, give me back my pain adjustment function!
As a result, as soon as his emotions flared, the surrounding spiritual energy once again showed signs of dissipating.
"..."
By the time he successfully completed one cycle and snapped his eyes open, he could only support himself on the bed with one hand, beginning to gasp for breath.
"I really didn't give it the wrong nickname. This 'Menstrual Pain Art' is absolutely killing me."
"I can't cultivate on the bed anymore. I should put a meditation cushion on the floor. Damn it, I'm covered in sweat, I've soiled the mattress!" This virtual male model was quite a clean freak.
Because he was too lazy to do laundry and afraid his clothes would stink from too much sweat, he even began to consider the possibility of naked practice.
Pushing aside these stray thoughts, Chu Huaixu checked the technique experience points he had gained.
"9 points?" The corner of his mouth twitched slightly.
And this was with him having 1 point in [Spirit Embryo Attribute]. Otherwise, the cultivation speed would be even slower!
"This 'Sword Tempering Art' is a real bitch!" he gritted his teeth.
He calculated that after circulating the technique twice, his total experience would reach 139. The experience required to level up the technique was 140.
"Being short by that 1 point is the most disgusting part! I'm seriously going to puke!"
Frustrated and furious, Chu Huaixu quickly picked up the small booklet and began to vent. He opened it to the third page, and after his previous message of "Peerless Divine Art," he added a large exclamation mark to emphasize it.
...
...
"Huu—!"
In the bamboo hut next door, Han Shuangjiang, who was also cultivating diligently, opened her beautiful eyes and let out a long, turbid breath. Her considerable chest rose and fell slightly as a result.
Right now, she was sitting cross-legged on the bed, her long, slender legs folded, a beautiful sight to behold. This woman was born with wide hips, possessing a golden waist-to-hip ratio. Her rear was pert and full. As she sat on the bed, her buttocks were compressed and spread out slightly, making her robes bulge as if their fleshy fullness were about to overflow.
The matronly, large-buttocked female Sect Master of the Joyful Sect had admired this about Han Shuangjiang the most, feeling that she had finally found the successor to her legacy. —She could be taught the Guanyin Sits on the Lotus, to bring salvation to all living beings.
At this moment, a trace of joy was in Han Shuangjiang's beautiful eyes. Every time she cultivated, she felt comfortable and refreshed throughout her body. More importantly, she had broken through the second aperture with ease. For her, opening apertures was indeed a bit too easy.
"It's a pity that after opening each aperture, the body needs a period of time to adapt."
"Perhaps I can only attempt the third aperture tomorrow," Han Shuangjiang guessed.
Today, she had already reached an agreement with Chu Huaixu. They would temporarily live together and cultivate together, striving to break through the aperture-opening stage as soon as possible and become proper cultivators.
"I originally thought that with the unreasonable prices in the outer sect, one hundred taels of silver would not be enough, and time would be very tight," she thought. "Now it seems I was overthinking it."
From beginning to end, she had never considered Chu Huaixu's cultivation progress. In her view, since he was brought up the mountain by the Sixth Elder along with her, he surely couldn't be bad.
"But I still have to be frugal with the money."
"Cultivation depends on Wealth, Method, Companion, and Land."
"There will be more ways to make money in the future, but there will only be more places to spend it." Han Shuangjiang still had this much common sense.
After some thought, she felt it would be better to start a fire, buy groceries, and cook for herself.
"It takes a lot of time to walk over there to eat. With that time, I could have cooked a meal myself," was what she thought anyway.
One must be even more frugal with other people's money.
From Chu Huaixu's clothes and appearance, Han Shuangjiang could tell that his family background was probably average; it was just that his temperament was very transcendent.
"This one hundred taels of silver is probably his parents' savings, right?" This was the only thing she could guess.
I have to be even more careful with someone else's parents' hard-earned money.
Every coin, every tael, was a patchwork of their earnest hopes for their child.
At this thought, her eyes, of one who had been sold into a brothel by her own parents as a child, dimmed a little. She looked down at her own jade-white ankles, which were bare. Han Shuangjiang knew that some of the sisters in the brothel would tie a red string around their ankle. Many patrons, during their merrymaking, would find this red string extremely beautiful, adding a touch of charm to the jade-like feet.
But only those in the trade knew that a red string tied to the foot represented having a home one still cared for. Because some of the courtesans had been abducted or their families had committed crimes.
A journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one's feet; a red string tied to the foot, lest one forget the way home.
But her? She didn't even have such a simple thought to hold on to.
...
...
As noon approached, Han Shuangjiang walked out of her bamboo hut, deciding to have a good talk with Chu Huaixu about the money-saving strategy she had come up with.
Chu Huaixu opened the door after hearing the knock.
He glanced at her and felt that something about her seemed different.
Chu Huaixu directly tossed an [Information Probe] her way. The information given by the system was that Han Shuangjiang had already opened her second aperture.
"You broke through?" he asked.
"Mn." She nodded slightly, not knowing how he could tell, as if she truly had no secrets in front of him.
"What a coincidence. I just broke through too," Chu Huaixu said, leaning against the door, his face a mask of casual indifference.