A Record of A Mortal's Journey to Immortality

Chapter 7: The Difficulty of Cultivation

Han Li slowly gathered the energy flowing through the meridians in his body back into his dantian. This was the seventh complete Great Cycle he had run today. He knew his body had reached its limit of endurance. If he ran another Great Cycle, there was an eighty to ninety percent chance his meridians would rupture again, and he would once more experience that agony worse than death. Just thinking about the excruciating pain of the meridians tearing bit by bit made even the usually brave Han Li break out in a cold sweat.

It had now been more than half a year since Han Li joined the sect, and the formal entrance examination for registered disciples had ended over two months ago.

Only a small portion of registered disciples could officially join the inner sect. Most of the examined disciples had failed this hurdle, and those who didn’t pass had to pack their bags and descend the mountain to become outer sect disciples.

Most of those who failed were assigned to the Treasure Gathering Hall and the Flying Bird Hall. Those who showed some promise might receive further training with a chance to be recruited into the better Outer Blade Hall. Of course, the best treatment among the outer halls was given by the Four Seas Hall, but it only recruited famous figures from the martial world. Without some real skills to show, it was impossible even to think of joining, let alone these inexperienced youths.

When Han Li thought back to the contents of the examination that the other registered disciples had gone through two months ago, he still couldn’t help but feel a chill down his spine.

They had to run a lap around the Rainbow Cloud Mountain range spanning more than ten miles, then team up for combat in a sparsely populated forest, and finally withstand a series of attacks from highly skilled senior brothers. All these tests gave Han Li a bit of a schadenfreude feeling.

Han Li and Zhang Tie hadn’t participated in these terrifying tests. As Doctor Mo himself had said, they only tested the progress of the cultivation method in their secret manual. But this wasn’t as easy to pass as Han Li had imagined. Even now, he remembered clearly the conditions he had faced during cultivation.

According to Doctor Mo, this manual of unknown name was divided into several layers. Han Li and Zhang Tie had only obtained the first layer’s cultivation instructions, meaning that if the two of them could make progress in the first layer within half a year, Doctor Mo would consider them to have passed and officially accept them as his disciples, granting them the same favorable treatment as other inner sect disciples of the seven mysteries sect.

Ever since Han Li learned from others about the difference in treatment between inner sect and outer sect disciples, he had abandoned any notion of just muddling through to become an outer sect disciple and go home. For him at that time, compared to earning a bit more silver from the seven mysteries sect and having someone escort him home, nothing else seemed as important. Having come from a poor family, he knew that every bit of silver he earned could improve the lives of his parents and siblings.

After obtaining the manual from Doctor Mo, Han Li stopped going outside and began cultivating day and night without rest, dedicating all his available time to it. Since Doctor Mo gave them no guidance on cultivation, Han Li could only explore on his own, referencing how other youths practiced the seven mysteries sect’s basic internal skill, pure yang energy, and deduced his own cultivation methods.

Following this method, after three months of hard work, Han Li was shocked to discover that his progress was frighteningly slow. Despite his utmost efforts, he could only generate a faint, cool energy flow inside his body. This energy was so subtle it was almost imperceptible unless he carefully observed it internally.

This was probably the inner sect true qi that the instructors mentioned, Han Li naturally thought.