The Empress’s Gigolo

Up in the mountains, a hamster stared blankly at the forest ahead and let out an alarming roar. Ripples started to form in midair.

It was as if the air had become liquid.

A few of the winged cavalry warriors couldn’t tolerate it and covered up their ears.

They were extremely affected by this noise!

After getting beaten a few times, the roaring emperor understood that it shouldn’t roar at the winged cavalry.

As it roared, a terrifying clamor responded from the forest in the distance.

However, after listening attentively, they could tell that the clamor wasn’t simply one sound. It was a cacophony that comprised of more than ten sounds.

These were the noises made by a bunch of howling monkeys.

Ren Baqian and the empress stayed put and took out all the ferocious beasts in the surroundings before taking a few days of rest.

Several days ago, a bunch of howling monkeys had migrated to this forest, and nobody had any idea where they came from.

They were a type of slow-moving animal that had a very loud voice.

Even though their voices were no match for the roaring emperor, a cry from one of them could be heard even 15 kilometers away.

When a group of 30 monkeys howled at the same time, other animals would naturally withdraw.

The roaring emperor had finally found its match.

For three days in a row, the roaring emperor competed with the monkeys from kilometers away in the forest to see who had the louder voice!

Naturally, the outcome was that the winged cavalry warriors couldn’t bear it any longer.

All the birds in the forest had been scared off.

At present, Ren Baqian was sitting under a tree with his eyes closed.

In his sea of knowledge, the darkness was divided into five areas. Red, yellow, white, green, and blue clouds each occupied an area that circulated slowly in a very small region.

Not knowing how long it took, the yellow clouds began to shrink toward the inside and condensed into a ball. When the yellow clouds spread again, they were much fewer in number, and an earthy yellow rock appeared amid the clouds..

Next, the green clouds began to circulate, and after a while, they condensed into several grass seeds.

Soon after, flames, metal blocks, and water appeared from their corresponding colors when their clouds condensed.

At this moment, Ren Baqian’s mind became more focused. All of his concentration was placed on the condensation of the five objects and on maintaining the stability of their structure.

However, two hours later, he started to feel lethargic. His mind went blank, and the five objects suddenly dissolved into clouds before dispersing away.

He opened his eyes and rubbed his head. As expected, he failed.

The difficulty level of this [Recuperation Technique] was far harder than he had imagined.

Ren Baqian was pretty astonished at how difficult it was.

By right, after practicing the [Ruyi Visualization], he should have a pretty good understanding of the five objects. His mind had also been tempered to a certain level so that it shouldn’t be too difficult for him to practice the [Recuperation Technique].

Even after eating more than 50 kadsura coccineas, he still hadn’t managed to break through the initial stage of the [Recuperation Technique] and was still pretty far away from doing so.

If this was true for Ren Baqian, then how did the others who practiced this technique do it?

Could it be that everyone who practiced this technique had a large amount of precious treasures at their disposal?

Alternatively, could there possibly be such a big gap between his abilities and the abilities of those who had cultivated this technique prior to him?

Ren Baqian felt that both of these were possible.

Even though practicing this technique required a large amount of herbs for the herbal bath, it seemed that anyone could practice it as long as they had the resources and a certain level of talent.

Of course, with enough resources, a lack of talent could definitely be covered up.

For instance, this forest of kadsura coccineas in front of him…

If he had access to another forest like this, he would probably be able to break through the initial stage of this technique.

However, such forests were extremely rare to come by!

“Don’t worry. This technique has already been lost for a long time. There’s no one who can impart their experience or knowledge, so you can only rely on yourself to do it step by step,” the empress said faintly from afar after seeing that Ren Baqian had failed again.

He looked up, smiled, and nodded at the beautiful empress to show that he wasn’t feeling impatient.

Even though he wasn’t impatient, he felt a little worried.

If this forest of kadsura coccineas still wasn’t able to get him through the initial stage of the [Recuperation Technique], then he didn’t know how much more time it would take for him to break through.

Whenever Ren Baqian carefully thought through every detail of his practice, he always felt that something was wrong and that the structure wasn’t smooth. He was afraid that this was the reason why his progress had been so slow.

After pondering for a few more days, he finally started to uncover a clue about it.

The structure of his sea of knowledge seemed to be the problem.

His visualization had to create a world with all five elements and not just one single object.

For someone in this world, creating such a structure was a very natural thing to do. In their minds, Heaven and Earth were essentially made up of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. As such, they had no doubts about the structure of their visualization.

For Ren Baqian, his problem resided here.

In his mind, the world was comprised of the universe and then the planets.

He couldn’t build a universe out of the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. As such, it had always been very difficult for him to progress!

If he couldn’t resolve this problem, then he wouldn’t be able to progress even if he ate another forest of kadsura coccineas.

However, he tried to practice this visualization like those who had done so before him and realized that he still couldn’t do it. This was because, from childhood to university, the structure of the world that he learned about consisted of the universe, galaxies, stars, and planets.

As a result, he had to dismiss all of these thoughts and reimagine the entire world from scratch. The first thing he felt during the visualization was that it was silted up everywhere!

Unless he could forget about everything that he had ever learned…

After some serious consideration, Ren Baqian felt that it would be better to let the empress beat him until he had amnesia if he wanted to forget what he had learned!

He truly considered this option and contemplated waiting for his cultivation to succeed before restoring his memory!

He even consulted the Messier 87 department about this issue.

After hearing that some unpredictable sequelae might arise, he decisively gave up on the idea.

Ren Baqian decided to play it big!

Visualize a singularity!

And then detonate it!

Open up a new universe in his sea of knowledge!

When that happened, his mind would have an entirely new universe and would be much stronger than the people who had practiced this technique before him!

However, after the empress heard his thoughts, her face turned ghastly pale.

“Are you trying to turn into an idiot? Detonate a singularity in your sea of knowledge and use it to sweep away everything? If one mistake occurs, you’ll become an idiot! Or in the worst case, your entire soul will be annihilated, and there will be no more you in this world!” the empress said coldly.

“If that’s what you want, why did we even come here? I could have swatted you to death back then, and at least your soul would remain!” she exclaimed

Afterward, she softened her tone and continued, “You aren’t in a rush to master this technique right now. Take it slow and you’ll somehow find a way to do it. Even if you don’t practice this technique, I can still use precious treasures to push you to the Spirit Wheel level. You have only been cultivating for three years so far, and there will be a lot of opportunities for you to do so in the future. Why rush?”

After hearing this, Ren Baqian felt that he hadn’t thoroughly considered the issue yet. He immediately dropped the idea.

He had an abundance of time, so there was no reason for him to rush.

Even if this forest of kadsura coccineas wasn’t enough, he would simply have to guard it for another ten years before another batch of fruits would be ready.

He could do this three times if twice wasn’t enough or even repeat it four times.

Besides, he could probably come up with an even better way of doing it.

However, he still felt slightly unresigned and sighed before saying, “To keep up with Your Majesty, I’m willing to take this risk. However, after considering that I might lose the chance to accompany you, this would become the greatest regret of my life!”

Seeing that he had given up on that idea, the empress heaved a sigh of relief. She was truly worried that he might fry his brains at anytime.

After all, she had no means of stopping the cultivation of his sea of knowledge.

Furthermore, she couldn’t possibly tie him to herself and watch him every minute!

Even if that was a pretty attractive idea.