The middle-aged man glanced at the students in the Autumn Leaf Courtyard and then said calmly, "All rise. The Secretariat Department has asked me to inform everyone that, though cultivation is something to be happy about, it also requires a balance between work and rest. Go back to sleep and come back here tomorrow morning."
Qing Chen was speechless; the old man clearly saw through his thoughts and was teasing him.
As he watched the students say their goodbyes one by one, the middle-aged man came over and whispered, "Don't worry, there won't be any opponents in the passage that you can't handle. You might have some doubts, but you can get your answers at Dragon Lake tomorrow."
Qing Chen thought to himself, alright then.
That night, he waited on the steps of the passage all night, but the assassin never came.
Qing Chen even wished he had the assassin's phone number so he could call and ask if they were still coming—if so, to hurry up, and if not, to just forget it. Why keep dragging it out?!
Early at 6 o'clock in the morning, footsteps were heard outside Autumn Leaf Courtyard, accompanied by whispers: "When does the master open the doors of Autumn Leaf Courtyard in the morning?"
"I don't know either. Li Ke said it's entirely up to the master's mood," someone responded.
Gradually, all twenty-two students were waiting outside the gate, Qing Yi pacing anxiously among them, awaiting the opening of Autumn Leaf Courtyard.
Li Su glanced at the others: "I thought I was the only one who would come this early, but it turns out all of you are as early as me."
A young man named Li Huang laughed and said, "What, did you think you could be the only one to receive the master's empowerment? Wishful thinking."
Li Su looked at him, "Li Huang, you were the one murmuring privately yesterday that, except for parents and grandfather, you bow to no one, right?"
"That was for the protection of my dignity. 'A man's knees have gold beneath them.' It does take some psychological effort to kneel to someone seven years younger than me," Li Huang explained earnestly. "But I meant no disrespect to the master."
In fact, the reason this group of people came to Autumn Leaf Courtyard so early in the morning was that they could not enter a meditative state in their own homes.
Just like when Qing Chen first taught Zhang Tianzhen and Liu Dezhu, the frequency of the Breathing Technique wasn't so easy to master. Even Uncle Li Dong thought it would take Qing Chen half a year to use the Breathing Technique on his own, but Qing Chen himself was an exception.
At this moment, someone looked at the few who had been empowered yesterday: "I heard that after the master empowered you, you immediately lit up your first illumination point?"
Li Su and Li Yinuo nodded in agreement.
Just then, Qing Chen opened the two small wooden doors of Autumn Leaf Courtyard from the inside: "Come in, each of you sit on your cushions."
"Thank you, Master," the crowd said as they entered in succession.
Qing Chen went to each person to check their cultivation progress with Knight Vital Energy.
He needed to know, out of these 22 students, whose talent was the best and who cultivated the fastest, so he could pay more attention to them in the future.
However, when he came to Li Yinuo and Nan Gengchen, he suddenly frowned.
Just one night had passed, and these two had each illuminated an illumination point simultaneously.
Qing Chen found it strange, others aside, he had specifically checked their progress when empowering them last night, he definitely hadn't made a mistake.
Moreover, he was aware of Nan Gengchen's talent; even if he could maintain the Breathing Technique on his own at Qing Shan Villa, it would not be possible for him to have such a rapid rate of cultivation.
"What's going on with you two?" Qing Chen asked, frowning. "Why is your cultivation progress so fast?"
Nan Gengchen hesitated, "There's... nothing wrong."
"Tell the truth," Qing Chen said coldly.
He himself had never practiced this method, so he had to adjust the teachings based on the experience of the students.
"Yesterday... well," even with Li Yinuo's straightforward personality, she seemed to find it difficult to speak about this matter.
In the end, Li Yinuo looked into Qing Chen's calm eyes and mustered the courage to say, "Yesterday, when Nan Gengchen and I were together, we found that a 'Qi' from our illumination points was reciprocating between us. By the time we finished, our cultivation progress had significantly increased, and now we have each illuminated an illumination point."
Nan Gengchen looked innocently into the sky, feeling the taste of social death.
Qing Chen was astonished!
Even he, as the teacher, didn't know that this method could unfold in such a way!
Although he had previously speculated that the esoteric tradition of Vajrayana always had legends of dual cultivation, which is why many Buddhists considered this lineage to be unorthodox.
But Qing Chen didn't expect that such a manner of cultivation actually existed!
Moreover, the enhancement to the cultivation progress by this method was immense, even rivaling the benefits of empowerment.
No, Qing Chen looked at Nan Gengchen's expression and guessed it wasn't just once.
At that moment, Qing Chen saw the peculiar expressions on the faces of Li Su and the others and suddenly felt something was amiss.
This was a legitimate cultivation method, and he was a respectable person. However, seeing these students eager to try, he worried if his cultivation organization would acquire some strange reputation.
If the Couriers of his sect all engaged in such practices, it would be impossible for others not to know.
While rapid cultivation was certainly a good thing, the reputation of the sect was also very important!
If word got out, how would others view him?
It didn't matter how he explained it; people would only believe what they wanted to believe!