Hua Lei reached home with a jar of rice wine, he quickly set up the hammock which he'll relax on and fixed himself some snacks alongside his drinks, finishing his setup he then reclined on his hammock snoozing away his day, with some refreshment to go with it of course. it was in the evening when the courtyard door bursts open nearly coming apart on its hinges or so it may seem startling Hua Lei up from the hammock he was idling on

  "We'll need to crank up your training montage" Xiao Xiao abruptly said as soon as she spotted Hua Lei's position knowing he'll hear what she said.

  "Huh?!" Hua Lei answered a bit startled by her abruptness and suddenness of her 'request'.

  "Okay we need to speed up your training some more"

  "At first I couldn't comprehend what the girl was spouting" haven't we sped it up by a lot in our previous training session?"

  "I mean a training that I could not get any head way of "became less of an obstacle within 1 and 1/2 months and you are wanting to speed things up again?"

  Yes" came the firm and resolute reply from Xiao Xiao

  then pray tell, young lady when will it commence for this young master wants a day, today off!"

  look!" almost pleadingly she asked "at least could you just at least listen to me

  I looked at her almost surprised the strutting male peacock attitude she'd donned after her initial show of force all these years ago all 'tucked away'.

  word from the village head is that there have been an un natural surge of vicious beasts and rumor has it that a dire beast also has been spotted

  this was confirmed when an independent master was rehabilitated at the XI FENG village and this is a something that attracts the attention of sects, their elders and the part where they strong arm everyone so that they feel the 'glory of the sect'. she then said huffily "a supposed 'glory' that turns them into dogs for the likes of Song Zi Chen and wolves if they get a whiff of unclaimed treasures.

  so it seems that our window of opportunity is closing up by the moment, the battle zone of which you woke up from is already having changes the likes of which makes it a juicy meat for sects and independent masters alike

  This means, I will diet you up on ferocious beast meat elixir soup, that will make it easier for you to consume without side effect like impurities in your vital Qi and give your body another exercise marathon, the series of exercises is intended to make you work your Qi just as your body.

  I was slack jawed by the time she reached this stage of our conversation wait sects even lesser minor sects are no joke, if it reaches that level then the gangs then the DA HAI both branch and main clans, "and the implications of this kerfuffle to our plan of buying up the village? will it mess it up?" I asked

  No and once this place is secured she gestured signifying the whole village then we'll completely unveil the whole bag" she said. Oh I've nearly forgotten about the bag out of sight out of mind

  Now look, this plan is of utmost importance for Yu Ren's mess in the JIAO XIONG jungle barely reached here but using a special type of siphoning formation nearly all the goodies of that place would be siphoned off as material for you to undergo the crucible for the spirit refinement stage.

  Huh? I was speechless what about the village don't tell me they will do some esoteric shit during my ascension to spirit refinement

  Nope, like I said even if you are more powerful than Yu Ren my previous master, you can't do it all alone who will run all your errands by the time you ascend, you? I doubt it. don't tell me that you'll always be quitting your cultivation because of something that you could simply turn into an errand for a powerful underling.

  She then gave me a deep look of which almost made me cringe and then clapped as if she just had a eureka moment "what do we have here hmm," she put her index finger on her chin pretending to think.

  "It think the fidgety you that's silently itching for an action after the break through is now calmer," she looked at me with a knowing look on her face that said a scheme had worked.

  " Now I'll start the instruction sit and begin to meditate" she then ordered

  What choice does man have ehn? man just have to cooperate with this woman based on the normal xianxia troupes, SHTF occurs when the OP character; villain, MC or side character doesn't get his way or as it is for this time 'her' way so I sat down jeje no complain at all and begin meditation.

  Her voice laced with her spiritual power rang in my consciousness while I was visualizing my vital Qi lake it was suspended in the void as a single drop and as grown bigger during my time on my way back the village and on the hammock slacking off.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  She then started her instructions on how I'll split my Qi lake, this is where I got thankful of my lesson in Qi manipulation for it would have came back to bite me in the ass, in accordance to the technique.

  I rotated the top of the Qi lake clockwise and the bottom anti clockwise enabling the Qi lake to split apart perfectly in the mid section forming two ball like drop, no heaven shaking might descended in fact no phenomenon occurred only a slightly bigger tug occurred in that void space sucking in more vital Qi with a force greater than the sum of just two times.

  I also observed that the two balls had this sense of attraction between themselves so I treated it like a binary celestial body subconsciously made them revolve around each other this worked miracles in reducing the burden it placed on my psyche that I quickly got hold on myself leaving Xiao Xiao slightly amazed when I got up patted my butt ready to enter the house for the day but got stopped by her.

  She put her hands on my wrist like a doctor checking one's blood pulse then I felt it a jolt of something ran through me from the point of contact throughout my body "huh" she gasped "well I never would have thought of applying such a nifty method into the technique!"

  Not bad at all she praised and then grew stern "well how will this your rotation method help in the later stage of this technique for I foresee that these droplets will become more as time goes on"

  Pray tell young master" she said not holding back her mocking tone at all "how will you proceed with this technique you oh so conveniently devised?" I could almost sense an eye roll from the words spouting from her mouth

  Well I'll just get on with it" I replied cheekily and moved from the courtyard into my house to retire for the day.

  ****************

  THE NEXT DAY

  I woke up to series of clings and clangs coming from the store, quite early though yes for my senses are now far keener than before and as you might first believe the store isn't attached to the house it's a standalone building of its own not that far away from the house though.

  I haven't fully gotten out of my bed room before the clangs stopped, ok not stop per say, but approaching in a much more subdued, quiet and orderly manner like someone is marching towards ... shwing!, the door opened starring Xiao Xiao with an armful of well arms.

  Startled I asked "wanna raid a hideout with those little babies?"

  "Not a hideout but a whole forest" she answered and then continued "and I'm taking you along, count this as your first self-tempering"

  "Ok, so what's the end goal of this tempering thingy" I asked "what is it designed to accomplish?"

  "Don't worry, just wait for the surprise I have in stock for you"

  ****************

  Deep within JIAO XIONG forest about 10 li away from their camp within the same jungle depicts a scene of a group of 5 youngsters with ages ranging from 16 -23 years of age, confronting what should have been an easy prey or at least that's what they thought.

  "Shu Lin! DaHai Xiu'er! Fei hong! Xin Heng!, Five element battle formation!," the oldest of them barked

  "Yes senior Cao!" the other four answered in unison

  Shu Lin, DaHai Xiu'er, Fei hong, Xin Heng with Cao Peng at the helm of the simplified five element battle formation lay upon the beast. Cao Peng who has already reached the pinnacle of body refinement and has touched upon the stage of aura condensation was pulling most of the beast's attention to himself.

  The rest armed with various weapons built to withstand the stress of usage by Qi root stage beings of the body refinement and below, were able to take 'pot shot' relatively safely once the helm had diverted the beasts attention the rest lay upon it with all they've worth.

  This situation kept on until the beast seemed to have had enough, seemingly sensing the group's intent to make it's death by a thousand cuts it charged at what it sensed as the weakest link of the formation Cao Peng being the strongest of the group occupied the fire position of the battle formation, as for , DaHai Xiu'er she occupied the wood position of the formation and the beast chose the wood position to break through.

  Cao Peng bolted towards her position aiming his jian at the connective tendon near the beast ankle to hamstring it, Shu Lin occupying the metal position of the battle formation leveled his spear at the beast hoping to poke a hole in its flank using the beast incoming speed as leverage.

  The boar wasn't having that at all, the beast was at the same stage with Cao Peng even could have said to have made a little more progress than the man has been able to trigger a berserk technique which normally shouldn't have been possible

  The sword originally able to sunder hide and flesh surprisingly bounced off, spear originally able to poke holes through hide got stuck due to it been rammed onto the boar hide by the charge but that also was ignored Shu Lin got dragged along for he didn't quickly released his weapon.

  The boar charged at her, Xin Heng in the water position did his best by pelting the boar with as much arrows as she was helpless even her arrow like rain method seems not to work and the boar casually batted the tower shield of Fei hong away like a passing thought, Xiu'er is about to be killed.

  Xiu'er seeing the danger incoming tried to get out of dodge, the word here is "tried" however in a nick of time bought for her by her team showing that she had been drilled, she instinctively used her coiling dragon technique that she had adapted to her whip forms in conjunction with her movement technique to move away from danger.

  The beast charged, angled its head to correct its aim still at the same person, it struck, a girls scream tore through the jungle, the boar didn't wait to finish its job however it bolted away for safety, using its corrected course it hoped to squash the girl for good measure which partially succeeded.

  The boar will live to die another day, as for Xiu'er well she needs to be hospitalized soon lest she die of the aftermath of the battle she just participated in, none of the people in the group was in the stage of spirit refining yet so they are not able to use the voice talisman yet but they brought along a talisman that they could use to send signal to the clan if they are in danger, if torn it will make a distress signal and will also reveal their location in real time to the person on the other side.

  **************

  Me left the village in the morning and we ran for what Hua Lei could swore to have been hours, they didn't put it at high intensity but at constant speed a little lower than the fastest man on the planet or at least the planet Hua Lei came from they covered a lot of distance.