Chapter 228: Another Year Passes
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
At the behest of Lin Junjun, Yi Xi refined an Ancient Divine Pill for An Lin.
An Lin took the immortal pill with him and left with Da Bai.
Xiao Chou was cultivating on Full Moon Mountain, and when An Lin delivered the Ancient Divine Pill to him in person, he was moved to the point of tears.
“Cultivate hard, I’ll leave you to what you’re doing.” An Lin waved his hand and left.
“Yes! I’ll definitely try my best to become stronger and remain forever by Big Brother An’s side!” Tears flashed in Xiao Chou bulb-like eyes as he vowed to himself with passion and determination.
The Dao Exchange Conference of the Four Powers had already concluded so the other three powers were all returning to their respective homes.
An Lin had nothing to do anyway, and so he took the initiative to bid farewell to some of the representatives.
Augus, Shirley, and the rest of the Garden of Eden representatives still glowed as brightly as ever, and this idol group was the first group that An Lin bade farewell to, for no reason other than the fact that Da Bai was a fan.
As Shirley was about to leave, she left An Lin with a mysterious message that said something along the lines of “see you again in three years”, and that there was a surprise she was going to present to him then. This left An Lin completely baffled.
After leaving her message, the enchanting angel waved goodbye to An Lin with a smile on her face.
An Lin scratched his head but did not think too much of it. He hopped onto Da Bai’s back and continued to see the representatives from the other powers off.
They met with the monks of the Buddhist Kingdom, during which An Lin enquired about the Battling Buddha.
Qing Zhi was full of exasperation and resignation at the mention of this Battling Buddha.
He had caused a huge commotion in the Buddhist Kingdom recently by challenging everyone he could find to fights. Everyone had already acknowledged that he was badass and strong, but he still showed no signs of stopping.
An Lin was also quite surprised to hear this. The Battling Buddha had already established his berth as a Buddha but was still unwilling to settle down. Apparently, he had recently gone to the Void Spirit Realm to stir up more trouble there. It appeared it would be quite a difficult mission for Xiao Chou to meet with his idol.
An Lin knew that if he was to go to the Buddhist Kingdom someday, it would make it a lot easier if he established good relations with Qing Zhi and the other Buddhist Kingdom representatives. Hence, he chatted warmly with them for a long while and gifted them an Emperor Snake Pill prior to their departure as a gesture of friendship.
Qing Zhi’s face darkened as he accepted the pills before they bade farewell to An Lin and Da Bai. [1. Buddhist monks abstain from sex so they have no need for impotence pills, hence their displeasure]
Lastly, An Lin and Da Bai went to the flying warship of the Hall of Creation to pay a visit to Hong Dou with the heart as solid as stone.
Hong Dou had clearly been suffering for the past couple of days as the flames in his chest appeared quite dim.
After spotting him, An Lin left a verbal message of “Hong Dou is number one under the heavens” before he left with Da Bai while roaring with laughter.
Hong Dou glared at An Lin as his chest quickly rose and fell. He felt like he was about to have an asthma attack. But after seeing Huang Shan’s cold expression, the flames in his chest immediately dimmed once again…
Thus, the bustling Dao Exchange Conference of the Four Powers concluded, the three powers left, and An Lin resumed his schoolyard cultivation lifestyle.
Cultivation was not very fun nor interesting as the main focus was placed on repeating the same boring cultivation practices day after day.
An Lin studied and experimented with basic cultivating knowledge during the day and tempered his beast core at night, so his days were certainly not being wasted.
Before he knew it, the better half of a year had passed.
His second year in the university was also drawing to a close.
During this period of close to a year, there was another event worthy of mention aside from the Dao Exchange Conference of the Four Powers, and that was the free-for-all battle which was held yearly.
During that free-for-all battle, An Lin didn’t employ any hacks. Instead, he relied on his own strength to reach eighth on the Heaven Roll.
He did not even use the Origin Energy of the Netherworld during this event. He was already super famous anyway, so there was no point in trying so hard at the expense of his own body.
The most pitiful person in all this was none other than Wang Xuanzhan. He had clearly reached number one on the Heaven Roll through his own strength, but in the eyes of the tens-of-thousands of students, he was always going to be second.
Hmph, if it wasn’t for the fact that God An didn’t take the battle seriously, how could Senior Wang have a chance at securing first place? God An could just take him out with a single finger!
This wasn’t to show that the students looked down on Wang Xuanzhan. It was only that An Lin’s legendary feats were simply etched far too deeply into their hearts, so even when An Lin fell by Wang Xuanzhan’s hand, they still didn’t think there was much for him to be happy about.
And Wang Xuanzhan himself certainly wasn’t happy. Even during the battle with An Lin, he was still constantly on edge.
He had already thought through the situation. If An Lin pointed a finger at him, he would immediately flee the scene. Luckily, An Lin was only using his sword the whole time, so after copping one or two slashes from An Lin’s Wind Sword, Wang Xuanzhan managed to completely overwhelm An Lin with his strength.
Su Qianyun and Xuanyuan Cheng also placed quite well during the free-for-all battle, taking out fourth and fifth on the Heaven Roll respectively.
Aside from that, there were a few other people that An Lin was interested in. For example, Liu Qianhuan once again took out the second spot, Xu Xiaolan was ranked tenth, Yao Mingxi 18th, Yao Xiu 36th, and his old teammates, Luo Ziping, Miao Tian, and the others were all also within the top fifty, so they were all quite eye-catching figures in the university.
As for the prizes in the free-for-all battle, filthy rich An didn’t really even care!
Even with the opportunity to enter and observe the Dao in the Celestial Sepulchre Mountains, he walked in with a muddled expression and came out just as muddled…
Moving on to his beast pets, Xiao Hong, Da Bai, and Xiao Chou all did quite well during this time.
After receiving the immortal pill from An Lin, Xiao Chou worked even harder in cultivating, going into the mountains every time he had an opportunity to do so. This method of cultivation really did allow him to attain an embryonic domain, which was a terrifying Black Flame Domain.
An Lin would often gloat that he had a Half-Step Soul Formation Stage beast pet.
During this time, Da Bai also broke through to Spirit Nurturing Intermediate Stage.
Even Xiao Hong, who did nothing aside from photosynthesizing every day managed to break through to Spirit Nurturing Intermediate Stage on a sunny afternoon while singing a photosynthesis song to herself…
Only their Master was still trudging on the spot.
That’s right… Among all of them, he had the lowest cultivation base.
This wasn’t to say that An Lin lacked aptitude, it was just that his beast pets seemed to be far too naturally endowed, thus placing heavy pressure on their Master.
Recently, Xu Xiaolan also broke through to Spirit Nurturing Intermediate Stage.
In the face of such insane progression speeds exhibited by the prodigies around him, An Lin started to panic a little. But it appeared that the only thing he could do was to cultivate harder and improve himself every day.
He had even paid a visit to Xu Xiaolan one day to inquire about how he could find out the rate at which his cultivation base was progressing, to which Xu Xiaolan told him to look at the number of whiskers, the color, as well as the flexibility of his spirit root. After a short while of incomprehension, he suddenly realized that he wasn’t even the same species as Xu Xiaolan anymore— he had a beast core!!!
An Lin had no other alternative but to ask his own beast pets.
He gathered his beast pets together to discuss a cultivation plan. Their collective response was: you can’t really detect your rate of progression, just continuing cultivating and you’ll make a breakthrough one day. Don’t think too much about it, Master. We won’t abandon you even if your cultivation base can’t progress any further.
Tears streaked down An Lin’s face at their advice before he went away in silence to continue cultivating.
A year passed by, and it was the end of the term once again.