As soon as my arm had completely healed, I devoted myself solely to energy cultivation for over twenty days.

Somehow, I felt chances like this to secure such quiet time were rare.

Whenever I converted the power of the Heavenly Pearl into internal energy, I’d often be overcome with drowsiness, so I slept without restraint, without regrets.

The rate at which I was building internal energy was so unrealistically fast, it felt like my body was forcibly taking rest. In other words, I understood energy cultivation as a process of elevating the body’s state.

Even while I was lying there, half-unconscious in deep sleep, I would occasionally hear Yoran’s voice outside.

“Third Master, are you still sleeping?”

“Master, aren’t you going to eat?”

“Master, you can’t sleep for too long.”

“Master, did you stay up all night again yesterday?”

I don’t even remember what I answered to those, but her questions kept circling in my head.

One day, I began to wonder if I might end up trapped forever in this trance-like state of energy cultivation, and at that thought, I quit without hesitation. Yoran’s tone had been growing increasingly anxious, so I decided to take things more seriously.

Perhaps I subconsciously accepted her warnings, and my own wariness of the Heavenly Pearl’s side effects. That’s how I finally escaped from the intense trance of cultivation I’d sunk into after so long.

What was this feeling?

It was like I’d risen from the grave that was my bed and arrived at the Zaha Inn again. The whole time I’d been cultivating, it felt like I’d been submerged in deep water, with the boundary between dream and reality so blurred it took a whole additional hour just to come to my senses.

Naturally, there were results.

At some point, I’d reached the transcendence stage of the Golden Nine Free-Wandering Manual.

It was an absurd growth rate. I started wondering–what exactly had I exchanged for this internal energy?

Even for someone not of Jianghu, overworking oneself leads to internal deviation.

Even martial artists, if all they do is train, they eventually descend into madness. So I returned, halfheartedly, to being just a man of Ilyang County with nothing to do.

I looked into the mirror in the inn and blinked at the face staring back–a wrecked appearance no different from a beggar’s top master.

“I should train in moderation too.”