by Gore, A. P.
Li Wei stared at the Soul Stone flying toward the Purple Soul Spear without blinking. Once the Soul Stone reached the purple spear, his life might end. That was the trigger for the spirit artifact, and it should have a profound spell ready to be cast.
This was it. Most probably he wouldn’t survive this.
Only now, at the last moment of his life, did he realize his biggest mistake in this new life: He was too cocky for his own good.
Knowing the future did nothing for him but put him in more danger. He should have learned life-saving martial skills when he’d had time. He’d only wanted to learn the best of the best, but it’d never occurred to him that being choosey could result in his death. He’d wanted to learn the Basic Movement Art, so he’d neglected the other movement arts he knew of like the Three Step Movement Art, Windstep Movement Art, and so on. They were trash, but trash was better than nothing.
With emotionless eyes, he watched the Soul Stone strike the purple spear.
The Purple Soul Spear changed, sucking in all the pressure it had been exuding, then threw a purple beam out toward him. His heart pounded out danger, and his survival instincts screamed at him to run, but he stayed there, frozen in place.
There was no way out of this situation. He had nothing he could depend on. The bitter taste of helplessness spread through his mouth as the purple beam closed on him.
Then something stirred around his chest, and a new world opened to him.
System: Connection reestablished with Primordial Blood Palace. New information detected.
Downloading new information.
Primordial Blood Palace
Quality: Unknown.
Bound to host.
Information Unknown. It can be evolved using essence blood from a beast.
Usage:
Blood Storage (Current capacity: 0%): Host’s blood can be stored to convert it into blood qi. Requires 80% of the host’s blood every seven days.
Blood Boost: It can inject a wisp of blood qi to increase host’s cultivation by two layers. Requires 40% of stored blood. Usage: 1 time per 7 days.
Blood Absorption: It can absorb beast blood and store one innate ability that can be used by the host.
Innate ability stored:
Gravity Field (Usage: 3): Allows the user to manipulate gravity in a ten-foot area around the host’s body for four minutes.
What the heck! This was the divine ability from the Seven-Tailed Fox he had already gained, but he couldn’t practice it before he reached the Houtian Realm. This pendant was like his Blood Essence Body. It absorbed the Seven-Tailed Fox’s blood essence and allowed him to execute an innate ability belonged to the Seven-Tailed Fox.
What else could he ask for?
“Gravity Field.”
A strange current passed through his body, entering the rocky ground.
The world in a ten-foot radius around him changed instantly. Colors sprouted from the ground, and he could distinguish brown threaded through them. The color of gravity. He owned the surrounding area. Everything became clear. Clearer than his divine sense. With a thought, he could change the colors and manipulate everything around him. If he wished, one speck of dust could weigh as much as a mountain—or nothing at all.
That’s it. He only had to make his body weightless and float.
No, stupid, he had to manipulate the gravity so he could fly.
With a thought, he reduced the gravity pressure on his body, and the next moment he was floating.
And then he crashed face-first into ground. Damn, this was hard. No one could fly without practice. That was stupid of him. Why the heck had he wanted to show off by flying? He could have run faster and saved his ass.
Anyway, his broken nose added little to his earlier injuries. He looked the same. Ugly.
Well, he had failed at flying, but that moment of floating had saved his life. The purple beam shot through the space he’d stood. Wei had a feeling that his Intent of Earth would improve after using this ability, as if he had gained some more information about the earth and gravity.
“Impossible. How did you—” The White Soul Panther shouted in shock and threw another Soul Stone toward the Purple Soul Spear.
Jumping to his feet, Wei took a running stance and then took off. This time he didn’t manipulate the gravity to go negative, instead reducing it to the point where he felt no physical pressure from the spear. He was beyond his peak speed in no time.
A thought flashed in his mind, and he pushed a thread of pure qi to his legs, encouraging his muscles to work faster. This was the principle behind the Basic Movement Art, and he was slowly grasping it.
Zap! His speed increased exponentially, and he shot forward like an arrow to intercept the Soul Stone.
However, he didn’t catch it with his hands. Instead, he used the cauldron from his storage ring that he had obtained from Alchemy Comprehension Tower because he wasn’t sure how the system would react if he touched another Soul Stone. The last time, he’d nearly lost his life.
“Give me back my last Soul Stone!” The White Soul Panther shouted in anger and almost took a step toward him.
Wei smirked. “Come if you have guts.” Slowly Wei adjusted gravity to let the pressure from the spear descend on his body once again. For starters, he’d come forward to use the pressure as a catalyst, and completing his advancement was important.
System: Second power source detected. Avoid touching it.
Current absorption rate for stored power source: 10% for every 10 days.
The system’s message confirmed his doubts. Touching this Soul Stone wouldn’t do him any good, so he stored both of them in his storage ring and then walked toward the Mother Fox who sprawled on the ground like a half-dead beast. She wasn’t completely healed, and right now she was in dire condition because of the spirit artifact’s effect.
“Senior, I’m sorry, but I have to throw you out of the Purple Soul Spear’s effect.” Picking her up, he threw her toward Sun Nuan. He had to be selfish here. He only had five minutes use of this divine ability, and he had to complete his advancement.
Rumble!
His pure qi moved through the ninth qi revolution and entered the most crucial revolution of his life. This one would define if he made it out or not.
Chapter 68
Qi Foundation Realm
Like a dam bursting, pure qi surged through Li Wei’s qi path.
Gasping, Wei sat heavily. This was the crucial moment, and he had to focus on his breakthrough. Closing his eyes, he diverted his attention to his internal body, forgetting everything going outside. This was his safest position, and he had to take this chance. The White Soul Panther wasn’t someone he could take on, but that beast was afraid of the Purple Soul Spear, so sitting next to it was his best chance to break through in this predicament.
As long as he could complete the tenth qi revolution in the next four minutes.
Wei focused his senses on the new qi channels he had to open. The tenth revolution was equal to qi initiation. He had to forge a new qi path for his Foundation Realm cultivation. But before that, he had to move his qi through the old qi path. This was so much different from the metal qi cultivation art he’d practiced in his previous life. Every qi cultivation art was different. Some used the same qi path for all realms while others used a new path for every realm. His Five Elemental Way Qi Cultivation Art was one of the weird ones out there. For example, he only needed to complete nine consecutive revolutions to reach the peak of the Refinement Realm, but in the Foundation Realm he would build a qi lotus with a stem and nine petals.
He wasn’t sure how much pure qi would be required to build the stem of the lotus, but since he had abundant pure qi right now, he should be okay.
Right now, he was discovering the correct qi channels to form the new qi path. He missed his divine sense. Without it, he searched in dark to find the correct qi channel. The human body had five viscera and multiple small organs, muscles, and so forth, and every different thing h
ad at least two qi channels, so locating the correct one mentioned in the cultivation art proved difficult. If he had his divine sense, he could map out his qi channels and form an optimal qi path.
Sighing inwardly, he slowly directed pure qi through the required qi channels, clearing impurities as he moved forward. A couple of times, he almost used the wrong qi channel, but his intuition and feedback from his body brought him to the correct path. Clearing qi channels wasn’t an easy job. It required patience and brute force. Fortunately, he had enough brute force from surging pure qi to smash through impurities and clear the qi channels.
After clearing twenty-five percent of the new qi path, a surging power passed through his body. It was much fiercer than what he’d felt in the Refinement Realm.
His lips curled into a smile. This was a sign of breaking into the Foundation Realm. Power through the muscles.
The Foundation Realm was the first step into the true cultivation world, and this was one of the hardest steps before breaking into the Houtian Realm. The Refinement Realm only allowed a cultivator to feel a drizzle of qi. A Refinement Realm cultivator could only cultivate pure qi, but pure qi was useful only in some scenarios.
One could taste the real power only after stepping into the Foundation Realm. That’s when a person would begin to grasp a principle called Qi Intimacy. One could even measure their Qi Intimacy, and the higher the grade the better prospects that person would have in the future. Qi Intimacy also determined cultivation speed, the speed of learning martial skills with the same attribute as one’s Spirit Root, and so many other things. For example, a person with a higher grade of Qi Intimacy in wood qi would be treated as a prodigy in alchemy sects. Qi Intimacy depended on the Spirit Root grade of a person, but one could increase it by eating special pills or herbs. Albeit to a limited degree.
Wei had an attributeless Spirit Root, so he wasn’t sure what his Qi Intimacy grade would be. He only knew that the Foundation Realm of the Five Elemental Way allowed him to practice wood qi. Soon he would have to focus on forming a wood qi lotus in his dantian. How, he didn’t know yet.
The feeling of power surging through his body only increased, and after three minutes he’d cleared ninety percent of his new qi path. Now only liver qi channel clearing remained, and he could sense the biggest qi channel stopping his progress like a stone gate.
A sharp pain coming from his liver broke his thought chain. He was clearing his liver qi channel, but he struggled with the raging pure qi he had in his dantian. It felt like something had exploded inside his liver, and it burned him from the inside. It was excruciating.
Fortunately, pain wasn’t new to him. Every other day he bled practically to death, so he endured and pushed with all his might, brute forcing his way through half of the impurities.
However, a strange feeling grasped his heart that something was wrong. Why was his liver acting like an immovable giant?
Damn, why was it so difficult to clear a single qi channel? He hadn’t felt it when he’d cleared his heart qi channel a few breaths ago.
With all his might, he pushed more waves of pure qi into his liver qi channel and tried to break the wall that prevented him from finishing the task.
“Stupid kid, you’re courting your death.” A voice popped into his mind, startling him.
“Xue Qi, what do you want?”
“Where’s your manners, stupid kid? Did you forget I saved your ass from the tower, and even got you into Ten Beast Valley?”
Wei snorted inwardly. “Before that, you betrayed me by not telling me about someone tailing me. I would have been better off if you’d warned me about the surprise attack.” Anger boiled inside his stomach, and he almost lost his focus.
“That . . . It was my fault, and I apologize for that. I realized it at the very last moment. That man must have been using a talisman to conceal his presence from me.”
Her apology bewildered Wei. It was something new from a feisty girl like her. But there was sincerity in her voice, and he had the sudden urge to trust her.
No, he would not trust her just like that.
“I don’t know how you can access your primary qi channel, but you shouldn’t be doing that.”
“What’s wrong with it? I just cleared my heart qi channel,” Wei asked, frowning.
“No, that was an auxiliary qi channel. You’re not supposed to gain access to your primary qi channels until you reach the Houtian Realm.”
A thought struck Wei’s mind like a thunder strike. She was right. Even in his previous cultivation art this was mentioned, but he’d never focused on a qi cultivation art, so he’d never paid attention to it. His knowledge of qi cultivation arts remained at the bare minimum level.
“My cultivation method is special,” he said, avoiding mentioning the name. “It’s mentioned in it to use the primary qi channel.”
“Strange. If you found your primary qi channel, you might be right. But does it mention to clear the primary qi channel while breaking through?”
Wei pondered for a moment, recalling everything in his mind. “No. There’s only the qi path given for the peak of the Foundation Realm.”
“Kid, I’ll give you an important lesson in cultivation. Never, ever start with the primary qi channel before clearing all auxiliary qi channels. If you do that, the primary qi channel will grow and destroy all auxiliary qi channels surrounding it. That’s why every qi cultivation method only allows one to clear it after reaching the Houtian Realm.”
That made sense. Qi channels were like blood vessels, and each one had an important role in the human body.
“So, clear one of the auxiliary qi channels first, and then at the peak of the Foundation Realm, attack the primary qi channel. But you have to clear the other auxiliary qi channels first.”
Wei pondered this suggestion. It seemed right. The Five Elemental Way Qi Cultivation Art provided a qi path diagram with the main qi channel of heart, but it didn’t give him information about the qi path in the initial layers of the Foundation Realm.
“Don’t worry, kid. Many cultivation arts use more than one qi channel of the same organ in one single realm. Give it a try. You should find out fast if it’s the wrong strategy.”
She was right.
Wei changed his thought process and directed his pure qi to the nearest small qi channel of liver and . . . boom. As easily as taking a breath, he pushed through the small qi channel and didn’t feel any sense of it being wrong.
Boom!
An explosive sound permeated his body as he stepped into layer one of the qi Foundation Realm, and the next moment his Gravity Field effect ended and the pressure from the Purple Soul Spear descended on him like an avalanche.
Chapter 69
Wood qi lotus
System: Information interface detected. Downloading information on Five Elemental Weapon Art.
What an awesome feeling. It was like heavenly maidens dropping flowers on him from a high archway. Stepping into the Foundation Realm was that awesome. And it was even more awesome when he felt the remaining pure qi from the Dantian Strengthening Fruit moving through his new qi path and being converting into wood qi. Before he knew it, he had reached layer one of the qi Foundation Realm. Too bad there was no Immortal Endowment in the Foundation Realm, or it would have felt more awesome.
However, a stabbing pain soon shot through his body, and the strange sensation he had obtained after casting Gravity Field vanished. A foul smell threatened to cause his nose to burst into flames.
It was so painful that he totally forgot checking the new skill he got.
Crap!
The Gravity Field effect was gone, and now the full effect of the Purple Soul Spear descended on him from all sides, and he couldn’t restrain himself from spitting out a mouthful of blood. Another foul taste lingered in his mouth, and he had the urge to dive into an ocean to clean himself up.
But there wasn’t time for a bath. Jumping to his feet, he took off, running away from the spear. He’d been sit
ting ten feet from the spear, and now the pressure from it was crushing his blood vessels and soul.
Fortunately, running away wasn’t that hard.
System: Absorption rate decreased to 3% per 10 days. Host is recommended to stay in the Purple Soul Spear’s area of effect or move closer to it.
“Damn you!” He wanted to punch the system in its mouth. Was it trying to get him killed?
Ignoring the system, he pushed qi into his legs to strengthen them. Surprisingly, his pure qi moved through his meridians into with no restraint. It was much easier than the last time he’d tried it. Now that he thought about it, running away from the spear had become easier too.
While he ran across the rocky terrain, he felt weird. Weird because when the Gravity Field ended, he’d been sitting ten feet away from the spear, and that should have crushed him into pieces. When he was in layer nine of the qi Refinement Realm, he couldn’t take a single step in a twenty-foot radius of the spear. Even standing at a twenty-foot radius had made his internal organs churn in agony. One more step, and he knew the pressure would have crushed him.
Then how could he feel nothing when he sat ten feet away after the Gravity Field effect ended?
Was it because of his breakthrough into the qi Foundation Realm? Impossible. Sure, the Foundation Realm brought qualitative changes to a cultivator’s body, but one wouldn’t become invincible. The real change only happened when one crossed through the Houtian Realm’s barrier.
There was something else. Something else that gave him a warm sensation whenever his feet touched the ground.
Intent of Earth. It was Intent of Earth that’d had a qualitative leap, and he could sense the pressure lowering as he moved farther away from the spear.
Halting twenty feet away, Wei closed his eyes and sensed the pressure coming from the spear.
The soul pressure was same, but the physical pressure had been reduced three times. When he tried to figure out why, he realized his body had a faint earthly glow around it, acting as a shield, negating the pressure that fell on him. Even stranger, it had a familiar aura attached to it.
