Mu Yanxi hadn’t expected the Lingyue Art to be this effective—it was practically instantaneous. Back when she first enrolled, the beautiful female bodies made her heart race and her face flush.
But now, when she looked at them, though they were still as beautiful as celestial maidens, Mu Yanxi felt only pure admiration for their beauty, without a trace of desire.
Mu Yanxi breathed a sigh of relief. Earlier, she had been somewhat averse to the Lingyue Art, but now, who could say it wasn’t effective? The Lingyue Art was amazing!
Mu Yanxi walked up the mountain. Every dozen meters or so along the way, there was a natural hot spring. On the surface, spiritual energy had become so dense it had turned into white mist, slowly rising.
Around each bathing pool were bamboo groves and trees. Inside the pools, young girls were playing and frolicking—a true immortal scene, with a similar charm to the Jade Pool Illusory Realm of the Virgin Fairy Bathing Method.
But just as Shangguan Yun had said, most girls of the Spiritual Moon Sect had little modesty. As she walked, Mu Yanxi saw quite a few bathing pools where girls were pressed together, lost in passion, completely oblivious to others around them.
Moreover, she noticed that as she went higher, though the quality of the Spiritual Spring improved, the cultivation levels of the women increased as well.
At the start, they were all around the eleventh or twelfth layer of Qi Refining. Later, it was mostly thirteenth or fourteenth, fifteenth or sixteenth, increasing step by step.
It was easy to imagine that only the highest-cultivation female teachers could enjoy the top-tier supreme hot springs, while those with lower cultivation could only use the springs from the mountainside down to the foot.
Mu Yanxi didn’t know if this was an unspoken rule or an explicit regulation, but it was all the same, because in the cultivation realm, the strong have always been revered and the accomplished come first.
It was only natural for those with deeper cultivation to enjoy the best. Even without rules, female disciples wouldn’t dare bathe with the teachers, fearing they might offend them, and would voluntarily go to the lower springs.
But if it were the mixed bath on the other side of the mountain, it was different. Female disciples who had attached themselves to high-level male cultivators could legitimately follow them to the best hot springs under the pretext of serving.
They would serve and cultivate at the same time. This was probably the most intuitive meaning of the path of attachment.
Mu Yanxi had no intention of defying the iron laws of the cultivation realm.
She went to a position around the sixteenth to eighteenth layers of Qi Refining, found a relatively quiet hot spring, and specifically curled up in a rather secluded corner, a spot hard to see from outside, and immersed herself in the water.
“Hiss! So comfortable!”
Mu Yanxi felt strands of spiritual energy seeping into her body.
Just as Shangguan Yun had said, not only was the quality of the spiritual water in this public bath extremely high, but the Spiritual Moon Sect had also added many high-grade bathing agents to the spring water.
Lying in it to cultivate, not only did her mana grow at a rate of a thousand miles a day, but even her physical body and spirit sense were slowly strengthening.
No wonder people said that once you’ve been to the public bath, you never want to bathe in your dormitory again. Once you’ve seen the best, the rest is nothing.
“Detected superior Spiritual Spring. Immortal Brain charging to six percent. Master, the source of this water vein is a supreme spirit vein and a top-level Spiritual Spring. If you can bathe at the source, the Immortal Brain can charge another one percent.”
The Immortal Brain’s voice sounded.
‘It’s charging again?’
Mu Yanxi was starting to understand. It seemed that any external spiritual power could potentially charge the Immortal Brain, but each time it could only charge one percent—at least that’s how it looked for now.
Then, this charging method became invalid. Whether it was the acupuncture in the morning or soaking in the Spiritual Spring now, giving a second acupuncture session or soaking for a longer time didn’t charge the Immortal Brain any further.
She had to find a higher-level source of spiritual power, like the hot spring at the mountain top.
According to the Immortal Brain, the small mountain was sitting on a supreme spirit vein, and the mountain top should be a top-level Spiritual Spring eye. But the Spiritual Moon Sect as a whole was a palace complex floating in midair above the city.
That meant this Spiritual Spring mountain must have been moved here by some great expert using a Supreme Divine Ability, spirit vein and all, into the Spiritual Moon Sect. Even the supreme spirit vein might have been relocated later. Truly a massive undertaking.
Mu Yanxi sat ungracefully in the bathing pool, sprawling out. She leaned her back against the bank, placed her hands on the edges on both sides, and looked up at the starry sky.
“This is what immortality cultivation is all about. It would be even better if I had a small bottle of wine by my side.”
Earlier, at the entrance at the foot of the mountain, she had indeed seen the small shop run by her senior sister, selling some drinks and alcohol.
While climbing the mountain, she had also seen disciples floating various wine bottles and gourds beside them, taking a sip whenever they wanted. If not for having to conserve spirit stones, Mu Yanxi would have wanted a bottle too.
Soaking in this spiritual-energy-rich bath, Mu Yanxi discovered that she didn’t even need to meditate. She could directly activate the Virgin Fairy Bathing Method and perform a siphon on the dense spiritual energy in the water, causing her mana to rise rapidly.
She was happy to skip meditation. After all, Mu Yanxi felt that although those images were voluntarily left behind by the celestial maidens, they were still senior experts. Spending all day visualizing them in her mind didn’t seem quite right.
Moreover, the Lingyue Art only made Mu Yanxi immune to the illusions inherent in the Lingyue Art. It wasn’t like a Buddhist sect art that made her completely without desires. Those few celestial maidens were breathtakingly beautiful.
When she meditated, Mu Yanxi still felt something. Since she could avoid meditating, she might as well do it less.
Thus, Mu Yanxi was able to cultivate while gazing at the stars, a rare treat. She felt she hadn’t relaxed like this while cultivating and looking at the stars in a long time.
***
In the distance, she could see ancient pavilions and tall buildings reaching into the clouds. In the sky, there seemed to be a huge shadow stretching from east to west, covering a large number of stars, but it itself emitted a faint glow. It looked like a Divine Bridge, but Mu Yanxi didn’t know exactly what it was.
As she soaked, Mu Yanxi felt the mana in her Elixir Field become full again, then rapidly condense. Soon, she easily broke through the bottleneck and officially reached the eighteenth layer of Qi Refining.
This was the calmest breakthrough Mu Yanxi had ever experienced. Compared to the dual cultivation triple breakthrough two days ago and the bathroom breakthrough yesterday, this ascension to the eighteenth layer of Qi Refining was so natural that it only caused a few ripples on the hot spring’s surface.
When she started cultivating, Mu Yanxi had a premonition that she would break through to the eighteenth layer of Qi Refining.
She had used medicine and acupuncture for physical cultivation during the day, then learned the Lingyue Art entry-level, and in the evening came to cultivate in such a rich Spiritual Spring.
Ascending to the eighteenth layer was only natural. She wasn’t even surprised.
Mu Yanxi continued to operate the Virgin Fairy Bathing Method, absorbing the spiritual energy of the hot spring to consolidate her eighteenth-layer state. At that moment, she seemed to hear some slight movement in the bamboo grove behind her.
“Hmm?”
Mu Yanxi turned her head and looked doubtfully. The place she had chosen was quite secluded. Why would another girl come here, and not into the bathing pool, but inside the bamboo grove?
Mu Yanxi wanted to extend her spirit sense to see who was in the bamboo grove, but she found that the surrounding spiritual energy was too dense.
Her spirit sense couldn’t distinguish any person or object at all. Her perception range was completely filled with a vast expanse of white spiritual energy.
Probably precisely because the spirit sense was obscured by the spiritual energy, the person in the bamboo grove hadn’t discovered Mu Yanxi in the water.
After a few minutes, there was another commotion. It seemed another person had arrived.
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