Training The warm sun filtered through the window and lazily sprayed into the tidy room.

Within the room, a young man with a bare upper body was sitting crossed within a wooden bowl. His two hands were knit together into a strange symbol. His two eyes were shut tightly while his breath was calm but powerful.

In the wooden bowl beneath him, a mysterious green liquid was strangely sparkling.

As he trained longer, the green liquid within the bowl began to slowly evaporate, giving off a light green stream of air. stream slowly lifted upwards and squirmed into the young man’s nose with his breathing.

Once the stream was inside his body, the young man’s face became shiny and smooth like White Jade.

As if he felt the ever increasing Dou Qi within his body, the young man’s face revealed a light smile.

After confirming his success, the young man didn’t stop there. He still had his eyes shut tight and kept his hands in the same position. He didn’t even budge and maintained his maximally efficient position as he greedily sucked up the energy within the green liquid.

The green liquid sticking to the young man’s body was slowly absorbed by his skin, strengthening his bones and cleaning his Qi paths...

Under the young man’s restless absorbance, more and more green streams came up from the bowl and slowly, they became so dense that they covered the young man’s naked body in a layer of mist.

Under the restless training, the bright sunshine that came in through the window slowly became weaker and the room became a lot cooler.

.....

In the wooden bowl, the young man gathered in the final wisps of green air and his eyelashes twitched before opening to reveal two pitch-black eyes.

Within the pitch black eyes, a white glow passed through but this time, it had a hint of green.

Slowly letting out a breath, the young man quickly stood up and let the cool water droplets flow off of his body. Taking a lazy stretch and feeling the abundant Dou Qi within his body, the young man muttered: “At this pace, I can probably get to the fifth Duan Qi in two months...”

After preparing everything, Xiao Yan stayed in his room for an entire half month. In the time he stayed in his room, besides eating and attending bodily functions, he had been training his Qi non-stop.

Even though training was extremely boring and tiring, it was nothing compared to the taunts and ridicules that Xiao Yan had endured for the past three years.

The three full years of taunts had taught him how important strength was in this world....

Even though the days passed tiresomely, the results of them were pleasing.

The effects of Yao Lao’s bowl of elixir was much stronger than what Xiao Yan and even the creator of it, Yao Lao had thought it would have. Yao Lao had predicted that it would take at least a month for Xiao Yan to get to 4 Duan Qi, but Xiao Yan only took half that time....

At this, even Yao Lao was surprised at the speed and efficiency in which Xiao Yan trained. Even though Xiao Yan had done this before, the speed at which he was going right now, isn’t a bit too incredible?

The most important and toughest part about training Dou Qi is in the basics. The 10 Duan Qi would take people 10 to even 20 years... Of course, once a person becomes a Dou Zhe then their training speed would increase exponentially. If one can only raise one Duan Qi in a year before becoming a Dou Zhe then that same person could probably go up a couple of stars in a year once after becoming a Dou Zhe....

When the training speed was slanted towards later times, Xiao Yan’s performance in half a month was surprising to say the least.

....

Walking out of the bowl without hesitation, Xiao Yan looked back at the lighter green liquid in the bowl. The lighter color was definitely due to his training and he helplessly shook his head while whispering: “Can this sustain for another month and a half?”

Wiping off the remaining water droplets, Xiao Yan randomly put on a fresh suit of clothing and crawled onto his soft bed. After doing so, he reached behind his pillow to take out the pitch black metal piece.

The rust on the steel piece had already been wiped off by Xiao Yan to reveal a smooth and glowing surface. It was quite mysterious.

For the past half month, Xiao Yan had been intently studying this metal piece that contained a Low Xuan level Dou technique whenever he took a break from training.

In the half month, under the instructions of Yao Lao, Xiao Yan finally had a bit of understanding of the techniques involved. But because of the lack of Dou Qi, he couldn’t use it for anything useful which made Xiao Yan a little disappointed.

......

Placing the metal piece between his two palms, Xiao Yan closed his eyes and used his soul perception to observe the black metal plate.

With the calming of Xiao Yao’s breath, the room was once again peaceful.

Another long silence passed before Xiao Yan opened his eyes again and raised his right hand. His right hand was curved into a claw and his light Dou Qi, under Xiao Yan’s insistence, quickly went through the few Qi and pressure points on his palm to become a pulling force.

“Peng...”

The ceramic vase that Xiao Yan pointed to made a few circles before falling down the tables. And with a clear crash, it shattered into countless pieces.

“Hah, even though the Dou Technique is at the Xuan level, my Dou Qi is too low and I can barely use the technique.” Seeing the destruction that he had caused, Xiao Yan whispered to himself: “Looking at the power it has right now, if I want to have enough force to vacuum a person towards me then I need to be at 7 Duan Qi.”

“Whatever, let’s go to our clan hall to find some lower level Dou Techniques. This vacuum hand, it won’t be of much use for some time. But since I can train my Dou Qi again, I don’t need to use my foolish method of training that I used before...” Sighing again, Xiao Yan climbed off of his bed and glanced at the motionless black ring before leaving the house.

Wincing his eyes and adjusting to the blazing sun, Xiao Yan carefully closed his door before lazily walking onto the stone path towards the clan’s back rooms.

To the sides of the stone path were emerald green willows. The bountiful green felt soothing and sharply contrasted with the scorching heat.

Turning onto a different path, a young girl’s laughter greeted him.

Because of the disturbed calm, Xiao Yan furrowed his brows and following the source of the laughter, he saw a couple of young girls coming towards him from another path.

Crowded by other girls, a pretty girl was laughing. The charming face that she had completely overshadowed the other girls beside her.

She was the girl that was second to Xun Er in the Dou Qi testing, Xiao Mei.

Glancing at the girl that had once stuck to his side calling countless biao-ges, a flash of unrestrained mocking went across Xiao Yan’s face. Lightly shaking his head, Xiao Yao retrieved his sight.

TL: Biao Ge is brother not in one’s direct family. This is a formal saying compared to ge-ge which is more of an familiar saying.

When Xiao Mei reached the road Xiao Yan was on, Xiao Mei’s charming laughter died out as she had seen Xiao Yan...

The sun scattered its light and made the impassive young man with his hands behind his head indescribably attractive.

A pair of pretty, large eyes stared at the young man coming closer, and trying to distinguish whether there was a light smile or ridicule hanging on the edges of his mouth, Xiao Mei mentally gravitated towards Xiao Yan. Suddenly, she felt as if she had lost something...

Three years ago, that young man, on the edge of his mouth, had that intoxicating curve.