"What is this person scheming now?" Thinking inwardly after seeing who the person in front of him was.
A few minutes later, Ling Xu continued walking as he was returning to his room, ready to start another round of refining qi into the body.
While doing so, he observed the pouch he had in his right hand. It was a normal leather pouch just like the rest he had already seen when he got the reward from finding a clue about the fox in the Qi Refining Realm. But unlike the last one, this one was filled to the brim.
"I didn't expect him to give me a pouch of thirty low-grade spiritual stones." perplexed at the change in attitude he perceived in Lu Wenjie. "But the reason is more than obvious, after all he invited me to go on a mission together. Who would believe in such a thing?"
Although he came to him and tried to apologize, Ling Xu wouldn't trust anything that came from someone who had come at him previously. Even less when the next thing he asked was to go on a mission together.
"He only wants to bring me outside of the sect so he can deal with me once and for all. If it wasn't because it isn't allowed to harm fellow disciples within the sect, he would have already tried."
But even though he knew what it meant, he agreed to go with him. "I wouldn't have cared if he didn't use sister Qinglan as a bargaining chip."
Ling Xu agreed mainly because Lu Wenjie had previously talked with his fiancée, asking to go on a mission with the temptation that they had a map with the inheritance from someone above the Qi Refining Realm.
This wasn't mentioned to him since Lu Wenjie didn't plan on telling him about, lest the more people know the more dangerous it is.
"I also want to know what he is planning to do, since he won't be able to call his senior brother from the inner sect." Although pondering about it, he was confident in his current strength. Ling Xu already felt that unless it was someone who was about to advance to the Foundation Building Realm, he wouldn't be defeated. Or at least he would have a chance to run away.
With his current strength, Ling Xu had the same amount of opened acupoints like someone in the fifth stage of Qi Refining. Not only that, but with the Formless Qi Breathing reaching perfection, his formless qi had become very dense.
Don't mistake that his qi is able to seep through his meridians and integrate into his body with its density since the formless was only a property but the strength and purity it had was far superior to anyone.
Unless he had to go against someone who had also perfected his breathing method and was a few stages above him, Ling Xu was confident in his own strength.
Apart from his opened acupoints and formless qi, Ling Xu's sword technique had reached great success and he had also started to advance with great strides through the Wind Gale movement technique.
This wasn't all, since the date that Lu Wenjie had set to leave the sect and do the mission was just in time with the day after the path between his eyes opened once again.
He had already planned on using it in the Flowing Stream Sword after all, so he could finally reach perfection and increase his strength once again.
"Before I could only defeat Xie Jian who is in the sixth stage of Qi Refining. But with my last breakthrough to the second stage and my cultivation technique reaching perfection, I feel confident in handling someone who is even in the seventh stage."
Thinking about this, Ling Xu didn't mention his sword technique that had reached great success since once someone had reached the high stages of Qi Refining it meant that they weren't a pushover.
Considering the time it would take any disciple to get from the first stage all the way to the seventh stage or even higher, he knew that their mastery over their respective techniques wouldn't be lacking at all.
He didn't think the same about the cultivation technique since this was much harder to learn and they would need to transform their qi before their mastery advanced to the next level.
In this way, even those who had reached the high stages were lucky if they had realized this soon enough and had practice it, reaching with enough effort the proficient level of mastery.
Afterwards, only those who were considered geniuses at the sect would be able to get to great success, but don't think that this was easy since even between geniuses more than half of them would have a hard time doing so.
But returning to before, even with Ling Xu's last two improvements, he only felt secure in winning against someone one stage higher than Xie Jian.
This was the reason why he wanted to reach perfection in the Flowing Stream Sword, even though he lacked in speed because his movement technique was in the small success level, he thought that it was more secure to increase its power since he believed more in defeating his enemy than to secure an escape.
"The moment I find anything suspicious I will attack right away, not giving them a chance to take the lead and surprise them with my full strength." He thought since he counted with the worst case scenario, where Lu Wenjie would bring more people to the group.
But Ling Xu only needed to attack first while he had a chance and he wouldn't have a problem to turn them into a corpse.
Back in his room, Ling Xu continued with the refining of his formless qi, breathing large portions of air from his surroundings. Because of his breathing method reaching perfection, his breathing was now extremely profound.
From breathing in an interval of a few seconds, with his improved mastery he could surpass a dozen seconds without a problem. This didn't bring any side effects; on the contrary, it gave him greater control over his use of stamina.
The refining of qi continued for a few more hours until the day reached the afternoon and Ling Xu went to eat at the dinning hall which offered the meat from low grade Blood Qi Realm beasts.
He sat alone as he recalled what he was thinking before being interrupted by Lu Wenjie. "Now that I have reached the Qi Refining Realm and my body has become stronger, my mind should be able to withstand the information and understand the technique that I obtained from the mission's reward." He closed his eyes and begun searching for the place in his mind that contained the technique.
Reaching the place where it was stored, Ling Xu managed to feel traces from the technique once again. This time, he was able to perceive even more than before, but as this continued for a minute pain came as he was overwhelmed.
Coming back to reality, he opened his eyes with a hand in his head as he tried regaining his senses from the shock he received after trying to get information from the technique.
"I think I now understand why I can't help but forget even the basic information from the technique. It isn't that I can't understand its description or some simple fragments but that once I have made contact with these small pieces of information, the rest will start pouring in."
The information that Ling Xu wanted to get access to within his mind was like a stream, and once he broke the restriction that sealed the information it would breakthrough and force its way with unstoppable pressure.
If he wanted to have access to it, his mind needed to be strong enough to withstand all the information that this technique. It wouldn't matter if he learned a portion of it since once he stopped accessing its information he would forget it completely.
Getting his eyesight back, he looked in front as he was surprised by the presence of Sun Qinglan, who had been observing for a while already.
"What were you doing? You looked extremely focused and all of a sudden you seemed to go through great pain. It can't be an injury since you seem fine, have you gotten an internal injury while in the previous mission?" she asked with a curious face.
After observing him for a few minutes, she became interested in what needed his attention to the point of closing his eyes and that was able to make him look in pain. Having noticed his expression change once the information started breaking through the seal and making him feel overwhelmed.
Ling Xu's stark brown eyes met her eyes for a while as he was wondering how long she had been here. Unable to stand the pressure from him looking directly at her, Sun Qinglan had to change the direction of his eyes feeling flustered.
When she was looking at him go through it, she had realized that Ling Xu was actually quite handsome. Although he was a little younger than her, he had quite the mature face for his age and within him you could feel a manly energy radiating from his body.
This was something that came with Ling Xu's three blood exchanges and blood transformation as it had completely changed his body, emanating vigor from it.
This was also one of his advantages when fighting against someone in a higher stage of cultivation. Before even reaching perfection in the Formless Qi Breathing cultivation technique, he was able to contend with someone two stages higher in the Qi Refining Realm when it came about physical strength alone.
Apart from this, with the improvement that came from this cultivation technique, Ling Xu's profound breathing gave a strong impression. It wasn't something that could be noticed normally, but as Sun Qinglan stared at him for a few minutes she had the chance to observe it, showing how high his mastery in his cultivation technique was.
The more one comprehended and advanced in their cultivation technique the stronger they would have their qi, acquiring the characteristic from it. This also showed in breathing since it was one of the most important aspects.
So one could also guess what kind of cultivation technique or how high their level of mastery was based on it, but it was very difficult since it needed very high senses and a lot of experience to identify it.
As he realized that he had been staring at her eyes for quite a while already, Ling Xu answered in hopes of making her feel less awkward.
"Fortunately I wasn't injured while on the mission." He gave a short response, stating that it wasn't an injury or anything of the sort. He still didn't answer what it was since it was hard to explain and it was part of his secret, since it was deeply connected to his identity of being from another world.
"If you say so…" looked at him in frustration, seeing that he was unwilling to share what it was. Trying not to show this, she continued with the reason why she was here. "Don't accept to go on the mission with him." A pair of eyes looked at him directly, losing all the shyness since she was worried about him.
Seeing her preoccupation, Ling Xu had to reevaluate his understanding of her since he didn't expect her to care about him. It was even more strange as he had previously heard how distant she was with other fellow disciples.
"You don't have to worry, I will be fine." His eyes seemed unfazed about Lu Wenjie's danger.
She looked at his eyes and was surprised as she observed his calmness, which showed how confident he felt that he wasn't threatened by him. Still, she didn't think that he would be able to defeat as she continued showing how worried she was.
"Brother Xu, this is not a matter of whether you are strong or not, I have already experienced how monstruous your strength is. Able to beat me while in the first stage is already something that only a few geniuses can do, and you have proven you are one of them."
Sister Qinglan paused for a second before her face became solemn, "But Lu Wenjie isn't only one or two stages above you, he has entered the sixth stage of Qi Refining and has already opened thirty eight acupoints in his body. This isn't something that can be dealt with you current cultivation level."
Being several stages in cultivation above him was a great disadvantage, since he would open acupoints every time he broke through to the next stage. This wasn't all since the more acupoints he had the more he would open in the next stage, making the gap in stage increase the difficulty for anyone who wanted to challenge someone above their cultivation level.
So even if Lu Wenjie's current count of open acupoints was just above average for someone in his current level, showing his low mastery in his cultivation technique, he was still much stronger than any second stage cultivator in the Qi Refining Realm.
This would normally be the case since the range of acupoints opened per stage was almost predetermined. After breaking through the Qi Refining Realm, those who were in the first stage would have from one to six acupoints opened based on the reserves and purity of their blood qi before advancing.
Although Lu Wenjie wasn't talented, being the young master of a powerful family he was able to go through one blood exchange, allowing him to open four acupoints in total once he entered the Qi Refining Realm.
After entering the sixth stage last night, he increased his opened acupoint to a total of 38 which was quite average.
Even though he had entered the realm with one more acupoint than the average disciple, with his low mastery of his cultivation technique his qi didn't increase much in strength apart from when he advanced to the next stage so the amount of acupoints he opened decreased.