These curses finally made David Clark suddenly realize what was going on. No wonder the day before, that fourth disciple had warned him to behave himself and try not to embarrass Senior Sister Foster. So it turns out that when Emily Foster saved him from Brian Harris, it actually led to a bet between two inner sect disciples?

　　Senior Sister Foster gave David Clark a chance, giving him two months to train, and Brian Harris also picked a servant disciple. After two months, they would settle things at the grand competition?

　　After understanding all this, David Clark once again felt a surge of overwhelming emotion, because it was only through these words that he realized he had almost died at the hands of Brian Harris the day before. That person not only bullied and humiliated David Clark to the point of utter defeat, but also intended to kill him. He didn’t know why Senior Sister Foster saved him, or why she helped him... but he absolutely could not let Senior Sister Foster lose face!

　　Brian Harris? Just thinking of that figure standing before him in the pouring rain, sneering arrogantly, made David Clark grit his teeth in anger.

　　But then David Clark gave a bitter smile, because after a whole day and night, he still hadn’t sensed any spiritual energy with his cultivation technique. He couldn’t even sense wind-type spiritual energy, so how could he talk about cultivation at all?

　　He had some talent—a single wind-type spiritual body—but many people said that even if he spent his whole life cultivating, he’d barely reach the third level of spiritual communication. Before, David Clark hadn’t really understood what that meant, but now he realized just how terrible his aptitude was. Even most servant disciples could sense spiritual energy after practicing their techniques for an hour or two, maybe three or four hours, then absorb and refine it, and with the ten low-grade spirit stones from their first-year stipend, they could reach the peak of the first level in seven or eight days.

　　But David Clark hadn’t sensed any spiritual energy after a whole day and night?!

　　“No matter what, I still have to try my best!” Taking a deep breath, David Clark finally arrived at the dining hall. Ignoring the looks and whispers around him, he just collected four or five days’ worth of food from the servant in the dining hall and returned to his own courtyard.

　　If he couldn’t sense spiritual energy in one day, then he’d try for three or four days. Even if he only slept an hour a day, he would keep at it!

　　……

　　“Still can’t sense it? Ten days, and in these ten days I’ve slept at most an hour a day, spending all the rest of my time cultivating, and I still can’t sense spiritual energy? I can’t even get started?!”

　　A few more days passed in a flash. David Clark spent ninety-nine percent of his time cultivating in his own courtyard, but the results of his hard work over these days left him frustrated. Ordinary servant disciples could get started in a few hours, but he still hadn’t managed it after ten days!

　　His cultivation was just too slow. If it were only about himself, he could bear it, but if he was too slow, in just over a month he’d have to compete against the servant chosen by Brian Harris in the grand competition. Would he be bullied by Brian Harris again? Would he even drag down Senior Sister Foster and make her lose face?

　　And at this rate, when would he ever get the chance to obtain precious medicine to save his father? In these ten days, he hadn’t stayed inside the whole time—he’d gone out a few times to get familiar with the surroundings, and tried to seek out a few outer sect disciples who knew alchemy, hoping to find someone to help diagnose his father’s condition. But as a servant disciple, he was never granted an audience with any outer sect disciple.

　　Although he had already endured countless hardships and suffering, at this moment David Clark still couldn’t help but get up and kick around in frustration, his heart full of anxiety.

　　He stood up and paced around the room, and eventually walked out into the courtyard. In the ten-meter-square courtyard, he paced back and forth, forcing himself to calm down. No matter what, he wouldn’t give up—he would persist. Even if, in a month, he had no chance of winning and would just be a laughingstock for Brian Harris, treated like a clown, he would still do his absolute best!

　　“Huh? What’s this?”

　　Just as David Clark gradually calmed down and walked to a corner of the courtyard, he suddenly stopped, staring in astonishment at the corner of the courtyard wall. There, among the overgrown weeds and the mottled, black-gray ground—clearly an area that had been abandoned for a long time—something caught his eye.

　　What surprised David Clark was that, beneath a few knee-high weeds in the corner, about a finger’s width above the ground, there was actually a palm-sized black object floating in midair.

　　The palm-sized black thing seemed to block his vision, yet it was so thin it had no thickness at all. It was like a patch of pitch-black night where you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, eerily floating just a finger’s width above the ground.

Chapter 004 Sudden Change

　　“What is this thing?”

　　Squatting down in the corner, David Clark carefully examined the patch of blackness, finding it more and more bizarre. It was still the blazing noon sun, and yet this patch of pitch black was floating eerily in the sunlight, with no thickness at all—completely beyond his imagination.

　　In fact, if he hadn’t gotten close, he wouldn’t have noticed it at all. After all, the ground in the corner was already mottled black and gray and very dirty. From a distance, he would have just thought it was a patch of black on the ground, but looking closely, he saw it was actually floating above the ground.

　　He blew on the weeds, making them sway, and noticed that as the grass moved, it easily passed through the blackness, completely unimpeded. Not only did this thing have no thickness, it seemed to be pure nothingness, allowing the wild grass to sway back and forth inside it.

　　Finding it more and more strange, David Clark couldn’t help but reach out and touch it. As soon as his finger touched the blackness, the thing suddenly came alive with a whoosh, and in the blink of an eye, it surged into David Clark’s finger like flowing water. David Clark was shocked and tried to shake it off, but as soon as he raised his arm, his vision went black and he collapsed to the ground with a thud.

　　……

　　“So hungry!”