Chapter 40: Valley

It has been more than half a month since the talent test, but from the tone of the Xianyang Sect disciples, one can tell that the aftermath of the talent test of the new disciples some time ago is still lingering.
It can be said that this talent test of mortal children is the strangest one in history, and it is also the one that has attracted the most discussion among the disciples of Xianyang Sect.
It was because there were two “weirdos” in this talent test. Needless to say, they were Xiang Ling’er and Bu Gong. Xiang Ling’er was often mentioned because of her excellent talent, and people did not hide their envy and admiration for her.
As for Bu Gong, he was also often mentioned by people, but he was completely different from Xiang Ling’er; because Bu Gong had extremely poor talent and was not even first-class, he was ridiculed by everyone and became Xiang Ling’er’s foil.
Although people outside were discussing these two topics heatedly, Bu Gong, the person involved, was alone in a beautiful valley.
He was seen sitting cross-legged on a large stone pier at the edge of the small river in the middle of the valley, breathing slowly.
This small valley is located behind the dormitories of the outer disciples of Bu Palace, in a dense jungle several thousand meters away; its location is extremely secretive.
In addition, the living quarters for new outer disciples like Bu Gong are located on the mountain where the test square is located.
Among the new disciples this time, the only one who was directly promoted to the inner sect disciple was the one with talent above the sixth level; but among these people, except Xiang Ling’er, no one had reached the seventh level of talent.
As for the rest, most of them are between the first and fifth grades, of course including the fifth grade talent; as for those with the first, second and third grade talents, they are all registered disciples, and these disciples make up the majority; while those with the fourth and fifth grade talents are directly outer disciples, and their number is relatively small.
Those with third-class talent, although also classified as registered disciples, have the hope of becoming outer disciples; the only thing they lack is time.
However, among this year’s group of children, there is no one else like Bu Gong who has less than first-class talent, or even has no talent for cultivation; so Bu Gong’s talent is a rarity.
However, he was made an exception and promoted to the outer disciples; because although he did not have first-class talent, he had reached the peak of the third level of body shaping at the age of seventeen, which was nothing to complain about; but it was impossible for him to become an inner disciple, unless he broke the previous record and stepped into the Yuan-peek realm.
…
At this moment, Bu Gong saw a tiny, colorless and invisible airflow entering his mouth, nose and Baihui acupoint on the top of his head with every breath, and then after being rapidly refined in his body, it was devoured and divided up by his flesh, bones and other tissues.
This continued for about half an hour before Bu Gong slowly stopped and opened his eyes. However, a barely perceptible lavender light flashed quietly in the depths of his pupils.
Bu Gong jumped down from the boulder and stretched his body. Then he glanced around and sighed helplessly: “This outer disciple doesn’t even have a good environment for cultivation. This treatment…” Having said that, he shook his head slightly and said no more.
Bu Gong said this because the residences for these newly accepted outer disciples were group-living types; that is, a larger room where dozens of people could live at a time.
Although the outer disciples had been selected after the talent test, namely those children with fourth and fifth level talents; there were still sixty or seventy of them.
The registered disciples who were eliminated accounted for almost seven or eight out of ten of the total number.
If someone asks why there are so many children with first, second, and third level talents, but so few with fourth level and above, it is probably a bloodline issue.
It is very difficult to find a child with good talent for cultivation, that is, a so-called “immortal root” among ordinary people; it can be said that it is one in a thousand, otherwise the “immortal” in the eyes of ordinary people would not be just a rumor.
There were twenty people in Bu Gong’s dormitory, and the beds were only half a meter apart, which shows how small the space was.
This also caused some inconvenience to his usual practice, so Bu Gong felt so emotional.
…
In fact, this is also the case in recent decades. As the news of Xianyang Sect recruiting disciples spread more and more widely, the dominant forces in some large cities could no longer contain it; therefore, the number of disciples recruited each time is several times higher than before.
This also led to a shortage of living quarters for the disciples in the sect, which led to this situation of living in groups.
But this way of living happened to be implemented from the time of Bu Gong.
This can only be blamed on Bu Gong and his group of people for their bad luck!
However, this problem, which was a headache for him, was solved inadvertently when he was strolling around one day; because when Bu Gong was strolling around, he accidentally discovered a small valley several thousand meters behind their dormitory.
When he first discovered this small valley, it was an accident; because the mountain where they lived was overgrown with trees, even their dormitory was built in an area where the trees had been cleared.
That time, Bu Gong was just curious and wandered slowly through the woods towards the back of the house, and he accidentally broke into such a valley.
The valley is located in a remote and secluded area, surrounded by trees and overgrown with weeds. If you don’t look carefully, no one from outside will find it.
Although this place is relatively hidden, some elders and veteran disciples of Xianyang Sect may know about it; but they are all busy with cultivation and so on. Do they come here because they have nothing to do?
Despite this, this small valley is just right for Bu Gong practice; it is simply a small valley with a small river about a meter wide running through it. Various wild flowers and weeds are flourishing, and the environment is very elegant.
And he didn’t know if it was an illusion, but every time Bu Gong meditated and practiced in the small valley, he would feel that the immortal energy in his body was flowing very smoothly. This feeling was completely opposite to when he practiced in other places; it was also not like before, when he always felt some obstruction in the meridians when breathing, regulating his breath, practicing exercises to absorb the immortal energy.
But after thinking about it again and again, Bu Gong could only attribute it to his own illusion.
He was also very satisfied with this small valley, so in the next few days he would get up early every morning and come to this small valley alone to practice.
Bu Gong stood up, stretched his body, and punched the air a few times. Feeling his own strength, a hint of satisfaction appeared on his calm face; “It seems that I should prepare well and try to break through to the Yuan Realm in a month,” Bu Gong murmured as he walked.
Since the test was completed that day and the dormitories were assigned, these children were arranged together; and there were certain courses every day, that is, every morning they would go to the square together to breathe for two hours, and in the afternoon they would go to the square to find opponents to practice and exercise.
Although this is a daily course, the person in charge of supervising the course only shows up once every five or six days, and is hardly even visible at other times.
Bu Gong probably still vaguely remembered their teacher, a tall and thin middle-aged man with thick eyebrows and big eyes, about forty years old; that day was also the first day they started doing homework, so in the morning, everyone ran excitedly to the square, waiting for the teacher to arrive.
After waiting for a long time, the teacher finally arrived, the tall and thin middle-aged man; but after he arrived at the square, he didn’t say much, just called the roll and distributed a booklet to each person, with the three words “Qingfeng Jue” written on the booklet.
At the same time, each person was given three packets of medicinal materials for soaking the body, which were the same medicinal materials that Blind Zhang had used to soak Bu Gong’s body in Shitou Town. These children were allowed to use them as they pleased. This was purely autonomous.
Later, Bu Gong took a closer look and found that the ‘Qing Feng Jue’ contained a section on breathing exercises. Bu Gong tried it according to the above route, and the speed of absorbing the immortal energy was incomparable to his own thunder technique.
It can only be described with one word: ‘slow’; using the ‘Qingfeng Jue’ in the booklet to absorb the immortal energy, the speed is probably only half of the speed when I usually practice, or even slightly slower.
Bu Gong was a little speechless about this. They just threw such a rubbish manual to the new outer disciples. How long would it take for these kids who knew nothing to reach the body-shaping stage?