——(POV third person)——

Li Huang kept trying to stabilize his meridians and Hu Anjing was also trying hard to gain the most out of this meditation session.

If one were to talk about benefits, contrary to what it may seem, Hu Anjing has the most gains because of her talent with body cultivation. Although it might look as this has nothing to do with body cultivation, it most certainly does. As she is forming a body formation, her high talent in body cultivation would also help her to improve faster in improving her formation.

It took Li Huang only the first hour of this half-day meditation to stabilize 6 meridians. If others were to know of this record, they wouldn't believe it as it is far too unrealistic.

Having eight out of nine meridians might be enough for some but not to Li Huang. He had this great chance so he had to use it to stabilize his main meridians. As things stood he could binge about 8 stages with only 8 meridians stabilized but that would be suicide and would destroy his future in cultivation.

So he went for it and tried to stabilize his ninth meridian. This process took him half an hour and was much harder than what he experienced so far, even stabilizing 6 meridians simultaneously didn't come near to this. He had to not only stabilize the meridian itself, but he had to establish the connection or path between this meridian and the other 8 meridians from this stage of the meridian formation realm.

The good news is that he was able to do it after some trial and error in half an hour but he could feel that the fatigue was getting to him. Luckily, he had experienced the real fatigue in grandpa Long training sessions so he wasn't winded by this much.

'Come on! I can handle this…' Li Huang tried to motivate himself as only an hour and a half has passed from the half-day reward.

…

The half-day time was done and there was no need for the old man to show up to announce it as everybody found out soon because the dense Qi was no more.

Hu Anjing was really happy as she was now way stronger than half a day ago as she was half step from intermediate mastery of the [Mortal body transcendence formation].

Li Huang too was happy as he was now in the fifth stage of the meridian formation realm. Yes, he had broken through 4 stages in this meditation session and it was something beyond his wildest dreams. Although the Qi that he was getting was worth what he could get in a year's training, it was still a shocking thing to improve this fast. And if that is not enough to shock some, he stabilized all his meridians in the first four stages of the meridian formation realm.

Trying to share his happiness, he opened his eyes to look at Hu Anjing.

"Anjing—" he tried to say how much he improved but couldn't even start saying what was on his mind that Hu Anjing spoke with panic evident on her face.

"Heavens, what have you done to yourself?" She asked with a shaky voice as she touched Li Huang's face with caution as to not hurt him.

Other disciples were also happy about their gains but Hu Anjing's voice made them turn to face the commotion and what they saw shocked them.

It took Li Huang a moment to register what Hu Anjing was saying but he understood it as he could detect the metal taste of blood in his mouth and he also saw the blood on Anjing's fingers.

"I seem to have a small nose bleed." He tried to break the tension but when he had blood running from his nose, ears, eyes, and corners of his mouth, it wasn't really working.

"Just don't. Don't talk for a minute." Hu Anjing would have none of it. She took out a napkin from her storage ring and started cleaning the blood on Li Huang's face. As he was using his head to channel the excess Qi outside, his body and mainly his head went through too much pressure and the constant breakthroughs didn't help as well. He was lucky that the reward was only half a day or else he might have died if he didn't do anything about this issue.

Hu Anjing soon got to know that some of the blood was dry as it is a while that Li Huang was bleeding, so she started using water to make it easier for her to clean his face.

Li Huang felt like a child getting his face washed by his mother but didn't stop Anjing as he know she needed to do this to come down.

"Why did this happen? Is it because of me?" Hu Anjing said as she was wiping his face. She was afraid that Li Huang was like this because he absorbed her Qi and she was half right about it.

Other disciples were also looking but didn't dare to come too close as Hu Anjing might lash out at them. Well, Jin Fen and Dai Bao would be glad if something were to happen to Li Huang but others didn't have such thoughts and were genuinely worried.

"No, I think I have broken through too fast and—" Li Huang tried to explain what he thought was the reason for his bleedings but a bottle to his lips stopped him from continuing.

"Drink this, It will help for your blood loss." Hu Anjing didn't let him say more and gave him a potion that would help in his recovery.

'Do you want me to answer or not?' Li Huang was amused by this but didn't reject her and drank the potion.

Meanwhile, The old man choose the best time to show himself.

"Good. Now that you have got your reward you can rest for an hour and then you will head to the final stage." The old man said and faded away again.

"We have a bit of time now." Li Huang said and looked at Hu Anjing who was barely holding her tears.

"I'm sorry." Li Huang said as he put a hand on her hand that was cleaning his face. He knew that she is blaming herself for this and if something serious were to happen to him here, she wouldn't be able to forgive herself.

"Don't you dare…" She didn't finish her words but the meaning came across to Li Huang who hugged her.

"I promise." Li Huang said and pat her back.

The moment that Li Huang hugged Hu Anjing, she turned toward the spectators and there was no sign of the previous Anjing left. She looked at other disciples in a way that dared them to keep looking. Understandably, no one stayed and they scattered so fast that you wouldn't believe they were here seconds ago. When others were in a distance she turned back to how she was.

"By the way, I have broken through several times…" Trying to change the subject, Li Huang said. The situation got so hectic that no one thought about checking his realm so nobody know about it.

"Shush, let me have this moment to myself." Hu Anjing said as she didn't care about anything else other than the hug at this moment.

"…" Li Huang who felt wronged couldn't say anything as Hu Anjing continued hugging him like a teddy bear.