After another ten minutes passed by, the girls continued staring at Khan, the Fu sisters in disbelief and Hui with an expression of pride. After realising that they didn't seem to have any intention of leaving any time soon, Hui turned to them a bit awkwardly and asked:
"So umm, are you going to spend the night here and leave tomorrow, or…?"
Ah. They'd forgotten that it was the middle of the night after they somehow lost those nine hours…
"I'm going to stay here until he reaches his limit. I want to see just how long this crazy guy can endure!" Fu Bian declared to nobody in particular, then sat down and closed her eyes. Just before her round butt touched the ground, she flicked her wrist and summoned a prayer mat beneath her.
Remember, this place was still covered in rubble after Khan blew up the adjacent hallway.
Fu Rian looked at her sister, then after pondering for a moment, she also sat down and silently closed her eyes.
Hui blinked, turning between everyone and realising for the first time that this situation was quite strange.
'The older Miss Fu tried to cripple master earlier, and master slept with the younger Miss Fu. They both seemed to be angry at him before, isn't it a bit strange that they're still hanging around?'
Hui shrugged in the end, then decide to sit down and watch Khan. She examined the formation at the same time. Although she made it herself, seeing it in action could help her to better understand its principals so that if she needed to, she could build it more efficiently next time.
Inside the formation, Khan was oblivious to all of this.
When the pain first hit him, he was a bit shocked and nearly fell forwards. It would have been more sensible to activate the formation at the lowest level and slowly worked up over a period of time, but what's done was done.
Although it really did hurt like hell, just as he expected, after a few minutes, he had an odd thought.
'Eh, I was expecting it to be worse to be honest. Is this really 25 times more pain than the 1st stage formation? It's definitely much worse, but I can't really tell so accurately…'
Since he had the luxury to ponder this, it was obvious that he wasn't really struggling at all. Honestly, compared to the disorientating and all encompassing pain which he experienced in the void after activating the Void Blood Pill, this was nothing much.
'Ah, maybe that's it, this just feels more tame by comparison.' Khan realised.
Well, that was good. He was willing to endure whatever it took to achieve the fastest speed of progression whilst putting in a minimal period of work each day, but less suffering was obviously preferable.
Khan continued to endure the formation. He felt the powerful pressure grinding against his body, both inside and out. From the outside, it only looked like a series of spiralling white lights were drilling in and out of his body, but these lights looked like illusions, as if they weren't actually doing anything.
Anyone who had experienced the Body Tempering Formations would tell you that those lights were definitely not mere illusions. They were ethereal, somehow drilling through the body without tearing it apart, but a sort of energy was absorbed into the flesh with each drill that passed through. This energy was not the same spiritual energy contained within the spirit stones, but an energy produced by the formation using the spirit stones as fuel.
The pain was like a continuous, corrosive burning, through every part of the body at the same time. The pain would linger for around ten seconds after the white light passed through a section of body, but the drills were five times more torturous compared to the 1st stage formation, and there were five times more drills compared to using the formational at its lowest setting.
You would think that progress would be 25 times faster, but the body simply wasn't able to absorb nearly this much energy. The majority of the energy remained within the drills, whilst a small amount dissipated outwards upon entry and exit, and an even smaller amount was absorbed into the body.
This was basically the function of all five stages of the Body Tempering Formation.
A little under 5 hours later, Khan felt the pain and pressure throughout his body dissipate rapidly, until he felt completely normal again. He opened his eyes and glanced towards Hui.
"203 spirit units, 4 hours 47 minutes."
Khan nodded slowly as he pondered this for a while. Using 203 spirit units just to train for a little under five hours was a bit more extravagant than he was used to…the 1st stage formation only used a single unit each hour, this was costing him 40 times more whilst only providing three times the benefit.
After seeing that he was finally finished, and that he didn't seem affected by the formation at all, as if being tortured horrendously for almost five hours was nothing significant, the Fu sisters had finally seen enough. They exhaustedly departed, leaving Khan waving and yelling after them to come back soon.
After they had moved well out of earshot, he smiled and chuckled to himself.
"I wonder if they realise how it looks, leaving a man's house during the early hours of the morning?" However, soon after saying this, Khan laughed and shook his head.
"No, of course they don't, the thought would never even cross their minds."
He stretched and yawned, then rubbed his eyes sleepily. With his Vital Life Realm physique, Khan didn't need to sleep as much or as often as mortals. The same was true for Profound Roots Realm cultivators. However, he was already quite mentally drained after the bizarre experience with that freaky 'pill', and after that training session, he didn't feel like doing anything else right now.
"Ah, I'm tired now…today was interesting…"
"Ah!" Hui suddenly exclaimed. "I totally forgot to clean the bed sheets, or to clear up the hallway you exposed! I'm sorry master, I'll quickly prepared something for you right now!"
"Wait, I can't be bothered to walk anywhere…there should be something I can sleep on in my spatial ring, right?"
Hui blinked, then nodded and waved her hand. It was Khan's spatial ring, but since he couldn't activate it, Hui always wore and activated it for him.
Seeing the bundle of sheets appear on the ground, Khan didn't care anymore. He closed his eyes and let himself fall forwards. The sheets really weren't thick enough to fall face forwards like this for a normal person, but his body was strong enough that he wouldn't feel any pain even if he fell onto bare concrete.
Hui stared blankly for a moment, then giggled slightly and smiled cutely. She thought it was quite funny that the now number one ranked outer sect disciple was sleeping on a nest of blankets, loosely scattered on the floor, in the middle of a half-demolished grand reception hall.
"He actually fell asleep before hitting the ground…for all master talks about not wanting to do any work, he sure seems to push himself hard sometimes." Hui smiled, then sat down besides Khan and hugged her knees. She knew that she should probably start clearing up, starting with this decimated reception hall which looked like something out of an active war zone.
Still, it wouldn't matter if she sat with him for a bit.
Or so she thought.
"Kya!" She cried out in a high pitched voice, alarmed as she was unexpectedly pulled downwards. She shut her eyes and prepared to slam into the ground, but the expected pain never came. Instead, she seemed to be lying on something warm, something that felt incredibly comfortable
Hui slowly opened her eyes and turned her head.
'Master's holding me?! Did he, did he actually do that whilst he was sleeping?!' She wasn't sure whether to feel anxious, happy or impressed. To think that Khan's lust for cute girls would continue even as he slept, leading to his body acting on its instincts and grabbing the nearest cutie within range!
His grip wasn't tight, but it was firm and impossible for her to escape. Hui panicked at first, but after a few minutes passed and she failed to escape, she managed to calm down a bit.
'Well it wasn't my fault and I can't do anything about it anyway. I guess I'll just sleep here too…'