Yu Tian had the furnace out and was refining pills.
Xueling, on the other hand, just sat opposite him, watching.
After about thirty minutes, Yu Tian was done. He thought to himself that he was getting used to this process. He gave Xueling the pill.
"Don’t take it yet," he instructed.
"Why not?" she asked.
"He’s probably going to send room service just to confirm our condition. It would be bad if he noticed that we are suddenly in top condition and decides to call for backup instead," he explained.
"Can’t we just reject having people here? We are cultivators after all," she said.
"We could. But the chances of him attacking decrease. He might think that we are using some method to recover and thus we aren’t accepting people in. But if we accept food and drinks, it means we can’t sustain ourselves with qi and have to eat food to recover. This will boost his confidence," Yu Tian said.
She nodded, then smiled. "You’re quite smart," she said. "Have you ever thought of becoming sect leader?" she asked.
"If I did, I would’ve died," Yu Tian said with a blank expression.
"Ah, I almost forgot that he was initially a servant," she thought.
A few minutes later, Yu Tian finished making the second pill. At the same time, Xueling reached for her sword.
"Someone is coming," she said. ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ɴovel(ꜰ)ɪre.nᴇt
Yu Tian also heard footsteps from afar. Due to his tenth layer Body Refining cultivation, his senses had been enhanced quite a bit. This was how he could fight in the darkness alongside Xueling.
A knock was heard on the door.
"I brought some food and drinks for the guests," a female voice said.
"Leave it there," Yu Tian said.
"Alright," the voice replied, and her footsteps were heard going back.
After her footsteps stopped, Yu Tian walked up to the door.
"You know she hasn’t completely left, right?" Xueling asked. She could still sense the woman’s location around the corner.
"That’s why I’m putting on an act," he said. "Allowing her to come in directly would be too obvious since we are cultivators. But also having her go back with it would mean we have another way to recover." He explained, "With this, we can still maintain our pretense, but still show that we are desperate enough by how we take it just after we hear her leave."
Yu Tian wondered to himself if he had become too obsessed with numbers. They were rising by just a small bit for all these schemes. Well, even just a single percent was something. He remembered his chances of becoming a cultivator just two days ago, and now, he was a cultivator.
He opened the door, then pretended to look around for any witnesses before pulling the cart with the food in hurriedly.
"They really did that?" the boss asked. The female employee nodded.
"Then they’re really desperate," the boss said. "Looks like I should make my move." He spoke, then smiled widely. "Of course, I also like being meticulous in my work, so I’ll wait for ’that’ first," he said before breaking out in laughter.
The employee just nervously watched her boss.
At the same time, in the room, "This guy is really meticulous. Even with all the signs we’ve shown, he’s still not convinced yet," Yu Tian said.
"What do you mean?" Xueling asked.
"He poisoned the food," Yu Tian said.
Xueling gathered energy on her palm, wishing to destroy the food instantly, but Yu Tian held her hand.
"No need to destroy it. It’s still useful," he said.
"Is someone watching? Should we pretend to eat it?" she asked. She thought to herself that she couldn’t sense anyone watching though.
Yu Tian shook his head. "The poison used here is with a wood-related qi technique," he said.
"You... you’re not thinking of..." she stammered in shock.
"That’s right, I’ll eat it," he said. "I can then circulate this wood qi to upgrade my wood element cultivation."
She looked at him as if he were a ghost.
"Don’t worry too much about it. As long as I follow the right method of refinement, I won’t be poisoned," he said.
After some time, she shook her head. It seemed there was no convincing him.
"It should be fine since you made two pills. You can just use one if things go south," she said with a sigh.
Yu Tian smiled. "You should also take your pill," he said.
She listened and swallowed her healing pill, quickly beginning to refine her energy. Yu Tian, after watching her for a few seconds, also began his plan. He took huge bites of the food, devouring all of it in an instant. He then settled into a meditative posture.
He thought to himself that this wasn’t regular poison but rather a qi-based poison.
The way it worked was that when someone took it, they wouldn’t instantly know that they were poisoned, only knowing when they tried to mobilize their qi. It seemed the boss was planning for them not to know, so they wouldn’t make any desperate moves until the very last second when he showed up and they found out they couldn’t mobilize qi.
Yu Tian began circulating his qi. The moment he did, he felt a sharp pain in his qi pathways. He steeled his expression. This was nothing, he didn’t really care about the pain. He just wanted the power, and he would get it.
He summoned his wood qi and began interacting with the poisonous wood qi.
Although it still hurt like hell, he began circulating the poisonous qi through him with the help of his wood qi to ease the pain. He used the Path to Heaven method as always, ensuring to circulate the poisonous qi through the best possible path.
As he did this, he felt the pain from the poison slowly ease away. The poisonous energy slowly being tamed and becoming more docile.
Half an hour later, all the poisonous qi had been completely refined and absorbed into his cultivation. His wood element was now at the fifth layer of Qi Gathering too.
He thought to himself that now he just needed to get the other three elements - metal, water, and fire - to the same level. He sighed. Even after that, he still had to get them to the ninth layer to breakthrough to the Foundation realm, where he would get his first real boost in strength.
It seemed he still had a long way to go.
At that moment, he heard Xueling whispering his name. He slowly opened his eyes.
"He’s coming," she said.