CHAPTER 171: ONE WEEK

After dinner that night, the shorty left, floating away into the night air with her usual casual arrogance. Yu Xuan bid his sister goodbye warmly, and then, too exhausted to say much more, simply excused himself and stumbled off to sleep as soon as her arrived at his cottage.

And then, in what felt like the blink of an eye — a full week passed.

Yu Xuan’s days became a cycle of nothing but training. Every morning and every night, he sparred with Lingluo and the shorty, enduring her merciless lessons. Sometimes, she even brought other disciples to fight against them, most of them at the Nascent Soul stage.

At first, Yu Xuan was shaken. These disciples weren’t weak in the slightest.

Their foundations were solid, their combat instincts sharp. When Yu Xuan had once fought Ye Chen, he had been disappointed, thinking Nascent Soul amounted to no more than that.

But after facing these opponents, he realized how wrong he had been. Each disciple was a monster in their own right.

He and Lingluo fought not only humans, but other species as well. Some controlled water, earth, and wind to terrifying degrees.

One opponent in particular, a wind cultivator, nearly crushed them not with blades or storms, but by simply erasing the air around them, creating a suffocating vacuum.

The pressure of fighting while unable to breathe had left them desperate, scraping the edges of their limits. They were still, not at that level where they can live without breathing.

At first, Yu Xuan had assumed that only those cultivating chaos would gather on this peak. But the more he fought, the more he realized how diverse this place was.

Every battle tested him in new ways. Every defeat carved lessons into his bones. Every victory, no matter how narrow, made him more certain of his own path.

They lost again and again. But through countless trial and error, through blood and sweat, he and Lingluo learned. And at last, they started to win. But in each match, Yu Xuan didn’t go all out as neither did his opponents.

One fight stood out sharply in Yu Xuan’s memory. A Core Formation disciple — one who had formed not a single core, but seven, each embodying one of the deadly sins.

The battle was unlike any other, for his techniques directly preyed on emotions. Yu Xuan remained calm even when he attacked, it due to his strong soul power and his trait [Mental Resistance]. He decided to explore more of that part.

Lingluo, on the other hand... was influenced in a very different way. Under the disciple’s spell, she gazed at him blankly for a moment then declared that he looked like a man-sized dumpling. Before Yu Xuan could stop her, she had lunged forward and begun trying to bite him.

Yu Xuan nearly fainted from embarrassment. The poor disciple had no idea what was happening before Lingluo snapped out of it when Yu Xuan said something in her ears — and then, realizing she had been toyed with, unleashed the real demon inside her. The seven-core cultivator quickly learned that no illusion of sin was as terrifying as Yu Lingluo’s fists.

Through all these battles, Yu Xuan came to realize something important: not all the true geniuses of the sect paraded themselves in public.

Many hid in silence, sharpening themselves in the dark, waiting for the right time to shine. To be able to spar with them, even in defeat, was an opportunity beyond measure. And though he never admitted it out loud, he was grateful to the shorty for arranging it all.

When they weren’t fighting, Yu Xuan spent his time talking with Lingluo, or occasionally with the shorty. It was strange — what was meant to be just a "vacation" had turned into one of the most fruitful stretches of his cultivation journey so far.

Now, as an inner disciple of even Chaos Heaven Peak, Yu Xuan and Lingluo had set their sights on their next step. Together, they would visit the Chaos Tower.

The Tower of Trials also called to him — but that, Yu Xuan decided, would have to wait.

***

The Next day.

Yu Xuan woke up slowly, stretching lazily on his bed. Strictly speaking, he didn’t need much sleep anymore, not after breaking into the Foundation Establishment realm. His body could operate perfectly well with only a few hours of rest.

But he still liked sleeping.

It wasn’t just a habit carried from his past life; it was a kind of comfort. A reminder that even in a world of cultivation and battles, he was still human enough to enjoy something so ordinary.

He noticed another small change, too. Ever since his breakthrough, his digestive capacity had improved dramatically. His body converted food into energy with near-perfect efficiency, leaving almost no waste behind. At first, the idea had unsettled him. Wasn’t it unnatural? Too clean? But over time, he had grown used to it. Now, he even found it convenient.

Yawning, Yu Xuan headed to bathe. He filled the tub with warm water, slid in, and sank until only bubbles rose from where he exhaled. The warmth soaked into his muscles, relaxing them.

For a moment, he just sat there, letting the silence and warmth embrace him.

’Life here... isn’t bad,’ he thought. Sometimes training, sometimes being idle. No grand burdens, no endless life-or-death struggles. He was in no hurry.

After soaking for a while, he eventually sat up and checked his disciple medallion. Sure enough, a few messages blinked. One caught his attention — a notice from Ke.

The robes he had ordered, partially indestructible, capable of lasting him until Core Formation — had been completed and delivered. He had asked Ke to leave them at the mission hall near the town of the main Elemental Heaven Peak. But since he was at Chaos Heaven Peak now, he would just collect them later. The payment was already taken care of.

Yu Xuan put the medallion down and leaned against the edge of the tub.

’I should probably be more active around the sect,’ he thought. ’Otherwise, how am I ever going to find any damsel in distress?’

The thought made him smirk. In every story, heroes stumbled upon wounded beauties by chance — tending to them, winning their favor, and sealing fates with destiny. Yet here he was, sitting in a bathtub, with not a single injured maiden in sight.

If he kept living like this, his future prospects seemed... bleak.