"Qi Refining Stage, first layer."
This result immediately sparked a small discussion.
"Huh, is he that Xiao Chen the Instructor was talking about?"
"He looks spirited enough. Not at all like he's in a daze."
The last sentence was spoken in a low whisper, ensuring Xiao Chen couldn't hear: "Many of the new junior brothers who joined this year have already broken through to the second layer of Qi Refining, yet some people are still stuck in place."
The senior brother conducting the test also glanced at the lean young man before him, a hint of surprise in his eyes.
He then picked up his brush to record Xiao Chen's Cultivation and gestured for him to leave.
Although the Miscellaneous Peak was full of low-level Cultivators who had given up on cultivating after getting stuck at a bottleneck with no hope of advancing on their path.
But those were all old men, advanced in age with their Qi and Blood in decline.
Disciples as young as Xiao Chen were almost all still struggling bitterly.
Even after being reduced to Servant Disciples, they still held a sliver of hope for the future, diligently practicing the Basic Breathing Technique.
In the three years since they joined, most of them had reached the minor bottleneck at the third layer of Qi Refining and were preparing to break through to the Middle Stage of Qi Refining.
Even the few with duller aptitudes had broken through to the second layer of Qi Refining last year.
After all, they were Immortal Seedlings who had passed the Li Huo Sect's entry-level test. As long as they studied and trained hard, breaking through a Minor Realm shouldn't have been a problem.
However, Xiao Chen was a special case.
Three years after joining, he was still stuck at the first layer of Qi Refining.
It was said that after finishing his daily work in the Spirit Fields, he would always go drink tea, take a stroll, admire the flowers, and enjoy the scenery.
He never once took the initiative to cultivate, living like a man in his seventies or eighties.
He was the very model of someone with no ambition, a poster child for idling his life away.
If not for the fact that the Sect's code of conduct surprisingly had no rule covering his behavior, the manager of the Miscellaneous Peak would have long since wanted to expel him from the Sect.
Perhaps the founding patriarch, back when he established the Sect, had never anticipated such a situation.
After all, setting aside distant goals, just reaching the third layer of Qi Refining would make casting the Small Cloud Rain Skill much easier.
Any normal person, even if they wanted to be lazy, would at least break through to the third layer of Qi Refining first.
And once at the third layer of Qi Refining, they would be just one step away from breaking through to the Middle Stage and joining the Sect's Outer Sect.
Naturally, they would try to push themselves a little harder.
But Xiao Chen's behavior was bizarre; he simply refused to cultivate.
He didn't seem to mind that he could only cast the Small Cloud Rain Skill once a day, covering just one mu of the Spirit Field, and had to carry extra water to irrigate the other mu.
You might say he was lazy by nature, but carrying water was no easy task.
But if you said he was diligent, he didn't even practice Body Refining. He could only carry two half-full buckets of water at a time; any more and he'd be out of breath.
The key thing was, the guy didn't seem stupid, yet he was wasting the prime of his youth.
Fortunately, although Xiao Chen wasn't proactive about his Cultivation, the harvest from the two mu of Spirit Fields he was responsible for had always been decent.
The manager never caught him making any mistakes or found any shortcomings to hold against him.
Eventually, everyone got used to it and let him go on idling his days away.
He was just a Servant Disciple tending Spirit Fields for the Sect. As long as the fields yielded a harvest, who cared how he farmed?
The only person who frequently brought up Xiao Chen was the Instructor of the Miscellaneous Peak—Old Man Wu.
The one the other disciples referred to as the Instructor.
He was responsible for teaching the Basic Breathing Technique to the new Servant Disciples who arrived each year.
During his lessons, he often used Xiao Chen as a negative example, warning the newcomers never to be like him.
They should work hard while they were young, first striving to join the Outer Sect, then pushing to enter the Inner Sect.
If they succeeded, they would secure a bright future for themselves. Even if they failed, they would still earn resources for their descendants.
After all, Outer Disciples received a basic monthly stipend of two Spirit Stones.
Inner Sect Disciples received an even higher basic monthly stipend of five Spirit Stones.
Unlike the Servants, who worked themselves to death farming for a month only to earn a single Spirit Stone.
And to top it off, they couldn't even afford to eat the Jade Rice they grew themselves all year round.
They could only afford to buy the cheapest, worst-tasting, and highest-yield Yellow Sand Rice from the Marketplace at the foot of the mountain.
The Spiritual Qi in that Yellow Sand Rice was pathetically low, barely better than nothing.
Even slightly picky Spirit Beasts wouldn't eat it.
However, no matter what others said about him,
Xiao Chen continued to go his own way.
When the occasional bit of gossip reached his ears, he treated it like the wind, completely unfazed.
He still tended his fields, drank his tea, and took his strolls every day, maintaining his own rhythm of life.
For three years, every day was the same.
Of course, Xiao Chen wasn't really unambitious, just idling his life away.
He was a transmigrator, after all!
Although he didn't know why, after transmigrating, he had suddenly reverted from a twenty-eight-year-old to his seventeen-year-old self.
But that wasn't the important part. Being younger was always a good thing.
The crucial thing was that in his second year after transmigrating, he was found to possess a low-grade Wood Spirit Root and joined the Li Huo Sect.
When he cultivated his first strand of Magical Power, he activated the Augment selection.
On a screen of light that only he could see, three cards floated, presenting three simple and clear options.
[Axiom Arc I: Restore 10% of your Magical Power upon killing an enemy.]
[Heaven-Dropping Gold Coins: Immediately gain 80 Spirit Stones, and gain 10 more Spirit Stones every year thereafter.]
[Opting out: For the next three years, you cannot cultivate in any way. After this period, you will directly advance by three Minor Realms and receive two hundred Spirit Stones.]
???
As a veteran player of both *Teamfight Tactics* and *Battle of the Golden Spatula*, Xiao Chen was all too familiar with Augments.
After a moment of surprise, his first instinct was to look below the options for a refresh button.
'Just this one choice?'
Let's not even talk about the first one, Axiom Arc I. Picking it would be basically the same as picking nothing.
Magical Power recovery is useful, but with the prerequisite of killing an enemy, it was by far the worst choice at the moment.
The second one, Heaven-Dropping Gold Coins, was a pretty good economy-type Augment.
Taking it at the start would provide a stable income going forward, making it an upper-mid-tier choice.
The problem was, Opting out was one of the absolute best starting Augments!
Waiting three years would let him directly advance three Minor Realms.
He would go straight from the first layer of Qi Refining to the fourth, entering the Middle Stage of Qi Refining.
According to the Instructor, ordinary disciples often needed to cultivate painstakingly for more than five years just to have a hope of breaking through to the Middle Stage.
Furthermore, each Major Realm was divided into three Minor Realms: Early Stage, Middle Stage, and Late Stage.
Between these Realms were corresponding major and minor bottlenecks.
The moment the Augments appeared, Xiao Chen received a message from the void.
As long as he broke through a bottleneck, he could choose a new Augment.
And the effects of his previous Augments would be retained permanently.
This way, after choosing Opting out, he would break through the minor bottleneck of the Early Qi Refining Stage, allowing for a seamless transition to his next Augment selection.
Not to mention, Opting out also gave a one-time reward of a full two hundred Spirit Stones.
Xiao Chen's current annual income was a mere 12 Spirit Stones.
It would take him sixteen and a half years of saving without eating or drinking to accumulate two hundred Spirit Stones.
It was simply better than the other two Augments combined.
Xiao Chen searched carefully but found no refresh option. It seemed he could only choose one of these three Augments.
Then, the number ten actually appeared at the top of the cards and began to count down.
If he didn't make a choice himself, he would be randomly assigned an Augment.
Seeing this, Xiao Chen chose the third Augment without hesitation—Opting out!
As he made his choice mentally, the card in front of him transformed into a stream of light and shot into his Sea of Consciousness.
After that, just as described, he could only absorb Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi to recover his existing Magical Power, but he couldn't perform Refinement to create new Magical Power.
He also couldn't learn Magic through the Instructor's lectures.
He couldn't even gain any advancement by using Spirit Stones.
'Alright then, time to opt out.'
「Three years passed slowly.」
Now, only the final day remained.