Li Meirong's voice stuttered as she read out the title, and her pale face went as red as a beetroot.

"Pfft!" Feng Huang barely managed to keep from laughing out loud at the ever-changing expressions that graced Li Meirong's face. The turtle's touch shell shook with the effort it took to suppress her mirth. 'Ah, so my clueless mistress has some idea about Dual Cultivation already!'

Li Meirong's expressions cycled from shyness through to agitation, and then shifted further before she eventually settled on irritation. Her brows creased into a deep frown. Li Meirong gritted her teeth and clutched the scroll tightly in her hand. She itched to lash out at Feng Huang, but managed to suppress the urge to do so.

What was Dual Cultivation? Wasn't it something… raunchy? Wouldn't a scroll about it be basically an erotic book? Well, she'd seen and read worse before, so she wouldn't back out!

With a huff, Li Meirong unrolled the scroll skimmed across the characters upon it.

Feng Huang's deduction was not entirely correct. Li Meirong had heard of dual cultivation in passing, but had never studied it thoroughly or been taught about it before.

Her annoyance subsided as genuine interest stirred and grew. To her surprise, and pleasant surprise at that, the scroll did not describe any kind of vulgar act as she had previously assumed it would. Rather, it was a technical summary of paired cultivation techniques. It was an interesting subject which Li Meirong had never even considered before.

She read the scroll silently to herself:

*... Introducing the concept of sexual intercourse as a spiritual experience beyond physical pleasure.

The key to exercising the method is to employ one's qi during sexual activity instead of wasting the energy, as is most often the case. When a couple engages in lovemaking, they can circulate each other's opposing energies: yin energy and yang energy. In doing so, they create harmony in a circuit of ever-increasing energy. The effects of dual cultivation have the potential to expand and enhance one's spiritual energy to incredible levels if performed correctly...*

As Li Meirong continued to read, she discovered that there was even a section detailing the potential ways to increase energy by utilizing that of someone such as herself. She had often been called a 'Furnace' by her fellow sect disciples, but the scroll described people like her as being a 'Cultivation Vessel'. In short, vessels like her were highly sought-after candidates for dual cultivation, as their partners would gain a tremendous increase in energy by pairing with them. Sadly, such vessels were often abused and drained of all qi, which often led to their deaths.

She barely noticed just how deeply immersed in her reading she had been until she finished studying the first of the techniques within the scroll. She carefully rolled it up, and then finally glanced away from the manual.

Instantly, she was embarrassed to find 'Snowball', Feng Huang, and Chou (in his miniature form) sitting right in front of her, looking at her with completely and utterly flabbergasted expressions.

Feng Huang was quite impressed as well as surprised. Even if nothing more came of it, she appreciated Li Meirong even more now than she had before. The turtle demoness quite preferred a daring mistress!

As for 'Snowball'? His wide-eyed stare was the only expression on his furry little face. Now, after having seen what Her Ladyship had been reading, Bai Yu felt compelled to find some private time to speak to His Lordship. He was certain that with this new knowledge, his Lord would be so ecstatic that he would forget all about punishing him!

Chou, on the other hand, was not certain what to say or think. He did not know much about these human techniques, and neither did he care about them. But his Master looked incredibly funny with her face going so bright a shade of red. His Master was a little silly sometimes, and it made Chou worry about her quite a lot. What if she choked herself to death?!

"Master…" Chou's voice was filled with worry. "Are you alright?"

Despite having read the text as if it were a biology textbook, Li Meirong still felt decidedly self-conscious at having taken so much interest in cultivation techniques related to sexual activity.

"I'm fine! I, uh… I was just skimming through this…" Li Meirong quickly averted her gaze from the three spirits, rather ashamed with herself, and stuffed the Dual Cultivation scroll back onto the nearest shelf. She brought out the dimension's communication parchment instead. "Give me a proper cultivation technique, please!"

The empty parchment swiftly filled with characters.

~Was the one you read only moments ago not suitable for your needs?~

"..." Li Meirong was stunned into silence. Is this dimension trying to make a joke out of me, too?!

Frustrated at the dimension's audacity, she stuffed the parchment back into her sleeve and instead continued to browse the shelves. Useless dimension…

She grabbed the nearest cultivation scroll, and discovered that it was relating to martial art with a water element. That would be a good contrast to her fire barrier. After reading the technique a few times over, Li Meirong sat down cross-legged and chanted the written mantra.

Meanwhile, as Li Meirong read about and practiced cultivating, the rather astonished contracted entities dispersed and went about finding their own forms of entertainment. Chou went back to bossing the lobsters about; Feng Huang returned to her nap, finding a more secure and secret place this time; and the little fox spirit obediently sat by Li Meirong's side and observed her training. Bai Yu's perceptive golden eyes took note of Her Ladyship's lack of advancement, and did his best to puzzle out what she might be doing wrong.

It was difficult to accurately judge the passing of time whilst in the dimensional space. Nevertheless, Li Meirong felt it was a fairly accurate guess to assume that a few hours had passed. When her body ached with fatigue and her back was sweating, Li Meirong finally decided to end her training for the day.

Sadly, she had made no progress. She didn't sense even an ounce of increase in her energy. If anything, she was all the more drained than she had been before.

Dejected and tired, Li Meirong left the dimension's space with 'Snowball', meditating her consciousness back to her body from within the confines of the library.

When Chou and Feng Huang finally realized Li Meirong had departed the dimension, they were both filled with frustration. A single thought was shared between the two beings: We forgot to ask for blood!