I Have a Cultivation Simulator

"Master... do you not want me?"

Rejected by Zhou Qing, Li Yan's flushed face grew even hotter.

At the thought of how she had just willingly offered herself to him, Li Yan wanted to find a hole to crawl into and hide.

"Now is not the time."

Zhou Qing's expression remained placid. Over his three simulations, spanning centuries, he had never lacked female cultivators. He simply couldn't muster any real interest in the little girl standing before him.

Of course, once Li Yan's yin-essence physique fully awakened, she would undergo an astonishing transformation in both temperament and body.

During his third simulation, Zhou Qing had purchased an ancient tome titled "The Discourse on Physiques".

It contained records regarding the yin-essence physique.

Every woman who successfully matured with this physique became a peerless beauty, possessing an innate, fatal allure to male cultivators.

That clash ultimately triggered a war between two great domains that lasted for over a century.

Countless Foundation Establishment cultivators, and even core formation masters, perished in the conflict.

"Not the time..."

Li Yan looked bashful.

At the same time, she thought to herself, 'Is Master planning to build a connection with me first? The patriarch warned me time and again that most male cultivators on the outside are two-faced. Those who look righteous on the surface might be entirely different in private.'

'But Master remained completely unmoved even when I threw myself at him. He must be one of those exceedingly rare men the patriarch said I could actually entrust my life to.'

At this thought, Li Yan breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn't help but feel fortunate to have met a master of such noble character.

She knew very well that she could never leave the Purple Bamboo Forest. If the person who bought it had been a cultivator of poor character, her fate would have been unimaginably miserable.

"Go back and rest," Zhou Qing said, looking at her.

"Yes."

Li Yan respectfully took her leave.

Watching her departing figure, Zhou Qing fell into deep thought.

The most precious aspect of the yin-essence physique was its first strand of yin-essence qi.

This strand of yin-essence qi possessed a miraculous effect for breaking through the shackles of major bottlenecks.

For example, breaking through from Foundation Establishment to Core Formation, or from Core Formation to Nascent Soul.

Of course, to have any effect on breaking through from Core Formation to Nascent Soul, this strand of yin-essence qi needed to be nurtured for at least several hundred years.

The longer the yin-essence qi was nurtured within the yin-essence physique, the better its effects.

Furthermore, even if the first strand of yin-essence qi was harvested, the yin-essence physique would nurture new yin-essence qi.

However, the subsequent yin-essence qi would lack the ability to break through major bottlenecks and could only assist with normal cultivation.

Even so, this was exceptionally rare. It was equivalent to a continuously growing cultivation medicine that could be harvested over time.

Moreover, unlike other medicines and pills, yin-essence qi carried no hidden dangers or risks when aiding cultivation.

There was also no risk of drug resistance; once harvested, it would take effect immediately.

'The yin-essence physique rivals a Heavenly Spiritual Root in aptitude, but its primary use lies in assisting male cultivators. As for the host's own cultivation speed, it isn't as fast as a Heavenly Spiritual Root—only slightly better than an Earth Spiritual Root...'

Zhou Qing pondered, marveling inwardly.

It was no wonder the yin-essence physique had rarely appeared in history.

Whenever a cauldron physique of this caliber emerged, she would inevitably be hidden away by powerful male cultivators and never let out.

Zhou Qing's current thoughts were exactly the same. He would absolutely never let Li Yan out. He would keep her by his side to enjoy when he cultivated.

'There is hope for my Dao...'

Zhou Qing was in an excellent mood.

Having a yin-essence physique to aid him meant he was no longer cultivating alone; it was equivalent to two people cultivating together.

'The problem now is how to completely control Li Yan...' Zhou Qing thought deeply.

By control, he did not mean using sheer force.

He wasn't going to plant a restrictive seal on Li Yan or use heavy-handed enslavement methods where disobedience meant death.

When harvesting the first strand of yin-essence qi, the yin-essence physique could not harbor a single thought of resistance.

Rather than a harvest, it was more like the yin-essence physique actively offering up the yin-essence qi.

Therefore, relying on external force to control her would introduce variables. If, during the harvest, the yin-essence physique experienced uncontrollable rejection due to fear or dread, wouldn't his entire effort fall short?

There was only one chance to harvest the first strand of yin-essence qi.

'The Demonic Seed Art...'

A secret technique surfaced in his mind.

This secret art came from the final years of his third simulation, acquired when Dachun killed a certain demonic cultivator in the Savage Wilderness.

The purpose of the Demonic Seed Art was to control and enslave cultivators.

However, it was not a forceful enslavement.

Instead, it slowly infiltrated the enslaved cultivator's mind. The caster used themselves as the demonic seed, planted it into the other's psyche, and then subtly influenced their mind over a long period of time.

Once successful, the enslaved would worship and submit from the very depths of their soul.

Even if ordered to commit suicide, the enslaved would carry it out without hesitation.

This was the terror of the Demonic Seed Art.

The enslaved individual underwent no outward changes and remained themselves; only their cognition was altered.

In truth, this Demonic Seed Art was rather impractical and had numerous restrictions.

First, the two parties had to be separated by at least one major cultivation realm.

That meant to plant the seed in a Qi Refining cultivator, the caster had to be at the Foundation Establishment Realm.

Second, it was incredibly time-consuming, requiring at least ten years to slowly exert its influence.

If a Foundation Establishment cultivator wanted to control a Qi Refining cultivator, they had many methods at their disposal. There was no need to go through so much trouble.

However, Li Yan's current situation was perfectly suited for Zhou Qing to plant a demonic seed.

In terms of cultivation realm, Zhou Qing completely met the requirements.

As for time... in the simulations, time was the one thing Zhou Qing had in abundance.

'I will use this art to control her.'

Zhou Qing made his decision.

Beyond needing the yin-essence physique's heartfelt willingness to harvest the first strand of yin-essence qi, Zhou Qing also needed to ensure Li Yan wouldn't cause any problems at other times.

To guarantee that the nurtured yin-essence qi was of higher quality, Zhou Qing would inevitably have to invest resources into cultivating Li Yan.

Given the same amount of time, the yin-essence qi nurtured by a Foundation Establishment yin-essence physique would undoubtedly be superior to that of a Qi Refining one.

And if he wanted the yin-essence qi to aid his breakthrough from Core Formation to Nascent Soul, it needed to be nurtured for at least several hundred years.

Several hundred years... he estimated he would probably need to cultivate Li Yan all the way to the Core Formation Realm.

If, during that time, Li Yan developed other ideas and ran away, what then?

The human heart was notoriously complex, and cultivators who repaid kindness with betrayal were not uncommon.

Zhou Qing had always preferred to view problems from the most malicious angle.

To guarantee his investment wouldn't go down the drain, he had to be absolutely certain there was zero possibility of Li Yan betraying him.

Of course, Zhou Qing wasn't going to cast the Demonic Seed Art on Li Yan in reality.

The origins of the Demonic Seed Art were impossible to verify, but at the very least, Zhou Qing hadn't seen a similar control technique across several nearby large domains.

Therefore, even if he used the Demonic Seed Art, he would only do it inside the simulation.

That way, even if something went wrong with the secret technique, it would only affect a single simulation.

In reality, Li Yan would remain unaffected. When a new simulation began, he could simply consider other enslavement methods to control her.

Several days later.

Deep underground in the Purple Bamboo Forest.

Dim, hazy spiritual light surged.

A figure hovered above it, continuously forming hand seals to lay down a formation, binding the dim spiritual light and drawing it toward the surface.

"Almost done."

The figure was naturally Zhou Qing. What he was doing was completely containing the pure spiritual energy leaking from the Tier Three Spiritual Vein deep underground and channelling it to the surface cave dwelling.

This demonstrated the advantage of him dual-cultivating the Dao of Formations.

Binding the spiritual energy of a subterranean spiritual vein and drawing it to the surface seemed simple, but without Tier Two formation skills, even a core formation master would be helpless to accomplish it.

With a Master's methods, forcibly controlling the leaking energy was naturally possible, but the moment they left, all effort would be lost.

Formations were different. By leveraging the natural laws of heaven and earth, they continued to function autonomously even when the cultivator was absent.

If Zhou Qing didn't possess Tier Two formation mastery, knowing there was a Tier Three Spiritual Vein connected beneath the Purple Bamboo Forest would have been useless to him in reality.

Invite a formation master to help set it up?

A Tier Three Spiritual Vein cave dwelling was too valuable; letting an outsider know about it would always be a hidden danger.

Even if Zhou Qing chose to silence them permanently afterward, there would still be a risk of exposure.

In reality, Zhou Qing refused to take any risks.

Whoosh—

Rich spiritual energy continuously funneled up into the cave dwelling.

After confirming there were no issues with the formation, Zhou Qing's figure flashed, and he appeared inside the cave dwelling.

"The spiritual energy of a Tier Three Lower-Grade Spiritual Vein..."

Zhou Qing closed his eyes to savor it for a moment, giving a slight nod of approval.

After several days of setting up the array, Zhou Qing had finally created a Tier Three cave dwelling.

'It's a pity my formation mastery is only at Tier Two. I can only draw the spiritual vein's energy up. If I had Tier Three formation mastery, or even Tier Two High-Grade formation mastery, I wouldn't just be able to channel it—I could gather and compress it, pushing it to Tier Three Mid-Grade...' Zhou Qing thought to himself.

'But Tier Three Lower-Grade is more than enough...'

Zhou Qing reined in his thoughts and looked at the illusory text below his line of sight.

Under the [Simulation Count] column, a countdown emerged.

"A cooldown of four months and fifteen days?"

A smile spread across Zhou Qing's face.

Within the environment of a Tier Three Lower-Grade Spiritual Vein, the simulation cooldown time had been shortened to four and a half months.

'No, wait. In reality, I spent a month traveling from Biyue Immortal City to the Purple Bamboo Forest, and setting up the array took another few days.'

'So inside a Tier Three Spiritual Vein environment, a complete simulation cooldown should be a little over four months and twenty days...'

Zhou Qing calculated mentally, in exceptionally high spirits.

A simulation cooldown of less than five months meant his rate of growing stronger had increased by another margin.

'If I were in a Tier Three Mid-Grade... or Tier Three High-Grade, or even a Tier Four Spiritual Vein environment, would the simulation cooldown shrink to just a month or two?'

Zhou Qing mused inwardly.

Of course, it was only a fleeting fantasy.

In the entirety of the Taiyuan Region, there was only a single Tier Four Spiritual Vein.

And that was located deep beneath Taiyuan Palace.

When it came to the spiritual vein dojo of a Nascent Soul True Monarch, unless Zhou Qing also reached the True Monarch tier, he would avoid going anywhere near it.

At the end of his third simulation, if he hadn't needed to exchange for a Crystal Condensation Pill, he never would have approached Taiyuan Palace.

The methods of a Nascent Soul True Monarch were simply too unfathomable. Given Zhou Qing's cautious nature, let alone in reality, he would stay far away from them even inside the simulation.

'A cooldown of over four months is more than enough.'

Zhou Qing felt profoundly satisfied.

Having finished constructing the Tier Three cave dwelling, Zhou Qing began to set up a brand new defensive array for the Purple Bamboo Forest.

Naturally, the new defensive array was hidden entirely within the forest's original First-Rank High-Grade formation.

From the outside, the Purple Bamboo Forest's defensive array looked exactly the same as before.

As for the raw materials used to set up the array, they had naturally been sourced from bandit cultivators.

During his third simulation, Zhou Qing had specifically gathered rough intelligence on bandit cultivators operating across the entire Taiyuan Region over the past one to two hundred years.

Given the time span of one to two hundred years, much of the intelligence had become distorted, but there was still some that was accurate.

On his journey from Biyue Immortal City to the Purple Bamboo Forest, he had conveniently taken care of some bandit cultivators from his intel, securing spirit stones, materials, and other resources.

In reality, Zhou Qing was incredibly restrained when moving against bandit cultivators.

First, he feared triggering unnecessary variables and accidents.

Second, in reality, they could only be harvested once.

Inside the simulation, however, they could be harvested with every run.

That night.

In the room beside Zhou Qing's cave dwelling.

Li Yan felt exceptionally comfortable.

Being merely at the early Qi Refining stage, she lacked the ability to clearly sense the shift in spiritual energy density.

However, the sheer instinct of her yin-essence physique allowed her to realize that the difficulty of absorbing pure spiritual energy had plummeted.

Previously, it had taken her several arduous days to absorb a single wisp of pure spiritual energy; now, she could do it in half a day.

This provided an enormous boost to the awakening of her physique.

At her original absorption speed, she would have needed decades to fully awaken the yin-essence physique.

'Master... how on earth did he do it?'

Curiosity bubbled within her. Before the patriarch left, he had told her that Zhou Qing was at the Qi Refining Late Stage.

But after spending these last few days with him, Zhou Qing's image had grown infinitely tall in her heart. He felt completely beyond comparison to the Li family patriarch, despite them both supposedly being at the Qi Refining Late Stage.

Right at that moment, A voice suddenly rang out beside her ear.

"Come here."

Li Yan instantly realized it was her Master calling for her.

'Master is calling me over so late at night...'

Her cheeks flushed crimson. She deliberately slipped on white stockings and a bandeau before walking toward Zhou Qing's cave dwelling.

"Lie down."

Inside the cave dwelling, Zhou Qing instructed Li Yan to close her eyes.

Her heart racing, Li Yan lay obediently on the bed and shut her eyes.

Zhou Qing gently pressed his right hand against Li Yan's smooth forehead.

He had two objectives for calling her over so late.

First, to check the awakening progress of her physique.

Second, to begin preparations for the Demonic Seed Art.

Zhou Qing had no intention of casting the Demonic Seed Art on Li Yan in reality.

However, there was nothing wrong with deepening his status and height in Li Yan's heart.

The execution of the Demonic Seed Art heavily depended on the relationship between the caster and the target.

If the target harbored monstrous hatred toward the caster, then even with the gap of a major cultivation realm, successfully planting the seed would take an agonizingly long time.

But if the target already felt boundless worship and trust for the caster, the difficulty of planting the demonic seed would naturally plummet.

With his right hand pressed to Li Yan's brow, Zhou Qing's Mountain and Sea magic power slowly poured into her body. Simultaneously, his divine sense began to merge with hers.

The method Zhou Qing employed was "spiritual union"—a fusion and exchange on the level of divine sense.

Because Zhou Qing's divine sense vastly overpowered Li Yan's, this kind of "spiritual union" would easily leave a profound impression of him in her heart.

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