In the small grove of the school, Zhang Yu channeled the Crimson Marrow Primordial Qi, and spiritual essence flooded towards every inch of his flesh and blood like a surging tide. Especially as the Crimson Marrow Primordial Qi tempered every piece of his flesh, internal organs, and bones, the True Spiritual Root seemed to adapt to this situation. It continuously infused spiritual essence into the parts Zhang Yu was training, cooperating with the Crimson Marrow Primordial Qi to accelerate his physical growth.

Cultivation, in ancient times, was only possible for those with spiritual roots. Now, truly relying on the spiritual root for cultivation, Zhang Yu deeply felt the immense difference. He experienced the extra boost to physical growth when the surging spiritual essence was infused into his flesh and blood, cooperating with the body tempering.

Besides this…

“Hmm?” Zhang Yu noticed wisps of spiritual essence pouring towards his spine and the area around it, as if countless small hands were stimulating and nourishing something. “This is…nerves? Spiritual essence is stimulating and nourishing my nerves?” He wondered, “But my Crimson Marrow Primordial Qi shouldn’t have this effect of tempering nerves, right? Could it be inherent to the True Spiritual Root?”

Naturally, Zhang Yu was delighted that the Crimson Marrow Primordial Qi cultivation had this extra body tempering effect. Even when he stopped cultivating the Crimson Marrow Primordial Qi, the spiritual root continued to infuse spiritual essence into his physical body. Because of the longer usage time this time, after Zhang Yu returned the spiritual root to Bai Zhenzhen after school, he felt that his body, like after using a muscle-building spiritual root, would continue to accelerate its growth for a period of time.

After Bai Zhenzhen took back the spiritual root, she first felt a clear discomfort, as if something ill-fitting was stuffed into her stomach. At the same time, she felt the muscles, internal organs, and bones all over her body being infused with spiritual essence, nourishing her flesh and blood according to a special frequency, gradually making her muscles, internal organs, and bones stronger.

“Spiritual essence was infused into places I don’t usually train… This is not my body tempering method at all, it’s more like the effect of Yu-zi’s Crimson Marrow Primordial Qi.” Bai Zhenzhen pondered, “Sure enough, the True Spiritual Root has adapted to Zhang Yu’s body and changed…”

Bai Zhenzhen tried to circulate her body tempering technique, the Thunderclap True Body, which she bought for 120,000 yuan. This technique could condense lightning with mana to temper the body, increasing the body’s strength while focusing on increasing the cultivator’s nerve reaction, movement speed, and explosive power. When she circulated the Thunderclap True Body again, she found that the True Spiritual Root also triggered the infusion of spiritual essence, assisting in the cultivation of the Thunderclap True Body.

“It would actually be like this?” Surprise flashed in Bai Zhenzhen’s eyes, “While the True Spiritual Root adapted to Zhang Yu’s body, it’s also adapting to my body. It’s like the phenomenon of spiritual essence infusion when Zhang Yu cultivated the Crimson Marrow Primordial Qi is… superimposed onto me?” At this moment, she felt that after this body tempering, in addition to the effect of the Thunderclap True Body, her muscles, internal organs, and bones had an extra layer of strengthening.

“Then conversely, if I lend the spiritual root to Yu-zi again, he can also superimpose a part of my cultivation effect, right? If we exchange it every day to cultivate, will this superposition effect brought about by adaptation become stronger and stronger? In this way, wouldn’t one person have the cultivation effect of two people? Then wouldn’t my score and competition ranking skyrocket? I’ll beat Song Hailong with my fists, step on Le Mulan with my feet, and dominate Songyang with Yu-zi!” Thinking of this, Bai Zhenzhen was filled with enthusiasm.

“But to make this easier, we still have to co-rent, and then go to school and work together every day, so we can always exchange the spiritual root.” Thinking of this, Bai Zhenzhen made up her mind, “Okay, then I’ll go look for a house tomorrow!”

The next day after school, Bai Zhenzhen took Zhang Yu to find a house. They started from Songyang High School in the city, and ended at the Dark Learning Gang park in the distant suburbs, searching along this straight line.

In the basement on the edge of the city, the real estate agent introduced: “This basement is a hot commodity, with electricity, internet, and water. Crawling out of the sewer is the subway, and you don’t have to worry about sunlight interfering with cultivation. It’s just that the rent is a bit expensive, it costs 20,000 yuan a month…”

Continuing along the suburban direction, they saw a nice garage. The landlord said: “This is a good location. Originally, the rent would be 5,000 yuan a month, but seeing that you are both students, if you sincerely want to rent it, I can waive the rent, but you have to put down a deposit of one million yuan.” “Don’t have that much money? You can take out a loan. Or are you from Songyang High School? If you are willing to mortgage an arm each, that’s also fine.”

Searching further towards the outskirts of the city, they arrived at an apartment. The landlord, carrying a bunch of keys, said impatiently: “You rent a house just to put things, right? It’s not for you to cultivate. If you want to cultivate, go to the gym or the practice field. The rent can’t be lowered either. I still have to support my son to go to college. He’s a college student, you know?”

Outside the construction site room filled with containers, the ground was full of cigarette butts and wine bottles. Before approaching, Zhang Yu smelled a strong Dao Heart Buffer, obviously the residents here were all people who took Dao Heart Buffers in large quantities. Zhang Yu shook his head and said: “No, I’ve already quit Dao Heart Buffers. If I live here, I’m afraid I’ll get addicted again.”

The two walked forward along the elevated road. Bai Zhenzhen suddenly said: “Yu-zi, poor people can’t waste money. But from these past ten years of being poor… I’ve learned one thing, the more you want to rent a satisfactory house, the more you will be harvested. If you don’t want to be harvested, there’s only one way…”

Zhang Yu asked curiously: “What way?”

Bai Zhenzhen said with a determined face: “Yu-zi! I’ve decided not to rent a house!”

Zhang Yu asked in surprise: “If we don’t rent a house, where will we live?”

Bai Zhenzhen pointed to the small stream under the elevated road in front and said: “Can’t that bridge hole be lived in?”

Zhang Yu: “Huh?”

Bai Zhenzhen said: “It’s okay if we don’t choose this bridge hole, just stay wherever we feel comfortable. I’ve thought it over carefully. Water… we can drink and bring it from school. Electricity… we can charge it in either the Dark Learning Gang or the school. As for food… we’re just buying synthetic food from the cafeteria anyway. We don’t need to sleep, and we can solve showering in the river next to this kind of bridge hole. Big trucks pass by on this elevated bridge in the suburbs every day, it’s noisy, so we don’t have to worry about our practice affecting others. We’ll practice and rest here, go to school during the day, and go to the Dark Learning Gang at night. What do you think?”

Bai Zhenzhen became more and more excited as she spoke: “Instead of giving money to landlords and agents, we should buy more food, and not give those rich people a chance to harvest us. We cultivators, with the sky as our quilt and the earth as our mat, should live in bridge holes, drill into forests, and occupy unfinished buildings, investing all our limited money into cultivation! I’ve wanted to do this for a long time!”

Zhang Yu thought about the feasibility of this: “But what about our things? If we just leave them here, they might be taken away, right?”

Bai Zhenzhen said: “Important and frequently used things, we’ll carry with us in our backpacks. Unimportant and infrequently used things, we’ll either sell them or put them in boxes in the classroom. Anyway, there’s surveillance in the classroom, and the people in the school wouldn’t steal things.”

After listening, Zhang Yu felt it made sense. Both he and Bai Zhenzhen were high school students who didn’t need to sleep, and they didn’t have many possessions, so they could completely cultivate and rest wherever they went.

So a few days later, Bai Zhenzhen and Zhang Yu both returned their rental houses. Every day after school, the two of them carried synthetic food, filled a few bottles of water, and practiced wherever they could find a place, until they went to the park to tutor people at night, and went to school during the day.

The days passed like this…

In the small grove of the Dark Learning Gang park, Zhang Yu practiced the Crimson Marrow Primordial Qi. Rolling spiritual essence swarmed in, and with each muscle exertion, continuously strengthened his muscles, internal organs, and bones, while bit by bit nourishing his nervous system. The fierce medicinal power of the Primordial Pill also continuously nourished his physical body, making his Crimson Marrow Primordial Qi run more smoothly. With the blessing of the True Spiritual Root and the Primordial Pill, Zhang Yu felt that his physical strength was improving by leaps and bounds.

At this time, his phone alarm rang, and Zhang Yu thought: “Is it time for class?” In order to maximize the use of the True Spiritual Root, Zhang Yu and Bai Zhenzhen had been trying their best to get the Dark Learning Gang to stagger their class times, so that one person could attend class while the other used the spiritual root to cultivate.

At this moment, in the Dark Learning Gang classroom, Bai Zhenzhen couldn’t wait to come out as soon as class was over. Che Nv on the corridor saw her and greeted: “Teacher Le, are you going to find Teacher Ma again? You go to and from work together every day, aren’t you considering buying a car?” Le Mulan was Bai Zhenzhen’s alias in the dark tutoring world.

Bai Zhenzhen waved her hand and said: “Buy a car? Riding him is fast and saves money, I don’t want to be harvested by the company!”

Bai Zhenzhen ran to the small grove and found Zhang Yu, feeling happy: “My precious spiritual root, I’m here!” She ran behind Zhang Yu and gently stuck to him, feeling a heat in her stomach. The True Spiritual Root had been transferred into her body, and she immediately felt refreshed all over.

Zhang Yu touched his somewhat empty stomach, waved to Bai Zhenzhen who had already begun to practice, and said: “Then I’m going to class, you should seize the time to practice.”

Under the bridge hole, Bai Zhenzhen, after dismounting Zhang Yu (the “car”), couldn’t wait to jump into the river beside her to take a bath. Zhang Yu took off his clothes and packed them, which he would send to Lian Tianji tomorrow. Although his tutoring income was not low now, there were more places to spend money, and he couldn’t let go of the income from selling clothes to Lian Tianji.

The next day, Le Mulan opened the safe and looked at the clothes inside, lightly sniffing the tip of her nose, and frowned slightly: “The clothes recently seem to always have the smell of another person.”

In the cafeteria, Zhang Yu and Bai Zhenzhen each held a big bucket, devouring the paste inside. As their physical strength increased, their food costs had also risen recently.

Zhao Tianxing on the side looked at the two with some envy: “Zhang Yu and A-Zhen go to and from school together every day now, and they say they also cultivate together after school, exchanging the rented spiritual root. Their relationship is so good. I wish I had a beautiful girlfriend with such a good relationship.” Although neutered, Zhao Tianxing still had a love for beauty.

Qian Shen also looked at the two with envy: “I really envy Bai Zhenzhen, being able to cultivate with Zhang Yu, who is first in the martial arts competition and fourth in the magic competition, every day. I wish I had such an excellent study partner.” As for the latest first-place grade, He Dayou, Qian Shen didn’t like his muscles bought with money at all. But he had to admit that He Dayou’s physical strength was now above all the first-year students in Songyang High School. “Even Zhang Yu, I’m afraid it will take until the second year of high school to catch up, right?”

Time passed quickly, and in the blink of an eye, a month had passed since the martial arts competition, and it was the day that the Songyang High School competition team and Zhang Yu and Bai Zhenzhen had agreed on to determine the competition spots. After school this day, Wang Hai and several physical education teachers, Lan Ling and several students from the student union’s sports department, would all witness the gap between He Dayou and the other four and Zhang Yu and Bai Zhenzhen in the stadium.