Chapter 9: Enrolling at Knowledge-Seeking Peak Part 2

Beneath the sword, mountain peaks piled upon one another in endless succession. Their flying speed was fast, as if one careless moment would send them crashing into a peak. Bai Xiaoxiao couldn’t adapt, so she simply closed her eyes and refused to look.

Fortunately, Knowledge-Seeking Peak arrived quickly. When they landed, Ming Jingqiu noticed that Bai Xiaoxiao behind her had gone deathly pale.

She was startled. “Was my sword flight too fast?”

Bai Xiaoxiao waved her hand wordlessly, taking a moment to recover. “It has nothing to do with Fellow Daoist Ming. I’m simply not accustomed to sword flight. Please excuse my foolishness.”

Ming Jingqiu’s expression went blank for an instant. She never would have expected that to be the reason.

As Sword Sect disciples, they began learning how to wield swords during the Qi Condensation Stage. However, their cultivation was too low to perform sword flight at that point. It wasn’t until they reached Foundation Establishment and had sufficient spiritual power to sustain it that the elders would teach them all at once.

For longer journeys, such as disciple training expeditions or sect competitions, the Sword Sect would arrange flying boats. As for other cultivators, they had their own means of transport—all sorts of strange contraptions, mostly refined by the Artifact Sect, requiring only spiritual power to control.

But Bai Xiaoxiao wasn’t a sword cultivator. Although her cultivation had already reached Foundation Establishment, she now had to start from the Qi Condensation Study Hall. Clearly, her Foundation Establishment rank didn’t quite live up to its name. Her lack of adaptation was understandable.

Ming Jingqiu relaxed her expression and nodded. “Then I’ll come pick you up after class ends.”

She pointed in a direction. “If you keep going that way, you’ll reach the Qi Condensation Study Hall.”

Bai Xiaoxiao nodded.

After taking leave of Ming Jingqiu, she walked alone toward the study hall at a dawdling pace. It was currently peak time for heading to class, and there were many disciples along the way. Bai Xiaoxiao could feel countless gazes gathering on her.

Some were admiring, some puzzled, some curious.

Bai Xiaoxiao kept her eyes straight ahead, her face blank, pretending not to notice the dense stares. She quickened her pace through that stretch of road and finally arrived before the study hall.

But before she could even breathe a sigh of relief, the moment her raised foot crossed the threshold, the room full of little sprouts turned to look at her in unison.

In the silence, someone with a loud voice shouted.

“Huh? Is she the new teaching elder?”

That one sentence left Bai Xiaoxiao frozen in embarrassment, trapped between advancing and retreating. It also shattered the silence, and the room grew loud.

“Eh? Big Sister Xiaoxiao, why are you here?”

Bai Xiaoxiao sharply caught a familiar voice. She looked up and saw that it was indeed Fushui—the little girl who brought her medicine. She was also attending class in the Qi Condensation Study Hall.

Her heart relaxed. Bai Xiaoxiao walked in, stepping past the little sprouts who were staring at her with wide, bright eyes, and sat down in the empty seat beside Fushui.

“What a coincidence, Little Fushui. You’re here for class too?”

Fushui blinked her big eyes. “Big Sister, so you’re here for class too!”

Bai Xiaoxiao rubbed her nose. “Y-yeah.”

An adult like her mixed into a classroom of little sprouts did seem a bit inappropriate. Fortunately, there was a familiar Little Fushui here.

Fushui immediately puffed out her chest. “Big Sister, don’t be afraid. Fushui will protect you!”

She thumped her little chest with her hand, striking the pose of a little boss.

Bai Xiaoxiao wanted to laugh, her eyes curving despite herself. But she held it in and obediently nodded. “Okay, Boss Fushui. I’ll rely on your protection then.”

Called “boss” for the first time, Fushui was visibly delighted.

The other little sprouts didn’t bother hiding their curious stares, all looking at Bai Xiaoxiao while muttering among themselves.

But Bai Xiaoxiao was much calmer now. She let the little sprouts look to their hearts’ content, occasionally offering a smile in return.

The little sprouts all gasped, and the study hall fell silent for a moment.

The child sitting beside Fushui pulled her over and whispered, “Fushui, is this the big sister you said looked like a fairy from a storybook?”

Fushui nodded with restraint. “Yes, yes. She’s Big Sister Xiaoxiao.”

The little sprout propped her face in her hands, excitement shining in her eyes. “She really is as pretty as you said. I want to grow up to look like that too.”

Fushui turned and examined her carefully, then said with the air of an adult, “But you’re already very pretty now. And there’s only one Big Sister Xiaoxiao, just like there’s only one of you. You shouldn’t look the same, or I won’t be able to tell you two apart.”

The little sprout pouted. “Fine, you can’t mix us up. Then I won’t look like her.”

The two of them chattered away. Perhaps because they were so close, Bai Xiaoxiao discovered that she could hear every word. When she realized what they were talking about, a smile crept into her eyes.

Listening to kids talk was quite entertaining. She smiled, propping her head on one hand, listening with interest. But after a while, she felt an inexplicable creeping sensation. Before she could examine it, the teaching elder walked in.

The little sprouts immediately quieted down.

Evidently, the fear of teachers was universal no matter where you were.

Fushui’s seat wasn’t particularly close to the front. Under normal circumstances, the elder wouldn’t notice this side of the room.

But today was clearly not normal circumstances.

Little Fushui had Bai Xiaoxiao sitting next to her, standing out like a crane among chickens among the little sprouts—far too conspicuous.

The elder’s mouth twitched just thinking about this one’s identity. In the end, she simply averted her gaze, deciding not to see.

Class officially began.

Bai Xiaoxiao couldn’t spare any attention for that strange feeling from earlier. She was dizzy from the lecture, her head filled with terms like “looking inward at the dantian” and “Embracing the Origin and Guarding the One.”

Knowledge did enter her brain, but she didn’t understand any of it. Even when the elder personally demonstrated, teaching them how to sense the spiritual qi around them, Bai Xiaoxiao closed her eyes only to see pitch darkness. She couldn’t see anything at all.

She fell into silence.

“So this is what it feels like to be a bad student.”

The System seemed to chuckle. “Host, don’t be discouraged. You can do it. You actually manage to mobilize spiritual power occasionally in your daily life. You just need to find that feeling.”

Bai Xiaoxiao let out a long sigh and, refusing to accept defeat, tried a second time.

This time, she made a real effort to quiet her mind. Following the elder’s instruction, she first slowly closed her eyes, then strove to sense the spiritual qi around her in the darkness. She tried and tried…

“Host, relax. The more deliberate you are, the harder it becomes.”

So Bai Xiaoxiao gradually loosened her furrowed brow.

At first, there was no change around her. But after a moment, she discovered that starlight seemed to be flickering to life in the darkness. Then the starlight turned into orbs of light. Suddenly, her vision transformed dramatically. She could see many orbs of light floating around her, some large, some small.

Not only in the air—the little sprouts themselves radiated light from their bodies. Some were brighter, some dimmer.

Bai Xiaoxiao thought for a moment, then it clicked. It seemed the brightness of the light corresponded to one’s cultivation level.

Then what about her…?

Bai Xiaoxiao shifted her gaze to herself, and her consciousness suddenly blurred. The scene around her changed once more.

She now found herself in a bright space. However, this space didn’t seem very large. The orbs of light she’d seen earlier were packed around her, looking somewhat loose and scattered.

“This is your dantian. Congratulations, Host. You’ve learned to look inward at your dantian.”

Bai Xiaoxiao curiously examined her own dantian. “So these floating things are spiritual qi?”

“To be precise, they’re spiritual power that has been converted and absorbed. Host is at Foundation Establishment, so your dantian is just a small lake. As you gradually improve and expand the small lake into a large one, then condense it into a golden core, you’ll enter the Golden Core Stage.”

Bai Xiaoxiao nodded, gradually forming a clearer picture of cultivation.

But the orbs of light in her dantian really were very loose. It was like buying a cheap, shoddily padded cotton coat—the filling was all thin and sparse.

“That’s because Host’s current realm is only Early-Stage Foundation Establishment. As you cultivate, they’ll naturally increase.”

Bai Xiaoxiao gazed at the marvelous sight, full of wonder.

A modern person like her had never experienced anything like this.

But according to the System, cultivation should be about absorbing the sensed spiritual qi orbs?

Following that thought, Bai Xiaoxiao’s vision withdrew from her body. Then, tentatively, she reached out to a wisp of spiritual qi drifting past.

Before she could figure out how to absorb it, the wisp was automatically drawn into her body the moment it approached.

But the wisp didn’t travel directly to her dantian. Instead, it began to circulate through her meridians. Bai Xiaoxiao felt she couldn’t control it, but her intuition told her she couldn’t let go. She gritted her teeth and pushed through until the wisp transformed into a thin strand of pure energy and entered her dantian. Only then did she breathe a sigh of relief.

Bai Xiaoxiao hastily withdrew from her cultivation state. Before she could react, she found herself covered in gazes again and felt a moment of hesitation.

Had she inadvertently done something conspicuous?

Silence spread through the study hall.

After a long while, the little sprouts reluctantly withdrew their gazes. Only then did Fushui lean in and say, “Big Sister, you’re amazing. The elder said you’re at Foundation Establishment, and when you entered a cultivation state just now, she let us watch you cultivate to find the feeling of drawing qi into the body.”

Bai Xiaoxiao: “…?”

Huh? Watch her cultivate?

Bai Xiaoxiao quickly glanced at the elder, feeling deeply unworthy upon hearing Fushui’s words.

Actually, she felt the elder didn’t need to be taken so literally, lest they all be led astray…

The Qi Condensation class covered a great deal of material. By the time it ended, Bai Xiaoxiao’s eyes had lost focus. Even when the elder dismissed the class, she still looked as if her soul had drifted away somewhere.

Dizzy and disoriented, Bai Xiaoxiao rose with unsteady steps and was escorted out of the study hall by a group of chattering little sprouts. She didn’t even notice where they were leading her.

It wasn’t until she came back to her senses and saw the vast open space before her that she slowly fell into silence.

From the little sprouts’ fragmented conversation, she gleaned one piece of information: the place they were currently at was one of the Sword Sect’s martial arts branch arenas.

And their next class was—Basic Sword Arts.