The original repairer

On the first night, the light outside the window was a little dazzling, but Shi Chen slept soundly.

Mao time is from 5 to 7 in the morning. Shi Chen got up at about 4 o'clock, washed up with the servants on the same floor, and went to the Xiu Shi Hall to wait for arrangements.

There were about three hundred people standing in front of the Xiu Shi Hall. No one spoke, and they lined up sparsely. Shi Chen stood in a queue at the side and looked around, but did not see Huang Qi.

After waiting for about quarter of an hour, about ten people came out of Xiu Shi Hall. Shi Chen saw Huang Qi as soon as he walked out of the hall.

"Those members of the tree-felling team, follow me." The first person who walked out of the temple gate shouted.

A group of people left in a hurry, and Shi Chen found that one third of them had left.

"Chop wood, follow me." Another person coming out of the hall shouted.

Next is fetching water, working in the kitchen, cleaning, and serving.

In the end, there were eight people left, standing in a team, and Shi Chen stood alone on one side.

Huang Qi walked up to Shi Chen and said, "Junior Brother Shi, the remaining people will be my team. We will be responsible for going down the mountain to the Mortal City to purchase the necessary supplies. Let's set off now."

Huang Qi walked in front, the other eight people followed behind him, and Shi Chen also followed at the end of the team.

The nearest mortal city was about a hundred miles away from the sect. After walking out of the Qingxuan Sect's mountain gate, Huang Qi waved his hand and a flying boat appeared in front of everyone. They boarded the flying boat and arrived at the mortal city in about half an hour. The city was called Qixian City.

"You should purchase what is on the list. Junior Brother Shi, this is your first time participating, so I will help you familiarize yourself with the purchasing process." Huang Qi made arrangements while standing in front of the City Lord's Mansion.

Huang Qi took Shi Chen to walk on the streets of Qixian City, introducing the layout of Qixian City and the process of purchasing things for the sect.

Shopping was simple. Following the assigned list, one would go to the corresponding shop and ask the shopkeeper to deliver the goods to the City Lord's Mansion, where the payment would be made. Once one's shopping was complete, one could move freely within the city before the gathering time, as long as they returned to the City Lord's Mansion by the gathering time.

Huang Qi is the purchasing manager for all goods. He is responsible for assigning purchasing tasks, making the final statistics, and then bringing them back to the sect's Xiu Shi Hall for submission.

Shi Chen soon separated from Huang Qi and strolled around the big bazaar in the west city. There were many items here, and the prices were much more expensive than in the town. Staple foods such as rice and wheat flour were about twice as much as in the town.

Two hours later, it was almost time to gather, and Shi Chen returned to the City Lord's Mansion carrying a lot of bags.

"Junior Brother Shi, did you buy these items yourself?" Huang Qi asked Shi Chen.

"To Manager Huang, these are some of the items I bought myself. It's hard to buy mortal items in the sect, so I happened to see some in the city and bought some."

"Do you need me to take it back for you?"

"Thank you, Manager Huang. Don't bother. I can hang it myself."

"Okay, whatever you say. We'll be leaving for the sect in three quarters of an hour. This shopping trip went pretty smoothly, and nothing on the list was missing."

After completing his task at Xiushi Hall, Shi Chen returned to his room, put away the things he had bought from the city market, hurried to the Food Temple to eat, and then rushed to the Miscellaneous Services School, where he just happened to enter the school with the teacher.

The work of menial servants is not very stressful. Some chores are assigned only once every two or three days, while some have to be done every day, just like the kitchen staff in Xiu Shi Hall, who have to be on call every day.

The treatment of those in the kitchen is much higher than that of others. Those who can manage a stove are already first-class servants.

Shi Chen's treatment in Huang Qi's team was decent, not the lowest, and they had plenty of free time. They only had one mission every three days, and at the beginning of every month, everyone had a mission. Just like when Shi Chen first joined the sect, all the servants in the Xiu Shi Hall, unless they were currently working outside the sect, had to gather in front of the hall at dawn to await their assigned missions.

Apart from the time spent on errands, Shi Chen went to school to learn calligraphy. After returning to his residence, he made the things he bought from the city to cook food for Qingling.

A month had passed since arriving at the sect, and Senior Sister Qingling had not asked Shi Chen to cook for her. Senior Brothers An and Lu had not come either, as if they had forgotten about Shi Chen.

The teaching of the teacher in the school is not just about learning to read and write, but also about some things to remember about taking in Qi, the experience of guiding Qi into the body, and some training guidance in the early stages of Qi training.

The Master said that it is actually very easy to learn to read and write, but it only becomes easy after one has cultivated one level of Qi.

In the world of cultivation, there is something called a jade slip. In the later stages of Qi training, one develops spiritual consciousness, and can use this consciousness to imprint knowledge, words, pictures, and sounds on the jade slip.

After reaching the first level of Qi Refining, when the body is flushed with spiritual energy and the soul is nourished by spiritual energy and becomes strong, one can use jade slips. A lot of knowledge about cultivation is recorded in the form of jade slips, which can be used to imprint the knowledge in the mind.

One of the greatest difficulties in cultivating immortality is to absorb qi into the body.

The second most difficult step in cultivating immortality is to build the foundation.

The quality of spiritual roots affects the intake of Qi into the body and the speed of cultivation.

Spiritual energy is stored in the body and transformed into spiritual power through the practice. The better the spiritual roots, the faster the person can complete it.

The Qingxuan Sect was quite large, and Shi Chen hadn't seen the people he'd come from since they'd separated. Perhaps it was due to their social status; their spiritual roots were strong, so they were considered outer disciples upon entering the sect. Menial disciples weren't allowed to go to many places, so Shi Chen had trouble finding them.

In the sect, many miscellaneous books can be borrowed freely, including Biographies of the Three Mortal Kingdoms under the Qingxuan Sect, Brief Introduction to Herbal Medicine, Travel Notes on the Yuanling Continent, The True Theory of Medicinal Properties, Detailed Records of Medical Principles, etc. Shi Chen borrowed many miscellaneous books and had read several biographies in twenty days.

Time flows like water, and is controlled by a great formation in the sect. It is like spring all year round, and you cannot feel the change of seasons.

Three months later, Shi Chen had passed the teacher's assessment and obtained the "Qi Refining Technique", the immortal cultivation technique that the teacher had always dreamed of.

Originally, the method was to be matched to spiritual roots. After the Master learned of Shi Chen's spiritual roots, he gave him the universal Qigong technique, a technique widely used in the cultivation world. Shi Chen had mixed spiritual roots of five elements, none of which stood out. The purity of his spiritual roots was just enough for cultivation, so the effect of the technique was twice as good with half the effort.

Study the exercises for most of the day, and then start practicing.

I was able to enter into a state of meditation very quickly and sense the Qi very quickly. However, when I drew in the Qi, there was no clear smoke like flowing water as described in the exercises.

Shi Chen practiced for about an hour, and found it very slow to draw the Qi into his body. He wondered if other practitioners felt the same way when they first started practicing. He felt like a cold with a blocked nose: you try hard to inhale, but your nose is blocked, making it impossible to breathe properly.

Shi Chen's air inlet passage was severely blocked.

The practice was extremely slow, and the description in the martial arts experience was different from Shi Chen's feelings.

In the initial stage of cultivation, it takes two hours for low-grade spiritual roots to complete a full cycle, one and a half hours for medium-grade spiritual roots, one hour for high-grade spiritual roots, and only half an hour for top-grade spiritual roots to be able to draw Qi into the body.

It takes Shi Chen about four hours to complete a full cycle of cultivation.

There are twelve hours in a day, and one can practice three big cycles at most every day, without eating, drinking or sleeping.

There are annotations on the exercises, and the differences in practice lie in the quality of the spiritual roots.

Even with the same technique, the difference in spiritual roots can be seen in the effectiveness of cultivation. High-quality spiritual roots experience less blockage in absorbing Qi and are more efficient in converting Qi. With each cycle of cultivation, the effect is multiplied.

The Master said that all the big sects were vying for disciples with top-grade spiritual roots. A disciple with top-grade spiritual roots could achieve ten times the effect of practicing for one day as a disciple with lower-grade spiritual roots.