He stared at the hundreds of pans, piled on top of each other in a giant heap. There wasn’t anywhere to step foot in here.

He grabbed the first one and summoned his ghost green flame. It started burning away the gunk. Once he was done, he dunked it in water and scrubbed it off. His arms and traps were in constant pain.

The monotony was gnawing at him but he just grabbed the next one and the one after that. It was all quite surreal. Here he was, in his own webnovel washing magical dishes. He did want to go back, it would’ve been nice to set his affairs in order but there was nothing there to set up. Who was he going to set it up for?

He ignored the giant pit in his stomach and focused on the dishes. It took him a while but he was done with it. He walked out and called for a servant from the notice board. He looked around and went back with him. He nodded at the elder in charge and Musnuf got five spirit stones.

He placed them in his pouch and went back to the notice board. The next week was a blur for him. He focused on every task short of actual combat. Most of these allowed him to practice his flame.

There was one where he had to clean out outer disciple abodes. These were abandoned because nobody was here to live in them and they required upkeep. He decided to start using one of them as his hideaway.

By the end of the week, he’d accumulated upto a 100 spirit stones. All without going out and hunting. He felt proud and restless when he got his last batch of stones.

Now he had to focus on cultivating. He had to get upto the 5th stage of essence condensation. He went back to his hideaway.

He unfurled three separate scrolls. One of them was the Green Dragon flame, the other one was Blue Tiger and the last one was a manual on essence condensation,

He’d described the overall concepts in his webnovel but he hoped to dig out the detailed nuance. He read through it and his eyes started glazing over.

What’s with the flowery language? He had to pore through it over and over. A simple description from his own webnovel was much better: “...essence condensation is the process of accumulating essence and using the excess to release the 12 seals in each cultivator’s body. However, in this stage the excess usage of essence can result in the reformation of seals and damage to the meridian pathways.”

It was a short description but it was much more informative. It was very fuzzy on what these seals were but he decided to swallow a spirit stone. He could still use that increased capacity but the excess usage meant that he could go backwards.

He started cultivating according to Swallow Forest’s recommendation. He would start with breaking down the spirit stone and guiding its essence into his lower abdomen. Once he started feeling ‘full’ he would use the Green Dragon Mantra. He was having fun molding the flame into different shapes. He was trying to make it as detailed as possible.

Once he’d exhausted his essence, he would accumulate essence again but this time he would cultivate the Blue Tiger Mantra.

It was focused on exploring the meridians and the pathways. He focused on the same pathways he used for the flame but now he wasn’t pushing the essence out, he was circulating it through the pathways, all the way up to his skin, where he deposited the essence. He guided it through the pathways he used to accumulate essence as well.

It took him hours of practice to manage one full rotation of the Blue Tiger Mantra to completion. A cool wave washed over him and he placed his hands on his face. They were much colder. He’d reached Stage 2 of Blue Tiger Mantra.

It took him the whole night to break through to Essence Condensation Stage 2. The more he accumulated essence, the harder it became to accumulate more. He kept on pushing more into his gut. It felt like his gut would explode but he kept on doing it until there was a crack and the excess essence flowed out into a wider arena. So that’s what a gate feels like.

It was exhausting, he was covered in sweat and his entire body felt like it was burning up. He fell asleep.

He kept up this routine for the next two weeks. He was hoping to reach Stage 5 by the end of the first week but it was unfeasible. This speed was still astronomical.

He’d reached essence stage 4 and exhausted his reserve of spirit stones. He gathered the spirit stones from the weekly distribution but they weren’t enough, they were only ten. He needed more.

He went down to the notice board, this time around there was a bigger crowd. He looked through the quests. There weren’t any of those menial tasks left in sight, he’d cleared all of them. There were a lot of hunting tasks. Most of these were issued by the Alchemy Department. They required an astronomical amount of materials for their brews.

He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around. It was a girl with her hair tied up in a bun, she had a lopsided grin on her face and her robes were too big for her body.

She rolled up her sleeves. “Do you want to come do a task with me and my sister?” He looked around and there was an identical version of her but more well put.

“What kind of task?”