Aimless Ascension

Xiaolin completed her sixth lap as Vale chased after her, woofing time after time to motivate her. Not that she needed it, but Vale was doing her good. He was doing a better job of it than Gale did.

The sun was about to set and Xiaolin was almost at the end of her training for today. Training like this would have left her completely drained a week ago, and she wouldn't be able to practise the next two days, but with the improvement she made along with the life Qi-filled meal was having, rendered her to do much more than she was capable of a week ago.

Still, she was still far away from her goal of achieving copper rank. Her master had given her six months, but Xiaolin wanted to do it as soon as possible. Six months was too long. She had already improved by almost fifty present as she could now hold on to practising for fifteen minutes, absorbing pure crystals.

She had to improve about eight times that. At the speed at which she was going, she would probably make it in the fourth month, but she wasn't satisfied with that. She had already missed so many years, she wouldn't like to waste more time.

Yes, she would do anything to get to copper. After that, it would be a lot easier. And at iron, she could finally practise like a normal person without losing Qi at every little thing she did.

Xiaolin completed the tenth lap, and the surroundings grew colder by then. The sun had set completely as the workers left during her run. Her master was still on the roof of the first floor of the mansion, working on enhancing the ironwood.

Xiaolin wanted to learn to script too if she could, but now she had her hands full and too low level to even start the basics of scripts. Thus, her focus currently should only be to achieve copper. Then she could finally take other roads.

Xiaolin slowed her pace to see if her master would stop her from training excessively, but Master Gale was busy with his scribing. Scribing needs the practitioner's utmost attention even if you're a master at it, like her Master.

Considering the chances, Xiaolin wondered if she should run a few more laps. Well, if her master finds it, she could always lie.

Xiaolin was about to make her eleventh lap when she found the angelic hound barking at her loudly, as if to alert her master. Xiaolin rushed at the furry beast in an attempt to stop him, only to fail. Vale was much faster than her.

She pouted at him as her master finally lifted his head to stare at her.

"You're done?" He asked, though it wasn't a question. He scanned her from head to toe and nodded. "You're done for today. Go rest. Your elder sister should have prepared food and other things for you."

"Woof!" Vale agreed too.

In the end, Xiaolin could only comply. Reaching the house, she found her elder sister Wang Li breastfeeding little Rong'er.

"You're done," Wang Li said. "I already prepared the bath. You go have a bath. I'll join you in a few minutes."

"Thank you, elder sister," Xiaolin said and crept out of the house towards the new outdoor bath her Master had built with the builders.

Of course, it wasn't finished yet, though most of its functions needed for bathing were available. Her Master would supposedly build another pool much bigger than the bath in the open to chill. However, the bath was his first priority as the one the house had was terribly small and didn't have many functions most practitioners would need.

Although her father had been an iron ranker, he wasn't much of a practitioner. Besides, they could always dive into the river, which wasn't that far away.

Xiaolin could already smell the herbal aroma as well as the rich Life Qi of her elder sister. Xiaolin entered the bath and started to strip down her sweat-soaked practitioner robes. These days, she required at least three sets of robes for her training.

She left the lock open, only shut the door so that her elder sister could enter and she didn't have to stop her channelling.

Xiaolin let herself be completely naked and couldn't help but turn towards the large mirror on the wall that reflected the full view of her figure.

Honestly, she hadn't grown much through this training she had been put through. There was still no growth of her muscles, flat stomach as she had always been. Her legs were a little firmer, and that was it. Although her stamina had improved tremendously, she couldn't see even a marginal improvement in her figure.

The worst of it was her height. Well, elder sister Wang Li wasn't much taller than her, barely half a foot, but that seemed like an impossible margin for her to cover. Xiaolin felt like a midget whenever she was around her Master. She even had to tiptoe to reach his underarm if she stood side by side with him.

"Perhaps the advancement metamorphosis will do me good," Xiaolin mumbled and proceeded to be submerged in the hot water full of herbal goods and Life Qi.

Xiaolin could feel her fatigue relieving the moment she submerged herself in the bath. The rich herbal Qi wasn't just to relieve her fatigue, it was supposedly something that would clean her of toxins, meridians, blood vessels and many other magical effects.

Xiaolin couldn't even imagine how much effort and spirit coins her master and everyone were pulling for her. She couldn't even fathom how much the pure crystal was worth, and yet she was wasting hundreds of gold and silver spirit coins in cultivation every day.

Well, she had seen her master's wealth. Even with her best effort, she couldn't really put a dent in his wealth, considering a Master Artisan could earn back all that she spent from a few minutes' work.

Still, she doesn't know how to repay him and everyone.

Letting out a sigh self-consciously, Xiaolin sat cross-legged on the large tub and started cycling.

The only way she could even think of repaying back was through growing strong first.

"You still have energy left to practise?"