William frowned slightly as he cultivated, steadily building to the breakthrough to the next minor realm.

The high impurity he could detect in his spiritual pathways wouldn’t really be a factor while using his Qi to attack, but it certainly felt like it should.

It was an ugly blemish that couldn’t be ignored, especially since it seemed that those blemishes could best be described as rotten Qi. To his senses, it was as if the black sludge expelled from his body when ridding the body of impurities resided in his spiritual pathways. Not only that, but it merged with a not insignificant minority of his Qi.

William saw firsthand why even the most fundamental books in the Jade Healing Sect warned of the dangers of too much intake of pills and spirit plants.

However, as bad as the state of his spiritual pathways seemed, it was harmless to him. He was coming to suspect this was another quirk of having this broken system.

William had little doubt that if he was an ordinary cultivator, the impurities in his body would have caused issues with cultivating at the minimum and more likely would have also created significant problems when using Qi-infused attacks.

Instead of those detriments, all he had to deal with was the loss of a tenth of the experience points he would earn. A trade-off that was looking more and more favorable.

William snapped out of his theories of how his body treated Impurity when he sensed that his spiritual pathways underwent the telltale qualitative change. He vaguely heard Princess Jin gasp, but he focused on finishing the final circulation of his Qi before slowly exhaling and opening his eyes.

[Cultivate in a Qi-dense environment for 24 minutes: +4 XP]

[Level Up! | 5 Stat Points Added] x3

[Cultivation upgraded | Qi Gathering (5th Level) —> Qi Gathering (6th Level)]

[Modified | Health Overall: 1400 —> 1500]

[Modified | Max Level: 59 —> 69]

[Modified | Max Attribute: 80 —> 90]

[New upgrade requirements available]

Upgrade Requirements (2):

. Spirit: 70

. Eligible for Level 70

[Impurity Reduced]

[Stage 2 (74%) —> Stage 2 (37%)]

He had forgotten that advancing to a higher minor realm reduces the impurity in his body. Rather, it would be better to say that his body gained the capacity to hold more impurity before it became an issue. Perhaps this would be a possible solution to the problem if nothing else was doable.

“Did you advance to the next minor realm?” Princess Jin said flatly, making William glance at her, “Just like that, huh? Makes sense.”

He had basically given up the hope of hiding his rate of advancement from the princess the moment he started fighting for his life against the corrupted beast the first time. And that had only been reinforced as the thing that he should prioritize the least when his leg had literally gotten ripped off.

What was the point of William hiding himself if the result was mauling and/or death? For some reason, the Vitality Restoration Pills had the ridiculous effect of restoring his body to its peak condition, going as far as regenerating his lost limb. At least that was the case with his leg, but he wasn’t keen to test that again soon.

“Give me one more minute, Princess,” William didn’t answer her unasked questions. That could be dealt with later.

[+10 Spirit]

[Max Spirit Reached]

[Modified | Trait: Soul Damage]

[4% —> 2% Attribute Reduction]

[Modified | Spiritual Energy]

[Spiritual Energy Capacity | 385 —> 440]

He efficiently guided the assertional Qi added to his pathways to his stomach meridian, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t wary of the meridian rejecting the extra spiritual energy. After his lung and heart meridians consolidated into compact pinpricks of light and started to reject his efforts to add more Qi to them, he was of the mindset to always expect such a situation when increasing his Spirit attribute.

However, William didn’t experience any setbacks this time, and his stomach meridian assimilated the additional Qi, with the slightly transparent fog of energy inside the meridian getting somewhat more opaque.

He pulled up his main status screen and debated which attributes to increase.

Name: Wei Liang (William Davis)

Age: 13

Level: 62

Experience: 2550/7750

Cultivation: Qi Gathering (6th Level)

Health: 1263/1500

Spiritual Energy: 440/440 (20% per Hour)

Spirit: 90 (88)

Strength: 80 (78)

Stamina: 80 (78)

Agility: 80 (78)

Luck: 80 (78)

Points: 153

Traits:

Soul Damage (Minor) - 2% Attribute Reduction

While he was a massive fan of using as few spare stat points as possible, there wasn’t really a way he could justify keeping most of his attributes below the maximum limit.

Strength and Agility were mandatory increases since they would enable him to instantly take out spirit beasts in the seventh level of Qi Gathering. It might also let him put up a real fight against a beast at the peak of Qi Gathering.

William was tempted to hold back on Luck since he was of the mind that he could leech off Princess Jin, but that thought only lasted for a fraction of a second. The only way he had found he could increase his Luck so far was a dish prepared in the Phoenix Pavilion.

… That felt like a lifetime ago at this point. He missed being in a city with other humans, and even though the dish was made out of literal bugs, he craved another taste.

He decided to reward himself with a similar dish after getting out of the secret realm. Maybe he’d also invite Li Xinyue. Or Wang Xiaoling if she didn’t avoid him because of the money he had given her.

“Are you done?”

William blinked, realizing his fantasies of food that wasn’t a spirit fruit made his mind wander. He glanced at the specter still standing, or rather hovering, guard in the distance.

“Yes, ready to finish this?” William stood up as he assigned his unused stat points to the attributes.

[+10 Strength]

[Max Strength Reached]

[+10 Agility]

[Max Agility Reached]

[+10 Luck]

[Max Luck Reached]

He still wanted to preserve his stat points as much as possible, and Stamina was the only attribute he didn’t feel the need to raise. It hadn’t been much of an issue during the two brawls that he had taken part in.

While there was a sense of fatigue after throwing full-strength punches repeatedly over a hundred times, William hadn’t felt that he was anywhere close to his absolute limit.

He had experienced what it felt like when he had been entirely out of Stamina, and during that time, all he had been able to do was drag his feet like he was being weighed down by the world.

“Maybe we should abandon this,” Princess Jin spoke up with a weary look, “If this was what we faced outside the center, imagine how much worse it will be there.”

William raised an eyebrow at her sudden reluctance, clearly remembering how she was the one who was insistent on continuing deeper. He even thought about taking the way out, but when the Quest penalty wasn’t modified to a lesser consequence, he decided not to.

“I would agree, but did you notice how the spirit beasts were brought in by the corrupted ones?”

“… No?” Princess Jin said slowly, face turning pink slightly, “I was looking at something else.”

William nodded understandably. The only reason he noticed was his hyper-focus on the corrupted beasts. If it wasn’t for that, the chaotic mess around him would have distracted him, too.

“The corrupted beasts had some sort of spatial ability to transport them. I don’t think we will face something like this again.”

“Oh.”

William waited patiently for Princess Jin to settle her confusion. If she had insights into why some a low-level beast had access to Space Dao, he would be glad.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

“If you think it’s fine, I’ll follow your lead, Wei Liang.”

William blinked at the trusting eyes Princess Jin gave him. This was very different from her usual, which resembled someone looking at an unruly child.

He supposed that saving the princess’s life a few times must have changed his impression on her.

Good.

Maybe getting these treasures would make Princess Jin put him on even more of a pedestal. After that, he would be time to sweet-talk her into keeping quiet about his growth. Of course, how he would do that was still a mystery to him.

[Lord Paddlington: What a surprise! You actually lived!]