CHAPTER 96: FOUNDATION ESTABLISHMENT

Chapter 96: Foundation Establishment

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If in the first stage (Body Tempering) one used the Qi gathered from the surrounding environment or from objects like spirit stones or similar things, refining it and circulating it through one’s body in order to solidify one’s foundations and strengthen the entire body, from bones to muscles and so on...

Then, in the second stage (Qi Gathering), one would begin storing Qi inside their dantian, increasing its capacity for gathering and refining it, while at the same time starting to perfect control over the flow of Qi.

This was also the stage where one could finally use the first spiritual Qi based abilities of the various elements.

A person would start creating their own attacks or learning existing ones during this phase, as their control over Qi became stronger.

So, the more one improved their dantian and increased its capacity, the more they also strengthened their control over the Qi flow, both within their body and outside of it.

Once this was done, one would move to the third stage (Foundation Establishment), and it was here that the first two phases would start to show their true weight.

A cultivator, essentially, trained not only their body but also their dantian, the primary source of energy in their body.

It was the heart of a mortal rank cultivator’s power, and the stronger this heart was, the stronger its container, the body, would also be.

If one of the two wasn’t on par with the other, problems could arise, a weak dantian would hold the body back, and a weak body could be damaged by the dantian every time it was used.

Both needed to coexist in balance, and in the Foundation Establishment stage, this principle was truly put into practice.

Here, everything done to strengthen the body and increase Qi capacity would be put to the test, as this stage marked the first steps in laying one’s future foundation.

One would finally begin refining Qi much more deeply, not just the simple filtering and storing done in the previous stage, and at the same time, use this refined Qi to rebuild the primary structures that allowed Qi to flow through the body.

In this phase, the bond between body and dantian would increase tremendously, and as a result, one’s use of Qi would reach entirely new levels, allowing the execution of more advanced and powerful techniques, as well as unleashing much greater spiritual strength.

Everything would receive an enormous boost.

After this came the two final stages of the mortal rank:

the fourth stage (Core Formation), where continuous condensation of Qi would lead to its final crystallization, creating an internal layer, the goldencore, powerful and efficient enough to withstand the fifth stage ( Nascent Soul ).

In this stage, a cultivator had to create an independent spiritual consciousness.

A person with strong mental power could form a small spiritual consciousness even before reaching the fifth stage, but for most cultivators, this process happened in that stage, where the consciousness would take shape, raising one’s cultivation to entirely new levels.

This consciousness would be tied to the golden core, which would ensure its survival.

If a cultivator received a mortal wound great enough to shatter their consciousness and kill them, they could rely on their spiritual consciousness within the golden core to survive and prevent their existence from being erased.

As for how to recover from such a state and how to use it in greater depth, that was a question for the future, but for now, none of that mattered.

What mattered was that Zhu Rong had accumulated enough Qi in the past weeks, refining and raising the level of his cores to the peak of the second stage, basically a step away from the third.

Now, the third stage was only a matter of time, he just had to keep cultivating and gathering enough Qi to enter it successfully and finally begin the process of refining the condensed Qi in his dantian, as well as all the channels through which Qi flowed in his body.

According to him, with his current gathering speed, it would take from a week to a month to break through successfully, and if he had the help of high grade spirit stones or objects with great spiritual power, perhaps even less.

His plan was to secure several such materials after his trip to the mine and prepare to break through.

But who could have imagined that merely absorbing a tiny trace of that Red Mist would make him break through almost instantly?

And as if that weren’t enough, the amount of Qi needed to start his first Qi refinement was already there, the only thing left was to get to work and refine it.

He was currently in the cultivation room. The aura here was slightly denser than before, making the view of the surroundings a little blurred.

His expression was visibly more surprised as he felt the powerful aura his body was emanating right now.

’Holy cat, I went straight into the third stage with just that?’ He was shocked, to say the least.

He knew that the mist had a strong vitality within it, powerful enough to heal him with just a tiny trace of it.

Who could have imagined it was also composed of an enormous amount of condensed Qi?

The Qi within it was so pure and condensed that even the tiniest, almost negligible trace of it had been more than enough to directly push him into the third stage, and still leave him with a huge amount of condensed Qi to refine, enough to last for a long time.

By his initial estimates, with what he already had, he could comfortably reach the mid stage of the third stage, and that realization struck him even more.

It was known that the amount of Qi condensed and refined during this entire stage was by no means small, yet here he was, basically a step away from the mid phase already, thanks to that tiny trace of red mist he had absorbed.

He knew that trace was extremely small, yet it contained so much Qi?

Then how much Qi did the entire Red Mist contain altogether?

Where in the world had something like this come from?

He was sure that even if one took a cultivator at the peak of the fifth stage and compressed all the Qi they had cultivated over a lifetime, it still wouldn’t amount to what this Red mist could hold.

He began speculating about the origin of this mist, and in doing so, also found an explanation for the strong vitality present within it.

In his opinion, this quantity of Qi could only be present in a being that had surpassed the mortal realm and entered the spirit realm. And as soon as he thought that, an image of a certain enormous red cocoon appeared in his mind.

’That thing managed to reach the peak of the spirit realm thanks to the nourishment of that blood pearl, then wouldn’t that mean...’ He shivered at the very thought of what came to mind.

If that beast had managed to reach the spirit rank thanks to that pearl, didn’t that mean that the amount of condensed Qi in the red mist could be enough to bring any cultivator to that level of cultivation?