Chapter Nineteen: Lei Wei’s Doubts

After about half a cup of tea’s time, Lei Wei withdrew his hand. Ji Mo, holding a half-eaten peach, looked up with some concern and asked, “Master, is something wrong with my body? Is that why I can’t cultivate?”

“No, there’s nothing wrong with your body. In fact, your thunder spiritual root is exceptionally active. Sit down and begin cultivating right away, let me see why you can’t draw spiritual energy into your body,” Lei Wei said, his expression grave. At this moment, he was truly starting to feel angry.

After sensing the activity of Ji Mo’s thunder spiritual root, Lei Wei found it impossible to believe that she had been cultivating for three days without feeling any spiritual energy at all. He now suspected that Ji Mo hadn’t practiced at all during those days, but had instead been playing around and only lied about her efforts.

Ji Mo didn’t argue. She set aside her half-eaten peach, sat cross-legged on the ground, and began to practice according to the introductory incantations of the Profound Thunder Divine Manual that she remembered. This mountain was the main peak of Thunder Summit, the place with the densest spiritual energy in the entire sect. The aura here was so rich that a day of cultivation on this peak equaled a month’s effort outside.

With her eyes closed and her mind focused, Ji Mo tried to guide the spiritual energy into her body. But no matter how hard she tried, the energy would not heed her call; she could not move or draw in even a sliver of it.

Lei Wei stood by her side, able to sense that she was indeed earnestly cultivating. Yet the surrounding spiritual energy did not stir in the slightest, making his brows knit tightly in puzzlement. He could not fathom the reason behind it. After a full hour, Ji Mo finally opened her eyes in discouragement and looked helplessly at Lei Wei.

“Mo’er, don’t be anxious. Perhaps the method is wrong. Let me think it over,” Lei Wei said, unable to come up with an answer himself but worried that Ji Mo might become disheartened, so he offered comfort instead.

A month passed quickly. Lei Wei tried every method he could think of, but Ji Mo still failed to draw spiritual energy into her body. Three months went by with no progress. In her fifth month on Thunder Peak, several of the ten disciples who entered the peak with her had already reached the first stage of Qi Refinement, while Ji Mo still had not managed to draw spiritual energy into her body. This caused a stir throughout the entire sect.

Months ago, the personal disciple handpicked by the Thunder Peak master had, after five months, failed even the most basic step of cultivation. Such aptitude was unprecedentedly poor, making her the most infamous failure among all the spirit cultivators of Moonwatch Sect. Yet, five months prior, she had been the most dazzling new disciple among that year’s recruits.

After five months, Ji Mo once again became the talk of the entire Moonwatch Sect. Countless gazes fell upon her. Whenever she left the main peak, she was met with all manner of strange, mocking, or ridiculing looks and laughter.

Disciples from other peaks were less concerned, as Ji Mo, being an ordinary girl, rarely left Thunder Peak’s main gate, so they could only mock her privately. Besides, she was not from their own peak, so her disgrace did not reflect on them. Some were even secretly pleased, as Thunder Peak had long enjoyed too much prestige; Ji Mo’s incompetence was a welcome blow to the pride of its disciples.

The disciples of Thunder Peak, however, felt quite differently. To have a personal disciple of the peak master be such a failure, unable to draw spiritual energy into her body after five months, was a slap in the face to them all. Many wished they could storm the main peak and drive Ji Mo out, lest her shame bring disgrace to the entire Thunder Peak.

Of course, these thoughts remained unspoken, for Lei Wei, as peak master, never uttered a word about expelling Ji Mo. Her two senior brothers and her senior sister were fiercely protective; if they heard anyone mocking or ridiculing Ji Mo, they would beat them up on the spot. Under such pressure, the disciples of Thunder Peak, though they had started out making frequent public jibes, now dared not trouble Ji Mo to her face, though whispered gossip abounded in secret.

Though the disciples could do nothing about Ji Mo, the elders soon lost their patience. Five months later, on a certain day, Elder Mu Jin Hong and Second Elder Song Yuanhang came together to Lei Wei’s main peak. From a distance, they watched Ji Mo, who was meditating hard in her courtyard. Mu Jin Hong hesitated and said to Lei Wei, “Peak Master, could it be that this child possesses a false spiritual root?”

“A false spiritual root? Have you ever seen a false root trigger a vision of heaven and earth during the test? Besides, even with a false root, after drinking the cleansing tea and cultivating on my main peak for five months, she should have drawn spiritual energy into her body long ago,” Lei Wei replied coolly.

“But how do you explain her failure to achieve even this in five months?” Mu Jin Hong pondered, finding Lei Wei’s reasoning sound, yet Ji Mo’s inability to accomplish even the first step in such a long time left him deeply worried. The strength of the peak master’s line determined the strength of the entire peak. If Ji Mo truly was a useless disciple, not only would their hopes for her be dashed, but it would also drag Thunder Peak down with her.

“I don’t know either. Let’s watch a while longer. That child’s spiritual root is definitely a mutated dual thunder and fire root—there’s nothing wrong with it; I’ve checked myself. If she can’t draw spiritual energy into her body, perhaps the reason lies elsewhere, though I haven’t discovered it yet. In a few months, the master of Pill Peak will return. We’ll have her examine Ji Mo,” Lei Wei said, waving off any further discussion.

The master of Pill Peak, Ouyang Su, was the only true alchemy grandmaster in the Moonwatch Sect. If Ji Mo’s body had any hidden issue, Ouyang Su would surely find it. Though Ji Mo had failed for five months, Lei Wei never doubted her talent and remained full of confidence in her.

While Lei Wei had faith, Ji Mo herself was no longer so calm. She had always been somewhat lazy by nature—a laziness that extended only to things she wasn’t interested in. Influenced by her parents since childhood, she’d never harbored much longing for the path of immortality. After entering Thunder Peak, the influence of Lei Wei and the others had lessened her resistance, but she was far from as passionate as her peers. In the first days, her failure to draw in spiritual energy didn’t trouble her much.

At the time, she even thought that if she didn’t succeed so soon, her master and the others wouldn’t place such high expectations on her, and she could slack off a little without being watched too closely. But after five months of failure—breaking the Moonwatch Sect’s record and becoming the laughingstock of Thunder Peak—she could no longer remain indifferent.

Though just an eight-year-old girl who didn’t particularly crave cultivation, Ji Mo still possessed the innate competitiveness and desire for recognition found in every child. Five months of failure had made her not only the butt of the sect’s jokes but had also caused her master to suffer pointed criticism behind the scenes. For the first time, Ji Mo felt a surge of uncontrollable anxiety and fear.