Aimless Ascension

Wang Li's achievement in the fate lock fusion seemed to fire her up in practising spirit arts. She had been cycling non-stop since dawn, forgetting about her duties at the inn. In the end, Grandma Wang took over for her.

Well, the Inn was going through a renovation on the occasion of the festival, there weren't taking any new customers nowadays. Though all of that would change as they were giving a new look to the inn, keeping all the serenity of the old look.

Plus, with the higher quality of wine and alcohol Wang Li would be able to brew using her new fate-lock, he could see Wang's Inn rising astronomically in the following year.

Anyway, it wasn't just Wang Li who was fired up in training. Along with her, Linlin wasn't losing out any bit. After finishing her morning session, she practised the physical arts under Gale's observation. That cost her all the Qi she managed to accumulate last night and in the morning session.

Well, that was the way of spiritual arts. Accumulate Qi and waste them through other arts.

The physical body didn't just grow as one accumulates Qi. Although the metamorphosis of rank-up gives a boost, that's hardly enough. A practitioner had to put their body through rigorous training, using the Qi along the way.

Only through this process would their body get used to Qi and grow more resilient.

That's where Xiaolin's problem was. Her body was terribly inefficient to let her do all that. Her accumulated Qi didn't recover after usage, which rendered her at the lowest of the rank for all these years.

If not for that, she wouldn't even need a master to reach iron rank with her latent talent. And with the right resources, Silver was not an issue at all. Even the proud scion of Sun Clan was barely at silver, and he was a couple of years older than her.

Well, it is not a race to get to the top with the fastest speed, but that told a story.

After watching her practice with all her heart, Gale promised to bring her with him today so that they could work on the advancement. It was a week earlier, but that's alright. Her physical body would hardly break through with the speed she was going.

Only through advancing to copper could she change that.

Wang Li finally woke up from her morning cycling session. Her eyes widened, finding how far the sun had risen. She was at it for over five hours.

"My cycling speed rose," she said and stood up. Wang Li stretched as a cranking noise came. "You said the fate-lock won't provide any assistance in cycling speed."

"Naturally, a practitioner gets better at controlling their Qi after a fate-lock fusion," Gale said. "It's not the fate lock that is assisting you, but you yourself at the root of the issue. The fate-lock is perfectly fused with your spirit, which lets you have better control over your Qi, and now whenever you practise, you can channel almost to your full efficiency."

"So I was inefficient before?" Wang Li's lips twitched as she said that.

"That's a crude way to put it," Gale said, "but yes. If it was Linlin in your place, she wouldn't get that much of a boost. She's already at the peak of her efficiency in her rank."

"Is that so?" Wang Li perked her brows as she turned to the frail girl, who was practising her sword moves. "How would you solve her problem if she was already at the peak of her efficiency in cycling?"

"Naturally we'll have to introduce foreign content to her system, which will enable her to have a higher level of efficiency."

"The pure crystal thing you told us about?"

Gale nodded. "A gold body is the most efficient for cycling as all the cells in the body process the Qi simultaneously." Gale carried on with his explanation. "In contrast, a copper body is less than 10% efficient in Qi processing. Iron is a lot better as most practitioners at the peak of iron can work at 50% efficiency. Silver rank mostly changes the senses, but in QI processing, it's about the same as iron. While at Gold, just advancing to Gold makes your body hit the 90% mark.

"However, these are all numbers. They don't represent the boost one gets as they rank up. The boast didn't work that linearly. The difference between copper and gold isn't just around ten times. The actual number is much larger. Each metamorphosis changes the body. The more you grow, the more magical you become"

Wang Li nodded in understanding as the Master practitioner finally let her on some secret of higher practitioners. "And the pure crystal can skip the rank disparity and boost the Qi processing? How efficient can it be?"

"An iron ranker can easily work at 70 to 90% efficiency, however, it won't be half as close to that of a gold ranker," Gale explained. "As I mentioned, the body goes through qualitative changes after ranking up. However, considering Xiaolin's perk, she can easily be as efficient as a peak iron ranker in Qi processing."

"I don't understand it fully, but isn't that cheating?"

"It is, but there's a catch," Gale said with a laugh. "Pure Crystal exhausts the body to a tremendous degree. The way Xiaolin is now, she would be exhausted in only ten minutes.

"That's why the physical training," Wang Li muttered as it clicked right to her.

"Obviously, ten minutes wouldn't be enough for her to reach copper," Gale said. "As far as I'm concerned, she would have to at least hold close to a couple of hours."

Wang Li whistled.

"From halfway point to copper in two hours," Gale mumbled. "I don't see her succeeding anytime soon."

Not to mention the exhaustion of the body, there was still the exhaustion of spirit and mind. Gale had to find a way to grow her spiritual and mental fortitude as well.

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Gale's flashback chapter coming after this . . .