This water vat weighed at least two hundred jin! No matter how much Lu Yang had enjoyed playing in the mountains since childhood—climbing trees, diving into rivers, shooting birds, and catching fish—he couldn't lift a vat of this weight.
Yun Zhi casually drew a talisman on the water vat. Its weight dropped drastically, right to the point where Lu Yang could barely lift it with one hand.
She produced a puppet to oversee Lu Yang.
"Carry it for a day first and see the results."
Leaving behind this casual remark, Yun Zhi vanished into the clouds. Lu Yang traded glances with the puppet, sighed, tied his shirt around his waist, and began his miserable life of vat-carrying.
With the puppet supervising from the side, the moment Lu Yang rested for even a breath, it forced him to continue hauling the vat, squeezing out every ounce of his strength.
When his arms completely ran out of strength, the puppet fed him two Nourishing Pills. When his arms grew so sore and stiff that he couldn't move them, the puppet fed him two Nourishing Pills. When Lu Yang became so exhausted that he just wanted to sleep, the puppet fed him two Nourishing Pills...
By the end of the day, Lu Yang's legs trembled, his arms hung limp, and he could not feel his arms at all. If his body swayed to the left, his left arm swung like a pendulum; if his body swayed to the right, his right arm swung along with it. Then, with a thud, he collapsed to the ground.
As usual, the puppet poured two Nourishing Pills down his throat. Seeing no response from Lu Yang, it had no choice but to conclude the day's training. Finding a small cart, it wheeled Lu Yang back, conveniently tossing a straw mat over him.
Catching the aroma of food, Lu Yang's body instinctively reacted as he began to drool, and his consciousness gradually returned.
*Finally, food.* Lu Yang breathed a sigh of relief. If not for the meals, he would have thought he hadn't joined an immortal sect at all, but had instead committed some heinous, unforgivable crime and was locked in a water dungeon undergoing torture.
Having apprenticed under the Sect Master, he didn't need to worry about food. He didn't have to take Fasting Pills every day; all sorts of rare, unrecognizable ingredients were prepared into delicious delicacies, quietly nourishing and improving Lu Yang's constitution.
Lu Yang still couldn't lift his arms, so the puppet fed him the entire meal.
After dinner, Yun Zhi brewed a large cauldron of body-tempering medicinal broth and told Lu Yang to bathe in it. Catching the smell of spirit herbs permeating the air, Lu Yang nearly reeled from the pungent fumes.
"Take this." Yun Zhi handed Lu Yang a hollow reed tube.
"What's this for?"
"When soaking in the body-tempering medicinal bath, your whole body must be submerged. Your head will inevitably stick out when you bathe, so bite onto this reed, submerge your head completely, and breathe through it."
Lu Yang thought that she truly lived up to the title of Eldest Senior Sister—so considerate and thorough! Even if she was torturing him, it was for his own good.
Once Yun Zhi left, Lu Yang stripped stark naked, clamped his teeth onto the reed tube, and jumped into the wooden tub with a splash. Immediately afterward, a bloodcurdling screech like a slaughtered pig rang out.
"Eldest Senior Sister, did you use boiling water for my bath?!"
...
Yun Zhi arrived at the small courtyard. A refreshing breeze brushed past, dispersing the herbal bath scent clinging to her. She began pondering what else she might have overlooked.
She had grown up in an immortal paradise, surrounded only by cultivators. Later, she joined the Dao Seeking Sect and devoted herself entirely to cultivation, rarely mingling with the mortal world. Her understanding of mortals was minimal.
To teach Lu Yang, she had specifically sought out many books describing mortals. While Lu Yang was studying the basics of cultivation, she was studying common sense regarding mortals.
Evidently, books describing mortals made no mention of the appropriate bath temperature for a mortal.
Hearing Lu Yang's hoarse shrieks, Yun Zhi pondered for a moment. It was too late to cool the water down now. In that case, she could only...
Yun Zhi produced a bottle of burn ointment from her sleeve, placed it by the door, and knocked.
"Little Junior Brother, I've left the burn ointment at the door. Remember to apply it."
...
Some time passed. Under the threefold help of forced, tireless training, spirit beast meat, and specialized medicinal baths—punctuated by scalds and peeling skin—Lu Yang finally grew from an ordinary mortal into an outstanding folk acrobat skilled at vat juggling.
Three two-hundred-jin water vats were tossed around like sandbags by Lu Yang, arcing through the air.
At the same time, Lu Yang could tread along the rims of the water vats, pacing in circular Bagua steps as if walking on flat ground.
He could even lay a vat on its side, balance on the rolling vat as steady as Mount Tai, and still have enough leisure to juggle the other three vats!
With this trick alone, he could have drawn rounds of applause on any street corner!
"Not bad. Your Body Tempering is progressing somewhat faster than I anticipated." Yun Zhi clapped lightly, giving Lu Yang an immense boost of confidence.
Though Yun Zhi rarely showed herself, she had actually been paying close attention to Lu Yang's progress all along.
"Can I practice cultivation now?" Lu Yang set down the vats and asked eagerly. He waited quietly for the answer, not daring to take a loud breath.
During his period of Body Tempering, Meng Jingzhou had come looking for him, but before they could exchange more than a few words, the puppet had chased Meng Jingzhou away.
He had heard that his peers, such as Meng Jingzhou and Man Gu, had all completed Qi Induction and become true immortal cultivators. Every day they meditated and cultivated, detached and ethereal. Only he was still grinding away at Body Tempering. This made him somewhat anxious; he felt left far behind, and the psychological gap was daunting.
Yun Zhi did not answer. Instead, she retrieved a block of tofu from her storage space. The tofu was extremely soft, wobbling in Yun Zhi's fair palm like a water-filled balloon.
"Palm down, grasp it."
Lu Yang thought this didn't sound difficult at all. Obediently doing as told, he grasped the tofu. But the moment his fingers twitched ever so slightly, the tofu was crushed into mush and splattered all over the ground.
Yun Zhi handed Lu Yang another block of tofu, gesturing for him to try again.
Refusing to believe he couldn't do it, Lu Yang figured the first time was an accident and the second attempt would surely succeed.
The tofu was crushed once again; he couldn't hold it at all.
After failing a third time, Lu Yang realized the issue. The strength in his hands was now so immense that it was difficult to control. It was only because the items around him were made for cultivators; if they were ordinary items, he would have had to eat with utter care just to avoid accidentally snapping the chopsticks or crushing the bowl.
Furthermore, his strength had grown too fast, and his mind had not yet caught up with his body's speed. That was the reason his fingers spasmed from time to time.
Under such conditions, grasping a block of tofu as soft as water was easier said than done.
Yun Zhi stopped handing Lu Yang tofu. Turning her palm downward, she held a block of tofu and swung it casually. The tofu wobbled and shook, yet it never broke apart.
Suddenly, Yun Zhi let go. As the tofu fell, she caught it again with lightning speed!
Lu Yang's eyes went wide. Catching a falling block of tofu—how difficult must that be?!
Under Eldest Senior Sister's precise control of force, the soft tofu was no different from a lump of iron, to be toyed with at will.
"You have achieved lifting heavy as if light, but lifting light as if heavy is far beyond you."
Lu Yang fell silent. He knew that he was still far from finishing Body Tempering. Cultivation could not be rushed. Meng Jingzhou and the others had been trained by their clans since childhood, which was why they could jump straight into cultivation.
Catching up to them would be anything but easy.
He had had no one to guide him in his youth. Now, he was receiving personal guidance from Eldest Senior Sister, backed by natural treasures and rare resources. His rate of growth was already astonishing. What reason did he have to be dissatisfied?
Lu Yang also recalled what Eldest Senior Sister had said before: cultivation was a lifelong journey. A momentary lead or lag mattered little; what truly mattered was who could laugh last.
Lu Yang took two deep breaths, realizing his previous mindset had been flawed. He adjusted his mindset in time, no longer obsessing over training speed.
And then, he saw Eldest Senior Sister have the puppet wheel over an entire cart of tofu.
Chapter 12