Chapter 162
Three months had already passed since she resolved to behave herself on the forum.
During that time, Baek Cheong held back her boiling urge to stir up trouble and lived quietly.
She went into the Nameless Forum and steadily wrote information posts about the characters she had deciphered.
She also never stopped studying the Jinmun Dao Diagram, wrestling with its obscure characters.
Of course, she never skipped her qi absorption, not even for a single day.
'At last, it's all filled up.'
Her dantian had been just over half full ever since she reached 9-star.
After three months of devoting herself to qi absorption, the dantian that had seemed as vast as the sea finally filled completely.
She took a Qi Condensation Breakthrough Pill out of her storage pouch and popped it into her mouth.
Then she stirred up sword intent and used a meteoric strike to hammer at the wall of her dantian.
'Smooth enough.'
The barrier at 10-star collapsed with ridiculous ease.
There were no real hurdles, nor any sign of her latent spirit roots being disturbed.
She had grown used to the breakthrough method of skipping quasi-unity and adding only sword intent to the Qi Condensation Breakthrough Pill.
Still, even the Qi Condensation Breakthrough Pills she had prepared were now all used up.
'Well, I don't need them anymore.'
Baek Cheong brushed it off and calmly examined her newly attained realm.
Along with her dantian doubling, her divine sense had grown as well.
But the increase was disappointing.
'Huh, it only grew by two zhang?'
Normally, every time her realm rose, her divine sense would shoot up by four zhang.
Yet this time, the divine sense that had been at eighteen zhang only rose to twenty.
If she looked for the reason, it was obvious.
Because she'd compressed her divine sense with the Divine Sense Compression Art, even the increase had come through in compressed form.
'That was even better.'
Baek Cheong smiled in satisfaction instead.
A smaller increase in divine sense meant less pressure on her vessel.
Sure enough, the headache from her bloated divine sense at 9-star didn't even show its face this time.
The effort she had spent clinging to the Divine Sense Compression Art and compressing her divine sense by half was paying off handsomely.
'This is why I prepared in advance.'
Since she no longer had to worry about headaches from advancing realms, her heart felt much lighter.
After gathering her divine sense, she looked around.
As usual after a breakthrough, marrow cleansing and body purification followed.
Impure waste was supposed to gush out of every pore by the basinful and dirty the bed.
Yet for some reason, hardly any waste came out this time.
'Why is there so little waste?'
Baek Cheong tilted her head as she looked down at her spotless body.
Besides, her Five Elements spirit roots seemed to be growing little by little as well.
She wondered if all the turbid qi that should have been drawn out from her mixed spirit roots had vanished.
'Still, clean is better.'
With less to clean up, there was no reason to dislike it.
Even so, it wasn't completely absent; a faint musty smell drifted from her skin.
She took out a Purification Talisman as usual and used it; the talisman gave off a faint light, and the smell and stickiness were wiped away completely.
'Maybe I should start preparing qi-condensation pills.'
Now that she had reached 10-star, the long-awaited qi condensation was not far off.
To break through to qi condensation, she needed to prepare the right pills in advance.
She did have some low-grade qi-condensation pills she had refined herself, but their efficacy wasn't very reliable.
If possible, she wanted to prepare with proper qi-condensation pills.
That meant there was only one place to turn.
She picked up the communication jade pendant again and sent word to her family.
She told them that she had reached Qi Condensation 10-Star.
'At this point, they would surely prepare things for her without a word.'
Before long, a familiar presence approached from outside the eastern quarters.
When she opened the eastern quarters door herself, her father entered with a pleased expression.
But his face carried a trace of worry along with his pride.
“Cheong-ah, isn't your rate of advancement a little too fast?”
Baek Mu-jin began cautiously, looking quietly down at his daughter.
If one advanced in realm without laying a proper foundation, trouble would come later.
As clan head, he couldn't be ignorant of that principle, so his worry seemed to come first.
Baek Cheong read her father's mind at once and shook her head.
“It's only faster because I gained enlightenment. I've never forcibly borrowed the power of pills. I just followed the natural order step by step using only the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, so don't worry.”
Relying on pills to force one's qi condensation upward would usually cause the foundation to crumble.
But she had raised her realm entirely by filling her dantian through qi absorption.
Since she'd never gone against the natural order, there was no need to worry about qi deviation.
At her calm answer, the shadow on her father's face slowly lifted.
“All right... if you say so, this father has nothing more to add.”
Baek Mu-jin nodded then.
He then took out a jade box and two jade slips from his robes and handed them to his daughter.
“This is a pill-pattern qi-condensation pill personally refined for you by the Medicine Sage.”
When she opened the jade box, a pill engraved with luminous patterns lay neatly inside.
A pill-pattern qi-condensation pill was a rare treasure that even fourth-rank alchemists could not easily refine.
Only a grandmaster like Grandfather Medicine Sage could handle such a pill.
As Baek Cheong's eyes lit up, Baek Mu-jin explained the two jade slips as well.
“This jade slip contains qi-condensation experiences passed down through our direct line for generations.”
Baek Mu-jin then held up the other jade slip.
“And this one contains the experience of someone who succeeded in qi condensation with five spirit roots.”
Baek Cheong's eyes naturally went to the second jade slip.
Those who reached qi condensation with five spirit roots were extremely rare throughout the cultivation world.
Finding even one was like plucking a star from the sky, so obtaining a single person's experience was the best she could hope for.
Even so, simply having something to refer to from another five-spirit-root cultivator was worth a fortune.
“Thank you, Father.”
Baek Cheong bowed, hugging the jade box and jade slips carefully to her chest.
“Please be sure to tell Grandfather Medicine Sage I said thank you as well.”
“Of course, I’ll pass it along.”
Baek Mu-jin looked at his daughter fondly, then added a gentle reminder.
“Qi condensation is not something to rush. Take your time and prepare calmly before you go in.”
He finished his reminder and left the eastern quarters looking pleased.
Baek Cheong quietly watched her father's retreating back.
If it were up to her feelings, she wanted to enter qi condensation leisurely, just as her father said.
But her situation wouldn't allow that.
Because a karma-laden heavenly tribulation was blocking the way right in front of her.
‘I need to diligently raise my realm so the karma doesn't explode somewhere strange.’
Far from being able to take it easy, she looked set to sweat over her dantian from all the diligent cultivation.
She then sat on the bed and examined the jade slips her father had given her first.
The first thing she checked was the qi-condensation experience said to have been passed down through the direct line.
‘They even compress it once?’
As Baek Cheong skimmed the jade slip, she stopped her divine sense at an interesting passage.
The direct-line method did not stop at simply filling the dantian.
It went through a separate process of compressing a portion of the gathered spiritual energy.
Only after hardening it that way did they finally enter qi condensation and break through without failure.
She then moved her divine sense to the second jade slip.
It was the experience of someone who had succeeded in qi condensation with five spirit roots.
‘This side is rough.’
The five-spirit-root cultivator's experience was completely different from the direct-line experience.
They gathered every method they could and, as soon as their dantian was full, jumped straight into qi condensation.
With no time for compression or anything else, it was a challenge that put the burden of failure squarely on their shoulders.
Only by walking such a precarious tightrope did they barely manage to set foot in qi condensation.
‘So this is where heavenly dao, earth dao, and human dao split apart.’
The path of qi condensation was said to split into three: heavenly dao, earth dao, and human dao.
The direct-line method of compressing spiritual energy into a dense whole was earth-dao qi condensation.
The five-spirit-root method of filling up and then charging in barehanded was human-dao qi condensation.
Looking back, she could see the point.
How one laid the foundation seemed to determine the caliber of one's future self entirely.
‘No wonder Father's aura felt so different.’
Her father must also have achieved earth-dao golden core.
He had only just formed his golden core, yet he exuded an aura that overpowered most early-stage golden core cultivators.
Thanks to having laid such a foundation, he possessed a deeper bearing even at the same realm.
And it wasn't just her father.
Her eldest brother, second brother, and third brother had all achieved earth-dao qi condensation as well.
As a result, among the direct line of the Yeonha Baek Clan, earth-dao qi condensation was treated as the obvious norm.
‘But maybe I'm a little different.’
A different thought suddenly crossed Baek Cheong's mind.
The direct line's orthodox method was earth-dao qi condensation, where one filled up first and then condensed separately.
But she had one asset that others didn't.
It was none other than her experience compressing divine sense.
She wondered whether condensing spiritual energy would really be so different from compressing divine sense.
‘Wouldn't it be fine if I condensed it while absorbing qi at the same time?’
On top of that, the conditions she had been given were clearly different from her family's.
First, she had the cleansing pills that would wash away pill poison cleanly.
She even had pill-pattern qi-condensation pills that could support a smooth breakthrough without pill poison.
In effect, she had already prepared almost everything needed for heavenly-dao qi condensation.
‘Shall I try it and see if it really works?’
Baek Cheong immediately sat cross-legged and lightly drew in spiritual energy.
While filling her dantian with the spiritual energy seeping into her body, she casually tried compressing it as well.
Like when compressing her divine sense, she coaxed the incoming spiritual energy and increased its density.
Then the spiritual energy obediently compacted itself layer by layer and ripened grain by grain.
‘...What, this is way too easy.’
It was almost absurdly anticlimactic.
Others couldn't even dream of heavenly-dao qi condensation, and even earth-dao was too much for them.
Most cultivators were grateful just to manage human-dao qi condensation.
Yet for her, absorbing and compressing spiritual energy went as smoothly as water flowing downstream.
Her experience with divine sense carried over perfectly to spiritual energy as well.
‘If things keep going like this, heavenly-dao qi condensation is basically guaranteed.’
Far from being blocked, the path had been wide open from the beginning.
As long as she filled her dantian steadily now, she could reach heavenly-dao qi condensation.
A path her family, all dual-spirit-root cultivators, had never even stepped on was being easily glimpsed by her, a five-spirit-root cultivator.
Yet her mind was full of something else entirely.
‘Heavenly dao or whatever, that will happen on its own once the dantian is full.’
Heavenly-dao qi condensation was practically a foregone conclusion once the dantian was full.
There was another fire she needed to put out first.
It was the merit needed to shave down the karma-laden heavenly tribulation.
Even if she leisurely enjoyed heavenly-dao qi condensation, if she didn't clear the karma first, it would all be for nothing.
‘For now, I need to behave myself on the forum and improve my image.’
Baek Cheong immediately logged into the Nameless Forum.
Her mind was filled with nothing but begging for merit.
She soon crossed over to the Information Board and began writing information posts about the characters.