Out in Town
With excitement written all over his face, Shi Li hastily stood up…only to kneel on the ground soon after. With an awkward chuckle, he remembered that he sat cross-legged for 8 hours straight to open up his 30th acupoint, which meant that something like this came as no surprise for someone like him. After allowing his blood to flow around his legs for a bit, he stood up once more, finding no resistance whatsoever.
After that, he went ahead and summoned all of the qi stored in his acupoints to circulate around his body. A few seconds later, a small torrent of qi was circulating all over his body, prompting a satisfied smile to appear on his face, only for him to let out a sigh not long after. Returning all of the qi back to their respective acupoints, he lamented to himself, "It's a pity that I can only store a fourth of the qi I could actually store."
"Then again, the previous owner of this body couldn't even store qi at all, let alone break open 30 acupoints like me," he said soon after, only to let out a mocking chuckle as he continued, "Why am I fighting with someone who has accepted his fate? I'm just putting in the effort so this life of mine doesn't end early. I'll just respect his decisions."
"In any case, there isn't much point thinking about the amount of qi I can store for now," he said soon after as he thought about what to do next. "After all, there are techniques out there that could help out in the efficient usage of qi, not to mention increasing the amount of qi I could store at once. With that, I should try and find more methods of speeding up my cultivation as my life depends on it."
As he said that, he recalled how he told himself before cultivating that cultivation pills would be one of the easiest ways for him to speed up his cultivation. With those words lingering in his mind, he also recalled what he had to do next. Opening the door, he made his way to where his mother was once again, which was the clan kitchen.
While making his way to where she was, Shi Li went ahead and tried to experiment with the qi he had control over, thinking about how he could increase the speed at which he was traveling. He remembered back in the novels he had read in his past life that when qi was concentrated on a certain spot of the body, it would amplify the ability that certain spot had. Thinking about it, he then manipulated his qi to head towards his legs, instantly giving him a slight boost in his speed.
Seeing as what he had read actually worked in this world, he was left astounded for a bit before placing the thought at the back of his head, using up all of his qi to hasten his journey to the clan kitchen. Fortunately, he had arrived at the clan kitchen just as his qi had ran out. On the other hand, the time it took for him to arrive at the place had been reduced by around 20%, making him satisfied.
Recovering the qi he had lost by absorbing some from the surroundings, he then found his mother working once more, sending her a few gestures that notified her of his arrival. After waiting around the area for a few minutes, Shi Languang met up with her son once more outside the clan kitchen. However, instead of looking at her son with slight surprise, she was now looking at her son with great shock as she could feel that her son had slightly gotten stronger.
"What cultivation level are you at, son?" Shi Languang quickly asked, to which Shi Li responded with a scratch of his head, "The peak of the 1st Stage, mother. I know it's not anything significant, but I—"
Before Shi Li could finish his response, his mother quickly embraced him. Although he found it slightly awkward that he was being hugged by his mother at a place where other people could see them, after feeling something wet streaming down her face and onto one of his shoulders, Shi Li decided to remain silent as he let her hug him all he wanted.
After sometime, Shi Languang finally let go of her son as she wiped the remnant tears of joy off her eyes. Then, she looked at her son before asking with a light chuckle, "Since you've come to the kitchen, then that means you're not only here to tell me that you've achieved a certain level of cultivation."
"As expected of mother," Shi Li let out a chuckle in response. After that, a solemn expression appeared on his face as he asked her, "Mother, I'm planning to head to town to buy a couple cultivation pills. I'm not sure if they'd help out or not since I have Imperfect Meridians, but I still want to try it out."
Hearing his request, a wry smile appeared on his mother's face as she apologized, "I totally forgot that you would have to buy some pills sooner or later, so I…forgot to save some money. Almost all of the money I've been making in the kitchen have gone into the food you've been eating so far, so I really have no money to give you. I'm sorry your mother is so useless."
Feeling guilt, Shi Li hastily replied as he shook his head, "Don't tell me you're useless, mother. You're the one who raised me up, gave me food, clothing, and shelter, and even sacrificed your time just to fulfill a seemingly bleak dream of mine. If anything, I'm very thankful that I have you as my mother."
Although Shi Languang had heard words like these from her son multiple times, she felt like there was something different in his words at the moment, making her tear up as he continued, "It's fine if you don't have any money to spare, mother. I know where it's going. In fact, don't you think I should find my own ways to make money, given how I'm already 17?" As he said, a joking smile appeared on his face.
Seeing as how her son was making her laugh, Shi Languang let out a light chuckle as she replied jokingly, "You're right, my son should be finding ways to make money already! From this point onward, you should stop lazing around, okay?"
With his heart feeling like it was warming up, Shi Li nodded with a light smile on his face. "I won't let you down, mother."
After that, he turned around and waved goodbye to his mother as he headed towards the clan estate's gates. As for his mother, she looked at his fleeting silhouette for a bit before a determined expression appeared on her face. It was unknown what she was thinking while she was heading back.
…
Having to recover his qi reserves twice along the way, Shi Li had finally left the gates of the Shi clan's estate, finally seeing for once what was beyond the clan walls. Taking in a deep breath of air, he then started to stroll around town, wanting to see what it was like being in a town like Sanshan.
Surprisingly, his initial thoughts of the town being backwater had been quickly dispelled as the town was quite well-developed. In fact, in his eyes, it seemed like the town was slowly but surely expanding outward, wanting to become a city of his own. With that in mind, he went ahead and asked a few people as to where he could buy some cultivation pills.
Some of them looked at him with a hint of shock, while others looked at him with indifference as they answered his questions. From that, he was able to figure out that his identity as a useless son of the Shi clan was not well-known. As he thought about this, he could not help but mutter inwardly, 'It seems that mother has decided to keep my identity low-key. I don't know if this is a good thing or not.'
Nevertheless, regardless of whether those he asked knew of his identity or not, they answered his question with an as a matter-of-fact tone, prompting him to head towards the place all of them had told him.
Fortunately, this place was located at the center of town, making it easy for him to find. Plus, given how the building was a few stories than most of the buildings in the area, it made it even easier for him to find.
Looking at the large wooden plaque above the entrance that read 'Starry Alchemical Pavilion' for a bit, Shi Li took in a deep breath before entering the building.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
TrueDawn
TrueDawn Apologies for disappearing all of a sudden. I'm back...for the meantime. I'll be getting my second vaccine dose soon, so I might disappear for some time again. I hope you can wait until I come back.
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