Chapter 79: The Middle Stage of Qi Condensation (2)
Li Zongyuan worriedly looked at the door of the cultivation room. Twenty-six days had passed on by, but Xu Yangyi had still not appeared. The Fasting Capsules also should've been finished, no?
In the end, what was Master doing on the inside?
He paced back and forth somewhat jitterily at the door, and Zhang Gongchang took a newspaper into his hand and laughed: "Fellow Daoist, you need not be concerned. In my opinion, Fellow Daoist Xu is cultivating an arcane effort."
"Yes, last time he came out, although I carefully observed that Fellow Daoist Xu's appearance was unsightly, his spirit was not the least bit crestfallen. Of the people that cultivate, do any one of them emerge from seclusion with sterling appearances? Fellow Daoist, your uneasiness is unnecessary." Li Mu looked at his cell phone as he laughed.
"Fellow Daoist Xu is a smart, talented man." Wang Chunlai laughed as he consoled Li Zongyuan: "Fellow Daoist Li, indeed, you need not be too worried. If my guess isn't off, I'm afraid that we three altogether are not Fellow Daoist Xu's opponent. It's not a question that with this level of talent, he'll advance into the middle stage within a decade."
Li Zongyuan glanced somewhat impatiently at the several people. He wasn't to be nervous? His prime essence had the other's drop of blood in it! If something happened to Xu Yangyi, he would also meet with mishap ensuingly! Was it possible for him not be worried?! This was also the reason why Xu Yangi dared to set his mind at ease by boldly handing over matters to him to manage.
"Fellow Daoist Wang, you have such a feeling, as well?" Zhang Gongchang looked at Wang Chunlai in astonishment and then laughed wryly: "I thought I was only one that held such a feeling. When I saw Fellow Daoist Xu back then, my intuition was telling me that this person mustn't be provoked… but I didn't have nerve to say it…"
"What's there to be embarrassed about?" Li Mu sighed and set down his cell phone: "We've seen quite a few geniuses, as well. It's nothing more than fate making fools out of men. 80% of people are like us. There's nothing good to be found in blaming the heavens and faulting others."
"Yes…" Wang Chunlai drank his tea, nodding towards Li Zongyuan: "Fellow Daoist Li, if there's nothing else, I'm planning take my leave at the end of this month. There'll be a chance later to reconvene."
"Yes, good, splendid…" Li Zongyuan naturally agreed without reservation.
"While I don't know when we will see each other again, perhaps Fellow Doaist Xu's realm will already be at the middle stage…" Li Mu glanced at the door of the cultivation room a tad complicatedly and shook his head: "How about we make a bet? When will Fellow Daoist Xu advance to the middle stage?"
"Hehe, people who can advance a single minor boundary in twenty years or even thirty years are a dime a dozen. On average, Foundation Establishment takes over seventy years. How could it be so easy?" Wang Chunlai laughed despite this, yet carefully mused: "I think that he has the promise to break through the middle stage within five years."
"Too short." Zhang Gongchang shook his head: "He's just in his early twenties. Apart from that fiend Sunnihiliator that has been drawing qi into his body since he was ten, I've never heard of anyone else that was capable of accomplishing this. Till now, maybe he's been cultivating for seven or eight years. Five years ain't it, but neither is twelve… I bet eight!"
"Within eight years, Fellow Daoist Xu has the promise of advancing into the middle stage in a total of fifteen years!"
"Fifteen years…" Li Mu said somewhat enviously: "By then, he might be thirty-five or thirty-six as well… Such a golden age… Which clan wouldn't want to fight over him? Even if he isn't a core seedling, he's still a secondary core seedling. Unlike us, who still need to find this kind of fast money… I feel that in a total of fifteen years, Fellow Daoist Xu has the promise to charge into the middle stage, too."
No one was any the wiser that three years ago, Xu Yangyi had assailed the middle stage. If not for Chu Tianyi's flagrant interference back then, at this moment, he would've long ranked in the middle stage.
"I shall bear all of the Fellow Daoists' auspicious words." Li Zongyuan laughed dryly, yet his gaze deepened in worry. At this instant, everyone's gaze converged. Soon after, the four people looked towards the surrounding space in unison.
It wasn't known when, but motes of qi at the size of rice soundlessly emerged in their surroundings. They were very small, but… rather numerous!
In the last second, they had only just appeared, yet in the next, the motes that had solidified from nothingness progressively became more! They were densely swarming together!
The whole basement was different from the ocean of spiritual light of Xu Yangyi's last advancement. This time, it was even greater! The one prior was merely ten to twenty meters. This time… it was shockingly over fifty meters!
Motes of qi appeared to feel some beckoning, and they joyously bounced and spun, causing the surroundings of Li Zongyuan and the others to become a beautiful expanse too resplendent for the eye, a lovely scenery like that of the Milky Way Galaxy!
"Qi pours into the body…" Everyone silently stood up, and Li Mu observed the surrounding sea of spiritual light that caused him envy and said trilly: "Fellow Daoist Zhang… y-you're breaking through?"
"What fantasy are you going on about!" Zhang Gongchang's eyes were somewhat reddened. A breakthrough, right before him, someone was breaking through!
He had already cultivated for twenty-three years and to this day was at the initial stage of Qi Condensation. The shadow of the middle stage was left unseen. Every now and then, he had seen a couple fellow daoists assail the middle stage, and no matter who it was in the surroundings, they gave their congratulations. Yet now, there was someone unexpectedly before him breaking through to the middle stage!.
Wait a second… before him?
He thought back and everyone thought back. Immediately, followed by an orderly swishing sound, each person's gaze looked ardently at the tightly closed cultivation room. In the present scene, there was only one person with such a possibility!
"H-how can this be…" Li Mu's lips shivered faintly: "I shouldn't have been mistaken… H-he's just in his early twenties! How can he possibly break through now!"
A breakthrough was representative that the qi sea had already swelled. They had cultivated for over a dozen years, close to twenty, and had still only filled approximately three-fifths of it… The other had only cultivated for some odd years, yet they had even just he would advance within eight. Within a total cultivation time of five years to advance, there was hope for Foundation Establishment. But in the next second, Xu Yangyi was advancing right in front of them?!
The emotions of each person's eyes were filled with various complexities, yet not a person opened their mouths whatsoever. These were Xu Yangyi's silent words. Genius and talent could not be envied.
"Hehe…" Wang Chunlai laughed wrly all of a sudden as he said lowly: "Way back, I observed a fellow daoist's breakthrough. His sea of spiritual light was nore more than five meters… It's no wonder… no surprise that there's someone in the same stage that is more fearsome than us…"
"The larger the sea of spiritual light, the greater the benefits obtained after breakthrough… This purest qi of heaven and earth will serve to perfect the flesh of any cultivator that succeeds in advancement… causing their bodies to become more suited to cultivation and even further facilitate the harmony of qi…"
He spoke half way and continued no more.
To those who had cultivated for ten-odd or twenty-odd years, what was a more envious matter than the breakthrough of someone who had cultivated for an odd number of years below their eyelids?
No, no longer was this envy, it was unbearable! Presently, they simply wished to break into a dash and run. Yet hadn't they only come to earn a quick buck? This, what the hell was this! However, based on a cultivator's instinct, to esteem those who were strong, they simply found it difficult to move their legs.
"A sea of spiritual light of fifty meters…" Li Mu's mouth dried, yet he looked at the surrounding sea of spiritual light with obsession in his eyes: "I… have only read about this in books…"
Within the cultivation room, Xu Yangyi suddenly opened both of his eyes. It had come… It had arrived! That feeling of the surrounding qi coming to a sudden boil had come once again! He could even sense the surrounding qi was like the surface of water, happy and cheerful. This time, none would disturb him.
Without the slightest hesitation, he opened all of his pores, absorbing qi at full power! Immediately… the meridians of his whole body unexpectedly produced cracking noises, and an acute pain bubbled up to his head. He rigidly clenched his teeth, enduring.
His qi sea had continued to minutely expand. Later on, he learned it was in order to match up with the Eternal Alchemy Canon. Now, that the preliminary Wind Brandishes Traces had been completed, the first violent expansion was welcomed!
Outside the cultivation room, in the last second, the boundless white lights were only scurrying and jolting about, yet in the next second, it was as if they suddenly heard some command! In an instant, they strived to outdo each other in being first to throw themselves into the door of the cultivation room!
"As expected… it really is him!" If said they were still somewhat suspicious before, right now, Li Mu shrilly sat down, and Wang Chunlai and Zhang Gongchang looked on in amazement at the rushing tide of the ocean of qi on top of their heads, their feelings incomparably complex.
A genius? Was this a true genius? Cultivators like them who coalesced a sea of spiritual light of ten meters could brag for several decades. This was because the breakthrough of ordinary cultivators was difficult. However, going by over their heads right in front of them was a sea of spiritual light no less than fifty meters! It was resplendent and fragrant. Seemingly like the Milky Way on a summer night. Yet it didn't even glance at them, directly charging into that sealed door, gradually vanishing within.
"A genius… A true genius…" Wang Chunlai sighed in acceptance, staring fixedly at the door with an impassioned gaze. At the same time, in the countryside village, two people raised their heads simultaneously.
"The qi is fluctuating? No… Qi pours into the body?!" Originally sleepy, a proprietor of a kiosk was like a pincushion at this moment, suddenly jumping up from his position, not daring to believe as he looked towards a direction.
"There's actually someone in this little village breaking through?"
In a farm field, an old farmer sitting on a farming ridge looked to the sky in astonishment, his snow-white beard trembling in disarray: "How could it be… How could an amazing cultivator possibly come here? How is it possible someone is making a breakthrough?"
One more middle-stage Qi Condensation cultivator was different.The feeding grounds would have to be repartitioned; weren't they just a picture of happiness? How could a middle-stage cultivator even fancy this place anyways?
Xu Yangyi was simply unaware of all of this. He could only sense that his qi sea had transformed into a maelstrom filled with cosmic winds. His qi was like iron chains, undergoing a most fierce forging!*
It was the same as last time… yet also different! This was because he quickly discovered in his qi sea, the qi that had already been "forged" seemed to construct something! It was visibly indistinct and also nebulously imperceptible. It seemed like it was going to build another soul within his qi sea.
"Could this be a strange phenomenon of after cultivating the Eternal Alchemy Canon?" Nonetheless, he simply didn't have the effort to care about this because the qi of the outside world was madly rushing in. This time, he had drawn upon a sea of spiritual light not ten or twenty meters, but rather a full fifty meters!
Motes of spiritual light charged into his meridians, and he could feel his bones become more robust, his spiritual sense even sharper, and his flesh increasingly solid. As he clenched his fist, a kind of never before experienced feeling of power arose from within his body. If he was capable of breaking a ten-meter tall tree with a punch before, at the present, perhaps a fist was capable of striking a twenty-meter, massive hole in the ground!
Qi pours into the body!
He didn't slacken by a hair because this advancement was yet to meet its conclusion! His spiritual sense had already touched upon a faintly discernible barrier.
The bodily limiter!
If he broke through this seal, he would be at the middle stage of Qi Condensation!
"Break…" He inhaled deeply, his spiritual sense within his qi sea condensing with completely power, and he suddenly opened his eyes, roaring: "For me!!!"
T/N: I just want to make a quick note, since I'm actually confused about something myself. Readers may recall places such as Nantong Province and Mingshui Province, but the thing is, these places are actually provinces, but counties, part of a province. I'm unsure if the way it is written in Chinese is supposed to refer (and be taken as rather) "Nantong's province" and "Mingshui's province". I lack the depth to understand this. Mingshui County is actually part of Heilongjiang Province. Some people may recall that this is where the author of ISSTH/AWE hails from.
Also, I forgot to mention that the Four Joint Pools are a real place, but in real life, they are called the Five Great Joint Pools. I am unsure why the author makes it four versus five. Perhaps this is a term that cultivators use?
* Just a minor note I want to make here. The word "cosmic wind" is based off a chinese word that has two meanings. 1, it refers to a Daoist concept of a wind that immortals ride on to travel, and 2, very high stratospheric winds. Since this is a cultivation novel, I am going with option 1.