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Refining spiritual power was a repetitive, monotonous task. Yet, Chu Mingyao forced herself to do it again and again. Once, and then once more.
Slowly, the spiritual power in her dantian misted, then condensed from fog into droplets. Eventually, every trace of its gaseous form vanished, replaced by a pale golden liquid that filled her entire dantian. Only then did she finally cease the tedious tempering.
She could feel the Golden Core, submerged in that liquid spiritual power, swelling until it seemed it might shatter at any moment— the precursor to forming a Nascent Soul and ascending to the next realm. If she wished, she could seize this moment to break the core and complete her breakthrough immediately.
Instead, she restrained the urge.
The Golden Core within her dantian trembled for a long while, causing the liquid spiritual power to churn violently. The impact was so great that the barrier of her dantian throbbed with a dull, aching pain. Chu Mingyao grit her teeth and endured it in silence.
She still held the words of Perfected Zizhu close to her heart.
‘If you can even force it into a solid form, that would be best of all.’
Since Perfected Zizhu had given her that counsel, someone must have achieved it before— actually manifesting solidified spiritual power within the dantian before the birth of the Nascent Soul. If her predecessors could do it, why couldn’t she?
If she had simply blundered through the breakthrough in her own courtyard— her Divine Sense advancing to the Nascent Soul realm and her cultivation following suit— then so be it. But since the process had already been interrupted once, why not risk another delay in exchange for a superior foundation?
The sensation of the dantian barrier being struck moments ago had shaken her. Yet, as the turmoil subsided, she discovered with delight that the liquid spiritual power which once filled the cavity now occupied only ninety percent of the space. It hadn’t been consumed; rather, her dantian had expanded by nearly ten percent.
Upon closer inspection, she realized the dantian barrier had become even tougher.
The dantian was a cultivator’s most vital region. Its invisible barrier acted as both a hurdle and a shield. To expand it and store more power, a cultivator had to repeatedly scour the barrier to force it open. The tougher the barrier, the more difficult the task. However, in the event of an attack, that same toughness provided essential protection.
Admittedly, that protection was often of limited use. When a cultivator expanded their own dantian, they controlled their power like broad waves crashing against a surface. But when an enemy attacked, they usually employed a concentrated, point-based strike, making it far easier to pierce the barrier and cripple the dantian.
Even so, a stronger barrier was a defense nonetheless.
Chu Mingyao steadied her emotions and returned to the grueling cycle of absorbing, accumulating, and refining spiritual energy.
Even if she failed to condense a solid form, the act of filling her dantian with liquid power and forcibly suppressing the urge to break through was a reward in itself. By repeatedly straining the capacity of her dantian, she was effectively increasing her reserves. In the heat of sustained combat, such a surplus could become a life-saving trump card. Having been haunted by a nightmare of the inexplicable crises awaiting her, she now prioritized her survival above all else.
……
Time blurred into an indeterminate stretch of labor.
When Chu Mingyao finally withdrew from her meditative state to inspect her progress, she felt a flicker of regret. Her dantian had expanded, but it was now only fifty percent larger than its original size. On the surface of the Golden Core, submerged in its liquid sea, a single ring of solidified spiritual power had finally coalesced.
To her disappointment, forcibly suppressing the breakthrough no longer seemed to expand her dantian, and the reinforcement to its barrier had become negligible. That lone ring of solid power was the result of countless compressions, having consumed an enormous amount of time and external energy.
Chu Mingyao knew she had truly reached her limit.
After a brief rest to restore her mental state, she would begin the process of shattering the core to manifest her Nascent Soul. Compared to the long accumulation that preceded it, the breakthrough itself would be swift.
It did not take long for Chu Mingyao to reach her peak condition. She retrieved the top-grade Spirit Gathering Pills gifted by Perfected Zizhu from her storage ring, placing them within easy reach. At the critical juncture of a breakthrough, even the split second required to pull a pill from a storage ring could lead to a disastrous delay.
With her preparations complete, she performed one final inspection of the cave dwelling’s enchantments. She layered several more defensive arrays and a concealment formation over the existing ones before formally beginning. It wasn’t that she distrusted Perfected Zizhu’s sanctuary; rather, the lingering shadows of her nightmare had left her with a profound lack of security.
Even though she knew formations set at the Golden Core limit could never surpass the innate defenses of the cave, she needed those extra layers of protection just to feel a modicum of peace.
……
How many steps were truly required to ascend from the Golden Core to the Nascent Soul realm?
The answer was deceptively simple— two. First, one must saturate the body with spiritual power, absorbing energy until the pressure shatters the Golden Core. Second, at the instant of fragmentation, the cultivator must use their Divine Sense to seize that chaotic power and condense it into a Nascent Soul.
That was all.
The only complication for Chu Mingyao was the sheer solidity of her foundation. Her dantian had been expanded so extensively that the Nascent Soul she manifested was unusually large, meaning the spiritual energy required to sustain its birth was far greater than average.
A small vortex of spiritual energy centered on Di-grade Cave Dwelling Fifty-Three, its reach sweeping outward in all directions. This phenomenon immediately drew the attention of those nearby.
A brief investigation confirmed the source, but it only bred more confusion. Wasn’t the master of Cave Dwelling Fifty-Three Perfected Zizhu? And wasn’t he currently occupied at the Hall of Internal Affairs? To anyone’s knowledge, he had no personal disciples permitted to use his sanctuary.
Those with sufficient status sent direct voice transmissions to Perfected Zizhu to demand an explanation, while those without could only nurse their growing doubts. The most direct among them simply teleported to the Hall of Internal Affairs to confront him in person.
……
Inside the cave, Chu Mingyao remained oblivious to the stir she had caused. Inspecting her new Nascent Soul— already comparable in size to one at the late-stage— she felt a surge of gratitude for Perfected Zizhu’s generosity. Only a Di-grade cave dwelling, with its high-level spirit-gathering array fully active, could have fueled a breakthrough of this magnitude.
Had she settled for a Xuan-grade dwelling, she would have been forced to consume every pill in her storage ring the moment her Nascent Soul formed, and even then, it likely would not have sufficed. That wasn’t even counting the ten top-grade Spirit Gathering Pills Perfected Zizhu had provided.
As she tidied the remaining pills, she realized that while a lack of energy might not have caused her breakthrough to fail entirely, the quality of her Nascent Soul would have suffered. It would have been smaller, weaker, and might have even drained her very lifespan to compensate for the deficit. Thanks to Perfected Zizhu, her foundation was now peerless, smoothing the path for her future cultivation.
Chu Mingyao was just finishing her cleanup and preparing to dismantle her personal formations when a sudden sense of dread seized her heart.
A ripple distorted the cave’s built-in defensive arrays. Though the disturbance was smoothed out instantly by a counter-force— leaving the cave’s structures and her own additional formations untouched— the sheer implication of it shocked her.
Focusing her perception, she identified the owners of the two conflicting powers. The one who had triggered the cave’s defenses was her own master, Perfected Ziqiong. The one who had stabilized the ripple was Perfected Zizhu.
Chu Mingyao forced herself to take deep, steadying breaths, struggling to suppress the cold fear rising in her chest.
Fortunately, she had already completed her breakthrough. Fortunately, she was in Perfected Zizhu’s cave, and he was there to intervene. Had someone forcibly breached the formations while she was in the delicate part of breaking the Golden Core, would she have failed?
An interruption was a far graver threat than a simple lack of spiritual energy. A deficit of energy could be compensated for by burning one’s own lifespan. Given her youth and the longevity of a peak Golden Core cultivator, she could have fueled the entire breakthrough with her own vitality if the world around her had run dry. There were ways to recover those lost years later. At worst, a trek through the Jiujue Secret Realm would have sufficed to restore her.
But if the breakthrough were sabotaged at the critical moment, the resulting failure could leave her stranded at the peak of the Golden Core realm for decades.
By then, catching up to Chu Mingdong— who enjoyed the full backing of the sect master and the covert aid of Perfected Ziqiong— would be an impossibility. She might not even keep pace with the ordinary disciples of the sect. What use was superior combat prowess then? A gap in cultivation was an absolute wall.
A cold sweat broke out across her skin as a dark thought took hold. Was she truly Perfected Ziqiong’s disciple? Why did it feel as though she were being hunted by an enemy rather than guided by a master?
She had already finished packing, ready to return the cave dwelling’s jade token to Perfected Zizhu. Instead, she sank back down, crossing her legs once more.
She needed to settle her mind and stabilize her aura. Before she returned to the Hall of Internal Affairs, she had to be capable of maintaining a flawless facade in front of Perfected Ziqiong.
She had to— she absolutely had to.
Until the day she was powerful enough to defeat Perfected Ziqiong, she must pretend to be oblivious. She had to remain the same Chu Mingyao as before— the devoted disciple who looked upon her master with nothing but admiration.
Stronger. I must become stronger.
She needed to seize a power so absolute that her fate would be hers alone to command, ensuring she would never again be cornered and constrained as she was now.