On the 19th floor of the Emerald Tower of the Apostle Association in the Third District of the Capital of Freedom.

  Inside the training room, there were mountains and waters, and a small brook flowed gently, giving people a feeling of being personally on the scene. It was hard to imagine that all of this was virtual.

  Although there was no technology in this world, the combination of magic and machinery had developed effects no weaker than those of high technology. Environmental simulation was just one of the rather ordinary achievements.

  Chen Yue sat on a patch of grass, sitting upright with a solemn look, his eyes shining with the light of wisdom. Sometimes he would look up at the sky in puzzlement, and sometimes he would look down at the ground with a distress expression. His face was extremely serious, earnest, resolute, and unyielding as he stared at the Frozen Rabbit eye to eye...

  "Goo." The impatient Frozen Rabbit shook its white fur and slowly turned around, presenting its snow-white, smooth buttocks to Chen Yue.

  "Damn it." Chen Yue rubbed his forehead vigorously and said somewhat frantically, "How the hell is this intimacy, no, how is this compatibility improved?"

  It had been a month since he returned from the Crescent Island Training Base. For the bet half a year later, Venia had promised to help Chen Yue advance to the second rank.

  Therefore, without even taking a breath, Chen Yue plunged into intense training.

  Chen Yue had already reached the bottleneck of the first rank. As long as he broke through this obstacle, he could be promoted to the second rank.

  Although when sensing, he always felt that the imprisoned Source Space had a slight loosening, but actually breaking through was far from being that simple.

  Venia had listed three ways for Chen Yue to break through the bottleneck.

  The first way was to continuously sense the Source of Life. Although the Source Space seemingly no longer expanded on the surface, it was actually accumulating strength. After accumulating enough strength, it could break through the shackles with one dash. This method was the safest. Most apostles chose this path, but the progress was also the slowest. It wouldn't be strange even if it took hundreds of years. Even with extremely high aptitude, at least two or three years of accumulation were needed. Without a doubt, this method was the first one to be excluded by the two of them.

  The second way was also the craziest and most dangerous one, which was to summon a familiar spirit.

  Your Source Space is imprisoned and can't expand outward anymore? It's simple. If ordinary means don't work, I'll throw a bomb inside. Once it explodes, I guarantee that there will be no bottleneck left.

  When talking about this method, Venia's eyelids kept twitching, for she was afraid that Chen Yue would be impulsive and choose this one. When the familiar spirit descended, it would cause the First Impact and directly hit the Source of Life. The impact generated would be enough to break through any bottleneck.

  However, this method was also extremely dangerous. It was a bomb, and it exploded in one's own territory. It would be like destroying both oneself and the enemy. It would be a real case of killing one thousand enemies while losing eight hundred of oneself. Even if one survived by chance, after the First Impact, the Source of Life would become extremely dim. Since the Source of Life supported all human activities, perhaps in a more tragic situation, one would directly enter a state of suspended animation.

  Although it was quite dangerous, there were still a small number of apostles who chose this path. The reason was simple. It took effect quickly and one could also get an extra helper. It could be said to kill two birds with one stone. Of course, most of the apostles who adopted this method lived a rather stable life and could afford to spend a lot of time on recovery.

  Chen Yue thought about it for a long time. He had his own thoughts. Although this method was dangerous, he was different from ordinary apostles and also had quite outstanding melee combat abilities. Coupled with his exquisite fighting skills, he was confident that he could defeat West with this. However, after careful analysis, Chen Yue immediately gave up this idea. Unlike fighters, he didn't have fighting spirit in his body. His melee combat ability was exerted by his physical body and also needed to be supported by the Source of Life. That is to say, if he really adopted this method, his melee combat ability would also be abolished.

  His choice also made Venia breathe a sigh of relief. After all, the bet had to be fulfilled half a year later. Just from the perspective of time, this means that was effective for ordinary apostles was also not advisable.

  Immediately after that, Venia proposed the third method.

  That was to incorporate the Source of Life of the familiar spirit into the Source Space.

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  For the Source Space that was already cramped and couldn't accommodate anything else, summoning a familiar spirit was an impact. Then, having an additional Source of Life like the sun was also an impact, wasn't it?

  In fact, breaking through the bottleneck was already the third step of the basic training. In Venia's plan, originally it wouldn't have been so soon. However, Chen Yue's early advancement disrupted the traditional steps. She could only carry out the second and third steps together. Fortunately, this method could achieve these two steps simultaneously.

  Relatively speaking, this means was quite safe. It wasn't as dangerous as summoning a familiar spirit, nor did it need the slow natural transition. After success, it would bring huge benefits and greatly strengthen the Source of Life. It could be said to be the best choice.

  However, as far as Chen Yue knew, very few apostles would choose this method.

  Because this method really tested one's aptitude.

  This method also had a rather resounding name among the apostles: The Exquisite Naked Woman Drawn on Paper.

  The meaning was simple. No matter how tempting it was, one could only see it but couldn't have it.

  Chen Yue smiled bitterly. It seemed that Venia had great confidence in his aptitude, so she proposed this method.

  Venia told Chen Yue very frankly that even she had only incorporated the Source of Life of the Water Spirit into the Source Space. The other two deacons in the association were at a similar level, and her aptitude was already considered excellent.

  Of course, Venia also told Chen Yue that there was another reason why she did this, which was the legend of the Purgatory difficulty.

  It was the first time Chen Yue had heard of such a thing, and his reaction was actually one of approval.

  It was reasonable to call that cruel battlefield Purgatory. Those who could come out of it unscathed were all people with extremely firm wills, unyielding in the face of setbacks. Such people naturally had much greater chances of advancing to the seventh rank than others.

  Heaven rewards the diligent. Perhaps this was what was meant by opportunity.

  "Okay, it's this method then." After comparing the pros and cons, Chen Yue made a decision.

  The next day, the training began.

  If one wanted to incorporate the Source of Life of the familiar spirit into the Source Space, the key was compatibility.

  Only then did Chen Yue know that the relationship between the familiar spirit and the apostle was not simply a master-servant relationship. The relationship between the two could be measured by compatibility.

  When it was just summoned, the compatibility between the familiar spirit and the apostle was seriously insufficient and could only maintain the basic contract. This state was "strange".

  Slowly, as the compatibility between the two increased, the apostle could command the familiar spirit, but sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. Parr's familiar spirit was like this. When the familiar spirit could execute the apostle's orders meticulously, the state of the two was "familiar".

  After that, it was very difficult to increase the compatibility. Most apostles stayed at this step. If they could take another step forward and reach the state of "intimacy", they could smoothly incorporate the familiar spirit into the Source of Life.

  "Isn't this just intimacy?" At that time, after listening to Venia's explanation, Chen Yue was dumbfounded. For him, it was really easy to understand.

  The so-called cultivation of the familiar spirit was just like the beautiful girl-raising games on Earth. At the beginning, everyone was not familiar with each other. If you went up and played hooligan, you might get slapped. Slowly, as you got familiar, you could occasionally hold hands or kiss a little. If your skills were good enough and you won the beauty's favor, you could do some naughty things.

  The trouble was that there was no data here, and one had no idea how intimacy grew. Many times, some seemingly correct behaviors would instead lead to a decrease in compatibility, which was not worth the loss. Although some means had been summed up over thousands of years, they were just scratching the surface and didn't have much effect.

  Although he hadn't dabbled much in this aspect in his previous life, after all, he was from that era. Even if he hadn't eaten pork, he had seen pigs running. Chen Yue didn't adopt the methods provided by Venia but formulated a set of strategy plans by himself.

  He didn't know if it was because the Frozen Rabbit originated from a virtual game instead of being a native familiar spirit in the Spirit Realm. At the beginning, the compatibility between Chen Yue and the Frozen Rabbit was at the level of "familiar". Compared with other apostles, he saved the process of slowly cultivating the relationship. Therefore, his strategy plan went straight to the theme from the very beginning: "harassment".

  On the first day, Chen Yue tried hard to tease the Frozen Rabbit, but as a result, he was frozen into an ice stick.

  On the second day, he was still an ice stick that made people drool.

  On the fifth day, there was finally progress. He changed from one big ice stick to several small ice sticks.

  ...

  After a month, it was officially announced that Chen Yue's evil strategy plan had failed. Of course, it wasn't a complete failure. Some achievements had been made at least. At present, the Frozen Rabbit had already ignored Chen Yue's harassment. In other words, the relationship between the two had progressed to a level above "familiar".

  As for how far it was from "intimacy", no one knew.

  Venia wasn't in the Apostle Association. After Chen Yue's strategy plan started, she went out to look for a rare treasure called "Meta Crystal". It was said that it could greatly improve compatibility.

  After trying for half a day and achieving nothing again, Chen Yue wasn't the least bit discouraged. If it was so easy for him to succeed, then so many apostles on the continent could go and jump into the sea in shame.

  Although it was still early in the evening, Chen Yue ended his intention to continue trying. For some reason today, he always felt a bit restless, as if he had forgotten something important...

  After getting his mood in order, Chen Yue calmly put the Frozen Rabbit back into the subspace and walked out of the training room, heading towards his residence in the Apostle Association.