Extra's Strategy: Cultivate Protagonists, Become Invincible-Chapter 216: My Anomalous Cultivation Life

Peeking through the window curtains to watch Miss Mei leave with the gait of an old zombie, Han Xuhan felt quite emotional.

"It’s amazing what you can achieve when you’re willing to be shameless beyond all limits," Zhanxian commented from the side.

"My shamelessness really hit her self-esteem. Otherwise, she might have figured out the real secret behind her defeat..."

Han Xuhan clicked his tongue ruefully and turned off his fog collector device.

"But this trick won’t hold up for long. Those guys aren’t stupid. They’ll figure out why I’m wearing the mask. It will lead them to some suspicions.

"Those suspicions are going to be enough for them to prepare some counters against the poisonous fog."

Han Xuhan looked at the boxes of cultivation resources and spirit stones at the corner of his room, protected by some minor restrictive arrays. Chen Yan’s appetite wouldn’t be satisfied until he got a bite from here.

"The bag of Nightflower Essence I promised them is still in my hands. Jiang Chen failed to take it away. Now their strongest martial artist, Miss Mei, has failed as well. I wonder what their next approach is going to be like..."

"They’ll probably come as a group," Zhanxian concluded.

"They have a good grasp of your martial cultivation, and they know that your mystic art prowess can be totally ignored. So, once they figure out the trick of the poison fog, you’re going to get a taste of hell, Boss."

Smack!

Han Xuhan slapped the Skeleton in the head.

"What the hell are you saying? How can my Mystic Arts be ignored just like that? Aren’t you two the result of my Mystic Art cultivation? Are you trying to tell me that you’re not going to assist me when the enemy attacks?"

"...Boss, we aren’t exactly capable of assisting you-"

Smack!

"Then why am I dumping so much resource in you two? Haven’t you already reached the peak of the first layer of the Spiritual Bones Art? Isn’t Tun Shi Tian over there already about to break through to the third layer of the Artificial Meridian Creation Technique?"

Zhanxian looked at the owl skeleton, who was quietly cultivating by himself.

In a sneering tone, he replied, "Do you think our cultivation is going to help you in combat?"

"Not yet, no." Han Xuhan sighed, knowing the reality.

"Which is why we have to speed this up. Jiang Chen and Miss Mei aren’t going to turn up anytime soon. While they’re busy recuperating and planning their next move, you two will have to show some results!"

That evening, Zhanxian really understood how serious Han Xuhan was about utilizing this timeframe. He didn’t give either of the minions a single moment of respite.

Focus lost? There’s a cure for that!

Tired mind? There’s a cure for that!

Qi accumulation speed slowing down? Not allowed as long as I can spend money on it!

The evening rolled into night, and the night was witness to their ceaseless cultivation sessions. Dawn came, and morning replaced it, followed by high noon. By then, the two minions had lost count of how many sessions they had sat through.

To their relief, breakthroughs came eventually. After all, both of them had been on the cusp of it. There was no bottleneck preventing them from bruteforcing their way to the next layer.

Tun Shi Tian was the first to achieve his breakthrough. He now stood at the third layer of the Artificial Meridian Creation Technique, with no more path to tread in this Mystic Art.

"Now you’re going to switch to the Spiritual Bone Arts, Little Tian. Let’s see if you can catch up with Zhanxian!"

Perhaps it was Han Xuhan’s mocking tone, or the threat of being overtaken by his junior minion... Whatever it was, it drove Zhanxian to the brink of desperation, and barely an hour later, he managed to cross the gateway to the Second Layer of Spiritual Bones Art.

Zhanxian was now officially an orthodox Mystic cultivator!

This was his minion’s first proper cultivation technique. Some heartfelt congratulations were due.

But just as Han Xuhan was about to praise his minion, he felt a tremor inside him, something that shook his consciousness in a way that only his own cultivation techniques could.

"Wait, what was that?" The one who shouted this was Zhanxian. Han Xuhan’s mouth fell open in bafflement.

"Did you feel it too? How?"

Then, as if their minds were running through the same circuit of logic, both shouted the same conclusion a moment later.

"The foundation tower!"

Han Xuhan immediately closed his eyes and sat down to meditate, probing the depths of his consciousness to access his spiritual world.

To his relief, nothing unusual took place during the brief process. He found himself staring at his foundation tower almost immediately.

"Huh, nothing’s changed?"

From outside, he couldn’t see anything unusual or new about it. It was the same old building, with four walls and an extended room, which could be considered Zhanxian’s personal foundation tower, accommodated by Han Xuhan’s foundation tower as the master.

But when he went inside, he did discover an anomaly.

In a corner of Zhanxian’s ’room’, a massive pillar had appeared at some point, at least a couple of meters thick.

Unlike the rest of the building, it didn’t have the appearance of regular brick-built structures. Its body was just one giant, cylindrical slab of ocean-blue crystal, quite similar to the qi armor produced by the Spiritual Bones Art!

Han Xuhan spent a while investigating this pillar, both by its physical manifestation and by his spiritual connection to it.

It clearly went deep under the ’soil’ of his spiritual world. In a way, it had strengthened the integrity of his foundation tower.

Or more accurately, it had strengthened Zhanxian’s foundation as an orthodox cultivator, since it was clearly a product of Zhanxian’s breakthrough, connected to the Spiritual Bones Art.

A Mystic Artist stepping into the path of orthodox arts would inevitably produce a proper foundation tower inside his spiritual world. He had assumed that since Zhanxian already had a spiritual ’space’ inside this foundation tower, the result of his cultivation would be to expand this ’space’.

Now, it seemed that his theory was incorrect. The heavenly authorities, or whatever it was that controlled such esoteric matters in the world of cultivation, had not treated Zhanxian as a normal cultivator.

Hence, Zhanxian’ spiritual growth as a Mystic Artist was not going to follow the typical expansion-based route. The same could be said for Tun Shi Tian, and every other minion he created in the future.

Rather than the expansion of their summoner’s foundation tower, their cultivation was going to contribute to the strengthening of the foundation tower!

Han Xuhan still clearly remembered the assessment he had been given by that mysterious, ancient tool inside the Holy Land of Laws. That thing had examined his body and spirit in detail, just to put him at the bottom of the leaderboard.

His highest score in the assessment report was in the field of Foundation Tower quality. He had gotten 6 points out of 10, which could probably be credited to the Zeroth Layer cultivation method revealed by Mu Ran. That technique was meant to enhance spiritual foundation in Mystic Arts.

"If it was 6 out of 10 back then, what about now? With this crystal pillar enhancing the stability of my foundation tower, the rating must have gone up, right?"

Han Xuhan couldn’t help but wonder whether he could bully-no, convince Qian Yun to find a way to test his foundation tower again.

A flame of curiosity was now burning in his mind. It was too fascinating a concept not to fantasize about!