In elegant black ink, Master Lao Qiguang wrote, ‘A disciple with any kind of future potential for external cultivation will take around two months to cleanse their first meridian. However, not all who pursue the external path can achieve success. If it takes one more than six months to cleanse the first meridian, one should stop altogether to save themselves from future grief.’

Xing Yi paused as he stared at the last word.

He sighed and he felt dread wash over him.

It had been three months already. It should be around this time that he cleanses his first meridian, but it still hadn’t happened yet. According to his cultivation manual, opening the first meridian happens instantaneously and there are no signs leading up to it. As long as one continues to meditate while imagining that they are circulating their vital energy throughout their conception vessel, then they should be able to cleanse it eventually.

But Xing Yi’s hopes were being extinguished. What if it took him longer? With every day that passed where he didn’t cleanse his first meridian, his talent would be shown to be increasingly inferior.

What if he only cleansed his first meridian after six months? What would he do then? Would he just give up?

Xing Yi didn’t know.

In his current train of thought, Xing Yi felt greatly saddened at the prospects of having inferior talent, while also having no spiritual roots. It was the worst body to be stuck in.

Xing Yi couldn’t bare staying still and walked out of the house. After teleporting, he arrived at the library.

How the cultivators managed to dig out a library upon a cliff face was beyond him. The platform he stood on as he walked out of the teleportation pavilion was like a shelf jutting out the side of the cliff face. If he were to approach the edge of the platform, he would be just a few steps from falling to his death.

Walking through the entrance and inside the library, he walked past several dozens of bookshelves with rows that held a similar number of bookshelves in length. Peeking into these rows, he could see small groups of desks with a few disciples looking through light piles of books.

When he arrived at the centre of the library, the librarian was sitting there with an angry look on his face. When Xing Yi noticed this, he almost wanted to turn around and just leave. But he was worried and knew that the librarian would notice. He was only several steps away after all.

“What do you want mortal?” The librarian asked.

In the sect, one would call one another ‘Martial Brother’ alongside a title that represented their seniority to that person. Xing Yi on the other hand, wasn’t even included in that group and continued to be called mortal by the librarian.

“Senior Bai, this one hopes to look at books pertaining to the talent required to cultivate externally,” Xing Yi bowed as he asked respectfully.

After reading much and receiving a few lessons from Li Yuwan and especially Ya Jing’s mother, his etiquette had become impeccable. Now there was no chance of him offending a single person as long as he made sure to remember what they taught him.

The librarian seemed uninterested and replied, “Row thirteen, bookshelf four on the right and on the bottom shelf. And you can get them yourself.”

Xing Yi replied again, “Thank you senior. Your words mean much to this one.”

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Senior Bai scoffed at this and waved him away, “If they truly mean that much to you, then go away and look at that book you were asking for. This senior isn’t in a great mood.”

Xing Yi did so and scurried away. Walking to the right, he saw that each aisle had a sign on the nearest bookshelf. He walked until he reach the aisle that was numbered thirteen. Soon, he found the books he was looking for after a precursory look and after some consideration he ended up with four of them at a nearby group of desks. There was no one sitting here and that made Xing Yi relieved.

Starting with one book, he read through them one by one. They were small books, not even a hundred pages each.

Xing Yi read through all four of them in one sitting and couldn’t help but have a bleak expression.

He couldn’t help but feel completely hopeless at what he read.

In order to make any kind of progress in external cultivation, one must be born with either genius talent or have a special bloodline. Unlike internal cultivation, it was merciless and if one didn’t have talent, then they could be considered lucky if they were even able to even cleanse their third meridian in their entire lifetime. Without treasures to advance or speed up one’s cultivation speed, all hopes of advancing the beginning stages of meridian cleansing is bleak.

To make matters worse, to have any hopes of advancing to inner fire, the stage beyond meridian cleansing, the person will still have to be in their early twenties to have any hopes at lighting it. Beyond that point, they will be stuck at meridian cleansing for the rest of their lives.

If he pieced everything together correctly, he had about fifteen years to progress through all twelve layers in order to have any hope of igniting his inner fire. Any further and he would be stuck forever.

Additionally, each layer was progressively harder to break through than the last and without a teacher, which he did not have, he would certainly encounter problems in his cultivation that would greatly hinder his progress and stagnation for extended periods of time.

It was either you had a special bloodline or genius-level talent.

If you didn’t have either you just had to give up.

Had everything he had just done been useless? Was he destined to stay a mortal forever? Was nothing he was going to do work?

Xing Yi felt like he didn’t deserve to be in the Bloody Path Sect. Like he was out of place and was just an impostor. That if his mortal status were to be publicly announced to the entire sect, he may just dig a hole and bury himself inside it.

After some light reading and conversations with Li Yuwan, not possessing spiritual roots wasn’t uncommon. In fact, it was perfectly normal. People who possessed spiritual roots were a minority. Just not as small as those who had the ability and potential to tread the path of external cultivation.

The only problem he had was that the heavens hadn’t even given him a chance to rebel against it.

‘Cultivation is a rebellion’. That was the first line of his cultivation manual and is a famous saying amongst all cultivators. But if one is to rebel then they must be armed with weapons so as to fight?

And that made him question the heavens. Was cultivation truly a rebellion if they granted spiritual roots and luck to chosen people? Was it all planned by the heavens in the first place?

If so, did that mean that cultivation was a natural occurrence and wasn’t truly a rebellion in the first place.

These thoughts greatly confused Xing Yi.

Putting away the books he borrowed, he exited the library and went back home.

Time passed and he continued to repeat his daily routine. After another month, Xing Yi’s anxiety skyrocketed, and he couldn’t help but further increase the amount of time he was meditating each day. Instead of meditating six hours a day, he was now meditating twelve hours a day. The remaining four hours were left to eating and light reading so that he could reference his cultivation manual for guidance.

Another month passed by in the blink of an eye and Xing Yi’s worrying became endless. Day and night, it became the only thing he thought about it. The brutal truth hung over his head threateningly, waiting for him to accept it.

That he didn’t have the talent.

Come on, just break through already.

He begged the universe, the gods, the heavens, fate, luck, destiny, whatever that was out there that his talent wouldn’t be revealed to be any more inferior than it already was.

In fact, at this point in time, he was technically already at the six-month mark as he had doubled his meditation time in the last month after four months.

However, Xing Yi refused to accept it and continued forward with his cultivation.

One more month.

Another month.

Finally, after another month of this gruelling routine where each day seemed to span into eternity, something happened.

A breakthrough.