25: cheating promotion

Not a single drop left!

Repeatedly casting Spirit Tempering drained all of Zhang Sheng's Qi.

Fortunately, the harvest was plentiful; Spirit Tempering reached the Proficient level, and he had also mastered the basics of essence food pills.

Before returning to the apartment, Zhang Sheng went to the cafeteria for a hearty meal; he hadn't eaten his ten kilograms of golden spirit rice for today yet.

Then he returned to the apartment to continue Refining Essence into Qi; the nine essence food pills he had just obtained weren't even warm yet before he swallowed them all in one go.

After practicing a round of "Primordial Chaos Qi Refining," Zhang Sheng finally collapsed onto the bed and fell into a deep sleep.

Early the next morning, Zhang Sheng headed to the Planting Base to cast Spells on the five mu of gold spirit rice, then rushed to the Alchemy room to continue his Alchemy.

For the first batch, Zhang Sheng still deliberately cast the Spirit Tempering Spell; at the Proficient level, Zhang Sheng could already control the amount of spiritual power consumed by each Spirit Tempering cast.

This method was practically like cheating, just like when he was practicing the "Spring Breeze Turning into Rain Technique."

Zhang Sheng even cast Spirit Tempering once on every single grain of gold spirit rice.

This batch of Medicinal Pills took Zhang Sheng a full hour and a half to refine; no pills were formed in the Pill Furnace, instead, it became a pile of black powder.

But!

"Spell: Spirit Tempering (Transcendent: 1/100,000)"

"Haha! Spirit Tempering has successfully been cultivated to the Transcendent level!"

Zhang Sheng began the second Alchemy session, and this time it was normal Alchemy.

The Transcendent Spirit Tempering gave Zhang Sheng many new insights, and the process of Spirit Tempering was several times faster than at the Proficient level.

Ten minutes later, a batch of pills was completed, resulting in 9 pills.

"Skill: Refining essence food pills (Proficient: 8/100)"

The moment the pills were formed, a large amount of knowledge about refining essence food pills flooded into Zhang Sheng's mind, bringing many realizations.

essence food pills themselves are unranked Medicinal Pills, used by Mortals for Refining Essence into Qi as a substitute for spirit food; common essence food pills are divided into Low Grade, Medium Grade, and High Grade.

The pills he had taken before and the ones he just refined were only Low Grade; one pill could only provide 1 point of Qi. With Zhang Sheng's Proficient Heavenly Circulation Method, he would consume ten at a time.

However, after his skill reached the Proficient level, Zhang Sheng was certain he could refine Medium Grade essence food pills.

Ten minutes later, another batch of Medicinal Pills came out of the furnace.

This time, Zhang Sheng put in 18 kilograms of gold spirit rice and refined 9 Medium Grade essence food pills, each capable of providing 2 points of Qi.

"Skill: Refining essence food pills (Proficient: 17/100)"

This...

Zhang Sheng discovered a blind spot! Refining 9 Medium Grade pills also increased his proficiency by 9 points, so it was better to refine 18 Low Grade ones at once to directly increase his proficiency by 18 points.

Fifty minutes later, Zhang Sheng refined another 90 Low Grade essence food pills.

"Skill: Refining essence food pills (Proficient: 7/1,000)"

Zhang Sheng's refining level improved again; this time, he could refine 90 kilograms of gold spirit rice at once and could refine up to High Grade essence food pills at most, but the speed did not increase this time.

At the same time, he could control the quality of the pills he produced; he could refine High Grade essence food pills containing ten points of Qi, or 45 Medium Grade ones, or 90 Low Grade ones.

To quickly increase his Rank, Zhang Sheng once again chose to refine Low Grade essence food pills.

He stayed in the Alchemy room the whole time; when his Qi was exhausted, he would directly take an essence food pill and perform Refining Essence into Qi.

More than two hours later.

Over a thousand jin of gold spirit rice had been consumed.

In total, he had refined 1,191 essence food pills, of which 9 were Medium Grade and the rest were Low Grade.

"Skill: Refining essence food pills (Transcendent: 81/100,000)"

Zhang Sheng's ability to refine essence food pills finally reached the Transcendent level.

However, he could no longer continue refining.

There was very little gold spirit rice left in the warehouse; after reaching the Transcendent level, Zhang Sheng could refine up to 900 kilograms of gold spirit rice.

The one-cubic-meter small Pill Furnace was no longer enough; he needed a large Pill Furnace.

Moreover, at this moment, the Qi in Zhang Sheng's body simply couldn't support refining 900 kilograms of gold spirit rice; he needed to accumulate Qi in advance.

"Awesome!"

"These thousand-plus essence food pills are enough for me to Cultivate for a long time. In the future, I can refine them whenever I need, and I can also exchange them for points."

Zhang Sheng instantly felt much more relaxed.

"Now I can Cultivate with peace of mind!"

Returning to the Planting Base, Zhang Sheng once again watered the five mu of spirit fields with spirit rain and then continued to Cultivate the "Heavenly Circulation Method" in the cultivation room.

Unfortunately, it took half an hour to complete one cycle of the Proficient "Heavenly Circulation Method," and the Transcendent level was still far away.

When he was hungry, he would take an essence food pill; during the intervals, Zhang Sheng would practice the "Object Manipulation Art."

One by one, the essence food pills rotated and jumped around Zhang Sheng under the control of the Spell, which was quite interesting.

By evening, the five mu of gold spirit rice were ready for harvest. A total of 30,000 stalks were harvested, yielding 43,200 kilograms of gold spirit rice. This time, Zhang Sheng sent it all to the warehouse; anyway, he wasn't short on academic credits.

Choosing not to continue planting gold spirit rice, Zhang Sheng went directly back to the apartment to Cultivate.

Farming was nowhere near as fast as Alchemy for earning money and cultivation resources. The technical difficulty between the two was worlds apart; basically, anyone could grow these spirit plants, it was just a matter of efficiency.

However, refining Medicinal Pills required a very high threshold... "Brother Sheng, there's a public class at nine tomorrow morning. Let's go together. The teacher also asked us to pick up a cold weapon we like in advance; it's at the school warehouse."

Looking at the message from Wu Xingyang, Zhang Sheng remembered there was a public class tomorrow about the use of cold weapons.

The next day,

"Brother Sheng, what have you been busy with these past two days? You've been nowhere to be seen." Wu Xingyang seemed to have gotten a bit fatter, and his speech was a bit slurred.

"Farming, obviously!"

"You're still trying to lie to me? I know you must be secretly working hard again. Xingxing told me, you went to do Alchemy?" As he spoke, he leaned in and whispered in Zhang Sheng's ear, "How was it? Did the furnace explode?"

"You bastard!" Zhang Sheng went up and gave him a loving slap.

"Whoa!" Wu Xingyang cried out. "How are you so strong! My butt's been flattened!"

He hurriedly protected his fat buttocks.

"Don't be angry. If the furnace exploded and you're short on academic credits, I can lend you some," Wu Xingyang said proudly.

"How did you earn academic credits?" Zhang Sheng asked in confusion. He himself was exceptionally talented, but Xingyang was only an A-Rank.

"Hehe! Earning academic credits is a piece of cake for me!" "You don't know how popular I am now. The students from the War God Academy are all thinking of ways to curry favor with me!"

"It's simple: one academic credit for treating one minor injury!"

So that was it. Zhang Sheng finally realized that the War God Academy had many combat training sessions, and with many hotheads around, people were often injured. The fatty's business was naturally good.

"Look at this!" Zhang Sheng pulled a handful of black pills from his pocket. "For you!"

"Whoa! essence food pills! Brother Sheng, you're amazing!" Xingyang quickly took them. "These are 1 academic credit each. Brother Sheng, you're so generous!"

"By the way, Brother Sheng, isn't your Talent 'Seed Breeding'?" Wu Xingyang asked doubtfully. "Could it be!"

Wu Xingyang seemed to have thought of something.

"No way! Could it be that you've awakened dual Talents?"

Zhang Sheng was stunned. "There are dual Talents?"

Seeing that Zhang Sheng didn't seem to be faking it, "There's a guy in our War God Academy who awakened dual Talents: one defensive Talent and one offensive Talent. He's almost invincible. And with two Talents, one S-Rank and one SS-Rank, he's incredibly arrogant!"

Zhang Sheng hadn't expected someone to awaken dual Talents. If there was a first, there would inevitably be a second. It seemed one shouldn't underestimate anyone.

"By the way, Brother Sheng, we've never heard you mention your Talent. You wouldn't happen to be some hidden big boss, would you?"

"How could that be? My Talent Rank is too low, I'm embarrassed to mention it. My success in Alchemy had a bit of luck involved."

Seeing that Zhang Sheng was unwilling to say more, the fatty tactfully stopped asking.

Because at the First Cultivation University, too many people deliberately hid their trump cards.