I created the Bureau of Anomaly Control

Training Room.

In the past few days, Ma En had been diligently poring over the books that Xiaoyao had given him, trying his best to understand their contents. He gained a basic understanding of what cultivation was all about: cultivation requires one to improve their anomaly level through their primary cultivation method.

Although cultivating the method itself doesn't grant the cultivator combat power corresponding to their anomaly level, it does qualify them to master various other techniques. These techniques are the key to truly influencing a cultivator's combat abilities.

The variety of these techniques far exceeded Ma En's initial expectations, ranging from Zhong Ruixue's swordsmanship to Yu Weijie's incantations, and Guan Yi's mastery of artifact crafting and alchemy. This was similar to wizards, but from Ma En's understanding, cultivation techniques were far more comprehensive than wizardry, forming a complete system covering almost all fields: mind, space, curses, prophecies, and more.

Most importantly, cultivation, as an anomaly ability, has a well-established method of advancement. As long as one cultivates according to the instructions, they can continuously improve their anomaly level. If they truly had spiritual energy here, then cultivation might become the most common anomaly ability in the world, even changing the relationship between human society and anomaly abilities, completely altering the structure of this world.

It was also for this reason that he more deeply understood how serious the issue of spiritual energy was in Xiaoyao's words. If this spiritual energy was as abundant as it currently appeared, then its disappearance would indeed have a profound impact on the human world.

However, Ma En didn't feel that these were things he needed to pay special attention to. After all, "plundering spiritual energy" was nothing compared to the various other evils in the world. What he was more concerned about now was Xiaoyao's purpose.

These days, with Xiaoyao's help, he had passed the first stage of cultivation, "Body Refinement." This stage didn't require him to absorb spiritual energy from Xiaoyao, which sounded quite dangerous. He simply did some simple exercises and "rinsed" the outside of his body with spiritual energy. In fact, Ma En didn't even feel like he had done anything related to cultivation, but he did master some new ability.

[Body Refinement Stage I-5: Suitable Physique for Cultivation]

Although Ma En was full of vigilance towards Xiaoyao, this Body Refinement stage didn't seem to have any problems. Moreover, he had repeatedly tested it, and the Anomaly Control Bureau's containment abilities could indeed directly extract this power.

With Qin Lan constantly monitoring his anomaly state, it was almost impossible for Xiaoyao to use any underhanded tricks on him. Moreover, if he really fell into some abnormal situation, he could directly use the Overturning Sea Scepter to increase his power and break free.

If he had such strong countermeasures and had made sufficient preparations but still couldn't counter Xiaoyao's abilities, then Xiaoyao would probably be so strong that he could achieve his goals with a flick of his fingers, and there would be no need to take him as a disciple.

Ma En stepped down from the body refinement area, which was full of wooden dummies, after accepting the power-constraining "exercise."

Just as he came down, the door was pushed open.

Xiaoyao looked at Ma En, whose breathing was steady, and nodded with satisfaction:

"Body Refinement is complete. In a barren world without special natural treasures, even disciples of famous sects couldn't possibly be in a more perfect state than you are now during the Body Refinement stage. But it would be strange if you couldn't reach perfect Body Refinement in a short time.

"This level is enough for you to continue cultivating the Xiaoyao Free and Unfettered Art. I think you can also try to truly enter the world of cultivation. Qi Refinement is the starting point of cultivation, and even you will have to spend more time laying a good foundation. Normally, I should prepare enough rich spiritual energy in this room for you to slowly try to start breathing it in.

"But before that, you have to come with me."

Ma En followed Xiaoyao out of the house and casually asked:

"If my understanding is correct, in your world, the Body Refinement realm theoretically doesn't require the intervention of external anomaly powers. Ordinary people can achieve it through normal exercise, is that right?"

He noticed that Xiaoyao was particularly concerned about the issue of spiritual energy, so he planned to start from here.

Sure enough, Xiaoyao smiled after hearing this question:

"You're right, and I can guarantee that even if the spiritual energy of the cultivation world is halved, almost all the mortals there can still become what you call anomaly ability users without relying on any external objects.

"Only 30% of the mortals here have this talent now. In fact, a long time ago, more than 90% of your mortals could reach the Body Refinement stage through exercise and the assistance of certain non-anomalous objects. After so many years of severing spiritual energy, the roots and bones of your mortals here are also constantly deteriorating with the passage of time.

"This is actually a pity, because if you want to barely return to the state of the ancient times, you have to throw them into an environment with rich spiritual energy for dozens of generations to develop. But to truly perfectly reproduce the situation at that time, you have to spend ten times more time to completely heal the wounds you have suffered.

"And you have to know that spiritual energy is a resource that will be consumed. They will be converted into other forms of energy through techniques and methods, but now spiritual energy is still not exhausted, I think you should be able to think of something."

Ma En did think of something:

"So spiritual energy is a resource that is constantly being produced."

Xiaoyao nodded:

"That's right, this planet naturally produces spiritual energy, and they will appear very evenly in all parts of this planet, that is to say, they did not take away all the spiritual energy a long time ago, and constantly circulate in the cultivation world.

"They are plundering the spiritual energy here every moment."

Through Xiaoyao's words and deeds, Ma En could sense that he had a lot of opinions about the matter of spiritual energy, but in fact, this matter was also what made Ma En more puzzled. Xiaoyao didn't seem like someone who would care so much about this kind of thing.

Could it be that he wants to use this to arouse his dissatisfaction with the cultivation world?

Xiaoyao continued:

"But I can't stop that Spirit Gathering Array, I don't have that ability yet, so my way to fight them is to research the current Xiaoyao Free and Unfettered Art, and try to allow mortals to cultivate in a barren area without spiritual energy.

"The current me still has many problems that have not been solved, only the Golden Core realm and the Nascent Soul realm can achieve the effect I want, and for how to let mortals cross the Body Refinement stage is still a difficult problem for me without any clues, fortunately, I have some new ideas for Qi Refinement and Foundation Establishment."

While speaking, he also brought Ma En to one side of this "mountain."

At this moment, it was just sunrise, and the dazzling sun was hanging high in the east, overlooking the world.

Xiaoyao led him to sit cross-legged on the spot:

"You should have read the method of swallowing and spitting out the essence of the sun and moon, right?"

Ma En replied:

"I have read it, but there are still many questions that I don't understand."

Xiaoyao said:

"In fact, this is not a common cultivation method, normal cultivation is to breathe in spiritual energy, there is no swallowing and spitting out the essence of the sun and moon, this is the method of my own Xiaoyao Gong, just to allow people to cultivate in an environment without spiritual energy.

"In fact, your Body Refinement stage is also slightly more difficult than the normal steps, only a 'mortal' like you with the best roots and bones, and whose physique has already reached the Golden Core realm can successfully complete it, I have made some slight adjustments to your Body Refinement method, so that you can swallow and spit out the essence of the sun and moon.

"Although this cannot be a formal cultivation method, but if you can succeed, then the remaining difficulties can theoretically be solved by paying time and energy, and it can also prove that the road I am taking is open.

"Start cultivating."

Ma En sat down in place, began to recall the description of the method of swallowing and spitting out the essence of the sun and moon in the book, began to breathe according to a specific rhythm, and tried to calm his heart to enter a meditative state.

These were not difficult for Ma En, who was originally a telepath, he only spent a few seconds to enter a deep meditation, and began to slowly outline in his mind the image of himself swallowing and spitting out the sunlight, the sunlight slowly turned into some kind of fluid energy, easily contained in his mouth and hidden under his tongue, and then slowly flowed into his body for "refining."

Ma En sat in meditation for a long time, until he suddenly could no longer swallow the sunlight, then he slowly opened his eyes.

The sun had already set.

Xiaoyao said:

"Very good, your first breathing was very smooth, I think if you breathe in spiritual energy, you won't encounter the problem of not being able to breathe in normally like some mortals in the barren world, now let me see how your results are."

As he said this, he directly looked at the position of Ma En's dantian, Ma En also felt that his eyes seemed to become sharp in an instant, and a feeling of being peeped rose in his heart - although Xiaoyao was actually looking at him in front of him.

"Very good." Xiaoyao's expression was hard to say whether he was happy or disappointed, "There is indeed spiritual energy converted from it in your body as I expected."

Ma En asked curiously:

"How far is the spiritual energy I breathe in from being used for cultivation?"

Xiaoyao said in a low voice:

"It's far, far away, your situation is already very special, and you also have the best roots and bones, but the spiritual energy in your body can almost be said to be non-existent, if the spiritual energy around me is not all under my control, I would suspect that the wisp of faint spiritual energy was swallowed casually when you were breathing.

"This shows that I still have a long way to go from my goal, but this is not a bad thing, even if the end point is too far to see, it is better than not knowing whether the end point exists at all."

Ma En didn't know if what he said was true, because all the information he had about the cultivation world came from Xiaoyao, so what he was seeing now might actually be a huge lie fabricated by Xiaoyao, but if these were true...

Then it meant that Xiaoyao was actually researching some anomaly system that was close to cultivation but didn't require any spiritual energy. If he could really successfully achieve his goal, then all the mortals in the Federation could directly obtain anomaly power through this method.

This matter was difficult to simply describe as good or bad, but it would definitely have a huge impact on the current world, and whether the impact was good or bad depended more on the entire world and pure luck, but this was undoubtedly a powerful force.

Although according to Xiaoyao's current performance, this force was still quite far from taking shape, but its final result might even change and reshape the current appearance of society, giving 30% of ordinary people the opportunity to enter the anomaly world.

But the problem was that what he was affecting was not the cultivation world, but this barren world that had nothing to do with him. What was Xiaoyao's purpose in doing this? He certainly couldn't be doing it out of "goodwill" to give the mortals here a chance to cultivate.

Ma En had a very reasonable speculation - Xiaoyao was likely to be planning to establish a sect in the barren world, bring cultivation here, and become the creator of this anomaly system, leading mankind into a new era.

If his research was really successful, then the barren world would be completely different from other cultivators for him. All the mortals here who could cultivate could become his resources. 30% of mankind was a very terrifying number. Many anomaly abilities that could be learned and improved had extremely harsh requirements, for example, there were very few people who could cultivate witchcraft.

Even if only one in a thousand mortals who cultivate their minds entered this path, that would be millions of people. If Xiaoyao really established an organization that could teach cultivation methods, then he would likely become the strongest organization leader in the Federation.

Moreover, as a system that was relatively easy to improve anomaly levels, Xiaoyao would also get far more resources than before after establishing a sect here, and he might also be able to continue forward on his so-called "Tao" and break through his current realm to become a demigod.

If the demigods of the cultivation world couldn't come here to interfere with him, then Xiaoyao might have the opportunity to become the strongest organization leader in the world, and the Xiaoyao Gong was completely his own creation, which meant that he was likely to leave some back doors in it.

Perhaps Xiaoyao had a way to control and restrain the people who cultivated his methods, after all, for most mortals in the Federation, no matter how bad the conditions for cultivating the Xiaoyao Free and Unfettered Art were, it was their only chance to enter the anomaly world.

Or perhaps this great achievement could directly affect his cultivation, allowing him to continue forward on the path of cultivation and directly help him break through to a higher realm.

If he thought about it this way, Xiaoyao's ambition was more terrifying than he thought, and Xiaoyao might really not care about him that much anymore. The purpose of recruiting him as a disciple was not to get something through him, but to research a method that mortals could also cultivate.

The value of this thing was far higher than any longevity pill. With the situation he was showing now, Xiaoyao was really likely to be doing this, but this made Ma En feel a little wrong again, because if he wanted to do such an important thing...

But if he was really doing it for these purposes, then why would he reveal the details to himself? Was he not afraid that he would expose this matter?

But no matter what his purpose was, this force had extremely high value, even if Xiaoyao did nothing, just releasing it would be enough to change the world.

This was a change that no one could ignore.