The excitement about the pill was immense, but she fell asleep anyway. The fatigue she felt was no joke. She slept for a long time, and when she woke up, she felt refreshed. She immediately jumped out of bed and rushed to see the pill.

  She grabbed it and looked at it. However, before taking it, she decided to consult with Scar. She made her way to his place.

  She couldn't find him, so she went to the field where he was growing green-gray mushrooms on the walls of a cave. There she found him.

  “Good morning,” he said. “How did you sleep?"

  “Good morning, very well, I feel fine now,” she replied. “I came to ask about the pill, I want to take it now.”

  “I understand, come, I've prepared a special room for you.” he said and showed her the way. He led her to the upper level of the cave, up a staircase carved into the rock. Part of the cave was separated by a massive wooden door.

  He let her inside. It was a place unlike the rest of the cave - it didn't seem natural, but hand-carved.

  “Take this pill here,” he said. After a moment, a wild beast appeared out of nowhere. May had seen it before and knew it was a rock troll.

  “Frondo will watch over you.”

  “I do protect,” he said. “Protect, for sure! I protect!”

  Trolls possessed a certain degree of intelligence, but it was more like that of young children. They were an endangered species, and Frondo was the only one left in the entire forest of the Eastern Outer Court. The elf had saved him from the cultivators, and now he served him faithfully.

  “Thank you, Frondo,” May said with a smile. Despite his lack of intelligence, she knew he was very strong; she had seen him lift rocks weighing several tons.

  “What?” he replied.

  “Well, take your time,” said the elf. “I don't know much about cultivation, so I can't tell you anything else. The pill is so powerful that you would become stronger even if you did nothing.”

  May smiled. The system estimated the value of the pill at nearly 4 million. However, its value was certainly higher, as the system tended to underestimate prices. Such a pill was not something you could buy just anywhere.

  “Anyway, I have to leave you now. I have something important to do.” he said, leaving hastily and closing the door.

  She heard Frondo muttering softly behind the door. She thought she heard the word “ protect” repeated several times. She chuckled softly. The troll may not have been a genius, but he was certainly loyal, and she could count on him to protect her.

  Before taking the pill, she decided to check her status one last time so she could compare its effects.

  Her progress was mostly slowed with spear training and martial arts, which she hadn't practiced since arriving at the cave. However, she managed to advance from the Middle Stage to the Late Stage in cultivation. However, her greatest achievement was her knowledge of alchemy, which rose from rank E- to rank E+, and she sensed that she was close to rank D-. It might not seem that impressive, but it was rare, and a D rank skill could easily mean that you could make a decent living from it.

  She looked at the pill. It was giant, and she had to take it in several bites.

  As soon as she swallowed the first part of the pill, she realized how powerful these pseudo-legendary items were. The energy was immense. She felt it coursing through her entire body.

  She immediately noticed the regenerative effects of the pill on her body. The muscle pain disappeared instantly, as did her fatigue. She felt refreshed and alive for the first time.

  But most importantly...

  She began to try to cultivate, after all, that was the most important effect of this time-limited pill. She was in shock, the Qi energy spread through her body at an impossibly fast rate.

  Inspired, she continued and in just ten minutes achieved what she usually achieved in a few hours. This effect was too absurd! She fell into a whirlwind of cultivation and continuously absorbed and purified the energy in her body. Strangely, the pace did not slow down, but actually accelerated. The more she cultivated, the faster she progressed!

  Usually, it was the opposite: at the beginning of the cycle, cultivation was fast, and then it slowed down with fatigue. Here, however, she felt neither fatigue nor the pain that usually accompanies too long cultivation.

  Thanks to its regenerative properties, my body does not get tired, and the damage to the meridians from too long cultivation is immediately regenerated!

  She didn't know what to expect from this pill, but she certainly didn't expect the cultivation speed to increase with time! She couldn't stop cultivating for even a second now, or she would lose her momentum.

  Therefore, she did not stop, and her speed increased faster and faster.

  The quality and power of the pill, combined with her enormous talent, meant that after only two hours, she reached Peak 4! She had originally assumed that it would take her another month, but she managed to do it in just a few hours thanks to the pill.

  Despite her success, she didn't stop, because if she did, she would have to start from the beginning and wouldn't be able to achieve such speed. Her goal was to break through to stage 5! It wasn't easy, but the speed of her cultivation continued unabated and grew faster and faster.

  Qi Refinement was the simplest stage, requiring only the accumulation of Qi. As long as it was purified and accumulated, it did not require stabilization of the stage, as long as the body was strong enough to maintain it.

  Therefore, moving from the lower stages did not require stabilization, as was the case in the higher stages. That is why she could continue to accumulate Qi and try to achieve as much as possible.

  After only another 3 hours, she felt that she was close to advancing to the 5th stage of Qi Refinement! That would mean she was exactly halfway to achieving Foundation Establishment!

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  The pill couldn't be called weak, after all, it cost over 4 million, close to 5 million. For that amount, she could improve her talent first to 1 to 100 thousand, and then to 1 to a million! Unfortunately, due to her desire to keep it a secret from the elf, she couldn't do that.

  Even though she didn't improve her talent, the effect of the pill was still amazing! In just 5 hours, she achieved something that would normally take her months! She was already on the border between the fourth and fifth stages of Qi Refinement!

  Most people who make it from the Outer Court to the Cloud Academy in the Inner Court are at the fourth stage.

  This meant she had a good chance.

  I hope this whole situation with the parasites doesn't affect it.

  She felt a little uncertain because she didn't know how to explain it. Probably everyone except her had died, and she just happened to survive? And she just happens to be a rare genius? No matter how she looked at it, even to her, it seemed suspicious.

  However, she hoped they would believe her story about her escape.

  But now was not the time to think about that. She had to use this moment to achieve as much as possible. Holding back on cultivation was not a good move. Since she had been given this opportunity, she had to take advantage of it and not hold back for fear of being suspicious.

  She cleared her mind of worries and continued. The speed of cultivation began to stabilize at a fairly strong stage. She estimated that she was now achieving in 10 minutes what would normally take her two hours. So you could say she was achieving it 12 times faster than normal, and she didn't have to take any breaks. In addition, despite the slowdown, it was still growing, and the effects of the pill had not yet reached its peak.

  She was not only cultivating faster, but also more effectively. Some time passed and she felt that she was already on the edge.

  Her whole body trembled. She tried to force herself to break through to stage 5! She already had more than enough Qi energy. Doing this by force was risky, as it could damage her body... But thanks to the pill, she could ignore it! All the damage was immediately regenerated.

  For a moment, she felt immense pain, but it disappeared in a few seconds. She did it and reached stage 5! At the age of eight, reaching such a level was absurd.

  Cultivation really is pay-to-win. No wonder rich kids are better than others. As long as you have resources, talent doesn't matter that much. With a pill like that, even someone with no talent could reach the top.

  Although she had reached the fifth stage of Qi Refinement, she didn't want to stop there, as she was still only in the early stages. She wanted to get as close to the sixth stage as possible.

  Even if I'm suspicious because I survived, they won't be able to refuse a genius. The sect desperately needs talent, so even if they consider me shady, they'll have to think twice! But for that to work, I have to be an incredibly powerful genius who will shock them. That's why I have to reach the sixth stage as soon as possible.

  That's why she decided not to give up and continue her cultivation. After all, only a few hours had passed and she still had almost two days until the effects of the pill wore off. She felt that she even had a chance to reach the sixth stage. So she continued her cultivation in the same way, without losing her enthusiasm.

  Meanwhile, Elf went outside to check what was happening.

  He wanted to personally watch over May when she took the pill, but as it turned out, someone started searching the forest. Not wanting to disturb her, he decided to solve the problem himself.

  Thanks to his animals, Scar knew what was going on in the forest and around the mountains. People had entered his territory. However, he knew that they were parasites.

  He had been watching the academy for some time. He had never done this before, not wanting to be detected, but when he found out about the parasites, he began to observe them to find out what was going on. They were too stupid to find out.

  But what were they looking for here?

  He began to wonder, putting on a hood to hide his ears, as well as a mask. He was still trying to hide his identity as an elf and certainly didn't want any parasites to know who he was.

  He easily located the three people who had trespassed into the forest. Two men at the 7th stage of Qi Refinement and one woman at the 9th stage.

  Just by looking at their faces, he knew they were parasites, remembering scenes from hundreds of years ago when he had seen similar creatures.

  He watched them from hiding. They were too weak to detect him. They were clumsily using Qi to find something. He didn't consider them dangerous, but decided to just watch them, just in case.

  After about two hours, he decided to confront them. Normally, he never interfered with humans, even if they were looking for something in the forest, but these were parasites, and the sect was in a difficult situation. Even if he killed them, no one would look for them.

  “What are you looking for here?” he said, revealing his position.

  The parasites were frightened and looked at the man with the hidden face. However, they didn't sense any energy from him, so they quickly calmed down.

  How naive. Thought the elf.

  “We're looking for a girl, about this height.” One of the parasites said, pointing to about the middle of his waist. “If you've seen her and tell us, we'll spare your life.”

  The elf rolled his eyes under his mask.

  So, for some reason, they're looking for May? It makes sense: she's talented, but not particularly strong. The perfect victim. But they're out of luck.

  “Why are you looking for her?” he asked.

  “None of your business! Why are you hiding your face? Are you that ugly?” hissed the woman. “I'll rip that mask off your face and skin you alive! So tell us what you know!”

  The parasites were exactly as he remembered them. It reminded him of his home. He certainly preferred his current loneliness to life in these swamps.

  “From what I can see, talking to you is pointless,” he said with a sigh. “You won't get May, so I'll just kill you.”

  “May... So you're hiding her! You'll tell us everything! Get him!” The woman roared, and the two men lunged at him. This amused him immensely.

  “I don't want to get my hands dirty with such shit,” he said, raising his hands.

  All three parasites screamed. Suddenly, a huge bear appeared from behind the trees. The elf had summoned it earlier. He was bored, so the elf decided to entertain him.

  Although it's still just a beast, I've fed it many ingredients... Soon it should evolve into a Blood Mountain Bear... In terms of strength, it shouldn't be any different from the Archbeasts.

  The elf sat down on a tree stump and watched the fight.

  The parasites tried to knock him down, but none of their attacks worked. To be honest, it was downright humiliating.

  One of the men tried to gouge out the bear's eye. The idea wasn't bad, but the bear bit off his entire arm and threw it aside.

  The parasite screamed in pain. The bear didn't care and bit off his head.

  “You fucking prick! Don't be a coward and fight yourself! Don't use those beasts!” However, the elf only chuckled at these words and continued watching the fight.

  The parasites didn't stand a chance, which was a bit disappointing. Their fighting skills were non-existent. They were quite strong, but the bear's skin was much thicker.

  Finally, the second parasite died, its body was torn apart by the bear, and blood spilled all over the field. Only the woman infected with parasites remained. She was much stronger than the other two and had been watching from a distance until now.

  “Who are you!” she shouted at him. The bear was already charging toward her.

  Scar, however, stopped him.

  “I hope you're ready to talk now,” he said. He killed the other two, hoping to force her to talk.

  The woman began to grit her teeth. She didn't like the situation, but even though she was a parasite, she had enough sense to know that either she would talk or she would die.

  “What do you want to know, you bastard?” She hissed angrily and offended. Apparently, no one has confronted her yet.

  “First: language.” He said. “Now tell me what your goal is.”

  “All right, I'll answer...”

  She turned away and started to run away. The elf snorted.

  “Well, goodbye then.”

  He raised his hand. A huge plant grew out of the ground and pierced her in half. She fell to the ground. Blood was spilled.

  The elf signaled to the bear, and it began to feed on the bodies.