Oblivious to the fact that the Core Disciples were making countless conjectures based on every action of his, Yang Shen while continuing to observe the Spirit Herbs around the pond kept on throwing one pill after the other inside his mouth and watched the constantly sounding notification of obtaining XP from every pill he swallowed.
Also, by now Yang Shen knew that no matter how many pills he swallowed, he'd continue to receive the same XP from them.
This relieved the one huge concern he had about the XP he'd obtain gradually decreasing until he received minuscule amounts of them.
At the same time, Yang Shen who had imagined that he would spend a huge portion of his life refining pills inside a room and then sitting around eating them, felt that popping them inside his mouth while he walked around was so much better.
Pulling up his status and watching his XP continuously rise, Yang Shen was so filled with happiness that he almost completely forgot the main reason he came here.
Similarly, as time went on and Yang Shen showed no signs of entering the pavilion, the Core Disciples also stopped showing interest in him. After all, inside their heads, they were his seniors and therefore superior to him in alchemy due to which the thought of going near him and inviting him never once appeared in any of their heads.
Walking around the entire pond, Yang Shen spotted something that wasn't there before.
A woman was bent over and focussed on observing a special herb which was growing inside the pond.
Licking his lips as he approached the blue robed female Core Disciple, Yang Shen who had already seen the Blue Loch Cynthia only had the plump heart shaped ass in his eyes.
Seeing the impression of the woman's ass through the tight robes which stuck to her skin, Yang Shen could imagine how nice it would feel to squeeze it.
Once he thought about it, Yang Shen didn't know what got into him as he went even closer to her and used his hand to slap it.
Pa!
Touching his palm with his fingers which retained the heat of the ass it just touched, Yang Shen looked like he was lost in his thoughts as he walked away while saying, "You've got a nice ass."
"Huh?"
Raising her head and spotting Yang Shen who was most likely the one who just spanked her, the woman couldn't understand what the hell just happened.
'Is that a new way to compliment a woman's butt?'
Tilting her head in confusion as Yang Shen went further away, the Core Disciple shook her head and stopped thinking about what happened and instead about how good her butt cheek still felt from being slapped.
It was too bad that all the Core Disciples were too focussed on themselves, others, or with mingling due to which none of them noticed what just happened.
If not so, it would've been interesting to see how the woman's jealous boyfriend or envious suitors would have reacted.
….
"What just happened back there?"
"Hmmm… If Master is talking about how the woman's ass felt, I have no idea."
"Not that… Why did I do something like that all of a sudden? It just doesn't feel like something I'd do."
Hesitating to answer Yang Shen's question, Lijuan was torn between interfering and revealing the truth and standing back and waiting for him to realize the problem by himself and mature through it.
Losing himself in his own thoughts due to which he didn't pay attention to the silent black snake around his neck, Yang Shen questioned himself if maybe he acted the way he did due to being very happy from watching his XP continuously increase.
But, he couldn't be someone who was so easily affected by his emotions.
Choosing to convince himself otherwise even after he figured the truth out, Yang Shen began walking towards the pavilion at the centre of the lake while thinking back to how the juicy ass felt.
Stepping out of the confines of the bridge and inside the pavilion, Yang Shen could feel the entire atmosphere around him changing.
From the previous free and leisure atmosphere, he was now covered in a serious and solemn atmosphere due to how each and every Core Disciple was focussed on learning as much as possible from their peers.
Seeing this, Yang Shen began wondering why there wasn't any drama.
After all, regardless of which webnovel it was, every time such a situation showed up there was bound to be some drama.
Therefore, after finding himself a place in one of the corners, Yang Shen began eagerly waiting for the drama to start.
Wait….
Wait….
Wait….?
Feeling drowsy after spending almost an entire hour waiting for something spicy and interesting to happen, Yang Shen no longer had hope of anything happening.
It was almost as if everyone was too focussed on alchemy to bother about anything else.
Why were there no fights for rare herbs? No fighting for the beauties? No cursing the eighteen generations of family?
It was all just so boringly plain.
That herb, this herb, that technique, this technique, completely limiting their conversation to alchemy, all of the Core Disciples excluding Yang Shen looked as if they had consumed caffeine pills due to which they were going to spend the entire night right here.
In fact, even the females were completely engrossed with alchemy making Yang Shen regret coming here and wasting his time.
He should have just stayed in his courtyard and played with his maids.