Lin Yu slowly opened his eyes.

In that instant, the light within the meditation room seemed to brighten a few degrees.

Deep within his pupils, a faint azure-blue light flashed briefly before vanishing, returning to their usual gentle depth. Yet, deep within those irises, there seemed to be an added hint of an elusive, flowing quality.

Lin Yu raised his hand, his five fingers making a grasping motion in the air.

The moisture permeating the air instantly responded, condensing into a crystal-clear water droplet at his fingertips.

“Divine sense range… twenty zhang.”

Lin Yu’s spiritual sense extended outward, piercing through the heavy stone door and the curtain of rain.

He could clearly “see” a cold cicada hiding in a rock crevice twelve zhang away, sheltering from the rain. He could even make out the minute patterns on its wings and the slight trembling of its abdomen with each breath.

This level of clarity was more than double what it had been at the fifth layer of Qi Refining.

What was more important was that sense of control.

Before, when he manipulated water spiritual energy, it felt like wielding a heavy whip. Now, he felt as if he had become part of the water flow itself. That sense of awkwardness, that feeling of “using it like one’s own arm and fingers,” had completely vanished.

“Silent, gradual nourishment…”

Lin Yu murmured softly to himself.

He discovered that the operational loss of spiritual energy within his body had decreased significantly.

Condensing that water droplet just now would have required consuming at least a wisp of spiritual energy before. Now, the loss was almost negligible.

This meant his endurance, his ability to sustain prolonged effort, had taken another significant leap forward on its original foundation.

Master Lin Yu’s phantom slowly drifted out, hovering in mid-air. He had even conjured a cup of hot tea in his hand and was pretending to blow on it.

“Not bad. The water has reached the channel naturally, smooth and without a ripple.”

Master Lin Yu took a sip of the non-existent tea, a look of approval in his eyes. “A breakthrough achieved without relying on elixirs to brute-force it has the most solid foundation. Although the purity of your spiritual energy is only at the sixth layer of Qi Refining, if we’re talking about endurance, I’m afraid even an ordinary seventh-layer Qi Refining cultivator wouldn’t be able to outlast you.”

Lin Yu stood up, stretching his somewhat stiff joints. A series of faint popping sounds came from within his body.

“Thank you, Master, for protecting me during my cultivation.” Lin Yu bowed respectfully.

“Cut the formalities. I was almost falling asleep just now.”

Master Lin Yu waved his hand dismissively, then put away his playful expression. He drifted in front of Lin Yu and pointed towards his lower abdomen.

“However, apprentice, don’t celebrate too soon.”

The joy on Lin Yu’s face faded slightly. Subconsciously, he touched the area of his dantian.

Although the breakthrough had been smooth, at the moment when the spiritual energy vortex accelerated its rotation, he had still keenly sensed a subtle, hidden feeling of obstruction coming from the location of those few fine cracks deep within his dantian.

It was like a few flaws, invisible to the naked eye, on a piece of perfect jade. They weren’t noticeable under normal circumstances, but when subjected to immense pressure, they became the weakest points.

“You felt it, didn’t you?”

Master Lin Yu sighed, looking at his expression. “That pause when the spiritual energy flow passed through the crack area during the breakthrough just now. With the current low spiritual pressure, this pause is harmless. But if you attempt to break through to the later stages of Qi Refining, where the spiritual pressure doubles, this pause could cause turbulent flow of spiritual energy. At best, it would lead to a failed breakthrough.”

The atmosphere in the meditation room grew somewhat heavy for a moment.

Lin Yu remained silent for a while, then lifted his head, his gaze calm. “Since it’s a hidden reef, then we’ll navigate around it, or… fill it in. At least for now, the ship hasn’t capsized.”

Master Lin Yu was taken aback for a second, then grinned. “Good mindset. That’s right. As long as you’re not dead, there’s always a way. Continue to gently nourish it during this period. Don’t be in a hurry to advance recklessly. We have money and leisure now. We can take our time grinding it down.”

…

The next morning, the rain had stopped and the sky had cleared.

Inside the Bing Character Seven Courtyard of the Repair Hall, the atmosphere was bustling with activity.

“Gently! That’s the core lens of the ‘Flowing Light Mirror,’ not your flatbread!”

Zhang Asheng’s loud voice echoed through the courtyard.

This burly man was no longer the silent type who only knew how to bury his head in work. A wooden plaque labeled “Instructor” now hung from his waist. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, inspecting a row of workbenches.

In front of him, seven or eight newly arrived menial disciples were sweating profusely, struggling with a pile of “Standard Damaged Components.”

This was the scene that greeted Lin Yu as he entered the courtyard.

No one noticed his arrival. Everyone was completely immersed in the work at hand.

This was exactly the effect he wanted.

“Hall Master.”

Wang Defa, who was squatting in a corner checking supplies, had sharp eyes and was the first to spot Lin Yu. He was about to stand up and bow, but Lin Yu stopped him with a look.

Lin Yu walked over to a workbench.

A young man, roughly fourteen or fifteen years old, was holding a fine engraving knife, staring at a formation plate with a troubled expression.

It was a low-grade Yellow-tier “Fire Gathering Plate.” The fault was “spiritual energy circuit blockage.”

The young man had clearly been inspecting it for a long time. Beads of sweat were about to drip from his forehead into his eyes, yet he still didn’t dare to make the cut.

“What are you hesitating about?”

Lin Yu’s gentle voice sounded beside the young man’s ear.

The young man jumped in fright, nearly dropping the engraving knife in his hand. Looking up and seeing Lin Yu’s blue outer sect disciple robe made him even more nervous, causing him to stammer, “H-Hall… Hall Master! Disciple… disciple can’t find the blockage point. I’ve probed it three times with spiritual energy. It feels like it’s clear everywhere, but the fire spiritual energy just won’t circulate.”

Lin Yu didn’t scold him. Instead, he extended a finger and gently tapped the edge of the formation plate.

The divine sense of the sixth layer of Qi Refining, combined with the delicate perception of the “Like Water Art,” instantly seeped into the interior of the formation plate like quicksilver.

In his perception, this seemingly inanimate formation plate transformed into a three-dimensional network of pipes and nodes.

“Here.”

Lin Yu’s finger slid to an inconspicuous rune node at the lower left corner of the plate. “At the connection point of this ‘Guide’ character rune, there’s a speck of dust impurity. It causes turbulent flow when spiritual energy circulates at high speed, forming an air barrier. It’s not completely blocked; it’s that the flow velocity is incorrect.”

The young man’s eyes widened in disbelief. He skeptically brought a magnifying glass closer to look.

Sure enough, lodged within the hair-thin groove of the rune, was a metallic speck smaller than a grain of sand.

“Pick it out,” Lin Yu instructed.

The young man hurriedly used the finest needle tip to carefully extract that metallic speck.

“Hum—”

As the impurity was removed, the formation plate emitted a soft hum. Its previously dull surface instantly glowed with a layer of red light, and the surrounding fire spiritual energy began to happily gather.

“It’s clear! It’s really clear!”

The young man was so excited he nearly jumped up. The look he gave Lin Yu was filled with admiration. “Hall Master, you’re amazing! I checked for half an hour and couldn’t find it, but you knew just by touching it!”

The surrounding apprentices also cast looks of awe and respect his way.

Lin Yu patted the young man’s shoulder. “It’s not magic; it’s experience. In the future, when you encounter this kind of ‘apparently clear but actually blocked’ situation, pay more attention to the nodes at the turns.”

He stood up and walked over to Wang Defa.

Wang Defa gave a thumbs-up, lowering his voice. “Hall Master, that move of yours was brilliant. These kids have been getting a bit too cocky lately. They really needed you to show your skills and put them in their place.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep