"Ah!" Xu Su cried out with excitement and pumped his fist into the air.
By doing so, he revealed that he was indeed still a child.
His assumption seemed to be correct; when the bottle was in the dark room, the amount of light attracted to it was quite small. But when in a wide and open area, the amount of light attracted to it was far greater in quantity.
But what caused the light to gather? What use did it serve? Although he didn't know the answer, Xu Su felt he was close to solving the riddle behind the mysterious bottle.
Xu Su knew that he would soon unravel the secret of the mysterious bottle, which made him tremendously excited.
At dawn, the light that had gathered around the bottle slowly faded away.
After making sure that there was no one nearby observing his actions, Xu Su returned his attention to the bottle's status. He bent down to pick the bottle up and inspected it, however, there seemed to be no difference since it was still impossible to open!
Xu Su felt disappointed, but seeing how morning was arriving, he unwillingly put the bottle away and prepared to leave.
After all, he still wanted to return to the stone chamber to practice his cultivation.
For the next following nights at fixed intervals, the bottle would undergo the same experience. Countless specks of light would fly towards the bottle like moths to a flame. No matter how big or small the specks of light were, they were greedily devoured by the bottle.
Initially, Xu Su thought that the bottle would continue to undergo the same process for an unknown amount of time, but on the 8th day, something unexpected happened.
When Xu Su went back to the remote place in the mountains and placed the bottle in its regular spot, the absorbance of the specks of light continued only for half an hour when it suddenly stopped. The dark green designs on the bottle then began to emit a green radiance as golden words manifested on the surface of the bottle. The strange words on the bottle were imposing and firm, but the written strokes were unusual. The words seemed to belong to an ancient era, the characters flickering incessantly.
But this weird occurrence had ended as suddenly as it began. Aside from the golden words that were now imprinted onto the bottle, everything else remained the same.
After seeing so many strange things happening with the bottle in the past few days, Xu Su was no longer as surprised as he had been in the past. Even the appearance of the golden words did not surprise him very much.
Casually grasping the bottle in his hand, he tried to open the bottle on a whim, and much to his extreme surprise, the lid popped off with barely any effort.
'No way!' Xu Su stared at the bottle in shock.
With next to no effort or thought, Xu Su's problem regarding how to open the bottle had been suddenly resolved. How could it be so easy to open?!
Repeatedly looking down at the bottle to confirm that what he was looking at was not fake, he tried to calm his agitated heart before looking straight into the bottle.
Inside the bottle was a jade green drop of liquid no bigger than a soybean. As it flowed around inside the bottle, the entire inside of the bottle reflected a green luster.
What was this drop of liquid?
Xu Su was disappointed; he had put in so much effort only to be rewarded with some seemingly mundane liquid.
Disappointed, Xu Su put the bottle back into his pouch before turning around and dejectedly returning to his room. His previous excitement had been thrown to the farthest corners of the earth in a sudden rollercoaster of emotions.
Although he had finally opened the bottle, he was absolutely disappointed with the result.
Still, Xu Su was prepared to take his time to discover what secrets that drop of jade green liquid held. Perhaps in the future, it would be able to give him an unexpected surprise!
Right now, what he wanted to do most was to go back and sleep. For the past few days, he had not been able to sleep properly, which even cut into his daytime cultivation, making his progress so inefficient to the point where even Physician Wu had inquired him about it.
Ever since Xu Su had become Physician Wu's disciple after breaking through the first layer of the chant, he felt that there was no longer a need to practice the chant. Disappointed by the chant's effects on his body, or lack thereof, he was unwilling to continue relying on it to cultivate.
For that, Physician Wu fiercely reprimanded him.
However, whenever it came time to cultivate, he was still always drowsy and unmotivated, completely devoid of vigor. This made Physician Wu furious, and he couldn't help but wonder if he had accepted the wrong disciple.
Thinking about his situation, Xu Su couldn't help but feel wronged. However, he just wasn't in the mood for cultivation.
But what Xu Su couldn't imagine was that after waking up on the second day, he would once again motivated and throw his entire body into cultivating like a madman.
The reason he was cultivating in such a manner was simply because of a single, simple statement Physician Wu had made.
"For every single layer you improve with this chant, I will increase the amount of silver issued to you by another twofold." Physician Wu had seen the thirst Xu Su had for money and figured out a way for Xu Su to be enticed. This way, Xu Su would have enough motivation to cultivate.
For the next few days, Xu Su dedicated himself to cultivation, hoping to break through to the second layer.
Every day from morning to noon and from noon to night, he would enter the stone cultivation chamber and cultivate. Any thoughts about how repetitious, mundane, or boring this lifestyle was immediately got thrown out of Xu Su's head.
For the sake of Xu Su's cultivation, Physician Wu had even temporarily sealed off the Green Eye Valley. Even when he treated patients, he would treat them outside the valley for fear of disrupting Xu Su.
Xu Su was now so focused on breaking through that he even forgot about analyzing the effects of the bottle's jade green liquid.
Autumn went by as winter came, then spring rolled in before summer arrived.
In a flash, four years had gone by, and Xu Su was now 14 years old.
He grew up to be a taciturn, determined and tan-skinned rustic youngster. Based on his external appearance alone, he looked no different than any other common peasant farmer. His looks did not warrant any attention; he was not extraordinarily handsome, and neither did he have a noble's elegance.
This was the result of living in the stone cultivation chamber every day. He would travel back and from there to his home. Occasionally, he would go to Physician Wu's residence to learn about medicine and to read from Physician Wu's collection of books. The entire valley was his world to live in, and thanks to his hard work, he had finally broken through to the third layer!