Every night he had held Wang Xinyan in his arms, and she had gradually begun to suffer from lethargy, which grew worse and worse. This continued until the night he went to the ancient tomb, when he did not sleep beside Wang Xinyan—and the next day, she went to school as normal. Yesterday had been the same: he had not held her, and Wang Xinyan had returned to normal...

These scattered thoughts and clues linked together, and Wei Zhao arrived at a conclusion: Wang Xinyan's illness had been caused by his own absorption! Or rather, the fragrance in Wang Xinyan's body was a kind of necessity on which she herself depended to survive; once it was drawn away by him, her constitution weakened rapidly, she lost all energy, and she had no choice but to rely on forced sleep to replenish her strength.

Sleep is an important physiological function by which the body protects itself; a person spends a third of his life asleep. When Wang Xinyan's strength ran low, she relied on sleep to replenish it. At first Wei Zhao had never connected these things together; only today could he be certain that this excellent method of cultivation he had discovered was in fact doing Wang Xinyan harm.

Even so, cultivation was ultimately not as important as Wang Xinyan's health. Wei Zhao would rather level up more slowly than have anything happen to Wang Xinyan, and so he decided that from now on he would no longer draw upon Wang Xinyan's fragrance for cultivation. It was, truly, a difficult decision.

In the morning, it was still Wei Zhao who carried Wang Xinyan to school. At the classroom door he ran into Kang Zhaolong again—today he had come to school.

"Wei Zhao, what are you doing? Why is Wang Xinyan unconscious again? What on earth did you do to her?" Kang Zhaolong had meant to keep a low profile, but seeing Wei Zhao holding Wang Xinyan, he found it impossible to do so; a surge of fury rushed to his heart.

"Isn't it because you made her angry?" Wei Zhao said, glancing coldly at Kang Zhaolong.

"What?" Kang Zhaolong was left choking on Wei Zhao's words. "How could that be? You can't fool me—I already asked around before. Wang Xinyan was perfectly fine yesterday, she came to school awake. How could she have been angered by me?"

"It relapsed," Wei Zhao said.

"You..." Kang Zhaolong was rendered speechless by that single sentence, and having no grounds to argue, he could only give it up. Sullenly he walked back to his own seat and sat down.

Wei Zhao settled Wang Xinyan into a chair, then quietly took out a book—though he had no heart to read it. His mind was wholly occupied with Wang Xinyan's problem. Wang Xinyan's body could give off a fragrance useful for cultivation, and once this fragrance was absorbed by him in excess, she would become weak... But then another question arose: did Wang Xinyan not normally emit that fragrance herself? Did that not consume it as well?

Or was it that normal consumption stayed within acceptable limits, while his absorption accelerated the depletion of Wang Xinyan's fragrance and brought about her present condition? Wei Zhao had never encountered anything like this before, and he resolved to consult Bai Lingtou when he saw him in a little while.

When class was dismissed, Wei Zhao went straight to find Bai Lingtou.

"Xiao Yi, you're looking for me because of Wang Xinyan's constitution, aren't you?" Seeing Wei Zhao hurriedly pull him aside, Bai Lingtou knew there was some secret matter to discuss.

"Let's set the matter of her constitution aside for now, Teacher Bai. I've come to you about something more important!" Wei Zhao said. "You've noticed that Wang Xinyan has been sleeping a great deal lately, haven't you?"

"I've noticed. What of it?" Bai Lingtou looked at Wei Zhao rather oddly. "Surely her sleeping isn't because you and she... stayed up too late?"

"Sweat..." Wei Zhao broke into a sweat at Bai Lingtou's words. "Teacher Bai, what are you thinking? There's nothing between Xinyan and me. I believe her lethargy is caused by something else!"

"Something else? What do you mean? Are you saying there's something wrong with her body?" Bai Lingtou was, after all, a man versed in medicine, and he grasped the crux of the matter at once. "Tell me," he asked.

"You could put it that way. It's a long story..." Wei Zhao then recounted to Bai Lingtou in detail how, ever since the military training, he had discovered that the peculiar fragrance on Wang Xinyan could be used for cultivation. By now Wei Zhao regarded Bai Lingtou as another of his masters, and so he concealed nothing from him.

"Oh? Wang Xinyan has this ability?" Bai Lingtou was rather surprised. "Could it be that this is because of her special constitution?"

"It's connected to her constitution? What kind of constitution is it?" Wei Zhao was taken aback and asked at once.

"What exactly her constitution is, I don't know either, but from what I have found in the ancient texts, this phenomenon of hers should be caused by the fact that the testing bead cannot identify her constitution!" Bai Lingtou said. "Such a constitution must be a special one that transcends the Five Elements. Such exceptions are extremely rare!"

"Oh? A special constitution?" Wei Zhao could not help being shocked at Bai Lingtou's words. "Beyond the Five Elements, there are special constitutions as well?"

"Yes, there are some special constitutions, though they are relatively rare among cultivators and exist mostly among spirit beasts. Many spirit beasts' attributes transcend the Five Elements," Bai Lingtou said. "Wind, lightning, healing, and so on—these are special existences among spirit beasts rather than Five Elements cultivators."

"So that's how it is." Wei Zhao nodded, and his thoughts turned to the Wind-Thunder Violet Lightning Beast—it must belong to the wind element, surely? And he wondered whether Sun Jingyan might also possess a special constitution beyond the Five Elements; her mental cultivation formula was peculiar as well, and she was probably not a cultivator within the Five Elements either.

"So the condition you describe in Wang Xinyan should be a manifestation of this special constitution. The specifics I don't yet know, but you have given me the general direction, and I will keep it in mind," Bai Lingtou said. "The pressing matter is this: stop using the fragrance from her body to cultivate, and let us see how things turn out."

"Yes, that was my decision as well." Wei Zhao nodded. "Then I'll have to trouble you with the rest, Teacher Bai."

"Ha, trouble? What trouble? I'm your teacher; answering your questions is only proper," Bai Lingtou said with a smile.

Because of these discussions with Wei Zhao, Teacher Bai had delayed his regular class time.

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