Tower. Cultivation Chamber.

  Bubai sat cross-legged on the cold black jade block.

  Feeling the last traces coolness seep into his body, he opened his eyes.

  “Another two spirit stones biting the dust.”

  Looking at the powder slipping through his fingers like sand, Bubai felt a wave of fatigue press on his mind.

  It felt like the lingering fog after a hangover.

  Undoubtedly, the intense cultivation session had taken its toll.

  Bubai reached into his sleeve and pulled out a small, glistening bean.

  He popped it into his mouth.

  Chewing slowly, Bubai felt a faint warmth melting away the grogginess of his mind as the bean's energy restored some of his expended spiritual power.

  The comfortable sensation made Bubai sigh.

  "Spirit beans… Not as potent as the higher-end Spirit Rejuvenation pills, but good enough..."

  But when Bubai thought about the cost, he felt the pain gnawing at his heart.

  Don’t look down on this tiny bean. Spirit beans was a luxury worth a few spirit stones each!

  Rarely would any cultivator consume them during cultivation that could be taken nice and slowly.

  Normally, cultivators saved such items for the heat of critical battles, when their life truly dangled on the edge of a sword.

  "Yet here I am, eating them like candy."

  Alas, this was all for the greater good. There was no time for frugality now.

  Time was running short.

  Due to the chaotic whirlwind in the past few days, he'd been robbed of some precious cultivation time.

  Now, to catch up to his original schedule, Bubai was burning through resources faster than he ever thought he would.

  Spirit stones were vanishing like water poured into sand, and the spirit beans were digested as fast as taco bell.

  Too bad there weren’t many spirit beans left.

  "Save some for when the going gets tough..."

  After reminding himself quietly, Bubai rolled his shoulders to ease the tension. "Good thing my cultivation progress is finally back on track."

  Bubai’s consciousness dived into his inner world – the familiar dantian space.

  Here at the heart of it all was the mysterious seed.

  The sprouting seed was now submerged in the shimmering pool of luminescent green liquid that already filled up about 80 percent of the sphere.

  To top it off, the surface of this iridescent pool bubbled gently beneath a thick canopy of lazily swirling pink fog.

  Just this layer of mist accounts for nearly ten percent of the dantian space.

  If Bubai adds it all up, his dantian was at least 90 percent full!

  "This... this is what splurging resources gets me. If the foundation stages were graded by nine levels, I would be at least level two, if not three!"

  Of course, Bubai knew the truth.

  Even though it looked like he was approaching completion, this was still the early stage.

  Foundation Establishment wasn’t broken down into smaller realms like Qi refinement.

  Filling and refining all Qi in his dantian into true Qi was all under a single stage because it was just a matter of accumulation.

  "Well, it’s just the same old grinding and didn’t change much. If anything changed…"

  Bubai set his sights on the immovable seed taking its spot at the center.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  It was the same, and yet it wasn’t.

  He could sense the energy now passing smoothly through its roots as if the submerged plant was breathing underwater.

  Though Bubai can’t exactly pinpoint any other visible changes, but there was a depth, an undercurrent of something more profound.

  "What are you up to now?"

  Who knows. The seed didn’t explain.

  But through their odd connection with each other, Bubai discovered a new convenience.

  Ever since the water levels have risen enough to submerge the seed, Bubai could now channel Qi directly from the pool into the seed’s inner space or the lone red leaf that had sprouted!

  He could even choose to leave the channel of connection open to achieve passive nourishment of his memory space!

  Previously, there was only an automatic Qi gatherer, but user intervention was required for spending energy.

  Now, the full system cycle was in place!

  Ding! Idle cultivation v2.0 unlocked!

  Alas… idle didn’t exactly mean efficiency.

  First and foremost, this uncontrolled stream of energy grants the most benefits to the outermost region of his memory space.

  These lowest-grade memory orbs closest to the edge soaked up whatever Qi trickled in, leaving the most important core solar systems out to dry.

  Furthermore, since there was no targeted arrangement, the growth of orbs were up to fate.

  It was kinda like passing out porridge to the hungry masses, with everyone not getting enough.

  Everybody’s growth gets stunted.

  Thus, just letting the faucet run wasn’t as effective as manual operation, which is still required for creating new memory copies.

  "Can’t have it all. Well... what I have in store should be enough for now. Memory strands might be useful to cast illusions, but it’s still better to have more of that life-saving green dew."

  Bubai’s consciousness swam in the rich green essence he worked so hard to gather.

  Ideally, a hundred percent of his dantian should be green.

  If he could achieve that, he’d be in an incredibly strong position, but such a single-minded approach would leave no room for other types of Qi.

  In the world of multi-attribute cultivation, balance was key.

  Bubai recalled the teachings he had absorbed early on.

  Storing mixed Qi is the norm.

  It was either a debate over attributes or a cost-benefit analysis between refined and unrefined Qi.

  Every cultivator faced similar decisions of balance because filling the dantian entirely with one type meant losing out on versatility or... was simply unaffordable.

  This links to the other ever-present issue of resources.

  Not every cultivator could think of having a full dantian. That state was only for those seeking a breakthrough.

  For most, keeping their dantian half-full on a daily basis might already put a hole in their pockets.

  For Bubai to fill his vast, mysterious dantian… let’s just say pay-to-win only makes him feel empty inside.

  Thinking of his spirit stones, Bubai’s consciousness jumped to his storage space.

  Sinking his consciousness through the stone roof, Bubai was welcomed into a dark, narrow corridor.

  Walling this place’s perimeter were spacious storage shelves with their bottom-most compartments held down by self-prepared sandbags.

  In the area between the shelves, Bubai spotted his living doll tiptoeing through the piles of various items still littering the cramped floor.

  Like a tireless automaton, she moved item by item to their rightful place on their designated sections.

  Diligent, almost mindless work.

  Thanks to her hard work, the storage warehouse he envisioned was gradually coming together.

  But there was still a mountain of work ahead.

  So, Bubai only spared the diligent worker a cursory glance, but didn’t bother her for another sort of “work”.

  Instead, his focus shifted down to the shelves at the far end of the corridor, where the designated Trade Corner was set in stone.

  Through the display glass of the shelf, he beheld the trays of gold and silver taels.

  These mundane wealth were stacked high on almost all the shelves of this specific case.

  Only a single upper shelf stood out like a sore thumb.

  Here hosted his precious crystalline spirit stones!

  Ah… a beautiful, radiant collection.

  Alas... his recent expenditures had whittled down a quarter of his spirit stones, leaving only about 70.

  “Barely enough to decorate a single layer, and I also got booted from the centennial club. Sad face.”

  Bubai could only lament inside. The more money he had, the faster he seemed to use it.

  He was burning through them like firewood.

  This consumption rate… really can’t be sustained, especially since spirit stones had other important places to be used.

  “A few months of tower rent must be kept on hand to be safe, and I probably need to waste 20 spirit stones to pay the fine once that gets officiated. Then, the down payment for raising a pet cat…”

  That really didn’t leave him much.

  If he doesn’t earn more, his future cultivation would hit a wall, and that could be dangerous.

  That didn’t stop Bubai from cultivating though.

  “Better be more prepared now than regret later.”

  If he falls in the competition, it didn’t matter how much spirit stone he saved.

  A single thought spirited away another two spirit stones from its shelf and their familiar weight appeared in his palms.

  Bubai didn’t let the spiritual power just rejuvenated by the spirit bean go to be waste...

  It wasn’t until another four spirit stones were squandered that he stopped to rub his faintly throbbing temples.

  “88 percent… almost a full dantian. Alas… absorbing spirit stones is easy, but it’s too taxing on my spiritual power.”

  Yet Bubai can’t get around it. This was a drawback of his seed’s auto refinement power. It’s just a trade-off.

  In fact, other foundation realm cultivators might have an easier time absorbing spirit stones compared to him because they could leave refinement till later or even just skip over it.

  After all, Qi doesn’t need to be refined into True Qi in order to be used.

  Of course, utilizing unrefined Qi would be less stable, leading to weakened power overall – the cliché unstable cultivation base.

  Another downside was that some special techniques, such as the innate foundation aura, can’t even be initiated with unrefined Qi.

  Refining True Qi was the path to promotion.

  So, having a dantian full of True Qi like Bubai was an absolute luxury that others would beg for!

  “Well, luxury or not… that should be it for this round of cultivation. I don’t want to exhaust myself since there is still an appointment to catch.”

  Every year when the Blue Moon rises, Bubai really doesn’t want to step out at all.

  But this time around, there’s an appointment—one he couldn’t shirk, despite its terrible timing.

  Bubai didn’t know if his decision to go out is sane or if it would come back to bite him, but...

  A promise is a promise.

  “Time to go admire the fairy-like beauty of a certain moon. Hopefully... nothing goes wrong.”