Three days after his first lesson in the Crimson Snow sect, Xuhan finally managed to achieve something noteworthy by cooping himself up inside his hut and cultivating crazily, no matter how boring it was.

He missed his daily assignments, for which he was fined a few spirit stones every day, a punishment that would render any other normal disciple bankrupt within half a month.

But being a "tycoon" with loaned money, Xuhan didnt give a damn about these expenses. If he didnt manage to reach the second layer of physique transformation realm within the first month, he was doomed anyway.

But it seemed that the constant fear and tension had really stirred his mind and made it more resolute, a trait he that certainly didn't have originally.

All in all, he cultivated maniacally and on the third night of his seclusion, Xuhan suddenly felt that the qi gathering and cycling incantation had lost its effect in him.

It was the cultivation technique for reaching the zeroth layer of physique transformation realm. After reexamining the scroll, he understood that the technique had lost effect because he had officially reached the peak of the zeroth layer of physique transformation realm. The technique had already imprinted itself on his imaginary cultivation base.

In other words, he was ready to break into the actual cultivation realm, the first layer.

Setting aside the scroll Mu Ran had given him, Xuhan took out the second scroll from his table, the skeletal monarch.

This was the other cultivation method Mu Ran had "recommended" to him, one which he planned to use as a supplementary technique mixed with the spiritual bones to see if he could create something anew altogether.

Despite sounding far fetched, Xuhan felt an uncontrollable urge to make this work. In his previous life, he kept reading about those awesome techniques in xianxia novels, many of which seemed to be compatible with each other. Yet those dumb protagonists never even bothered to do any research, relying on sheer OP-ness to overcome all obstacles. Where was the fun in that?

He, Han Xuhan, had working brain cells. Even if it was a risky move, he couldn't bear to see such a valuable chance of using his creativity go to waste. Why would he let go of such chances to experiment with magical techniques and create something brand new?

A lego lover like me shall never give up a single chance to build something new with the materials in hand...

Feeling nostalgic about his lego set in his previous life which he had to hide from his young cousins, Xuhan started examining the skeletal monarch technique with great interest.

The skeletal monarch was much more complicated than he had thought. The author must have used some high level techniques related to space to make thousands of words fit into the foot wide scroll. Because the words were still readable somehow despite their puzzling size. The handwriting on the other hand, was simply ugly.

Why couldn't the author use a technique to at least improve his writing instead of using those esoteric techniques related to space ?

What's more, he didn't understand many of the research terms, the diagrams were mind boggling, the qi cycle had to be repeated not only inside his own meridians but also inside the bones of the skeletons he summoned, leading to a lengthy and time consuming cultivation session the further he cultivated.

The principle behind the summoning was very vague, seemingly intentionally. But Xuhan didn't care. As long as it worked, he would be fine with it.

After he finished studying the whole scroll, Xuhan felt his head hurting. If it wasn't for gaining Mu Ran's favour, he wouldn't even bother to cultivate this useless technique. He still had to worry about the one month deadline. But since he planned to use to spiritual bones on the summoned skeletons' body, Xuhan had to cultivate this one first.

"Never thought I'd say something so abominable, but I am really starting to miss my physics and chemistry books..."

The cultivation sessions would be more and more complicated, from what he had gathered so far. Compared to what horrors he would face in the future, Xuhan would take on college level physics any day.

Sighing despondently, he started absorbing qi again to start cultivating the skeletal monarch technique.

According to Mu Ran, once he reached the peak of the zeroth layer, he could officially start cultivating any technique and break into the first layer with enough time and dedication.

While Xuhan certainly didn't lack dedication, he was definitely short on time.

One month, two layers to surpass. No cheats to rely on either.

As time passed, Xuhan grew more and more familiar with the technique. Yet instead of feeling relief, Xuhan was starting to lose his nerve as his understanding of the technique deepened.

Soon, his brows furrowed after a couple hours of qi cycling and he started scribbling a large amount of numbers on a piece of paper. After ten minutes of careful calculation where Xuhan mapped out his overall growth chart based on each qi cycling session for the next twenty six days, his face became darker than ever.

Numbers didn't lie. With his current capabilities, even if he improved the effectiveness of each cultivation session by threefold with time, it'd take him a month and a half to reach the second layer of physique transformation realm, provided that he cooped up inside his hut all the time and didn't waste a single second on even eating or sleeping.

This scenario was also impossible, since he was obliged to attend every lesson, perform the less taxing daily tasks such as cleaning up the sect grounds and classrooms, obtaining fees from the neighbourhood like a hooligan and helping out in the kitchen, etc.

All in all, he would have to cultivate desperately for more than three months and only perform the mandatory tasks everyday to reach the second layer of physique transformation realm. Yet the sect would definitely punish him greatly or directly expel him if he failed to do so within one month.

Gripping the sheets full of calculation, Xuhan felt sweat covering his forehead. This world was nothing like those from xianxia novels in certain aspects. The disciples in novels got paid for being a disciple and all the martial arts or cultivation techniques were free in the sects, but the situation here was the total opposite. He was the one paying for being a disciple. There was no relaxed atmosphere, no arrogant young masters to stomp on and loot, no jade beauties bearing treasures and blessings .

There wasn't even a fricking inter-sect tournament to leech off.

Feeling distressed, Xuhan ran his hands over his only assets in this world, his pouch of loaned money.

Suddenly, he had an eureka moment, remembering one of the popular tropes after seeing his "vast wealth".

"Didn't all sects used to have cultivation resources in novels, especially a large amount reserved for the genius disciples to cultivate faster? This isn't something that can be avoided if one wants to cultivate faster than normal, right?"

There should definitely be something similar in this sect too. Xuhan was sure of it. So he immediately ran out of his hut in a disarray and started asking around his seniors in the neighbouring huts.

His quick idea paid off. Soon, he found out some detailed information about cultivation resources in the sect.

The sect did actually follow the style of cherishing the strong and suppressing the weak. The disciples with the highest potential received cultivation resources for free, provided that they broke through to the soul reformation realm within two years.

While the notion seemed absurd to Xuhan, he was more concerned about his current predicament.

"Senior, can I use spirit stones to directly buy resources from the sect?"

The older disciple gave him a strange look upon hearing his question.

"Junior brother, you certainly can...except, don't mind me asking this but, how many spirit stones do you have?"

"A bit more than a thousand, senior."

The older disciple looked taken aback for a moment, making Xuhan feel a bit more confident. But then he chuckled derisively.

"Junior, I advise you to give up on those pipe dreams. Even the lowest tier of resources are worth hundreds of spirit stones. And they are consumables, get it? You can buy them and use them to speed up your cultivation. But they'll run out very soon and you'll be stuck with no money and no way to continue cultivating fast any more, which is a very, very, frustrating experience since you would have already tasted the sweetness of fast cultivation speed. If you borrow emergency funds, you'll be mired with loans again. You'll end up like a drug addict from the mortal world. You sure you can pursue such extravagant lifestyle ? "

Xuhan gritted his teeth and finally readied himself for some shock and asked the directions to the sect's storage from the senior disciple who gave him a deep look as if internally labelling him as a goner.

After thanking him, Xuhan visited the sect's storage immediately. It was located far away from his mountain peak. Upon reaching his destination, he saw a bunch of large buildings with no windows or doors that resembled high security jails. They lined up methodically and dozens of disciples with threatening auras patrolled outside, making an impacting sight.

Xuhan revealed his intention to buy resources from the storage to one of the disciples. He was given weird looks from all directions and finally brought to a grim looking elder after he showed them his pouch full of spirit stones.

" BUYING resources? An outer court disciple? From the black sheep peak? Go eat grass in the plains! Why do you need resources? Is this some sort of prank an old man like me is unable to comprehend?"

The elder was furious even after Xuhan showed him his pouch.

"With that puny amount of spirit stones, what do you want to buy? Non sticky tissue papers to wipe your tears when you get expelled for mediocrity?"

After shouting at him for fifteen minutes with enough venom in his words to make a professional rapper proud, the elder grudgingly gave him a list of the resources he could buy at the moment.

There were multiple types of resources listed. Herbs to increase concentration and affinity with qi temporarily, potions to make skin pores attract larger amount of qi, solid blocks of frozen qi that could be used in bathwater to absorb without any effort, drinks spiked with qi, supplementary techniques to speed up qi cycles, pills to stimulate meridians, formation ingredients that automatically attracted qi and pushed them inside the cultivator and many more.

The pricing however, was predictably far from being generous. It took Xuhan a long time to filter the resources priced less than 300 spirit stones.

In the end, he chose to spend 500 spirit stones and bought five blocks of frozen qi, a tiny vial of concentration increasing potion and the lowest level of formation ingredients for one time use.

With his pouch light and heart heavy, Xuhan returned to his hut and fell into deep thought again.

If he didn't find a way to earn more spirit stones soon, his life as a cultivator wouldn't last for long.