Heavenly Peak Rear Cliff.
"The lower tier tempers the body, the middle tier tempers the heart, and the highest tier tempers the Fearless Dao Foundation!"
At the break of dawn, when the sky was only just beginning to brighten, Bai Yiyi stood on the rear cliff of Heavenly Peak, her voice clear and resonant as she taught Ye Ling the essentials of Body Tempering.
Yet although her voice was full of energy, her expression kept flickering away. She didn't dare look directly in Ye Ling's direction, only stealing occasional glances from the corner of her eye. Each time she noticed Ye Ling staring intently at her, she hurriedly turned aside and raised her voice even louder.
Ye Ling was completely confused.
He couldn't figure out why Bai Yiyi was acting this way. In fact, he couldn't even remember when he had sat down here. By the time he came back to his senses, he was already sitting there listening to the lecture, with the strange feeling of how, back in college, he would somehow find himself in a classroom without knowing how he got there.
Vaguely, he felt as though he had forgotten something extremely important, and there was a dull ache at the back of his head.
But every time he tried to recall it, his body instinctively urged him to forget.
In any case, staying alive was what mattered most.
Ye Ling's eyes, deep as black obsidian, were fixed tightly on Bai Yiyi as he listened to her explain the key points of Body Tempering.
Unlike Dao cultivation, Body Tempering had to be practiced together with physical movements. And every time Bai Yiyi's beautiful curves quivered before him like trembling jelly, he couldn't help but feel a sense of solemn respect.
Leaving aside her personality, Bai Yiyi's looks were flawless, and her figure was first-rate. The only thing that could be considered a drawback was her short stature, but that was a matter of taste. Some people simply liked petite girls.
What's more, in Ye Ling's mind, the combination of "loli" and "old lady" was an extremely rare attribute. His Nascent Soul Stage Master, aside from her personality, perfectly matched all of his fantasies about women.
Of course, fantasies were just fantasies. His top priority right now was to make himself stronger.
So he had to listen seriously, not like yesterday when he'd only been busy admiring how pleasing his Master was to look at.
Most importantly, he truly wasn't familiar with Body Tempering.
If he didn't first understand the process from Bai Yiyi, he wouldn't know how to proceed properly. There was still one task left before he could advance to Foundation Establishment, and he planned to start with Body Tempering.
If he didn't get Body Tempering straight, he couldn't very well ask Bai Yiyi for some "one hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred squats, ten-kilometer run" package, could he?
Besides, even if that kind of training really could produce an invincible body cultivator, he didn't want to go bald. He wanted to see what parts of Body Tempering could be… optimized.
While Ye Ling was listening with great interest, Bai Yiyi was feeling more and more embarrassed.
Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!!!
Thinking back to this morning, when she had actually been sleeping in her well-behaved disciple's arms, a tingling itch like a kitten's claws scratching her heart rose in her chest.
From the day she was born until now, the men she had known could be counted on one hand, and all of them were elders.
She had grown up on Heavenly Peak. Aside from the time when the Nine Heavens Immortal Maiden was still around and would take her down the mountain, she had stayed on the mountain the entire time, with no chance to meet people her own age.
So Ye Ling was essentially the first male peer she had ever come into contact with.
The Nine Heavens Immortal Maiden had never explained matters between men and women to her, but her second junior sister often brought her some illustrated books meant for young girls to look at.
So at the very least, she understood that there needed to be boundaries between men and women.
Yet last night, she had actually ended up on her well-behaved disciple's bed.
I'm a terrible Master!
It's over! It's really over!
If outsiders found out about this, my precious disciple would never be able to get married!
Thinking of this, Bai Yiyi couldn't help but cast a careful glance at Ye Ling, her eyes filled with deep regret.
Sigh. My disciple is so outstanding, yet I've ended up holding him back.
Being looked at like that by Bai Yiyi left Ye Ling feeling a little confused, but he didn't think too much of it. After all, his attention was completely focused on Body Tempering at the moment.
"Master, does Body Tempering mean tempering the tendons on the outside and forging the Dao heart on the inside?"
After listening for quite some time, Ye Ling condensed his understanding of Body Tempering into those words.
"That's right."
Bai Yiyi nodded in approval, inwardly praising his insight.
Ye Ling's ability to comprehend things had truly never disappointed her.
Since he had taken the initiative to ask, she temporarily put aside her earlier worries and said excitedly, "But this so-called external tempering isn't like mundane martial training. It's about using Heaven and Earth as a furnace to refine one's own body."
What Bai Yiyi made sound so profound was, in essence, using Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi to temper a cultivator's physical body.
However, this process was extremely painful. Once Spiritual Qi entered the body, it would force out impurities. That was Body Tempering, and the pain involved was something only Body Cultivators could truly understand.
And in the early stages, the physical aspect was only the beginning. When Spiritual Qi seeped into the bone marrow, the indescribable agony that followed was the real reason Dao Cultivators kept their distance from Body Cultivators.
Moreover, while Body Cultivators were stronger than Dao Cultivators before the Foundation Establishment stage, from then on and all the way until the Soul Formation Stage, they were clearly inferior.
After all, even a physical body comparable to a magical artifact couldn't withstand the relentless bombardment of a Dao Cultivator.
Only when Body Cultivators persisted all the way to the Tribulation Transcendence Stage did they regain the upper hand, since compared to Dao Cultivators, they were far better at enduring Lightning Tribulations.
But leaving aside the Tribulation Transcendence Stage, for most cultivators in the outside world, reaching the Nascent Soul Stage in this lifetime was already the pinnacle. This world's cultivators had no concept of "Nascent Soul is easy to cultivate, Heavenly Tribulation is hard to overcome." For ordinary cultivators, the Nascent Soul Stage was already the height of achievement.
As a result, Body Cultivators were exceedingly rare, and those who truly understood Body Tempering were rarer still. Most of them were Dao Cultivators who lacked talent and could only resort to grueling Body Tempering, at best bullying cultivators below the Foundation Establishment stage.
After listening to the lesson for so long, Ye Ling had gained a decent understanding of Body Tempering, so he asked, "Master, since I can directly grasp Spiritual Qi, would it be possible to use it to wash and temper my physical body?"
"I don't know."
To Ye Ling's surprise, Bai Yiyi shook her head cleanly before continuing, "My good disciple, your talent is exceptional. Your Master's aptitude is far inferior to yours. The method you mentioned is something only you can try for yourself. If there's anything you need, I'll support you in your cultivation."
I need your approval!
If you say you don't know, then I'm completely stuck!
Ye Ling hadn't expected Bai Yiyi to be this honest. If she didn't know something, she simply wouldn't pretend otherwise.
And since he couldn't get Bai Yiyi's approval, the System naturally couldn't activate.
Left with no other choice, he said, "Since even Master isn't sure, I'll follow your method for now."
Still, the failure was within his expectations. Training really didn't have any shortcuts. After listening to so many explanations, this was the only relatively convenient loophole he had found.
But since there was no loophole after all, the only thing left for him to do was—
Work hard, work harder, and damn it, work even harder!