Four days had passed since the dust settled from the battle at Maple Valley.
The Quiet Chamber was utterly silent. Chu Fan sat cross-legged, his mind sinking into his Inner Mansion.
A faint light swirled within the Qi Sea in his Dantian. Though small, it had already taken shape.
The Primordial Qi suffusing it contained a power that far exceeded the First Heaven of the Spirit Awakening Realm.
The key to the Spirit Awakening Realm was the act of "opening."
First, one opened their Qi Sea, and then, they cleared their ridians.
To advance from the First Heaven to the Second Heaven, one had to use Primordial Qi like an axe and chisel to forcefully carve out eighteen pathways in the body, allowing the Primordial Qi to flow unimpeded.
This process was known as Washing Marrow and Rushing ridians. Its agony and difficulty were comparable to death by a thousand cuts, causing countless Martial Artists to pale at the re ntion of it.
Opening a single ridian took even the most talented of geniuses several days.
Regardless of success or failure, they would have to recuperate for many days before they could try again.
For Chu Fan, however, it was a completely different story.
’Condense!’
The instant the thought ford, the Primordial Qi in his Qi Sea responded, gathering and transforming into an intangible Engraving Knife, its sharpness concealed.
It shot directly toward the last three unopened ridians in his body.
The passage of the Primordial Qi should have brought tearing pain, but at this mont, Chu Fan’s Vajra Undying Body displayed astonishing resilience.
As the Engraving Knife struck the barriers of his ridians, he felt an increased sense of resistance as they were forced open, but the bone-piercing pain was so faint it was almost imperceptible.
All he felt was the exhaustion that ca after intense ntal strain, gradually washing over him.
The sixteenth.
The seventeenth.
The eighteenth...
Ti flowed silently in the Quiet Chamber.
His mind free of distractions, Chu Fan wielded the Engraving Knife with a brutal yet precise force, breaking through the blockages in his ridians one after another.
When the final ridian was completely cleared, the eighteen newly opened ridians began to resonate faintly inside his body, linking with his Qi Sea to form an even more intricate cycle.
The aura around him suddenly surged outward, then slowly receded.
"Haaaaah—"
Chu Fan let out a long breath and fell backward, landing spread-eagled on the floor. Beads of sweat as fine and nurous as stars dotted his temples.
ntal exhaustion washed over him like a tide.
[Cultivation: Spirit Awakening Realm, Second Heaven]
’Just like that... I’m at the Second Heaven?’
Chu Fan glanced at the panel, scarcely believing it himself.
All told, it had taken him just two and a half days to advance from the First Heaven of the Spirit Awakening Realm directly to the Second Heaven.
If word of such speed were to get out, it would probably shake the entire Cyan Yang Ancient City to its core.
The so-called geniuses who painstakingly followed the conventional cultivation path would be left utterly flabbergasted.
Chu Fan thought of the records in Master Cao’s booklet and then at his own progress, unable to stop a disbelieving laugh.
This was several tis easier than when he had broken through the five stages of Foundation Establishnt.
Even for the first of the five Foundation Establishnt stages, the Blood Nourishing Realm, it had taken him more than twenty days to break through, and that was while relying on the Map of Mountains and Rivers’s panel to accumulate vitality and blood.
According to common sense, every step after Mortal Transformation was supposed to be more difficult than the last.
The booklet from Master Cao had ntioned this difficulty as well.
So had failed countless tis just trying to open their Qi Sea for the Spirit Awakening Realm.
Others had spent several years just opening the eighteen ridians.
And yet, it had only taken him two and a half days...
During those two and a half days, he hadn’t encountered any great difficulties.
When his Primordial Qi ran out, he used Elixirs and Treasure Plants to replenish it.
The only real trouble was ntal fatigue.
From killing the Moon Worship Sect’s Believers, he had only acquired a single spirit-boosting Treasure Plant at the very beginning. After that, he never managed to get any more elixirs that could strengthen or restore his mind.
Thus, he could only resort to the crudest thod—sleep—to fight off the ntal fatigue.
In the end, his ability to break through to the Second Heaven of the Spirit Awakening Realm so easily relied on his Stunning Comprehension, the formidable physique of his Vajra Undying Body, and... the resources "delivered" by the Moon Worship Sect.
He had been on a killing spree, and the Elixirs and Treasure Plants he looted from the Moon Worship Sect’s experts had all beco fuel for his cultivation.
As a result, his foundation was far deeper than that of his peers, so it was only natural for him to break through.
Though Chu Fan desperately wanted to sleep, he only rested for a mont before sitting up.
He took a small vial from his robes and poured out a single elixir. It was the size of a longan, with clear stripes on its surface.
A Four-Stripe Essence Enhancing Pill...
In Cyan Yang Ancient City, such an elixir was priceless and virtually unobtainable. Even if the Four Great Clans pooled their resources, it’s unlikely they could produce even a few of them.
Chu Fan had looted this one from the corpse of a Divine Power Realm expert from the Moon Worship Sect.
Once ingested, the elixir transford into a pure, gentle stream of Spiritual chanism, rapidly refilling his nearly depleted Qi Sea.
At the sa ti, he also drew the extrely sparse Spiritual chanism from the surrounding world into his body.
In a little over an hour, his Qi Sea was full again. His Primordial Qi surged, now even more potent than it was before his breakthrough.
However, the recovery of his Qi Sea Primordial Qi was ultimately due to the Essence Enhancing Pill.
The sparse Spiritual chanism in the outside world was barely better than nothing.
A year or two of painstaking cultivation, relying solely on absorbing that ager amount of Spiritual chanism, wouldn’t compare to a single Essence Enhancing Pill.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK—
Just then, a knock sounded at the door.
Zhao Tianxing’s voice ca from outside. "Old Chu, it’s dawn. Ti to go."
Chu Fan opened his eyes and stood up. He shouldered a large, bulging black cloth sack that he had prepared beforehand and left by his bed.
’It really is ti to leave...’
The Cao and Li Families had sold off their assets to survive. This land, the site of the Seven Stars Gang Sub-Branch, now belonged to the Iron Armor Sect—the only one of the three major gangs left standing.
Soone from the Iron Armor Sect had co to recruit them yesterday, but both he and Zhao Tianxing had politely refused.
Since they weren’t mbers, it was inappropriate for them to stay here any longer.
The two had agreed that Chu Fan would return to his ancestral ho, and Zhao Tianxing would go to the Moon Arrow Martial Arts Hall.
Chu Fan had transcribed the Second Limit Break version of the "Moon Eclipse Arrow" for Tianxing. Since Tianxing also wanted to specialize in archery, he had been painstakingly practicing this brand-new technique recently.
Chu Fan’s ancestral ho was perfectly livable; it could house ten people, let alone two.
The only issue was that the house wasn’t suitable for archery practice.
Besides, with Cao Feng, Cao Yan, and Li Qingxue now guarding the main road to Dragon Ridge Mountain, there was no one left to teach Tianxing about Entering Force.
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