Breaking Through
"That's not important right now. The important part is that I check on her state."
He stood up and walked towards Shu Fanrong, whose eyebrows were furrowed. The spiritual energy aura around her fluctuated from high to low temperatures every second.
"It's extremely chaotic. She might not make it..."
Liu Feng was worried. He looked at the system.
———
Name: Shu Fanrong
Realm: Attribution Form Realm (breaking through)
Success Rate: 51%
———
"That's barely more than half. I can't wait for her to break through by herself—I need to help her increase her success rate!"
Liu Feng knew what ending would happen to those that failed to break through.
There were those where the consequences were minimal, suffering just a slight setback. There were also cases where one's mental faculties would be permanently debilitated, or where one directly exploded into a cloud of red fog!
And these were only the common consequences for breaking through Foundation Establishment Realm from Attribution Form Realm. The stakes only got higher and higher with each realm, implicating entire cities and even countries!
What's more, he couldn't risk losing his first disciple. She was barely twelve!
"Okay, I need to focus. Remember every thing that Hua'er told you. Is there anything relevant to breaking through?"
Jiang Hua frequently visited the mortal library and came to talk to him about cultivation, even before he reached the first realm. For someone with the reputation of a cold beauty, Liu Feng found her to be a bit talkative.
He shrugged. It wasn't like he didn't welcome it. In fact, it was thanks to her that he adapted fast enough to the new environment.
"Now that my disciple was going through a tribulation, I am depending on her once more. I really owe her too much."
[Ding! Alert: The barrier has been attacked by a Lv. 2 Spiritual Energy attack. Time limit reduced by 0 seconds.]
[Ding! Alert: The barrier has been attacked by a Lv. 1 Spiritual Energy attack. Time limit reduced by 0 seconds.]
[Ding! Alert: The barrier has been attacked by a Lv. 4 Spiritual Energy attack. Time limit reduced by 0 seconds.]
[Ding! Alert: The barrier has been attacked by a Lv. 5 Spiritual Energy attack. Time limit reduced by 0 seconds.]
Liu Feng widened his eyes. Was the enemy ambushing him or something?!
"Wait, there was no notification prior to them attacking. That must mean, they're coming from inside."
After doing a double take, Liu Feng let out a sigh of relief.
"These must be spiritual beasts trying to escape after being affected by the wave of spiritual energy earlier."
It was easy to decipher—the attacks were constant and of different levels. Moreover, after witnessing his 'strength' last time, Liu Feng figured that the cultivator wouldn't dare to send low level cultivators to attack the barrier, not to mention the fact that they wouldn't even make a dent. In the first place, the attacks were coming from the inside.
Liu Feng decisively let the spiritual beasts out of the barrier. As expected, the alerts stopped as soon as he granted them permission.
He quickly went back to Shu Fanrong's predicament.
After a bout of concentration, he finally recalled some of the things Jiang Hua mentioned.
"First of all, Little Rong needs a lot, lot more spiritual energy than what she has right now."
Without hesitation, Liu Feng took out all of the Quarter-Pure Spirit Stones and Impure Spirit Stones in his inventory and placed them around Shu Fanrong.
As if it was natural, Shu Fanrong immediately siphoned spiritual energy off all of the newly placed spirit stones. Her expression lightened a bit.
He looked at the system.
[Success Rate: 55%]
"Only a bit better... What else can I do?"
Liu Feng browsed through the store.
"The 99% discount item today still costs a million DP even after the discount? What kind of item is this..."
As he read the name of item, his eyes widened. He vigorously shook his head, closing the system.
"That— it's not achievable for me right now. I need to forget about this and focus."
After regaining his concentration, he opted to dig through the treasured herbs that he gathered around the territory.
Of course, there was still a major problem, which was that he had no way of telling which herb was which.
Liu Feng hurriedly pulled out a dusty wooden chest hidden in the hut. He swept some of the dust away, coughing in the process.
After unlocking the latches of the chest, he pulled the cover upwards. Immediately, a fragrant smell invaded his nose.
He had carefully preserved all of the herbs he found here.
Liu Feng grabbed what seemed to be a flower related to the fire attribute. A red color wrapped around its stem as the petals emitted a soft warm feeling.
He nabbed another herb, its stem covered with frost and the leaves exuding a cold fog.
After consideration, he closed the chest and carefully brought the two herbs to Shu Fanrong's vicinity.
[Success Rate: 56%]
Liu Feng clicked his tongue. He was disappointed with the results.
Not long after, he came up with another theory. He looked at the herbs he grabbed from the chest and crushed them, throwing the two together. Such an act brought heartache to Liu Feng, but it couldn't be helped.
[Success Rate: 59%]
"That's much better! I only need to mix their essences together."
Proving his guess correct, Liu Feng went on to grab pairs of what seemed to be of the fire and ice attribute and crushed and mixed them together, crushing his heart in the process.
This is the sect's hard-earned treasures... and I'm using them so crudely!
The effects of the herbs on the success rate decreased the more he did it. Eventually, it stopped increasing altogether.
[Success Rate: 79%]
"79 percent, huh. I can't think of anything else to do. I don't know arrays, I don't know pills, my cultivation is too shallow for my spiritual energy to help..."
His powerlessness to help his disciple increase her chances of getting a breakthrough made Liu Feng realize how inadequate he was to be a sect master. This fueled his desire to grow—the only way he could be a good sect master for his disciples was to be knowledgeable in everything.
Of course, as of the current situation, there was nothing more he could do but watch as Shu Fanrong struggled.
"Come on, come on...!"
.....
Wen Yingyu looked out her window, her body noticeably thinner than before. Her arms were frail and her expression lifeless, as if she had just lost her entire meaning for living.
She opened her mouth as her husband spoonfed her some porridge. With his wife's current state, she no longer had the motivation to chew, leaving him no choice but to opt for liquid-like foods.
He shook his head, knowing that there was nothing he could do to help her outside of supporting her. Besides, he, too, was shaken greatly.
An entire week has passed since the cultivator Senior Liu had promised them their child. They hadn't heard a peep from him since.
At this point, who wouldn't believe that they had gotten tricked?
What Wen Yingyu's husband found baffling was the fact that the cultivator felt the need to trick them, despite having enough strength to force his ideas anyway.
"Is he the kind of cultivator that gets off on other people's misery?"
By then, he even wondered whether their daughter was really fine. For all he knew, his daughter had already been murdered somewhere in the forest, or sold as a slave in a black market faraway.
He even had a sneaking suspicion that the village's current predicament had something to do with that cultivator.
As he fed another spoonful of porridge to his wife, someone knocked a couple of times on the door.
Speak of the devil.
He sighed.
"Ying'er, you need to eat, okay?"
Wen Yingyu looked at the bowl of porridge before her and nodded weakly, reassuring her husband.
He grabbed his axe and carried it outside.
"How many this time?"
"Approximately maybe thirty or forty more spiritual beasts. Half of them are boars, some snakes..."
As the strongest person in Kaojin Village, Wen Yingyu's husband was obligated to help when the village faced perilous situations, and this time was no different.