Chapter 128: Nancy Calls, Qi Gong Makes Great Progress

After receiving the message from his grandfather.

Louis, still cultivating in his room, couldn’t help frowning; the company’s background matched the woman’s guess—W Corp clearly couldn’t be touched lightly.

Very well, let’s keep to our own waters for now.

Once I’ve made progress in my cultivation, I’ll decide what to do next.

My top priority now is to raise my cultivation base; with such a Spirit-Calling Hand, if I still don’t train hard, I’d be utterly lazy.

Louis looked at the spirit sitting on the chair and smiled.

…

For the next two days, Louis stayed locked in the base, skipping school entirely.

Going to school? It’s just a distraction—nothing compares to cultivation.

Meanwhile, back at home.

Emma, also diligently cultivating, suddenly received a call; beside her, Yulencar glanced over. “Who is it? Louis?”

Seeing the name on the screen, Emma was surprised—Nancy? The former student council president? Why would she call me?

As for how Nancy got her number, she didn’t care; the student council naturally had basic student records—anyone could find it with a quick search.

“Not Louis, Yulencar, come here.”

“What’s up?” Yulencar, drenched in sweat, paused her stretching.

“This person seems to be from the student council.”

Hearing that, Yulencar immediately understood and walked over. “Who is it? Let me see.”

“Nancy?”

Yulencar was equally surprised. “Answer it.”

Click.

The call connected.

“Hello, is this Student Emma Grossman?”

“Yes.”

“Great, I’ve got the right number. Could I ask if Louis is home? We have something we’d like him to help with.”

Faint voices could be heard in the background, sounding noisy.

Emma and Yulencar exchanged glances.

The student council wants Louis to help?

“I’m sorry, but Louis is currently occupied and won’t have time,” Emma declined on his behalf, even though she didn’t know the details—after all, their matter couldn’t possibly outweigh Louis’s own, and they likely had no connection anyway.

Refusing was the obvious choice.

“No, the matter we need Louis’s help with involves spirits. Please tell both Emma and Louis.”

Emma frowned. Spirits? How did she know about that?

But Yulencar suddenly nodded to her—she remembered: when they went to retrieve the severed hand, they’d gone straight to school, and Louis had gone upstairs. She must’ve seen him then.

Yulencar mouthed something to Emma; Emma nodded in understanding.

“I’m sorry, senior, but we don’t understand anything about spirits. Shouldn’t you be calling a priest for exorcism? If you have a real problem, just say it—we don’t want to call the police over what might be a joke.”

“I’m sorry, because the other day I…”

“Our vice president, Rebecca, has had trouble at home—she and her brother have both become abnormal. Her brother keeps saying someone’s watching him. Rebecca tried finding a priest, but it didn’t help…”

“...After asking around, we found out it was Louis—you’re a student too—so we thought he might help. But his records didn’t list a phone number, so we had to call you.”

After this explanation, Emma and Yulencar understood how Nancy had found them—and what had actually happened.

But…

Emma rolled her eyes. She felt Louis was becoming increasingly careless about hiding his trail—he’d openly displayed his techniques right in front of those girls.

In truth, Emma didn’t know that those girls had since been silenced by their families with money and guns; with so few witnesses, no one would believe them anyway, so Louis hadn’t bothered to act.

But clearly, he hadn’t expected Nancy to have the nerve to call.

Now, facing Nancy’s call, Emma simply said she’d pass on the message, then hung up.

She turned to Yulencar and complained, “I feel he’s not as cautious as before—if he’d been this careless before, I’d have taken control long ago.”

I’d have flipped the script and pinned him down!

Yulencar smiled but said nothing.

As she complained, Emma edited the details and sent them to Louis; whether he’d see it, and what he’d do after, was his own business.

Then, the two resumed their cultivation.

Emma truly desired power and magical arts, so she trained diligently—and with her talent and relentless effort, her progress was swift.

Yulencar, spurred by Louis’s words, had awakened her ambition; she didn’t want to fall behind. Even if she could manage some businesses later, she’d lose far more—so she trained hard, determined not to be left behind.

Moreover, the Jade Maiden Art Louis later taught them had many benefits; after practicing for a while, they felt increased flexibility. According to Louis, this art could also improve their pores, skin, weight, and prevent future body degradation or loss of beauty.

Of course, its primary function was to condense Yin Essence, and during that process, it also aided their Qi Gong cultivation, accelerating their progress somewhat.

…

Louis didn’t even glance at the message—he simply focused, sitting cross-legged and continuing his cultivation.

A full spirit was far stronger than a half-spirit, yielding greater rewards—and naturally, the spiritual contamination to erase was also greater.

The agonized screams of each spirit as it was crushed, along with countless human tragedies, echoed in Louis’s ears, stirring his anger, pity, sympathy, and murderous intent…

Any empathy created a vulnerability.

Yet Louis not only held firm—he began observing the Divine Lord’s Diagram even under these conditions.

He studied every line and stroke of the drawing, his hands tracing it, utterly focused, not a single distraction.

Inside his body, pure white Qi was nearly filling every inch.

Only the head remained—then his Qi Gong would be complete.

He only ceased his practice slowly that night.

For three days straight, he hadn’t rested at all—three days and nights without sleep, yet he felt not the slightest fatigue.

All thanks to the effect of Divine Completion; with Divine Completion, his Qi naturally surged, which is why his Qi Gong advanced so dramatically in just three days.

Unfortunately, his Essence—the physical foundation—was lagging behind.

Among the three, Essence had grown the least; now, imbalance was beginning to show.

Combined with the fact that all spirits in this region had been drawn and consumed clean, Louis now needed a brief rest.

Next time, it would be the moment of completion.

Hmm—provided he first took the severed hand out to gather more spirits.

Louis stretched.

“I need to eat more ginseng, lingzhi, and other tonics—otherwise, my Essence won’t keep up, and I’ll end up draining my body’s potential.”

He was still young, his body still developing; excessive suppression of Essence would only harm his future, preventing him from reaching his body’s perfect state.

To achieve cultivation breakthroughs quickly under these conditions, external support was necessary—like medicinal tonics.

Herbal cuisine was more effective, but so far Louis only had one internal-strengthening formula from Zhenkun Martial Arts Hall; the rest were all external formulas to toughen the skin.

Why? Because they were hard to obtain and increasingly obsolete. Such formulas, outside major lineages, were mostly found in martial arts, used for internal strengthening.

But martial arts are now in decline—hard to gather these formulas.

Fortunately, modern technology could still help: combining herbal ingredients to meet nutritional needs and create modern tonics, offering partial compensation.

Louis planned to invest more effort in this direction, and collect more rare herbs and treasures—otherwise, as his cultivation base rose, his Essence demands would only grow higher.

He didn’t want his Qi-Essence-Spirit barrel to have a single weak stave.

Of course, if the Legacy Text offered a better method, that would be ideal—these were just his own contingency plans, preparing for the future.

He clenched his fist, feeling the Qi within, and for a moment marveled at the convenience of the Left Path—on the Right Path, swallowing souls to cultivate? You’d get expelled from your sect.

He shook his head. Such thoughts were unwise; after all, he intended to go clean someday—technically, he was already Right Path by proxy. Why belittle his own side?

Besides, Right Path cultivators had plenty of side-effect-free pills to aid their practice.

While the chef prepared dinner, Louis picked up his phone and read the message.

“Vice President Rebecca? Nancy called? The priest didn’t work?”

Tap-tap-tap…

Louis tapped his fingers on the table, wondering if he’d been too careless. He’d assumed Nancy and the others would be silenced, and with so few witnesses, no one would believe them—so he’d lowered his guard. Now they’d actually called.

In fact, he could’ve used the Concealment Technique to enter, then masked his face while acting.

Tsk.

Too careless.

“Need to reflect—especially with W Corp looming.”

Louis conducted a self-critique. As for the request in the message—of course he’d go. How could he pass up spirits?

But he planned to take Maria along.

Unlike Emma and Yulencar, Louis’s training goal for Maria was as an assistant—someone who must face spirits directly. Now was the perfect chance to train her.

After returning, he could teach her the Ghost-Eating Art and better control her abilities.

With a thought, he arranged for Maria.

He looked outside—it was night.

Hmm. Then tomorrow.

Steaming dishes were now brought out—abundant, even excessive.

Beef short ribs, sliced cold beef, truffle fried eggs, butter-baked lobster tails, grilled lamb chops, Italian risotto, French confit duck legs, Dongpo pork, braised pork chops…

(End of chapter)