https://novelcool.info/chapter/Chapter-43-Tempering-the-Body-Enemies-Approach/12549124/
Chapter 42: Ripening Spirit Fruit (To Be Continued)
Chapter 42: Ripening Spirit Fruit (To Be Continued)
That evening, Chu Ning was meditating and cultivating in the backyard as usual. However, he felt a sense of unease for no apparent reason.
The feeling was strange, as if someone was watching him.
Chu Ning quietly opened his eyes and looked around, but he didn't see anyone.
Instead, this made Chu Ning even more vigilant.
In fact, he had occasionally felt this sense of being watched in the past few days.
But it would usually just be a fleeting sensation.
Chu Ning had thought it was just his imagination, that he was being overly tense, so he didn't pay too much attention to it.
However, today, the feeling persisted for quite some time, making Chu Ning feel exceptionally alert.
Chu Ning's body stiffened slightly, and his hand instinctively reached for his storage bag. He wanted to be ready to act at the first sign of any changes.
After a moment, aside from the feeling of being watched, Chu Ning didn't discover anything else.
This continued for some time, and then the feeling of being watched suddenly disappeared.
Chu Ning breathed a sigh of relief, his body relaxing slightly, but his brow furrowed in thought.
He didn't need to guess to know that this feeling probably came from Qi Chongmao.
But he couldn't help but feel more puzzled.
Their yards were separated, and his side was even blocked by the Iron Wire Vine.
How could he feel as if he was being watched by the other party?
To be able to observe from such a distance, he knew that it must be the spiritual sense of a Foundation Establishment cultivator.
Could it be that Qi Chongmao, a mere cultivator at the fifth layer of Qi Refining, was also able to use spiritual sense?
Or had he cultivated some secret technique?
As this thought occurred to Chu Ning, he felt a chill in his heart, and his vigilance heightened even further.
Subsequently, Chu Ning focused his attention on his sea of consciousness to check his cultivation progress.
【Greenwood Eternal Spring Art (Lower Low-Grade Yellow), Second Layer (234/900)】
【Nine Transforming Body Refining Art, First Volume, Unbreakable Skin 150/300】
The progress of the Greenwood Eternal Spring Art had been slower lately.
Without the aid of the Greenwood Spring Art, he had to meditate for a long time each day just to barely manage an increase of one proficiency point per day.
What truly surprised Chu Ning was the progress of the Nine Transforming Body Refining Art.
Previously, he had been able to achieve an increase of about one proficiency point per day with this art, so over the past five months, his proficiency had risen to 150.
However, in the past two or three days, Chu Ning had noticed that his proficiency in the Nine Transforming Body Refining Art hadn't increased at all.
"Even though I haven't been going to the fields lately, I've been spending more time cultivating this art. Why hasn't my proficiency increased in the past two days?"
Chu Ning racked his brains for a while before suddenly remembering the introduction to the Nine Transforming Body Refining Art.
"Could it be that I've already reached a bottleneck with this art?"
This thought flashed through his mind, but Chu Ning wasn't entirely convinced.
When it came to cultivating techniques, bottlenecks usually occurred when one was close to perfection or had already achieved it. His proficiency had only reached the halfway mark.
For the bottleneck to appear so early seemed unusual.
Feeling doubtful, Chu Ning didn't slack off in his cultivation of the Nine Transforming Body Refining Art over the next two days.
Instead, he continued his habit of cultivating it three times a day.
What left Chu Ning helpless was that the proficiency of the Nine Transforming Body Refining Art still didn't increase at all.
This only served to confirm his suspicion that the art had indeed reached a bottleneck.
Chu Ning was astonished by this discovery, but he also felt a hint of anticipation.
He was astonished that the bottleneck of the Nine Transforming Body Refining Art was so long, which explained why normal cultivation was so difficult.
He felt anticipation because the Seven-Star Spirit Fruit would be ripe in another day.
Since the Seven-Star Spirit Fruit was effective for breaking through both the Unwithering Bones and Unbreaking Sinews stages, it should have no problem helping him break through the Unbreakable Skin bottleneck as well!
The only thing that made Chu Ning uneasy was that the feeling of being watched he experienced every night was becoming more and more pronounced, lasting for longer periods.
Early in the morning of the fourth day, Chu Ning stood by the window, gazing out into the yard.
During this time, Chu Ning had also figured out some of Qi Chongmao's patterns.
For instance, every morning, he would still leave his yard and head to the spirit fields, while in the afternoons, he would mostly stay within his yard.
As for the evenings, he would usually spend about half a candle mark spying on Chu Ning's side before retiring for the night.
As per his routine, not long after breakfast, Chu Ning saw Qi Chongmao leave his yard and head towards the spirit fields.
However, as he passed by Chu Ning's yard, Qi Chongmao didn't exhibit any unusual behavior.
Chu Ning remained in the house, watching until the other party's figure completely disappeared from view.
He waited a while longer, confirming that Qi Chongmao hadn't returned as he usually did, before quickly making his way to the backyard.
Standing before the Seven-Star Spirit Fruit tree, Chu Ning carefully examined the fruit that he had cultivated for several months.
The leaves of the Seven-Star Spirit Fruit tree displayed a vivid array of colors.
And the fruit itself, which had originally been a greenish hue, had now turned completely red, appearing as if it could fall at any moment.
Just by approaching it, Chu Ning could clearly sense the rich spiritual energy emanating from the Seven-Star Spirit Fruit.
Seeing this, Chu Ning knew exactly what was happening.
The Seven-Star Spirit Fruit had reached full maturity!
Moreover, this Seven-Star Spirit Fruit was imbued with a strong spiritual essence, evidently of much better quality than the ones he had seen at Old Man Sun's place.
It was only after cultivating the Seven-Star Spirit Fruit for a period that Chu Ning understood the reason for this.
Back then, Old Man Sun had only asked him to cast the Greenwood Spring Art ten times to enhance the quality because their cultivation methods differed.
Old Man Sun relied more on external objects.
Hence, when Chu Ning cast the Greenwood Spring Art ten times, it had already reached the limit of the Seven-Star Spirit Fruit's potential.
Even if he had cast it more times, there wouldn't have been any further improvement in quality.
After that, Old Man Sun had simply waited for the fruit to fully ripen.
On the other hand, since Chu Ning had initially planted the seed using the Greenwood Spring Art to draw upon the heaven and earth's spiritual energy, this auxiliary spell had continued to be effective.
Of course, once the quality reached a certain stage, it could no longer be improved upon.
Nevertheless, in the subsequent days, Chu Ning could still sense that the Greenwood Spring Art had a subtle effect on promoting the absorption of spiritual energy and the maturation of the fruit.
Therefore, he had not stopped casting it, not even for a single day.
And it was because of this diligent effort that the Seven-Star Spirit Fruit now possessed such a strong spiritual essence.
Without any hesitation, Chu Ning took out six jade boxes from his storage bag, which he had prepared long ago.
He carefully plucked six of the Seven-Star Spirit Fruits and placed them into the boxes, before storing them back into his bag.
As for the last Seven-Star Spirit Fruit, he plucked it and directly popped it into his mouth.
Since he had previously determined that his first layer of the Nine Transforming Body Refining Art had reached a bottleneck, Chu Ning intended to use the Seven-Star Spirit Fruit to break through this obstacle.
After all, he wasn't sure if plucking the fruit would alert Qi Chongmao, and whether the other party would make any moves.
If he could break through the bottleneck in his body refining, he would naturally have one more means of self-defense.
(End of Chapter)
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