Once Andy completed the first layer of his cultivation and advanced to the second layer of Qi Refinement, he immediately went to the Children's Pavilion to find white-bearded Jian Shi. After confirming that Andy had indeed reached the second layer, the old man handed him a small black glazed bottle, his face carrying a trace of both disdain and regret.
This pill really does wonders for early-stage cultivators—what a waste, handing it to a Five-Element Spirit Root washout like him, Jian Shi thought to himself. He didn't say anything quite so harsh to Andy's face, however; he simply gave a brief explanation of the pill's effects and how to take it, then dismissed him without even giving Andy a chance to ask about his cultivation progress. Andy didn't dare press the matter. He took the small bottle and returned to his private meditation chamber.
He pulled out the wooden stopper and tipped the bottle over his palm. A round, semi-transparent pill, roughly half a cun across and tinged with shades of blue and yellow, dropped into his hand. A faint, fresh medicinal fragrance immediately drifted up to his nose, and at just that one whiff, his entire mind felt invigorated. So this is the legendary Spirit Gathering Pill? Quite extraordinary—just the smell alone is this pleasant. Andy sat down to meditate, drew three deep breaths, and once his mind had settled, swallowed the pill whole.
A moment later, he felt an intense surge of spiritual energy welling up in his belly, and he knew the pill had taken effect. He immediately began circulating his cultivation technique, guiding this powerful energy through cycle after cycle around his body according to Jian Shi's instructions, until after eighty-one full Minor Cycles, the energy had at last entirely settled into his dantian. Just from sitting and meditating with one pill, my cultivation jumped this much! Andy discovered with delight that his realm had advanced by a substantial margin.
If I could take one of these every few days, I wouldn't have needed a whole year to reach the second layer—a month would've been plenty! he thought further. With enough of this medicine, breaking through to the third layer in half a year would be nothing at all. Unfortunately, Andy had also heard just how precious a resource pills and elixirs were in the cultivation world—there was no way such a supply could be unlimited. Even the Spirit Gathering Pill, which could only boost early-stage practitioners, was rationed by the Nanhua Jian Clan to just one pill per person every six months. Once a cultivator reached the third layer of Qi Refinement, they received one every two months; at the fourth layer, one every month. For cultivators at the fifth layer and above, the Spirit Gathering Pill could no longer accomplish much, and they would need to seek out far more precious and effective mid- and high-grade elixirs instead.
Cultivators looking to speed up their cultivation, aside from relying on an excellent spirit root, had essentially only two external factors at their disposal. The first was finding a good spirit vein—a location where the density of spiritual energy was especially high.
Spiritual energy was not evenly distributed across heaven and earth; some places were thick with it, others thin. Places with large populations tended to have thin spiritual energy, such as the towns and cities where mortals lived, which was why so few cultivators were willing to set foot in the mortal world. More often, it was treacherous, inhospitable terrain that carried denser spiritual energy, forming spirit veins of various sizes. Depending on the density of spiritual energy they contained, spirit veins could further be classified as low-grade, mid-grade, or high-grade. As one might expect, the exceptionally dense high-grade spirit veins were inevitably claimed by major cultivation sects and powers, while even the low-grade spirit veins had long since been divided up among smaller and mid-sized cultivation forces. The stretch of valley in the Nanhua Mountains held by the Nanhua Jian Clan was itself a low-grade spirit vein—its spiritual energy was far denser than that of ordinary mundane locations. Cultivating within a spirit vein meant absorbing spiritual energy of both far higher purity and far greater quantity than in an ordinary place, which was precisely why cultivators tended to stay holed up in secluded locations, rarely willing to wander far.
The second effective method for speeding up cultivation was consuming pills and elixirs meant to consolidate one's foundation and nourish one's vital essence—pills like the Spirit Gathering Pill. Such elixirs were extracted and refined through complex methods from rare, aged herbs and spirit woods. Not only were the raw materials extraordinarily precious, but the success rate of refining them was extremely low. Take the Spirit Gathering Pill itself: it required three types of spirit herbs at least ten years old, refined together through repeated tempering over a full day and night. For a novice without much practice, the success rate would never exceed one in ten; even for a seasoned alchemist who had refined the pill hundreds of times, the success rate still wouldn't surpass half. And this was the easiest, lowest-grade pill suited to early Qi Refinement cultivators—higher-grade pills required materials many times more costly, with success rates low enough to be frightening.
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For this reason, the cost of alchemy was simply beyond what an ordinary cultivator could bear. Those skilled enough to reliably refine certain elixirs earned a correspondingly prestigious status—Alchemists. The odds of becoming an Alchemist purely through one's own efforts were essentially nonexistent; every Alchemist had the full backing of a sect or clan behind them, providing a steady stream of raw materials to allow them to accumulate experience. The Jian clan had one such Alchemist of its own, though he was only skilled enough to reliably produce a handful of early- and mid-grade Qi Refinement pills like the Spirit Gathering Pill—even so, his standing within the clan carried considerable weight. It was said that the cultivation world recognized four highly coveted professions, and Alchemist undoubtedly ranked first among them.
Once Andy had experienced firsthand the enormous benefits of taking pills, he threw himself into diligent daily practice while counting down the days until his next half-year allotment, eagerly awaiting his next Spirit Gathering Pill. Without the aid of pills, his own rate of cultivation could only be described as wretched.
Even with the Spirit Gathering Pill's help, it still took Andy another three full years before he broke through the second layer and advanced to the third layer of Qi Refinement. By that point, quite a few of the youths who had begun cultivating alongside him had already reached the fifth layer, putting them among the mid-stage Qi Refinement cultivators. There was even Jian Kun, a gifted youth with a Dual-Element Spirit Root, who had already reached the eighth layer—just one step away from joining the ranks of high-stage Qi Refinement cultivators—leaving Andy, still struggling at the early stages, far behind.
The most common topic of discussion among the Jian clan was always which youth had made remarkable progress or mastered some new technique with astonishing speed. Aside from these standout disciples, Andy was occasionally brought up as well—though usually accompanied by mocking words like "Wugen" and "washout." As for "Little Wugen," he had given up the path of cultivation entirely a year earlier and returned to the mortal world.
None of this mockery affected Andy in the slightest. He continued cultivating diligently, showing not the faintest sign of discouragement. With the mindset of a man in his twenties, he would never waste a moment of his time entertaining the taunts and jeers of the children around him.
Some time later, the Jian clan welcomed yet another wave of spirit-root-bearing infants. Among this latest batch, an exceedingly rare Mutated Spirit Root appeared—a Wind Spirit Root, possessed by an infant named Jian Yun. From the moment of his discovery, he drew enormous attention throughout the clan. The clan's higher-ups attended to him with the utmost care, even arranging for an elder at the late stage of Foundation Establishment to personally oversee his cultivation. Top-tier wind-attribute techniques were specially sought out for him, along with a constant stream of elixirs and pills—whatever Jian Yun could possibly use was provided without hesitation. In no time at all, his rate of cultivation became unprecedented, and he became the hottest topic of conversation throughout the clan.
None of this affected Andy's steadfast routine of seventeen or eighteen hours of meticulous cultivation each day. Even so, a piece of bad news soon reached him: the Grand Elder of the Jian clan announced that any cultivator who turned fifteen without reaching the fifth layer of Qi Refinement would no longer be permitted to remain within the Nanhua Valley to cultivate, and would have to leave to seek experience in the outside world—forbidden to return until they had reached at least the tenth layer of Qi Refinement.
Anyone with sense could see that this so-called "seeking experience" was nothing but a polite euphemism. A cultivator who couldn't even break into the fifth layer—whether due to genuinely poor aptitude, or, like Andy, a spirit root of such inferior quality—stood no real chance of ever reaching the tenth layer. In plain terms, it was simply a way of casting them out of the clan. After all, a cultivator of such low standing contributed precious little, and a clan's true strength always rested on the shoulders of its high-stage core disciples.