Xie Xie grimaced slightly upon hearing Chen Ping'an refer to cultivators as "transcendent and carefree beings", and a bitter look appeared in her eyes, but she quickly concealed her dejection as she patiently explained, "For cultivators, qi refinement is of the utmost importance, while bodily refinement is only an unintended benefit for cultivation. 

“Actually, that's not exactly accurate. How do I describe this? Say you have a bowl. It's obviously going to be too small to hold five liters of wine, but if you have a priceless pocket treasure, it would be able to hold thousands of liters of wine, even if it's only the size of a normal bowl.

“We cultivators draw upon the spiritual energy of heaven and earth in order to refine our bodies in a process that essentially bolsters the structural integrity of the metaphoric bowl. If a cultivator's body is too frail, then it will inevitably hinder their pursuit of immortality at some point."

After explaining all of this, Xie Xie was no longer in the mood to chat, and she fell silent as she cast her gaze toward the moonlit scenery outside of Horizontal Mountain.

Chen Ping'an also remained silent and allowed her to bask in her thoughts.

Chen Ping'an hadn't received a formal education, but he was smart enough to know that certain things had to be kept secret, so he wasn't going to tell anyone about the state of his acupoints and the path that his qi was taking in his body, and he was certainly going to be tight-lipped about the 18 Stops qi channeling technique that A'Liang had taught him.

Not long ago, the fiery-dragon-like burst of qi in...