Cultivation wasn’t just about meditating, as Adrian recently found out.

Very recently, in fact. Only a few hours had passed after the fact and he was still at the Beaumont Estate, which was preferable to remaining home. On the last three days of the week, his father remained home and that was one person he could do without running into.

As grumpy as Adrian was at home, he still managed to run into the man one way or another.

That, and lunch at the estate was better than eating at home so he’d decided to stay over for dinner.

“What’s this?” asked Adrian as he stared at the copper mirror hanging in the meeting room of the estate, which was a massive room with a long table that could seat ten at once in the middle as well as numerous windows.

“The final item at the auction,” she said.

After they finished lunch in silence, she dragged him there.

“It’s a Far-Sight Mirror. The only thing that lets us connect to the Central Continent,” she said and tapped on it with a nail, “It can let you see and hear anyone that has a Far-Sight Mirror. In the entire Empire, there are only six of them and two belong to the Royal Family.”

“So I don’t owe you a treasure, do I?” he asked.

“Obviously, you do. Since I’m returning this to you. And the other one as well,” said Emma and puffed, arms crossed.

“No, no. I insist. Keep the mirror. I don’t have any use for it,” said Adrian, “But bringing you a treasure is annoying.”

“The patriarch is too modest. If you don’t take it back, he’ll insist on paying back Mr. Anderson and his personal fund is as low as it can get. That directly impacts my allowance so it’s unacceptable,” said Emma, “He gives me more crystals than father.”

Allowance…

Adrian couldn’t remember a time where he was in need of crystals. He just wished it into existence, almost. It came out of his father’s wallet, but he was far too spoiled to care about that before.

Even if he was better now, he knew the truth, and that allowed him some leisure in acting like a spoiled Young Master.

“That said, since you said annoying, I assume it’s not dangerous. How can that be?” she asked and put a finger to her chin, “Immortals like to challenge others before they let them take their treasures. It just doesn’t make sense.”

It would if she knew that the tomb was only there for the Shadow to collect souls to assist it in coming back to life.

“Don’t bother. It’s dangerous. It’s just… annoying to me, but deadly to anyone else,” he said.

If the Shadow roped her into a deal, his plan would fail.

Not that he wanted to antagonize the old crook that much. He just didn’t want it to come back to life as he didn’t want the Northern Continent to be under the rule of a tyrant. That, and he happened to hate where he’d go after he died.

The world inside the Shadow.

It was a disgusting place.

“So you have some sort of treasure?” she asked.

“Ah, ah,” said Adrian and raised a finger, then shook it, “I’m not answering any more questions until you answer mine.”

Emma rolled her eyes and mumbled something underneath her breath: it was just a word, not a sentence.

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“You never ask,” she grumbled and rolled her eyes, “I’d answer them if you did.”

“Yes, but I need a breather so no more questions until I ask something,” he said, “Actually, until I ask three questions.”

“I’m beating you up harder during our next training session,” she said.

As much of a nagger she was, Adrian couldn’t contest that she was decent at teaching, even if her own fencing wasn’t all that great. It was more like she was used to fighting and winning, but with a weapon in her hand, rather than using the weapon to its full potential as some did.

She was also the first one to teach him anything about fighting.

Well, if you didn’t count the sloppy punching technique that his father taught him to fight off bullies, which had gotten into more trouble than out.

“They’re coming back in four days, right?” asked Adrian after he stared at the copper mirror on the wall for a bit.

“Is that a question?” Emma asked, looking away with half-lidded eyes.

She was unbelievable.

“Well, never mind that. I should cultivate,” he said and turned around, but realized that he didn’t know a thing about the estate.

It wasn’t the city where he’d grown up in, but the land of a Noble who could have him executed on a whim back when he was a mere mortal.

Before he left for somewhere to sit in, he heard an unearthly screech from right behind his back, which forced him to cover both ears with his hands. It faded as soon as it started, but in its absence, he could hear someone talking.

“So this thing really works. Using it is intuitive,” said the voice.

Adrian turned around and looked at the mirror on the wall, and could see the visage of both Joseph and Joshua: the Demon Twins.

“Oooh, you two are together,” said Joseph and rigorously nodded, “I understand.”

“Don’t fiddle with it. You might damage it. That thing is too expensive,” said Joshua from the side and tapped on the glass, and after they heard the nail click on the copper mirror on the other side, their visage disappeared.

It looked more like a window rather than a mirror while the Demon Twins were speaking to them, and they seemed larger than life.

How did this even work?

It could transmit both the appearance of others in real-time and even the sounds they made. It was astounding to even think that such inventions could be made, using the Ambient Qi for fuel so that it would essentially be free.

Then the mirror snapped back to the scene with Joseph and Joshua, in which Joseph was pushing his older twin brother away from the mirror to buy some time to speak.

“I just wanted to let you know that we might be returning later than expected. Father said that his presence is necessary in the eastern reaches of the Empire and will be leaving for Intrepid Valley City after the Summit. We’ll be following him so don’t be worried if you don’t see us with the rest of the Young Masters, kay?” said Joseph and gave her a secret wink, which he tried to hide but failed.

It was almost impossible to hide it when they were both looking at the mirror, seeing the exact same things.

“Earl Ulrich will yell at you!” shouted Joshua as he finally managed to overpower Joseph.

“He’s probably drunk alr-,” grumbled Joseph but the call ended, and this time, Adrian didn’t want to humor their conversation again.

He wanted to cultivate now, especially now that he’d had a revelation of sorts.

Rather, he wanted to refine his body, which was the point of the Body Refinement Stage, as Emma explained. And the best method was to repeatedly break his bones bit by bit and have them heal, enriching it with Qi so that he could infuse more Qi into it faster than he would by simply having it circulate around his body parts.

That only worked for the Cartilage, Flesh, and Muscles but not for Bones. Bones were a closed system that only had small gaps to squeeze Qi through, which would be enlarged for a certain period if he broke it, letting the Qi enter through the gaps to increase his Cultivation Speed.

After his bones were filled to the brim, he’d be able to move to the Muscle Refinement Layer.

“I should probably do it as well,” said Emma and shrugged, “Since everyone’s away, I might as well surprise them when they come back.”

With that, the duo split and walked away from each other, to opposite directions.

For now, cultivating together wouldn’t affect their training speed as they couldn’t even fully absorb the Ambient Qi in the air, meaning there were no issues of sharing the same power source.

Adrian stopped, turned around, and coughed into his fist loud enough for her to hear.

“Let’s train after dinner as well,” he said, and after some hesitation, he added, “And, umm- never mind.”

“What was that?” she asked, an eyebrow raised.

“I said never mind. It was something dumb,” said Adrian and waved his hands lazily after he turned around.

She let out a short chuckle and walked away.

He’d never been next to girls for long enough to get to know them. The closest one he’d gotten to was one of the merchants’ daughters, who disappeared for months or even years on end. Their relationship was something along the lines of ‘the two kids that played outside while their parents discussed business’.

Even finding a friend was rare, and this seemed like friendship.

At least felt like one.

His only other friend was a drunkard that slept through half the day and drank rum or alcohol during the other half. Compared to his tenuous relationship with the drunkard, what he had with Emma was a bit tighter: stronger.