Sometimes, the ability to absorb energy was different from the ability to refine energy. Although Chen Feng was highly confident in himself, he would still proceed cautiously when it came to cultivation.

The rate of absorption was not too fast. On the contrary, it was somewhat slow. Speaking of which, it was quite amusing. Chen Feng had recovered his memories from when he was six years old, only to become more mature and steadier.

Every time he thought about that, Chen Feng would be at a loss at whether to cry or to laugh.

Strands of essence power floated up from the depths of the earth. Due to the suction force that Chen Feng was exerting, all of them flowed into his palm before entering his body, stored within his various insight acupoints.

Chen Feng became fully immersed in his cultivation process and forgot all about time. His rate of absorption grew increasingly high and he eventually placed both hands on the ground.

Finally, when one of the insight acupoints became filled with the essence power, Chen Feng slowly refined the essence power. As expected, the refining process proceeded very smoothly. As it was the world essence power of Eternal World, the rate at which Chen Feng could refine and absorb it was much faster than before.

With that, Chen Feng grew more confident. Strands of essence power continued to float up from the depths of the earth and he continued his cultivation process with ease of mind.

After one insight acupoint was filled up, he directed the strands of essence power into the second insight acupoint, then the third, the fourth and so on…

After all of his opened insight acupoints had been filled, Chen Feng exhaled deeply and opened his eyes. Calculating it for a moment, he grew shocked to find out that he had spent two months on this cultivation session.

At the same time, Chen Feng also compared the essence power with immortal energy. If he were to link up with the Immortal Plane to absorb immortal energy, he would probably be able to absorb enough immortal energy to fill his entire body in just one day’s time.

However, essence power is far more important compared to immortal energy. There are so many cultivators in Absolute Mountain Range. As time goes on, wouldn’t this end up with the birth of a terrifying number of cultivation talents? 

Let me check out how well the others are doing in terms of cultivation.

 After pondering the issue for a moment, Chen Feng then brought out the Blood Mustering Bead. By borrowing the grand dao powers of the Blood Mustering Bead, Chen Feng then bundled up his divine sense and spread it towards a certain direction.

In the past, when utilizing the Blood Mustering Bead to scan around, Chen Feng would simply send his divine sense out in a spherical wave. At that moment, however, Chen Feng had already advanced to the Human Immortal stage. His ability to utilize the Blood Mustering Bead had also increased by a notch and he was better able to condense its power to scan in a certain direction.

In Chen Feng’s opinion, a mid-grade Dao artefact like the Blood Mustering Bead should have no issues in secretly scanning Human Immortals.

Bolstered with the power of the Blood Mustering Bead, Chen Feng’s divine sense quickly travelled through over 500 kilometres, continuing onwards to quickly reach a distance of over 5,000 kilometres after just one breath’s worth of time. Finally, it met a complicated set of restrictive arrays.

Let’s see who this neighbour of mine is,

 Chen Feng thought.

The restrictive arrays were detailed and complex. Moreover, streams of spiritual energy flowed continuously through the layers of restrictive arrays. If it weren’t for the fact that Chen Feng’s divine sense was better than others, he would have assumed it to be a small river.

The cultivator who set up this magic array must be someone proficient in the power of water. Judging by the gentle aura coming from it, the cultivator should be a female

. Chen Feng felt surprised. He was presently in the act of peeping others. Not to mention, he was peeping at a female cultivator. If he were to get caught, how would others think of him? Rather, even his heart wasn’t feeling too good about it.

As Chen Feng was hesitating, a power spread out from the restrictive arrays and Chen Feng grew more certain. Then, he smiled.

After all this time, I have accomplished quite a bit in cultivating the dao. Unexpectedly, I would still hesitate. Looks like my mind is still not resolute enough.

 After reaching that line of thought, Chen Feng’s divine sense moved through the layers of restrictive arrays, making its way into the interior of the place.

Although the restrictive arrays were very profound, it only had the power of a starter-level Human Immortal. Thus, in Chen Feng’s eyes, they were nothing.

As expected, it’s a female cultivator!

It did not take long before Chen Feng saw a female cultivator in white clothes cultivating inside a pavilion. She was practicing a wondrous breath-regulating technique.

The female cultivator was very beautiful, with jade-like skin, a graceful bearing surpassing others and eyes that gleamed like the surface of water. Her entire being was seemingly made from water.

Even Chen Feng was taken aback. This was his first time seeing such a beauty.

The female cultivator was seated cross-legged within the pavilion, streams of water-like aura flowing out from her mouth endlessly to form a thin stream of river, which kept on swirling about in the air to finally form a massive, rapidly-spinning vortex of water.

This woman’s cultivation technique is quite special. Her aura goes on forever and her foundation is very deep and stable. She has the Cool Jade Constitution. That is quite the decent spiritual root. Not to mention, it would appear that she will soon be advancing to the mid-level Human Immortal stage. It’s strange. What is someone like this doing here?

The residential area that Chen Feng was in was either for newcomers or cultivators with relatively weak potential. This female cultivator, however, clearly possessed excellent talent. In Chen Feng’s opinion, she was a match for even Lan Ling. Thus, seeing her there puzzled Chen Feng.

Is she also a newcomer?

 Chen Feng wondered.

As Chen Feng was preoccupied with his thoughts, the female cultivator began retracting her breath. It was done at such a rapid pace that it shocked Chen Feng somewhat. When all of her aura had been retracted, the female cultivator’s eyes shone with light and two rays of light swept towards the position that Chen Feng’s divine sense was occupying.

At the same time, her aura surged out from her mouth once more, like a great river galloping towards the sky.

Eh, did she notice me? Surely not! Chen Feng was shocked

. He controlled the Blood Mustering Bead and his divine sense was pulled back in half a blink of an eye.

“Strange, there is nobody here. Was I mistaken?” The female cultivator’s eyes swept about, a look of suspicion on her face.

Maybe I’ve been too immersed in my cultivation practice recently, leading to hallucinations.

 The female cultivator then got up, stopping her cultivation session.

On Chen Feng’s side, even though he had retracted his divine sense, the image of absolute beauty, belonging to the female cultivator, had still remained within his mind. 

I wonder, did she notice me? Should I go look at her once again?

In the end, Chen Feng chortled as he wondered what had happened to him today. To think that he would end up having feelings of interest towards a stranger. 

Chen Feng suppressed the desire and continued using the Blood Mustering Bead, moving his divine sense in another direction to scan the others.

After spending the next few days secretly observing the cultivators staying near him, Chen Feng gained an intuitive understanding towards them. Most importantly, those cultivators could not – like him – wantonly absorb the underground essence power. 

Assuming Chen Feng could absorb 100 strands of essence power, cultivators on the same level as him would only be able to absorb 1 strand. Additionally, the amount of time they needed to refine and absorb that one strand of essence power was also several times longer compared to Chen Feng.

In the beginning, Chen Feng had felt perplexed by that. However, he quickly came to understand why.

Chen Feng cultivated the Heavengulping Absorption Technique and the Demonic Heavengorging Art, two Heaven-defying cultivation techniques. Moreover, he had also absorbed essence power before in the past. Although Chen Feng’s body was not a Chaos Constitution, it was already transforming along the path to become a Chaos Constitution. This was also undoubtedly one of the reasons why Chen Feng could absorb essence power at a faster rate.

The days Chen Feng spent cultivating in Absolute Academy were very tranquil. For Chen Feng, this place was even more tranquil compared to East Dragon Island. More importantly, this place had essence power.

After his ability to absorb essence power reached a bottleneck, Chen Feng then left his grotto-mansion and headed to the Teaching Hall.

The Teaching Hall was similar to that of other small, medium and large sects. Chen Feng saw students coming over to listen to lectures in twos and threes. Next, he randomly found a place to sit down and listen. After listening for just a moment, his eyes turned bright.

There was an unknown young man with unassuming looks standing on the platform. However, every word he said was like a deafening clap of thunder, causing the students to enter a deep state of contemplation. Occasionally, one sentence from him could wake them up from their reverie. On other occasions, one word from him could pierce right into their minds.

After just listening to him for a while, Chen Feng was able to easily resolve two cultivation problems that had been troubling him.

Extraordinary! This young man is actually a starter-level Earthen Immortal! And yet, he had come to give us a lecture on the grand dao. This kind of thing could not happen even in first-rate sects.

As a starter-level Earthen Immortal, the lecturer was someone who had already comprehended the grand dao laws. His ability to perceive the issues of cultivation contained a certain thoroughness that Human Immortals could never attain. Thus, for Human Immortals, his every word was practically the ultimate truth, capable of giving them strokes of inspiration and clearing away any complications in their path.

Chen Feng dared not be careless. He swiftly focused to listen attentively to the lecture. Soon, Chen Feng forgot about everything else. It felt as though he was the only one left in the world.

Three days went by quickly and the cultivator who was giving the lecture left. However, many of the cultivators who came to listen to the lecture, Chen Feng included, were still in a deep state of cultivation. 

By the time Chen Feng woke up, almost all of the cultivators around him had left.

Thus, Chen Feng went back to his grotto-mansion and entered cultivation retreat. Once his cultivation session was over, he returned to listen to more lectures on the grand dao.

There was a lesson to be learned from everyone.

Not to mention, the one giving the lectures were Earthen Immortals.

And thus, Chen Feng spent his days listening to the lectures. Occasionally, he would utilize a secret technique to spy on his neighbours. The one he spied on the most was the female cultivator in white. 

Chen Feng found out that he was truly interested in her.

One year went by in a calm fashion. For a cultivator at Chen Feng’s level, however, that was just the time needed for a short nap or cultivation retreat.

Chen Feng’s strength grew every day. However, his greatest improvement was in his soul power. After spending that one year listening to lectures, Chen Feng could feel his path of cultivation growing broader. Compared to the improvement of the fleshly body, the improvement of the soul power was the hardest. 

In the past, before stepping foot upon the Human Immortal stage, Chen Feng would rely on his abundance of resources and Tower’s assistance to continuously level up. However, as his cultivation level went up, Chen Feng came to realize that going higher up would require him comprehending the worldly powers, immortal dao laws and essence of the grand dao.

One year. Considering a Human Immortal’s life span, one year was just the blink of an eye. However, in that one short year, Chen Feng’s cultivation base had risen up to the peak of the starter-level Human Immortal stage. For some other cultivators, reaching this point would mean time to undergo tribulation. However, Chen Feng knew that if he wanted to obtain a better harvest from his tribulation, he would need to cultivate himself some more.

Only with a big stockpile of power would he have an easier time overcoming his tribulation. Additionally, he would also gain more from it.

A firmly established foundation would give him a better chance to shine in the future.