Chapter 24
Baek-Cheong’s daily routine consisted of Cultivation and Nameless Forum Connection.
For nearly a month, she endured the painful task of Expelling Turbid Qi, dedicating two gak to it every single day.
The waste that initially poured out reeking of an open sewer gradually decreased in volume as time passed.
Lately, only a faint trace of waste was expelled minutely, and the pain she used to feel during the process of washing her meridians had changed into a pleasant ache.
“Hnnng! There’s no turbid qi left to come out even if I squeeze.”
Baek-Cheong lightly loosened up her body and stretched.
Her physical body, with the impurities washed away from its bones and muscles, had become noticeably firmer and more flexible.
The Purity of Spiritual Energy accumulating in her Dantian was also incomparably clearer than before.
Her body was the first to prove that the tedious task of solidifying her realm had been successfully completed.
“It’s finally time to level up.”
Having sufficiently solidified her foundation, she realized it was now time to pour spiritual energy into her Dantian to leap to 4th-Stage Qi Condensation.
This time, there was no need to deceive her father and sneak into the Cultivation room.
For his genius daughter who had stepped onto the threshold of Five Elements Unification, her father generously provided the Clan’s resources.
On the table sat a jade bottle and a jade box that her father had personally prepared.
Inside the jade bottle were Top-grade Spirit Gathering Pills to fill her Dantian, and inside the jade box, a Top-grade Realm-Breaking Pill - a secret weapon for smashing the Barrier of a minor realm - emitted a brilliant light.
“With a Realm-Breaking Pill, breaking through a minor realm is a piece of cake.”
Baek-Cheong gathered her reliable reinforcements and confidently headed to the Back Mountain.
The Cultivation room her father had officially permitted her to use was the same C-grade Cultivation room as last time.
It was his judgment as the Clan Head that the Spiritual Qi Density of an A-grade or B-grade Cultivation room would be too overwhelming for a Qi Condensation Cultivator to handle, and could instead strain the cultivator’s meridians.
“Grandfather Jin!”
Baek-Cheong greeted elder Jin brightly at the entrance and held out her jade plaque.
Elder Jin laughed heartily and opened the Barrier of the Cultivation room.
“Right, don’t overdo it.”
Entering the C-grade Cultivation room for the second time, Baek-Cheong took her Seat on the Jade Flat Platform.
The Dense Spiritual Energy hovering around her swept refreshingly through her lungs.
Without delay, she opened the jade bottle and tossed a Top-grade Spirit Gathering Pill into her mouth.
The medicinal pill traveled down her esophagus, stirring up a massive vortex of spiritual energy.
At the same time, the Spirit Gathering Formation activated intensely, beginning the Infusion of external spiritual energy into her Dantian.
“Heup.”
Her meridians expanded from the abnormal surge of spiritual energy, bringing a tingling pain.
However, thanks to steadily Expelling Turbid Qi and increasing her Meridian Elasticity over the past month, she didn’t feel the extreme sensation of her blood vessels seemingly tearing apart like last time.
“I have to control the Five Elements.”
Baek-Cheong spread out her massive Divine Sense of eleven jang and gently suppressed the rampaging spiritual energy into the Orbit of Five Elements Mutual Generation.
Water, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal.
The five types of qi circulated harmoniously, compressing the pouring spiritual energy into high-purity spiritual energy and stacking it neatly in her Dantian.
* * *
Two days passed in the blink of an eye.
Baek-Cheong’s massive Dantian was finally filled to the brim with spiritual energy without a single gap.
The sloshing Spiritual Energy Level rose right up to her chin, providing a psychological sense of satiety.
“If I just break the wall, it’s 4th-stage now…”
Baek-Cheong closed her eyes and examined the state of her Dantian.
The Barrier of the 4th-stage is transitioning out of the Early Qi Condensation Stage and entering the middle stage.
The wall known as a minor realm boasted a sturdiness on a completely different level from the barriers of the 2nd and 3rd stages she had experienced before.
For an ordinary Cultivator, swallowing a Realm-Breaking Pill here to crack the closed Barrier was the standard procedure.
However, Baek-Cheong did not readily reach for the Realm-Breaking Pill in the jade box.
“They say if you break through by eating a Realm-Breaking Pill, pill toxicity builds up and ruins you later.”
The knowledge from the Xianxia Novels she had read countless times in her past life held Baek-Cheong back.
It was a romantic yet cruel tale where only those who smashed the Barrier and broke through under their own power could reach higher realms in the future.
“Should I just ram into it?”
Relying on a Realm-Breaking Pill would cause impurities to accumulate in the meridians and drop the purity of one’s true qi.
The story that one would eventually hit a limit in growth shared Consistency with the common sense of the Cultivation World.
The minute accumulation of pill toxicity was an unavoidable side effect, even if it was a Top-grade Medicinal Pill.
In a situation where she was painstakingly overcoming the disadvantageous condition of Five Spiritual Roots through Five Elements Mutual Generation and Spiritual Root Growth, there was no reason to willingly harbor the trace of pill toxicity.
“Whatever, I’ll just try a Self-powered Breakthrough.”
Baek-Cheong ambitiously resolved to attempt a Self-powered Breakthrough.
The method she had used when breaking through to the 3rd Stage Qi Condensation last time.
It was a method of condensing the qi of the other attributes around the Earth-attribute Qi to crush the Barrier with overwhelming weight.
She formed an Earth Elemental Sphere in the center of her Dantian and spiraled the qi of Water, Wood, Fire, and Metal around it.
She squeezed her eleven jang of Divine Sense to the limit to increase the sphere’s density.
“Hnnngh!”
As the Five Elements Qi clumped together, an immense repulsive force struck her entire body.
Veins popping on her forehead, she forcefully slammed the compressed sphere into the Barrier of the 4th-stage.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
It felt as if loud roars were continuously ringing out inside her Dantian.
However, the Barrier of the minor realm only trembled slightly; it didn’t even sustain a scratch.
It was practically on the level of striking a boulder with an egg.
“Why won’t it break!”
Baek-Cheong repeated the compression and striking over and over, her stubbornness triggered.
Her lips cracked and bled, and a pain like her meridians tearing apart washed over her, but the Barrier remained unyielding.
After dozens of attempts, the condensed sphere of the Five Elements reached its limit, shattering into pieces and scattering.
The recoil caused internal injuries, and Baek-Cheong coughed up a mouthful of blood.
“Huu… This is just too much.”
Breathing heavily, Baek-Cheong collapsed onto the Jade Flat Platform.
Her dream of a Self-powered Breakthrough ended in a miserable failure.
The novel protagonists she had read about in her past life would blast through walls with a single shout, but the barriers of the Cultivation World were not so easy in reality.
“So this is why everyone buys and eats Realm-Breaking Pills.”
Baek-Cheong accepted reality readily.
Romance or whatever, if she couldn’t break the wall right now, she would be stuck at 3rd Stage Qi Condensation for the rest of her life.
Without lingering attachment, she opened the jade box and picked up the Top-grade Realm-Breaking Pill.
“Everything is for the sake of foruming…!”
She tossed the medicinal pill, which glowed with a brilliant light, into her mouth and swallowed it with a gulp.
The moment the Realm-Breaking Pill traveled down her esophagus.
It felt as if a powerful flame flared up in her Dantian.
The qi of the medicinal pill transformed into a sharp spear and ruthlessly charged toward the Barrier of the 4th-stage.
CLAAANG!
A spine-chilling friction sound, like metal being scraped, seemed to fill her Dantian.
However, despite the fierce onslaught of the Top-grade Realm-Breaking Pill, the Barrier of the minor realm did not easily crumble.
Cobweb-like cracks merely formed on the surface of the Barrier; the power was insufficient to completely shatter it.
‘It won’t break even with a Top-grade Realm-Breaking Pill?’
Baek-Cheong couldn’t hide her astonishment at the absurd Barrier.
Because her Dantian had grown abnormally large due to Five Elements Mutual Generation, it seemed the thickness of the Barrier was also dozens of times that of ordinary Cultivators.
The qi of the Realm-Breaking Pill gradually faded, putting her in danger of the breakthrough ending in failure.
‘I can’t let it end like this.’
Racing against time, Baek-Cheong urgently racked her brain.
She had to settle this before the qi of the Realm-Breaking Pill completely dissipated.
A flashing idea suddenly came to mind.
She had experienced the sensation of Five Elements Unification after listening to her grandfather’s insights in the Supreme Clan Head’s Hall.
Although she had failed due to her insufficient realm, the momentary enlightenment of trying to fuse the five energies into one remained vivid in her mind.
“Even if a complete unification is impossible, I should be able to at least imitate it.”
Baek-Cheong scraped together all eleven jang of her Divine Sense and forcibly bound the Five Elements Qi in her Dantian.
The five streams of qi were forcibly clumped together, forming an unstable, achromatic sphere.
It was a state of Quasi-Unification, falling far short of perfect Five Elements Unification.
“Before it scatters…!”
Baek-Cheong hurled the Quasi-Unification Sphere at full speed toward the cracks in the Barrier that the Realm-Breaking Pill’s qi had scratched out.
As the Quasi-Unification Sphere collided with the Barrier, the Five Elements Qi triggered a chain reaction.
With the qi of the Realm-Breaking Pill adding its strength, the Barrier of the minor realm couldn’t hold out and finally shattered into pieces, crumbling down.
Like a blocked dam bursting, a massive tsunami of spiritual energy poured into the new Territory of 4th-Stage Qi Condensation.
The meridians throughout her body expanded, and the euphoria of Marrow Cleansing and Bone Transformation swirled through her entire body.
“I broke through!”
Baek-Cheong cheered with a mouth that had become bloody from coughing up blood.
But her joy was short-lived; her face stiffened as she naturally became aware of the state of her Dantian.
Upon reaching 4th-Stage Qi Condensation, the size of her Dantian had grown to double what it was before.
The problem was that this wide Dantian was completely empty.
Because she had poured all her qi into the breakthrough, not even a single sloshing drop of spiritual energy remained in her Dantian.
“When am I going to fill all this up again…”
Baek-Cheong let out a Hollow Laugh at the daunting reality.
Furthermore, a terrible stench that pierced the tip of her nose began to permeate the air.
Despite having expelled turbid qi numerous times while solidifying her realm, a bucketload of waste that had been hiding deep inside her body poured out while breaking through the minor realm.
The waste soaked the Jade Flat Platform and her silk clothes, dripping down onto the floor of the Training Room.
“Ugh, this smell is seriously…”
Suppressing her nausea, Baek-Cheong hurriedly stood up from her Seat.
She felt like she wouldn’t be able to bear the embarrassment if she ran into people looking like this.
As if fleeing, she opened the door to the Training Room and darted out of the Back Mountain like an arrow.