Starting My Cultivation With Time Management

After all, with three personas and three parallel storylines, some time had passed already.

He then found some spare time to organize the progress of each thread.

At Kunlun, Qiu Changtian’s progress was the fastest. As the current Chief Disciple and a Direct Disciple of the Sect Leader, he was not only skilled in Immortal Qi Cultivation Technique and Five Thunder True Law but also widely loved by the many Kunlun outer disciples. His future could be described as a broad, unobstructed path.

At Penglai, Luo Yan was the furthest behind. He was just an ordinary disciple who had recently joined Yuqing View—quite insignificant—and had not yet found an opportunity to rise in the ranks, spending his days merely attending lectures.

At Shushan, Ling Yunpo’s progress was complicated; it could be said there were good aspects and bad.

The good was that Senior Sister An took meticulous care of him. The bad was that his economical master, Su Jian, not only entered a death-locking retreat but also made many enemies before his retreat, leaving the sister and brother pair in a precarious situation within Shushan.

Now they were even schemed against by Ziyun Peak, being forced into a duel, and it was a Qi Refining Rank against a Marrow Cleansing Rank… How miserable it was.

Speaking of the upcoming duel, Ling Yunpo currently had two aces up his sleeve:

The first was the Tenth Rank Immortal Sword, Green Duckweed, which bore the Daoist Magic “Green Mist Veil Over the Mountains” that could conjure immense fog.

Within it, divine senses become limited, perception obscured, and the power of any water system Daoist magic reduced by half.

The second was the Thunder Method, “Jade Pivot Thunder,” from Qiu Changtian’s side.

He had already planned meticulously: during the duel, he would first activate Green Duckweed Sword’s Daoist Magic to separate himself with the fog, then release the Jade Pivot Thunder, aiming to kill the opponent in one blow, and ensure that nobody would discover the Thunder Method.

Currently, although Qiu Changtian couldn’t say he “mastered” the Jade Pivot Thunder, he had a “rough understanding” of it.

But just this “rough understanding” was already terrifyingly powerful.

For any cultivator below the Golden Core stage, receiving this thunder head-on would mean certain death or severe injury, hence it was his strongest trump card at the moment.

What else could be said? He could only praise the Sect Leader’s wisdom and thank the Kunlun Mirror’s “Daoist Heart Clarity” talent for allowing him to grasp such an extraordinary Daoist Magic.

Next, he just needed to reload Ling Yunpo’s save and continue refining his swordsmanship.

After reflecting for a long time in his cave, Qiu Changtian decided to reload.

At present, Ling Yunpo’s Synchronization Value was still quite high; last time, by borrowing the villain Lou Zhizheng’s identity, he recited plenty of lines in front of his sister, so there was no need to worry for now.

Luo Yan’s Synchronization Value was already low, and continuing this way would impact the effectiveness of Mirror Flower Water Moon.

Enough of that; it’s time to go to Penglai and look for opportunities.

“Ah Jing, reload!”

[Checkpoint 3: Penglai Yuqing View, Dormitory.]

[Character Identity: Luo Yan.]

[Mirror Flower Water Moon Template overlaying, in the midst of time-space travel.]

Luo Yan opened his eyes on the soft couch.

It should be mentioned that what the Kunlun Mirror refers to as the “save” mechanism, signifies marking the current time/space coordinates.

The so-called “reload” mechanism means transporting his body to the last saved time/space coordinates and then swapping out the Illusion Technique mask of Mirror Flower Water Moon.

For instance, Luo Yan’s initial save was in the dormitory, after which his body was transported away.

Then he lived a period of time at Shushan and Kunlun as Ling Yunpo and Qiu Changtian, respectively.

Eventually, he was transported back to the time/space coordinates where Luo Yan had saved, with the transition being seamless to the point that even if people observed him, they wouldn’t notice any sign of him having left.

Of course, just to be safe, Luo Yan would still choose places where no one was around to save/reload.

After spending the night in the dormitory, Luo Yan planned to go to lectures as usual the next morning.

As a result, on his way to the school, he was blocked by Shi Liuli who had been prepared for quite some time.

“Spill the beans.” Shi Liuli pulled him into a secluded spot and directly brought out the Heaven-flipping Seal as a threat, saying, “Are you a spy from an external sect?”

“Senior Sister An, what are you talking about?” Luo Yan showed a “I’m completely baffled” expression of helplessness which, together with his drooping eyebrows and his amiable squinted eyes, really started to make Shi Liuli, who was previously certain, waver a bit.

[False persona setup, Synchronization Value +1.]

“Your entry-level exam.” Shi Liuli took out his marked paper and questioned, “Before the exam, you clearly admitted that you had no idea what the ‘Daozang’ is!”

“However, this time you’ve scored full marks in the exam! Full marks, could you be any more fake? You said you haven’t studied the ‘Daozang’, so how did you obtain full marks? Don’t tell me you guessed all one thousand questions correctly by chance!”

“But Senior Sister, I had studied the ‘Daozang’ before the exam,” Luo Yan said with a somewhat innocent tone.

“Ha ha, so you admit it, saying ‘I haven’t studied the ‘Daozang” to me before was actually a lie, wasn’t it?!” Shi Liuli, like a cat that had caught a mouse by its tail, immediately started to gloat with triumph.

“When I first met Senior Sister, I indeed hadn’t studied the ‘Daozang’.” Luo Yan explained awkwardly, “However, an hour before the exam, I did read up on the ‘Three Caves Section’ properly in the Daozang Pavilion, which is why I was lucky enough to pass the entry-level test.”

“Ah, that’s right!” He then showed a grateful smile, “It was Senior Sister who reminded me that the main content of the entry-level exam was the ‘Three Caves Section’, I even forgot to thank Senior Sister…”

[False persona setup, Synchronization Value +1.]

Shi Liuli was already dumbfounded listening to this, when suddenly, she snapped to realization and urgently grabbed his arms to ask:

“You say you spent an hour in the Daozang Pavilion and that you thoroughly read, memorized and fully understood the entire ‘Three Caves Section’?”

“Yeah,” Luo Yan said bashfully, “Senior Sister, please don’t laugh at me for cramming at the last minute, I also didn’t know our sect would test on the ‘Daozang’.”

[False persona setup, Synchronization Value +1.]

“Impossible!” Shi Liuli exclaimed in disbelief.

The Three Thousand Daozang, just the ‘Three Caves Section’ alone had twenty-four scriptures, how could you finish reading them in an hour?!

Luo Yan looked at her with an innocent and pure expression, secretly chuckling inside.

Although she was saying, “How is that possible,” the notification of the increasing Synchronization Value showed that, in fact, a little part of her had started to believe him.

Don’t ask why, because it just so happens this fat sheep is especially easy to trick!

“Fine, since that’s the case, I’ll test you myself!” Shi Liuli steeled her resolve and said, “I’m now going to recite the ‘Nine Cauldrons Divine Pill Scripture’ to you; I’ll only say it once, let’s see if you can remember and understand it!”

She glared with her pretty big eyes and rapidly recited:

“To create a divine pill, one must start with making ‘Xuanhuang’. Take ten jin of mercury and twenty jin of lead, place them in an iron vessel, fiercely heat from below; let the lead and mercury exude their essences which appear purple or like the color of gold. Collect it with an iron spoon, this is called ‘Xuanhuang’…”

After a brief thousand words, recited in three to four minutes, Shi Liuli stopped talking and coldly said:

“Have you got all that, genius little junior brother?”

“I’ve roughly got it,” Luo Yan nodded and said.

“Good, then I’ll test you!” Shi Liuli sneered, “Tell me, according to the ‘Nine Cauldrons Divine Pill Scripture’, what should be the method for preparing a ‘Returning Pill’?”

Luo Yan smiled slightly, and spoke clearly:

“To make a Returning Pill, one must use nine materials, which are: alum, reputation stone, daizhe, Rong salt, oyster, red stone fat, earth dragon arrow, mica, and talcum. Burn them for one day and one night, intensify the fire, grind everything into a mixture, like powder. Then mix it with the previously mentioned ingredients so that it’s like mud. Place it directly into a kiln, add one jin of mercury…”

As he smoothly recited the method for creating a Returning Pill, Shi Liuli’s expression quickly shifted from scorn to stupor, from stupor to doubt, from doubt to astonishment, and from astonishment to ecstasy.

“In this world, could there truly be someone with such a photographic memory, capable of understanding everything upon a single hearing?”

Luo Yan was a little regretful on his end since his act of pretense with this identity didn’t grant any Synchronization Value, only to hear Shi Liuli suddenly shouting:

“Quick! Little junior brother, I’ll take you to see my father, and have him take you as his direct disciple!”