Another round

"Hide? Why would you?" Feng Ling asked mischievously, "At most, some hungry beast might take a liking to your tender skin." She caressed his chin with her finger while speaking.

"Hah, senior sister sure likes to joke." Ji-Yoon didn't know if he was to laugh or cry and calmly put his fingers on her chin, caressing it slowly while looking at her chest, "But if it's not a joke, I think you might be mistaken about who is the beast."

"Pfftt" Feng Ling laughed out loud after this, but her voice was a bit gloomy, "To think a little kid can learn to be so lascivious, who taught you that? Who ruined you?" She slapped his hand aggressively and took some distance.

"Hehehe" Ji-Yoon laughed with narrowed, flirty eyes, "Who ruined me? Why don't you come to my cave abode at night so I could explain myself better to you?"

"Wow, junior brother, I'm starting to doubt if you have been telling the truth or if you are just a courageous kid to invite this hungry ghost," Jiang Wu said with wonder and applauding palms, his stance was clearly that of watching a good show.

Feng Ling clenched her fists and said with rage, "Whoever gave bad education to you will have to deal with my wrath! You don't need to say who was it! I will seek the person myself!" she then left the place with an ominous bearing.

"Wow! How can someone so beautiful be so creepy?" Jiang Wu muttered while visibly impressed and then said to Ji-Yoon, "Junior Brother, I suggest you stay low-key for the next few days, don't go out often since that woman has some lowly thugs to do her biddings here on the sect and they might kidnap you at her order."

"The way you are telling me this, I wonder if it happened before?" Ji-Yoon asked, clearly amused, a smile growing on his face, and a glint shone on his teeth.

Jiang Wu just gave him a meaningful smile before leaving as the wind. "She is not an extremely evil woman, she never really did something extremely bad. Just... a bit bad," he said when already out of the horizon.

"A bit bad? Hah..." Ji-Yoon smiled bitterly.

He didn't go to his cave abode but went to retrieve his new disciples' robes, it was clearly much better designed and of better quality, with a strong crimson red color as the main color with some white adornings. It had a small sign of the Alchemy way on the back.

"Latrine's Li, Li Feng! Are you there?" Ji-Yoon shouted in front of Latrine's Li cave abode.

"Brother Ji, please don't call me by this nickname..." Li Feng said as he went out of his cave wearing both a bitter smile and the inner disciples' robe.

"Hoh? You sure made full use of it..." Ji-Yoon muttered with narrowed eyes as he sensed his cultivation base and saw his new status, "How the fuck did you advance to the Peak of the Golden Core Realm? And how did you get promoted so fast?"

"H-Huh? Oh, right. I almost forgot you went into a coma for a few months..." Li Feng said without looking at Ji-Yoon, his lips curved into a strange smile, "You see, I got a very generous Master... Anyway, congratulations for becoming an inner disciple, the robe looks great on you, just a bit worse than it is on me."

'...This guy's luck sure went straight to the sky,' Ji-Yoon thought and then said, "Don't tell me you are still getting that kind of sudden fortuitous encounter?"

"Oh, it seems so. Earlier when I was walking, I accidentally discovered a mystic herb that can help me to break through to the next Realm." Li Feng said and showed him a purple flower that exuded mystical proprieties, his expression denounced pride.

After sniffing a bit of its marvelous scent, Ji-Yoon cursed inwardly, full of envy but showing indifference. 'Hey, you. Are you listening? Why does his luck work so well for him? While mine is so timid...'

[Ding! Dong! No comments.]

'Yeah, just as I expected. Fuck! This guy's luck simply turned hundred eighty degrees after he drank just a bottle... I have been drinking it for so long, but I still didn't get something precious by strolling around, neither did I got a generous master.'

[Ding! Dong! Are you sure? What about the fucking epiphanies?]

"Damn! Since when can you swear!?" Ji-Yoon suddenly burled out in shock.

"H-Huh? Brother Ji? What are talking about?" Li Feng looked at Ju-Yoon with a perplexed expression.

"Cough. It's nothing, I just remembered someone and burled out. Anyway, who is your master?"

"Oh... About that..." Li Feng looked deeply at the sky, full of melancholy, and said, "It's someone pretty high level on the sect."

"Seeing you acting like this, don't tell me it's the Sect Master?" Ji-Yoon asked with a half-joking tone and an inscrutable expression.

"So you did learn the news after all!" Li Feng laughed and patted Ji-Yoon's shoulder, "See, you don't need to fear anyone bullying you, I'm your backer from now on! No more Latrine's Li this or that!"

Ji-Yoon twitched the corners of his mouth, al.ost not believing, and said, "Congratulation on receiving such a great master. But I'm a bit curious, why did someone so great accept you?"

"Oh, I don't know. She never told me the reason," Li Feng answered with a hand behind his head.

"Wait, 'she'? Isn't the Sect Master a man?" Ji-Yoon asked with a frown.

"Oh, the previous Sect Master suddenly abdicated and my master took his place," Li Feng explained, "It's a strange matter, even I don't know what exactly happened."

"What? Is it so surprising that a guy like you doesn't know something important?" Ji-Yoon mocked him and slapped the back of his head, "It seems that the shadowy atmosphere within the sect wasn't my imagination."

Li Feng caressed the place where he was slapped with an irritated expression and said, "Brother Ji, please don't do it again, I might get angry and slap you to death."

Ji-Yoon narrowed his eyes and smiled, a menacing aura began to envelop him. "It seems you got waaaayyy too cocky since the last time I saw you."

"Brother Ji, please contain yourself. I am stronger than you now," Li Feng said with his hands behind his back, he sighed and shook his head like someone alone at the highest peak.

"Damn boy! Do you think cultivation base is everything?" Ji-Yoon said while pressing his shoulder with a hand.

Suddenly, Li Feng felt as if the world went dark. Not only he couldn't see anything, he even felt that his cultivation was being completely restricted for some unknown reason.

"What the fuck!" he tried to burl out, but nothing could come out of his mouth. When he was almost despairing, everything went back to normal, Ji-Yoon was looking at him with a somewhat surprised look.

"What did you do?" Li Feng asked with a trembling voice.

"Hmm. To think I could do it so easily..." Ji-Yoon muttered, ignoring the confused boy.

Lin Feng took a few steps back and checked himself to see if he found anything out of ordinary.

"Don't worry, I didn't do anything to you at all, but you wouldn't understand even if I tried to explain," Ji-Yoon said with a smile, "Just think of it as me pulling a trick."

"What!? What do you mean?"

"Forget about it, for now. The reason I come here was to see if you are interested in taking part in a special... 'training' I'm going through along your Granduncle. But since you already got a master..."

"W-Wait... This training, can it teach me what you just did?" Li Feng asked with sparkling eyes, completely showing his childish and edgy side.

"No," Ji-Yoon shook his head in denial and mocked, "Even if I tried to teach you, you wouldn't be able to learn it. You are completely unqualified the way you are now."

Listening to it, Li Feng's expression instantly darkened. "What do you mean?" His fists silently began to clench.

"Unless you are willing to abandon your current cultivation and start again by following a different path, you wouldn't be able to get the least bit of comprehension of the Mortal Dao," Ji-Yoon patiently explained, "Which is necessary to do this trick I just pulled."

"Mortal Dao? What is this?" Li Feng asked while caressing his cheek.

'...I almost forgot that generally only martial artists are interested or even know about it,' Ji-Yoon thought as he caressed his temples and then said, "Just take it as a topic of research and find out yourself. You can try asking your master too.

"I'm leaving. If you want to train with us, you can try contacting us later."

After getting back to his cave, Ji-Yoon sat as usual and started to plan his next steps.

'With what I accumulated during those few months... I can probably try reaching Greater Success in the Dao Mind Refining Technique.

'I got lots of silver and gold graded mystical herbs and other resources that are compatible with the technique. It should be enough, or so I hope...'

In one go, he took out all the compatible resources of the storage ring. Almost instantly, the cave abode was full of different mystical scents and auras. Some herbs were multicolored while others were almost invisible. Some crystals seemed to be almost exploding with violent energy.

Ji-Yoon clapped his hands together in a strange hand seal and a vortex began to form around him, sucking the energy of the resources.

With his eyes closed, he began to circulate the technique within his consciousness sea. Seemingly boundless energy began to enter his body from the vortex and began to temper his Dao Mind.

As he circulated the technique, he also began to comprehend more and more mysteries of it, along with some principles of the Life Dao.

Moved by an unknown impulse, he began to infer the flow while circulating the technique. He then began to slowly change the way he circulated the technique to a more efficient way.

As the flow guided him, he also began to comprehend more and more principles of the Life Dao along with the profundities of the Dao Mind Refining Technique.

As time passed, the resources around him began to turn into dust as the energy within them disappeared.

And then, a spark of green light appeared in the middle of Ji-Yoon's forehead. It began to shine more and more strongly, until its light engulfed the entirety of the cave abode, outshining the other sources of light completely.

As if something exploded within him, Ji-Yoon trembled and began to cough blood violently, it was full of chaotic energy, which he was unable to absorb. At the same time, the spark in his forehead disappeared.

"Damn, I almost coughed my entire throat out. I should be more careful when picking resources for this technique next time," he muttered weakly, but with a satisfied grin, "Greater Success!"

He could clearly feel his augmented sensibility to the Dao and cultivation in general, it was around five times greater than before. Moreover, his ethereal mind was around ten times more powerful and sensible than before, although its range didn't increase even a bit.

"Now, if I buy another round of 'smart time'... I wonder what would be my gains?

"System, give me another round of maximum boost. This time, I want an entire day."

[Ding! Dong! Host, it would cost about all of your remaining resources, are you sure?]

"Cut the crap!"

[Ding! Dong! As you wish, then! A hundred times boost during an entire day.]

Instantly, Ji-Yoon again felt as if he was the smartest guy in the world. His IQ soared so high that he was tempted to think he could solve any mystery. It was even stronger than before because of his recent breakthroughs.

He then entered into a deep state of grasping principles and comprehension. With his eyes closed and his two hands at his knees. His breathing slowly became as silent as the deep.