BTTH : Wandering Soul

After listening to the elder, Xiao Yan asked, "What do you want?". Even though he knew who it was from his visions, he couldn't remain calm. After all he couldn't tell him about those visions.

Seeing Xiao Yan so calm the elder replied smiling, "Kid, you're quite calm, to not have been scared witless. Well after all that suffering that is obvious I guess".

Xiao Yan furrowed his eyes, "You were inside that space?"

"I was. I was with you long before that. Its thanks to your offering that I was able to awake." The elder replied.

Xiao Yan narrowed his eyes, "So you were the reason I couldn't cultivate?"

Yao Lao was surprised by the calm attitude of Xiao Yan. Even in the face of such revelation he kept his cool. And witnessing events in that space, He was impressed with Xiao Yan. "Well I had no choice. But because of that, you've matured right? Do you think that two and half years ago you would have had this kind of tolerance and mindset?"

"So now that you are awakened could you find another person to squander their dou qi?" Xiao Yan said irritatedly.

"It's difficult to find someone with as strong soul perception as you. Since I already chose to appear, then before you give me permission I won't take your Dou Qi."

After pausing Yao Lao continued, "Kid, do you want to become strong? Do you want to be respected by other?" Even though Xiao Yan already knew what was to come, his heart still started beating rapidly when he heard those words.

"I already know why my Dou Qi was disappearing and with my talent, why do I need you to become strong? And I don't like to owe anyone anything." Letting out a small breath, Xiao Yan smoothly said.

"Kid even with your talent, without sufficient resources you can't surpass someone with high background. I see great potential in you, boy. How about becoming my student? I can help you grow strong—stronger than you can imagine."

"And what do you want in return?" Xiao Yan asked skeptically.

"You sure are cautious little guy. How about treating it as returning the favor for taking your dou qi? And after you're strong enough doing a small favor for this old man.", Yao Lao answered finally. Alas without telling him what I want in return, he won't agree.

Xiao Yan knew that he was a good person. But just to avoid suspicion he had decided to act little cautious. With Yao Lao by his side to guide him, his cultivation journey would surely be most efficient.

His tense expression relaxed and he asked eagerly, for the first time not hiding his emotions, "Then I'll listen to you. So tell me how will you help me become stronger."

Yao Lao also changed his attitude upon hearing Xiao Yan's words. His previous tone changed to more serious one like a master imparting his vast knowledge to a disciple. With a serious face he said: "When one begins to train their Dou Qi, their main focus is to build muscle and strengthen internal Qi paths so that they have a foundation for when they materialize their Dou Qi within their body. Because people at your age have weak internal Qi paths and can be molded, you need to take the training process step by step and you can't use outside force to boost your training speed or else in the future when your Dou Qi becomes stronger, your internal Qi paths won't be able to withstand the force of Dou Qi pushing through the paths and your Qi paths would burst which would be when you would die."

Xiao Yan knew this as well as Yao Lao because in the three years that he was crippled, his father was very worried and quite a few times, he tried to forcibly push Dou Qi into Xiao Yan's body, but every time, at the last second, he would stop so Xiao Yan knew the stakes involved.

Yao Lao glanced at the calm Xiao Yan and satisfiedly nodded his head. "But that only applies to others. You're different. Your internal foundation was already solid and reliable three years ago and since then because of your firm personality, you never stopped training your Qi. Moreover with the intense and painful 'training' in that space your physical body has been tampered to unexpected level. So even with sudden increase in cultivation, your body adapted to it quickly, with constant life and death battles helping you stabilize your cultivation."

"With so tough physical body, gone through so many life and death battles and tempered nonstop, along with the battle experience you got in these two and half years have made you much stronger than anyone at the same cultivation level. And that's why you can fight with magical beasts which are at cultivation level even higher than your own."

Xiao Yan got what Yao Lao was trying to say. Generally magical beast is stronger than human at same cultivation realm due to their strong physical body. And him being able to not even contend but defeat multiple magical beasts at rank 3 tells a lot about his strength.

Yao Lao was well aware that Xiao Yan's physical body had already surpassed the limits of ordinary magical beasts, rivaling even those of royal bloodlines. However, he chose to remain silent, refraining from pointing it out. He feared that revealing this might slow his training, thinking that he is invincible - a dangerous path for someone still striving to grow.

In short Xiao Yan's foundation was great. "So what's the plan?" he asked excitedly.

Yao Lao stared at Xiao Yan intently, pretending to observe something. After examining Xiao Yan for a while, a treacherous smile spread across his face. But as soon as it appeared, it left and the elder pondered for a moment before unwilling asking: "Do you want to become an alchemist?