Chapter 94 — Early to Bed, Early to Awesome

"Then where am I right now?" Wei Zhao had ruled out the possibility of a dream, yet he was still puzzled. Where exactly was he? A moment ago he had been lying on the bed in Gu Mengyao's villa, and the next instant he was in this inexplicable place.

"This is the fourth-dimensional space of the jade pendant." Having said this, Jiao Yazi could not help but give a cold snort. "I truly never imagined there could be anyone in this world as stupid as you. I waited inside the jade pendant for so many years, and you have finally come in..."

"What? I'm inside the jade pendant?" Though Wei Zhao was no coward, at these words of Jiao Yazi's his face could not help but show an expression of shock.

"Yes." Jiao Yazi frowned. So this was the fated one? This fated one was a bit too pathetic...

"Then how did I get in?" A very important question suddenly occurred to Wei Zhao. And Jiao Yazi had said earlier that he had waited inside the jade pendant for years, and that Wei Zhao had only just entered...

"The moment you fall asleep, you naturally come in," Jiao Yazi said flatly.

"Huh?" Wei Zhao was dumbstruck. "It's that simple?"

"How difficult did you think it was?" Jiao Yazi rolled his eyes. "But I have nothing left to say to you. All these years, and you have never once slept. You... you... you... To borrow a phrase from my martial grand-uncle, you are simply too amazing. Amazing enough to sparkle."

Wei Zhao was somewhat speechless. When he obtained this jade pendant, he had also obtained a cultivation manual, the Xuanyuan Dragon-Slaying Formula. From then on he had cultivated according to its methods, replacing sleep with cultivation, and in the blink of an eye several years had passed...

"I... I have been cultivating the Xuanyuan Dragon-Slaying Formula all along..." Wei Zhao scratched his head, a little embarrassed.

"Of course I know you have been cultivating the Xuanyuan Dragon-Slaying Formula. I can see it from inside the jade pendant." Jiao Yazi snorted coldly. "But I really do admire you. Years of useless effort, and you still kept at it. You are even more impressive than the Foolish Old Man of the Mountains."

"Uh... I wouldn't call it useless effort... I have already cultivated to the late stage of the first level..." Wei Zhao smiled wryly.

"Oh?" This time it was Jiao Yazi's turn to be puzzled. He suddenly stretched out a hand and laid it on Wei Zhao's arm. Wei Zhao tried to dodge, but never expected Jiao Yazi to be so much faster than he had imagined. It was practically teleportation. What puzzled Wei Zhao, however, was that although Jiao Yazi seemed to touch him, in truth he felt nothing at all, as though a phantom figure had brushed against him.

"In that harsh environment outside, you actually managed to break through to the late stage of the first level? So you are quite a talent?" Jiao Yazi was somewhat surprised.

"Heh—" Hearing Jiao Yazi's praise, Wei Zhao finally revealed a trace of a smile. This Jiao Yazi, from the very moment they met, had either called him an idiot or sneered that he was "amazing," which was really just sarcasm... This time, at last, he had praised him once.

"But... what a pity." Jiao Yazi shook his head with regret. "You could have reached this level in just a few months, yet you took nearly ten years. Even a talent is wasted. You have squandered the best age for cultivation..."

"Uh..." Wei Zhao had not expected Jiao Yazi's final words to be another blow aimed at him, and for a moment he was speechless. Still, Jiao Yazi's words left him somewhat disappointed. Was he destined never to break through? He could not help feeling dejected. "You mean I cannot break through the first level and advance to the second?"

"Break through the first level? Is breaking through the first level all you aim for?" Jiao Yazi was startled. He had not expected this fellow's ambitions to be so low.

"You mean I can keep breaking through?" Wei Zhao was startled as well.

"If you had entered this place ten years ago, not to boast, but by a conservative estimate you would already have broken through the third level by now." Jiao Yazi spoke with a face full of regret. "As for your current age, though breaking through the third level is no great difficulty, the older you grow, the greater the obstacle will become."

"..." Wei Zhao felt like weeping but had no tears. Back then, his diligence had truly been his own undoing. The moment he received the Xuanyuan Dragon-Slaying Formula, he had thrown himself into cultivation, and look where it had landed him. Had he known, he might as well have just gone to sleep.

"Ah, but do not be discouraged. Though you cannot become a fearsome figure like my martial grand-uncle, roaming the outer reaches of space, breaking through the third level is impressive enough." Seeing Wei Zhao's disappointment, Jiao Yazi consoled him. "Who knows, maybe you will get another genetic mutation and become top-tier awesome all at once. Hard to say."

Hearing Jiao Yazi's words, Wei Zhao did feel somewhat better. If things were as Jiao Yazi said, that would not be bad at all. He thought: this Xuanyuan Dragon-Slaying Formula, cultivated only to the late stage of the first level, had already brought him endless benefits. So if he broke through the third level, would he not become even more formidable? At that thought, Wei Zhao felt he need not be so greedy after all.

"You mean I have a chance to break through the first level right now?" Having come around, Wei Zhao was naturally somewhat delighted.

"Naturally." Jiao Yazi nodded. "The energy contained in this space is several times, even several dozen times, that of the outside world. Your cultivation speed in here will likewise be several times faster than outside, especially at the moment of breakthrough. Because the outside environment is harsh and the energy thin, it cannot supply the vast energy required at the instant of breakthrough. That is an important reason why you have repeatedly failed to break through."

"Ah?" This was the first time Wei Zhao had heard about energy. Originally, when he cultivated, he did indeed absorb something like true qi from nature, but he had never known what it was. Perhaps in some wuxia novel it would be called true qi, but it was what Jiao Yazi called "energy."

"Still, I advise you to stop with all this 'I' and 'you' and hurry up and cultivate. The mechanism on that stone gate was set up by my martial grand-uncle himself back in the day. Never mind that I am only an illusion now. Even if my true self were here, I could not force it open." Jiao Yazi glanced at Wei Zhao and said flatly. "If you do not want to miss this five-year deadline, then stop wasting words."

Wei Zhao was startled. That was right. The five-year deadline was indeed almost upon him. Yet he had never expected that by sheer accident he would discover such an earth-shaking secret of the jade pendant.

He had thought the jade pendant was merely a mysterious object that could foretell fortune and misfortune, but never imagined it was actually a cultivation space, and that inside it a man named Jiao Yazi was waiting for him.

From Jiao Yazi's earlier words, Wei Zhao had roughly understood: this Xuanyuan Dragon-Slaying Formula and the jade pendant had been left behind by a martial grand-uncle of Jiao Yazi's. What kind of extraordinary figure that martial grand-uncle was, Wei Zhao did not know. The only thing he knew for certain was that he had stumbled into a tremendous bargain.

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