Zu An was startled and asked, “What two things?”

Mi Li replied, “The first is to cultivate your reputation! The more people know about you, the more they’ll be willing to follow you. You’ll be able to easily gather people in the future.”

“Cultivate my reputation?” Zu An murmured, “And how do I do that?”

“To put it simply, you need to do things others can’t do. The more difficult those things are, the greater your reputation will be.” Mi Li said. “For example, in the crown princess’ case, the entire capital was thrown into an uproar, and many people were discussing it secretly. If you can crack this case, together with the matter of your Phoenix Nirvana Sutra, many people will start to recognize you.”

Zu An began to feel a headache. “But I still don’t have any clues about this matter…”

“It’s not a big problem even if you can’t crack the case.” Mi Li’s expression became a bit strange. “There is one other method to gain recognition.”

“And what is that?” Zu An immediately asked.

“If you can sleep with women that others can’t have. For example, if you publicly revealed that you slept with the empress, then I can promise you that every single person in every single street would recognize you. All powers that oppose the Zhou dynasty, even the foreign tribes by the border, would see you as their idol.” Mi Li smirked. It was clear that she found this suggestion quite amusing.

Zu An was speechless. He wasn’t tired of living yet. If he dared to say such a thing, then even though the entire world would know his name, he would be blasted to smithereens by the enraged emperor.

“What’s the actual second way?” Zu An asked impatiently.

“The second is obviously to increase your own strength. In the end, this is a world of the strong.” Mi Li retracted her smile and became serious. “Unfortunately, you aren’t willing to use the Heaven Devouring Art. That would have been your fastest method. But of course, there’s a reason behind your misgivings.”

She suddenly frowned, clearly pondering how to increase his strength as well. Eventually, she said, “Right, I remember sealing Old Mi’s strength in your body before. You couldn’t absorb it back then, as that would harm your foundation. Now that your cultivation is growing so much, as long as you reach the peak of the eighth rank, you should be able to absorb the rest of his power.”

“Peak of the eighth rank, huh?” Zu An thought for a bit. Eight of his seventh rank formation diagrams were already lit up, so he could barely be considered to be at the peak of the seventh rank. He was still far from the peak of the eighth rank. Even though cultivation only became harder and harder the further one went, at the very least, he had some hope.

He quickly asked, “Right, just now, you said that Ki Condensation Pills can help high ranked cultivators break through. What was up with that? I don’t think I’ve ever needed anything to help me break through along the way.”

Mi Li explained, “Cultivation becomes more and more difficult the farther you go. You might not have issues with breaking through when you’re at a lower rank, but once you pass the seventh rank, every single rank’s breakthrough becomes extremely difficult.

“Many people who were geniuses in their youth could get up to the fifth or sixth rank at a young age, but they just couldn’t break through the seventh rank and enter the eighth rank. That’s because, after the seventh rank, every single increase in rank relies on more than just ki accumulation. It requires your own enlightenment.”

“What do I need to comprehend?” Zu An was confused.

“Your own dao path!” Mi Li’s expression became stern. “Starting from the eighth rank, you can resonate with the world and borrow its power. That’s why you must harmonize with the world. The dao is extremely important from the seventh to eighth rank, and it’s also tied to your future accomplishments. The more precise of a dao you find, and the more it agrees with the origin of the world, the greater your future accomplishments will be. Otherwise, you’ll have to work harder without much progress.”

“Ah, I understand that at least.” Zu An was confident. Whether it was a wet path or a dry one, or even if it was a delicious one… Ahem, he could find it even with his eyes closed.

“Do you really?” Mi Li frowned. “This is no joke, you know?”

“I do.” Zu An had read so many webnovels in his past world. He had already read too many similar stories. The Confucian school called it ‘resolve’, Buddhism called it ‘great aspiration’… In the end, it was finding a path most suited for oneself.

“Then what is your path?” Mi Li asked with curiosity. The other party was already close to the peak of the seventh rank. It was already a good time to start considering sch a matter.

Zu An subconsciously replied, “My dao is that one day, regardless of whose path it is, I’ll be able to enter as long as I want to.”

Mi Li was speechless. Even though she didn’t really understand, she felt this kid was saying something perverted.

She shook her head and got rid of her messy thoughts,  continuing, “The cultivators of this world often use some pills to condense their ki for the sake of enlightenment. Their seemingly intangible ki condenses into liquid and perhaps even solidifies, giving them a way to sense the origin of the world. Every single person has different innate talents, and their thoughts are different as well. The things they comprehend will often be extremely different.”

Zu An’s eyes lit up. Was this ‘origin of the world’ referring to the formation of the cosmos?

Sigh, these people don’t know anything about science. How can these ignorant people sense the bigger picture? Of course they come up with all types of nonsense when they’re comprehending the dao! You can’t really say that the insights they gain are wrong, but it’s just chicken scratch. Even if you combine everything they know together, they’re probably still too far from the true origin of the world.

However, even though science had developed in his past world, their comprehension of the universe was similarly lacking.

Mi Li didn’t know that Zu An already knew so much. She continued, “The Ki Condensation Pill you just refined is precisely a pill that condenses the ki within your body.”

Zu An was a bit disappointed. “No wonder I didn’t feel much increase in cultivation.”

Mi Li hesitated a bit, and then said, “It isn’t just now. Even if you reach the peak of the seventh rank, these pills still won’t be of much use.”

“Why? Can’t they help me condense ki?” Zu An quickly asked.

Mi Li said, “You cultivate those unrivaled manuals, the Phoenix Nirvana Sutra and the Primorial Origin Sutra, as well as the Heaven Devouring Sutra. Your cultivation path is different from that of others to begin with. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed that every single rank is much harder for you than for others?”

Zu An was immediately moved when he heard this. “Finally, someone who understands me! Those protagonists all manage to level up like crazy, but why am I as slow as a freaking turtle?! Those ordinary cultivators are rabbits, but I’m just…”

Mi Li said indifferently, “Did you not realize that you’re much stronger than others at your level?”

Zu An was stunned. That made a lot of sense. He had just never really thought about it before.

Mi Li said, “Even though I’ve been sleeping all this time, I’ve been thinking about you as well. I have a pretty good understanding now. The reason why your cultivation is much slower, the reason why the amount of ki you need is far greater than others, is because you’ve already been condensing ki on your own for a long time. It’s different from the liquid form that others strive for; your ki instead exists in a state I can’t even comprehend. In other words, you already did what others at the peak of the seventh, eighth, and ninth rank did. Normal people can easily get stuck at these bottlenecks for many years, or even their entire lives.”

Zu An was silent. Mi Li continued, “Furthermore, according to my understanding, the strength and density of your ki condensation has already exceeded the level of masters and even grandmasters.”

Zu An’s brows rose. “Ah… this feels so good. Do you have more? Keep the praises coming.”

Mi Li harrumphed. “What are you getting all cocky for? Even though the quality of your ki surpasses them, its volume and overall rank is still far inferior. It still isn’t hard for them to crush you to death.”

Zu An said gloomily, “Why do you have to be like that?”

At the same time, he took out the other Ki Condensation Pill. “Sigh, I finally managed to make something after so much hard work, but it ended up being useless.” He had ended up scrapping so many materials, and he’d even had such high hopes in the beginning, so this really hurt.

“That might not necessarily be the case. Even though this pill isn’t useful for you, it’s useful for someone else.” Mi Li said.

“Who? You?” Zu An immediately dispelled this thought. Mi Li was a soul body right now. Furthermore, even if she had been in human form, with her cultivation, she should have already made it way past the period where she needed these pills.

He really was quite curious, actually. She was clearly a soul body, so why did she need to wear clothes? The red dress she was wearing was something he had bought. Furthermore, there were many similar pretty dresses in his Brilliant Glass Bead.

“Where are your eyes wandering?” Mi Li glared at him. Then she continued, “That vixen over there might need it.”