"You have met the quota for today," A younger officer said to Jiang Ye, he seemed to be in charge of today's Spirit Stone collection.
Jiang Ye nodded his head before staring at the sky, the glaring sunlight still up in the sky. Advancing to Tier 2 of the Flesh Refinement Stage was truly useful. After beating the shit out of Long Ziwu, he made a second trip to collect Spirit Stones because the bamboo basket's limit capacity was only about 500 or so. Now that Jiang Ye had finished his work for the day, he should go back to his tent and continue cultivating, aiming to break through to Tier 3 today or tomorrow.
However, he also understood that without any external help like medicinal pills (he had only heard about them) continuously breaking through would be extremely hard. He has no choice but to just rely on continuous cultivation without support, and when doing his quota, he can also use Spirit Stones to aid his cultivation.
As Jiang Ye got off the line, his body felt extremely restless. As though his body wanted some... action! Don't misunderstand, it's not that he was a freak who always hungered for battle, in the contrary he was a guy who preferred to avoid trouble and fights, satisfied with just watching them on the sidelines. But, on this particular, peaceful day, his body felt like it wanted to assert dominance, to show everyone who was their daddy.
"Damn it, I just increased my strength for a bit and now my body is hungry for more brawl," Jiang Ye gnashed his teeth as he murmur this.
Bump!
As Jiang Ye kept thinking of beating up people, it seemed that the heavens had given him their blessings by bumping into that one certain person.
"Hey! Where the fuck do you think you're looking at?" Yang Shan said angrily.
"Where the fuck do you think I'm looking?" Jiang Ye sneered upon realizing it was that cowardly lackey of Long Ziwu, who was probably still in the cave, crying like a baby. Just as he was about to go crazy, the gods decided to give him this cowardly piece of shit.
Upon realizing it was that demon, Jiang Ye, Yang Shan decided to run away from there but Jiang Ye already gripped his wrist tightly.
"Where are you going?" Jiang Ye further exerted strength on his grip, causing the unlucky person's face to twist in pain.
"AHHH! Jiang Ye! You are outside the goddamn caves! You are in trouble!" Yang Shan shrieked as he struggled so hard to escape from Jiang Ye's grip.
Jiang Ye raised his eyebrows and then loosened the grip on Yang Shan's, causing the latter to now struggle out and run away from this demon.
Meanwhile, Jiang Ye was delving into his thoughts, touching his chin. He was careless, bullying someone like that outside the Extreme Dusk Cave. When one wanted to beat up someone, they did it inside the caves, after all, no officers were watching them inside.
Fortunately, he was considerably far away from the officers' tent now, which meant he was safe, for now. Jiang Ye sighed in disappointment. "But what they wanted was action!"
Jiang Ye's eyebrows twitched a little. He didn't know why he said that, and he did not even know who the hell was "they." This was strange, it seemed like he was going insane. What in the world was happening right now?
He drooped his shoulders as he decided to go back to his tent. There was truly nothing he could do other than cultivate the rest of the day even though it was extremely boring.
In his tent, Jiang Ye sat cross-legged and closed his eyes, feeling the spiritual energy between heavens and earth around him, wrapping his body like it was a piece of paper. He also sensed the air around him. He decided to force a breakthrough today.
Jiang Ye inhaled for a long time, getting a huge amount of spiritual energy between the heavens and earth and the wind. He then converged the two, producing wind-attribute spiritual energy, which he used to temper his muscles and flesh.
Jiang Ye could feel the pain of his muscles getting microscopic damage, but he could also feel the cool energy from the spiritual energy, healing the damaged muscles and becoming stronger.
Okay, this was not boring after all, Jiang Ye thought to himself as he repeated all these processes. It just felt gratifying when he senses his muscles becoming stronger in just a matter of seconds. Nevertheless, after a few minutes, Jiang Ye was becoming impatient. While he indeed got stronger from all these, it was not enough compared to the gains in strength when breaking through. It felt as though he was at a new level of physical prowess whenever he advanced to a new tier.
And so, Jiang Ye decided something.
He greedily devoured a massive amount of spiritual energy around him, which was, while not as pure as those in Spirit Stones, could still help if he used quantity over quality. Along the spiritual energy is also air.
Jiang Ye's lungs are reaching their limit as his stomach expands, looking like he is pregnant. Containing so much spiritual energy caused a huge toll on his body and it hurt, especially his stomach that he forcefully expanded.
Then Jiang Ye merged the two factors into one, creating an extreme amount of wind attribute spiritual energy. He manipulated them and damaged his muscles like a tempest, causing Jiang Ye to scream in agony. "Ahhh! It hurts!"
His muscles got utterly destroyed and messed up but thankfully the spiritual energy is also healing his muscles, cooling them, and making Jiang Ye calm down.
Pak! Boom!
And it happened! Jiang Ye opened his eyes in excitement. Tier 3 of Flesh Refinement Stage! His cultivation speed was truly a monster. He breaks through 1 tier every day. Such an achievement was rare in the Black Dusk Domain. Well, it was also because the Domain Lord, Liang Shuyue, forbade the spread and use of cultivation techniques to ordinary citizens. Reserved to the officers and the nobles only. This was also the reason why despite the Domain Lord being a dictator, there was no one to confront him because most of the people who were discontent with his rule were mostly commoners and slaves. If nothing serious happens that might potentially threaten his rule, he would probably be able to remain the Lord until his death. Truthfully, the previous Domain Lord's approach to rule was just the same as Liang Shuyue, forbidding ordinary people to practice martial arts. And since there was a huge wall that separated the Domain from the outside world, it was hard to smuggle anything as it was filled with officers and warriors from the council.
"Jiang Ye!"
A sudden shout entered his ears, interrupting Jiang Ye's thought. That tone of voice could only mean something. Trouble. Jiang Ye curled his lips, his body was becoming restless anyway. He wondered if he could go against the officers.
"Well, let's find out."