Emperor of The Cosmos

Compared to Fetal Respiration, Deep Sleep was a piece of cake.

Now when Jiang Li tries to Deep Sleep, it was almost as easy as doing primary school questions.

However, entering the third stage of Deep Sleep wasn’t easy. That was the [Drunken Fist] stage. Every move had immense power and there was barely anyone who could enter this state. In the school there was no more than five.

“You two are injured,, go to the nursery and fix yourselves up.”

Lazy Long looked at the bloodied Zhang Yue. Although the wounds looked scary, they were all minor injuries.

Nowadays, medical technology was very advance. There was bone and cell regeneration technology. Just a small spray of medical fluid on the arm would heal all injuries in the matter of a few hours.

“Very well then.” Zhang Yue’s arm was torn and looked extremely painful but he didn’t even bat an eyelid. It was as if the arm wasn’t his. It showed his strong spiritual prowess. “Jiang Li, looks like you will be competing with me in class?”

“Compete with you? Zhang Yue, you\'re not even worthy. In the following month, I will surpass you by miles!” Jiang Li also felt piercing pain in his arms. It was starting to swell as the bones had split. Although they were equally matched in this fight, he knew his battle experience was lacking.

However, being able to fight on par with Zhang Yue had made the class of 4000 students look at him in a different way and thus confirmed his status in the class.

This was what he wanted.

“Arrogant! You’re too arrogant!” Zhang Yue noticed Jiang Li’s forearm was swollen and his eyes immediately became sinister, “I fractured the bones in your forearm. In order to cure all that and not leave behind any sequelae, you need to have cell and bone regeneration technology. That treatment costs at least a hundred star coins. I’m sorry, the monthly salary of your parents are no more than that.”

Zheng Yue was blatantly bullying Jiang Li’s lack of money.

A hundred star coins was indeed a large amount for students.

“I will recover.”

Jiang Li bowed to Lazy Long, “Sir, I’m going to get treatment first.”

“Go ahead.” Lazy Long watched the conflict indifferently and didn’t interfere.

“Just you wait!” Zhang Yue eyes were cold and he sneered on the inside, “I won’t let you off so easily.”

Night time at home.

Jiang Li didn’t go to the nursery for treatment. He obviously needed to recover but couldn’t afford a hundred star coins.

But, he didn’t need recovery treatment. Fetal Respiration was the best treatment.

“Looks like my battle experience is inadequate. My constitution is weaker than those children of wealthy families and I lack supplements.” Jiang Li laid on his bed and thought, all the while massaging his swollen arm.

He put the opaque stone in his mouth and felt drowsiness gradually surge into his conscience as he entered Fetal Respiration.

Five hours had passed when he woke up.

This time, the Fetal Respiration duration was very long. When he was fully awake, the swelling had disappeared and the bone fractures had healed. What was left was only some indistinctive pain.

These were unimportant and would naturally heal in two or three days. Then, he would be stronger than before.

The fight had touched him greatly.

Originally he thought he would have the upper hand, however they were evenly matched.

The supplements seemed to have an important impact.

Before humans stepped foot into the galactic era, resources were scarce and those martial arts masters with a life force of 1 were one in a billion. But now, all sorts of potent supplements had appeared and there were even those with a life force in the three digits.

This was unimaginable in the ancient times.

This was the power of resources.

“How will I earn money?”

Jiang Li thought, “Maybe I’ll go to school tomorrow to see what part time jobs I can take.”

The second day, he came to the school early in the morning.

However, as soon as he arrived, his student chip beeped and an email appeared.

“It is Miss Blade’s email.”

Jiang Li opened it quickly. “Jiang Li, come to my office.”

It was just these few short words.

“Miss Blade is looking for me. Is it because she heard that I can enter the second stage of Deep Sleep? It should be so, this is sensational news. There’s no way she wouldn’t have heard about the incident. If I demonstrate potential to get into Astral University, she would do her best to train me.”

Jiang Li walked towards Miss Blade’s office.

If one of Miss Blade’s student entered Astral University, she would receive a huge reward from the school, education department and the government. This reward was extremely generous and she may even acquire societal contribution points and earn merits.

This was the same as education two hundred years ago. If a student in the class was able to enter a major university, then the teacher would receive benefits.

The school was large and the blocks of buildings were closely next to each other. There were even hover cars between the blocks. The whole school was actually a city with an area of more than ten kilometer squared.

This was the modern day school of humanity, compact and technologically advanced. Otherwise it wouldn’t be able to house its student population of more than 800,000.

This high school was only one of the many high schools of the human world.

Before Long, Jiang Li arrived in front of a building.

This was where Miss Blade’s office was. Miss Blade had a high status in the school, otherwise she wouldn’t be teaching year 12 students.

As he arrived in front of the office, he was just about to knock on the door when a voice came from inside, “Come in, the door isn’t locked.”

“Yes.”

Jiang Li walked in well mannered. A gust of aromatic breath hit his senses. The room was 500 metres squared and all the furnitures were wooden. Aromas seeped through from the wood.

“This is Aromatic Scale Wood, a type of precious wood. Only those of wealthy families can afford it. Long term exposure to this wood is beneficial to one’s mind and spirit. It is also great for zen and contemplation. The furnitures in here cost at least millions of star coins. Is Miss Blade this rich?” Jiang Li twitched his nose in an attempt to smell more of it.

Miss Blade sat in the middle of the room with meditation clothes. She appeared to be cultivating.

“Sit.” She opened her eyes and gestured at a cushion in front of her.

“Yes Miss.” Jiang Li sat down.

“I heard that you can enter the second stage of Deep Sleep? Contemplate for me.” Miss Blade didn’t waste time and went straight on topic.

“Yes.” Jiang Li sat down and started contemplating. His thoughts were clear like crystal and his breaths flowed naturally. Slightly contemplating, he went into Deep Sleep.

Approximately ten minutes later, he heard a voice, “Wake up!”

He opened his eyes and saw Miss Blade talking.

“Of course.” Miss Blade’s eyes glimmered with astonishment, “Second stage of Deep Sleep, going into Deep Sleep at will. This means that in the future, when you finish training, you could use this to recover. It has high recovery speeds and in the whole school, no more than ten people could reach this stage.”

“Miss, I still have many inadequacies.” Jiang Li was honest with himself.

“Yes, there are still many places you can improve on. Yesterday, I heard you had a fight with Zhang Yue and I\'ve looked at the recording. I\'ve concluded that your stamina is heavily deficient and your cells are in a state of starvation. You need large amounts of nutrition.” Miss Blade looked, “I have a tube of supplement liquid, drink it.”

Shoo

Miss Blade brought up a hand and a thing flew towards Jiang Li’s face. Jiang Li caught it to discover it was a tube of Green God Nutrition Serum. It cost more than a thousand star coins.

“Miss…..” Jiang Li hesitated, this was too expensive.

“If I tell you to drink, just drink. Don’t talk.” Miss Blade yelled.

“Yes.” Jiang Li gulped it down. As soon it reached his stomach, he felt warmth coursing through his entire body as the nutrition serum seeped into every part of his body. He felt the cells in his body squirming as if each one of them were ghosts released from hell, feasting frenzily as if they were insatiable for eternity.

After drinking it, Jiang Li felt a hunger surge from deep down in his heart.

“I don’t know what happened to you, but all the cells in your body seem hyperactive. Unfortunately, you are nutritionally deficient.. Therefore, although your cells are getting stronger, they remain in a state of constant hunger. Recently, your life force sky rocketed but in actual fact, the cells are eating away at your life potential. If you continue like this without adequate nutrition, you will die very soon. You are overdrawing your life potential.”

Miss Blade’s tone was cold.

“What? I’m overdrawing my life potential?!” Jiang Li was shocked. He thought that he could enter Fetal Respiration whenever he wanted so even if he had any wounds, he could recover. In addition, his stamina and physical capabilities were increasing, and it seemed he was in good form. However, he didn’t realise this was at the cost of overdrawing his life potential, “Looks like I can’t continue Fetal Respiration! Otherwise, I will age faster or die an early death. I may not even live past twenty?”

“However, it will be fine as long as you have sufficient nutrition.” Miss Blade said, “However, I won’t be able provide for your nutrition, you need to earn it yourself. I am you teacher, I only acts as a guide you in your training. From now on, if you have any trouble in cultivation you can ask me. I’ll be available for contact anytime.”

“Okay.” Jiang Li understood that the advanced nutrition serum was extremely precious. It was already a big reward for Miss Blade to give him a tube to drink. Long term supply would push anyone to the verge of bankruptcy.

“Miss, can you explain to me what really is Fetal Respiration?” Jiang Li was in a bad mood. Originally, he thought that it would be a smooth journey in cultivation with Fetal Respiration. Unexpectedly, it was actually overdrawing his life potential.

“Fetal does not mean fetus, it means Sheng Tai.” Miss Blade closed her eyes, “What is Sheng Tai? It is people’s soul or thoughts, or their spirit. Fetal Respiration means breathing with your soul, breathing with your spirit. Commoners explain it as people breathing like babies with their belly button. That is just absurd! Fetal Respiration Sutra says Tai is the spirit of people. Spirit is people’s soul. Breathing with your spirit is similar to photosynthesis in plants. If people entered true Fetal Respiration, they could use their spirit to extract energy from the outside world to support bodily needs. This is also called Pi Gu. For example, ancient cultivators often sleep for a month without eating or drinking.”

[TL note: (辟谷/Pi Gu) - ( A state of being self sufficient, i.e eating is redundant)

“If modern technology could allow normal people to enter straight into Fetal Respiration, what would happen?” Jiang Li asked again.

“Very simple, there was experiments conducted on this in the elite district. Those spiritual masters wanted to create strong people and hypnotised people into Fetal Respiration. In the end, the cells of those people became hyperactive and couldn’t absorb energy from the outside world. The cells then began to eat up the person’s life potential and he became exponentially strong. However, in the end he died of a sudden death.” Miss Blade’s voice was emotionless, “In fact, even when those ancient cultivators went into Fetal Respiration, they thought they could live without drinking or eating. However, the energy absorbed by Fetal Respiration wasn’t far from enough to supply for bodily expenditure. How much energy would there be even if they ate Ginseng and cubilose everyday? They cannot compare to nutritional serums and therefore many enlightened monks died the buddhists death and became dried corpses. They all starved to death. The higher your spiritual state was, the more energy the body needed. There weren’t those resources in the ancient times and therefore there were little who truly succeeded in cultivation. The Three Realm Theory already proved this.”

“Three Realm Theory?’

Jiang Li had never heard of this stuff.