Naked Sword Art

"Jackpot."

.

.

.

Not far from the Class District, Xiao Fang eventually stopped, then sat upon a large boulder as he took out a snack from a spatial pouch. 

Earlier, Xiao Fang had told Yan Mei that he was just a [ Solid Clone ] and that his real body was somewhere outside of the sect. She found it hard to believe that he could defeat so many girls with a mere clone, but seeing him stop outside of the class district made her start to think that he might be telling the truth. 

Understanding that it was his secret, Yan Mei simply waved him goodbye then went in first. Lai Yun, on the other hand, didn't move.

"Aren't we not going in?" she asked.

"We're early. You go on in without me. If the girls see us walking in together they might get ideas," Xiao Fang said as he was getting off the rock to sit under a tree.

Seeing him get comfortable, Lai Yun looked at the Class District, then back at Xiao Fang before sitting down next to him. 

"If they wanna talk, let them. We're guildmates after all," Lai Yun replied.

Xiao Fang was a bit surprised by her response, but it made no difference to him. 

Putting his attention back on himself, he examined his solid clone's body, to see if he could learn anything about it. He had only recently learned the technique, so there were many things he didn't quite understand yet.

In the past, he wasn't able to make his clone use any cultivation techniques or store any Qi, but when he woke up today, he could feel his body absorbing all of Su Yun's yin Qi.

'If this body can store Qi, then it should also be able to convert it as well,' he thought.

Concentrating on the traces of Dual Cultivating Qi in his Solid Clone's body, Xiao Fang attempted to convert into Illusory Qi. However, doing that without a dantian was much more difficult than it seemed.

Although it didn't seem like he was doing much, he knew if he could pull this off, he wouldn't have to worry about not having enough Illusory Qi to create his [ Solid Clones ] in the future.

Seeing him cross-legged, she assumed he was cultivating, so she crossed her legs to do the same. This was the first time she was cultivating since swallowing Xiao Fang's Yang Qi, so as soon as she started, she noticed a significant increase in her cultivation speed.

'Could this location be a cultivation hotspot?' Lai Yun thought, but she quickly rejected that explanation because she knew she would've felt the elevated spirit pressure in the area if that was the case.

Whatever the reason was, she was close to making a breakthrough so she locked down, and put all her attention onto it.

Minutes turned to hours, Lai Yun eventually lost track of time but she kept inching closer and closer to making a breakthrough but at a slower rate. Whatever was assisting her cultivation before seemed to be running out, so she became a bit disappointed by it.

Xiao Fang on the other hand was ecstatic. After much effort, he was successfully able to convert all of his Dual Cultivation Qi into Illusory Qi. As he was doing it, he eventually noticed something strange in his body, but didn't pay any attention to it till he was done converting his Qi first. Now that he was done, he began to investigate, but it took a bit of time till he was able to find it again. The moment he did, his brows began to wrinkle.

"This…"

In the next moment, Lai Yun, sitting right next to Xiao Fang was shocked by him, making her flinch in pain.

"Ouch! What did you do that for!?" Lai Yun berated him.

If it was a bit of static she would have thought nothing of it, but what she felt was no different than being slapped by a tier 3 electric eel. If it was any worse she would've incurred a serious backlash from snapping out of her meditative state like that.

Suddenly, the sound of a large bell suddenly rang out, reverberating everything in the forest. Xiao Fang and Lai Yun both knew what it meant, but unlike Xiao Fang, Lai Yun became extremely panicked.

"Crap, we're late!" Lai Yun shouted before running down the hill.

She had lost track of time, but the only regret she had was that she didn't get to make a breakthrough like she hoped she would. That was because Xiao Fang didn't feed her enough Yang Qi compared to what he would normally be able to shoot out with his real body.

…

Lai Yun quickly made her way to class, then apologized as soon as she got there. Luckily, Su Lingxi had not marked her down as late, so she couldn't help but feel relieved. 

The first offense was a reduction of merit points given at the beginning of next month, a 2nd offense can result in no merit points gained as an allowance in the following month, and a 3rd would be an immediate demotion to a lower Class. Lai Yun had never been late to a single class, so she would like to keep it that way.

…

"You're lucky Elder Su is our teacher, otherwise you definitely would've lost half your allowance from this slip up," Lai Yun's friends whispered to her teasingly.

"Lucky? What does luck have to do with this? She let me off because I'm her favorite student. If you want to be granted favors like me, you better work harder in the future," Lai Yun whispered back to them jokingly.

Lai Yun and her friends giggled silently till one of her friends noticed something strange.

"Isn't someone missing?"

"Hm? Now that you mention it, I don't see that boy anywhere,"

At that moment, Lai Yun noticed it as well.

"Didn't he already come in?" Lai Yun asked her friends.

"Trust me, I was here before anyone, and I would've noticed if he came," another friend said, making it clear that she had a small crush on him.

Lai Yun was confused so she stood up then looked around for a bit. After seeing that he really wasn't here, she sat back down and thought,

'What's taking him so long?'