Zu An laughed. “That’s more than enough for now. This skill will probably grow together with my cultivation.”

In the beginning, just using Grandgale once would have exhausted practically all his ki.

Yet now, he could use it many times in succession, and the distances he could blink across had become greater and greater as well.

The mind-control ability of Hundredwarble would only grow stronger as well.

Mi Li’s expression grew serious. “You shouldn’t dismiss this so casually. The spirit element is rarer than other elemental abilities. It comes with its perks, but it’s also a double-edged sword. If you use your skill on someone who is way stronger, or someone who is mentally tougher, you could easily suffer a backlash, and suffer a severe injury instead. In the worst case, even your very soul might be eradicated! You’ll turn into a human vegetable without any intelligence.”

“Relax, I’m not that dumb. I won’t use it against anyone whose cultivation is much higher than mine.” Zu An knew that what she had described wasn’t something that would affect him, as this skill wasn’t tied to his own consciousness. He couldn’t quite explain why this was the case, though, so he told Mi Li what she wanted to hear to placate her.

Mi Li finally nodded in satisfaction. “All right, let’s see you throw a punch.”

Zu An gave her a bewildered look.

“Use all your strength. I want to test something out,” Mi Li said.

Zu An was slightly worried. “What if… what if I hurt you?”

He felt as if he was full of explosive strength right now.

He wouldn’t be worried at all if she had been in peak form. He would not have been able to injure her then, even if he possessed ten times his current strength.

However, she only had a soul body right now, so she was far weaker. Of course he was concerned.

Mi Li smiled confidently. “Don’t worry! You can’t injure me. Hurry up!”

Zu An could only sigh when he heard her say this. “Fine then. No one has ever asked me for something like this in my life. I’m great at following orders, so here I go!”

He swung at her fiercely as soon as he finished his sentence. All of his ki was transferred into his fist, whipping up a tremendous gale.

Mi Li’s face turned red. She dodged to the side and said, “You damned brat, you could’ve punched me anywhere else! Why did you aim for my chest?”

You have successfully trolled Mi Li for 33 Rage points!

Unfortunately, she had misunderstood Zu An’s intentions. He had targeted that area because it wasn’t a vital spot, and she even had layers of fat there to protect her. If something really went wrong, he would not have ended up injuring her significantly.

Zu An was surprised to see the Rage points flow in. 

Why are you getting angry when you are the one who told me to hit you?

Mi Li took a couple of steps back, then she extended a fine white hand to catch his fist.

Zu An felt as if his fist had sunk into a ball of cotton. All his strength dispersed into nothingness.

What shocked him even more was that Mi Li was clearly a soul body, and yet the sensation at contact wasn’t very different from what he would have felt if he’d hit an ordinary person. The physical feedback was the same, and her palm even held a bit of warmth.

Mi Li released his fist and sighed contentedly. “I see.”

“What do you mean?” Zu An was curious.

Mi Li said, “I felt something strange when we fought in the dungeon. Your strength was somehow far greater than your level of cultivation. I thought that it might have been just the boost that the Phoenix Nirvana Sutra afforded you, but this does not seem to be the case at all.

“You aren’t currently injured, so this should be your baseline strength. However, when you strengthen yourself with ki, your power and speed are both higher than what a cultivator at the fourth step of the fifth rank should possess—much, much higher.

“From that test just now, your ki density can match that of an early sixth rank cultivator.”

“Early sixth rank cultivator?” Even Zu An was shocked. Even though he’d always felt like it wasn’t too difficult to beat someone who was at a higher rank, he never had a good gauge as to how strong he really was.

“It’s probably due to your Phoenix Nirvana Sutra. This really is a miraculous technique.” Mi Li continued, “However, with these advantages come disadvantages. From what I’ve seen, your cultivation advances much more slowly than an ordinary person’s. You have transcendent level aptitude, so this shouldn’t be the case.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Zu An shouted. For every rank, the Phoenix Nirvana Sutra would create nine formations, and each formation required many more Ki Fruits in order to fill. The first three ranks had been manageable, but the requirements for subsequent ranks only became more and more ridiculous.

For example, the fifth formation of the fifth rank would require 2,178,309 Ki fruits, and each Ki Fruit could be obtained with, on average, 1000 Rage points. This meant that he would need 217 million Rage points!

Even in his best moments, he could only farm around 20,000 Rage points. He had no idea how many years it would take to gather such a crazy amount of Rage points.

He felt an immediate sense of relief when he heard Mi Li’s explanation.

Mi Li found his mental state admirable. “You’re not discouraged by this at all?” 

“Why would I feel discouraged? Isn’t this the mark of a protagonist?” Zu An laughed loudly.

Wasn’t this the hallmark of all the main characters in the web novels of his previous world? The main characters always level up at a slower rate than others because of various reasons, but every single level they gained would grant them better powers than anyone else. Finally, they would always prevail against those ranked higher than themselves.

“Protagonist?” Mi Li frowned. She didn’t really understand what he meant, but she was already used to Zu An spouting nonsensical words.

“By the way, I was observing your battle against Old Mi. I noticed that the reason you were caught, apart from your gap in cultivation, was because of the movement technique he taught you. You could only split into two copies, so he could just catch both. If you could split into three or more images, it would be much harder for someone like Old Mi to catch you again.”

Zu An smiled bitterly. “Two is the best I could do, even after practicing like crazy.”

“That was because your cultivation was too low,” Mi Li replied. “Now that you’re at the fifth rank, you should be able to make three. Watch closely!”

As she spoke, she fetched a stick of bamboo from goodness knows where and struck him with it.

“Ow, ow, ow!”

Zu An immediately felt a scorching line of pain when the bamboo stick had thwacked him, and he screamed in pain.

Even if a normal person hacked at him with a blade, he wouldn’t feel any pain, thanks to the Primordial Origin Sutra. Who knew that a random stick of bamboo in Mi Li’s hands would be so deadly?

“You are not allowed to strike back. You can only use your movement technique to dodge.” Mi Li paused, then added, “Of course, it won’t make a difference even if you try to retaliate.”

Zu An cursed inside. 

Is she using this chance to get back at me?

However, the bamboo stick flashed at him again, and he couldn’t afford any more distractions. He quickly used his modified Sunflower Phantasm to split into two copies.

Unfortunately, he was forced to let out another pitiful scream. Mi Li’s bamboo stick thwacked him with absolute precision on his backside.

“I don’t want to play anymore! You’re cheating! I learned this movement technique from you, so you can easily guess where I would dodge!”

At least Old Mi hadn’t known about his modified movement technique. Mi Li could read him like a book!

Zu An rubbed his butt cheek while he stared at her. Did this woman have some weird fetish? Her looks, paired with that bamboo stick in her hand, made her look just like a dominatrix!

“I won’t be able to hit you if you manage to split yourself into three.” Mi Li’s lips curved upwards. Why did whacking this kid bring her so much… joy?

Her bamboo stick flicked out again as she said this. Zu An yelled immediately and dodged to the side when he saw that she was being serious.

Miserable howls echoed again and again in the wilderness.

“Ah!!”

“Ah, ah!!”

“Huh? AH!!!”