Foundation Establishment

The pill-pattern Foundation Establishment Pill she tossed into her mouth melted softly on the tip of her tongue.

The powerful medicinal force flowed down her esophagus and seeped straight into her dantian.

Baek Cheong steadied her excited breathing and drew her divine sense inward.

The outside world faded far away, and only the vast dantian came clearly into focus within her consciousness.

The vast dantian swayed heavily with spiritual energy filled to the brim.

It was spiritual energy she had steadily accumulated over ten whole months.

'This is where the real thing begins.'

All that remained was to condense the spiritual energy she had gathered.

In the end, Foundation Establishment was a contest of how tightly one could pack the spiritual energy stored in the dantian.

When the packed spiritual energy blended with the spirit roots and coalesced into a core, that was the Foundation Establishment stage.

However, even Foundation Establishment itself was divided into three levels depending on how deeply the spiritual energy was condensed.

The Human Dao, where a slight amount of condensation barely sufficed to form a core.

The Earth Dao, where moderate condensation comfortably produced a core.

The Heavenly Dao, where one went further and, through substantial condensation, formed a perfect core.

Over the past ten months, she had poured everything into absorbing qi and condensing it along the way.

Thanks to that, the spiritual energy stored in her dantian was already fairly well condensed.

If she entered Foundation Establishment as she was now, Human Dao would be smooth sailing.

With just a little more condensation, Earth Dao Foundation Establishment would be a done deal.

'But it would be a shame to stop at Earth Dao.'

Come to think of it, even Earth Dao Foundation Establishment was more than enough to boast about.

Just reaching Foundation Establishment with Five-Element Spirit Roots was already a feat so rare it could be counted on one hand across the cultivation world.

But she had long since set her sights on Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment.

The pill-pattern Foundation Establishment Pill she held was itself a rare treasure fit for Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment.

Even leaving aside the pill-pattern aspect, just having the Foundation Establishment Pill alone would let her reach Earth Dao Foundation Establishment without any effort.

'Still, if I swallow a pill called the pill-pattern Foundation Establishment Pill and still miss Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment, that would be embarrassing.'

If she accepted such a rare treasure and still settled for Earth Dao, she would have no face to show Grandpa Medicine Sage.

More than anything, a desire to see it through to the very end quietly raised its head.

The moment she made up her mind, she drew on the melted medicinal force and added it to the condensation.

The medicinal force coiled around her dantian and pressed the already compacted spiritual energy even more deeply together.

The packed spiritual energy easily crossed the threshold of Earth Dao Foundation Establishment.

'A little more...'

Baek Cheong looked toward Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment and condensed her spiritual energy without hesitation.

But the deeper the condensation went, the less cooperative the spiritual energy became.

The dantian was so vast that the more she tried to compress it, the harder it became.

It was like trying to cram a vast sea into a small jar.

Trying to press already tightly packed spiritual energy even tighter made it hard to even get started.

The resistance from within grew stronger the more she condensed it.

Still, buoyed by the surging momentum, she did not stop condensing.

Little by little, the spiritual energy was pressed deeper and deeper.

Beads of sweat gathered on her forehead and ran down her cheeks.

Before long, her entire body was drenched in sweat, and her clothes clung to her skin.

But she was so absorbed in the condensation that she did not even notice she was soaked in sweat.

.

.

.

She couldn't even tell how long she had been at it.

Her only thought was to condense even a little more spiritual energy.

At the same time, the Five-Element Technique, made up of five formulas, was being driven to its limit.

Yeonha Formula, Cheongyeop Formula, Jeokyeom Formula, Huto Formula, and Baekgeum Formula.

The water, wood, fire, earth, and metal formulas each soothed the spirit roots.

The five-element spirit roots, as if answering the formulas, brimmed with spiritual energy and spread their wings.

The five-element spirit roots formed a cycle of mutual generation and lent their strength to the condensation.

Once the spirit roots pitched in, the stalled condensation gradually found a path forward.

Before long, the condensation reached a level that seemed on the verge of Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment.

A level befitting Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment hovered right before her.

But at the final hurdle, the condensation kept failing to come together.

It was right within reach, yet in the end it still slipped away.

No matter how much she pressed the spiritual energy down, it was still just a hair short of crossing the threshold of Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment.

'Ah, why won't this work.'

Baek Cheong grew anxious as it kept slipping away right before her eyes.

Instinctively, she hurriedly searched for any means she could use.

Then what flashed through her mind was Quasi-Unity.

With Quasi-Unity, she could forcibly bind the five-element energies within the dantian together.

Quasi-Unity, which made opposing energies collide and condense them into a single point, was the trump card that could show the limits of condensation.

However, there was something unsettling about reaching for it so readily.

Using Quasi-Unity would give the dormant hidden spirit root at the bottom of the dantian a reason to awaken.

This was also why she had stubbornly left Quasi-Unity out of every breakthrough until now.

The hidden spirit root was a double-edged sword that, the more it awakened, the more greedily it gnawed at the nourishment of the five-element spirit roots.

'Waking the hidden spirit root would be troublesome.'

A brief hesitation rose within her.

It would be like personally stirring up the trouble she had worked so hard to keep asleep.

But she couldn't let Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment slip away when it was right in front of her.

If she backed down here, it would surely remain a regret for the rest of her life.

'Let's just do it.'

Baek Cheong brought Quasi-Unity up by any means necessary.

She pushed her divine sense deep into the dantian and gathered the five-element spiritual energies together.

Water and fire collided, wood and metal interlocked, and the opposing energies crashed against one another.

She drew the energies that were about to explode inward instead of letting them spill outward.

She bound the mutually restraining five-element energies with a cycle of mutual generation and locked them in one place.

Her efforts to delve into formation characters and understand their principles paid off here.

The depth was completely different from when she first handled Quasi-Unity long ago.

The five colors mixed together and condensed into a colorless mass untouched by any hue.

As the five energies were drawn into one point, the colorless sphere took firm shape.

The condensation became so dense it was almost at Five-Elements Unity.

Around the same time, something at the bottom of the dantian twitched as if it were waking up.

A prickling sensation spread through the spirit roots.

But she had no time to notice, since she was focused on the condensation.

She only took it as the spirit roots being unusually lively and let it pass.

Once Quasi-Unity lent a hand, the threshold that had seemed both near and far came right under her feet.

At last, she pressed the spiritual energy down to a level befitting Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment.

'Done!'

Yet for some reason, it seemed there was still room to spare.

Even after packing it tight, it looked like there was still room to condense the spiritual energy further.

It somehow felt wasteful to stop here.

'Just a little more...'

Baek Cheong did not let up her focus and kept condensing.

Even after crossing the threshold of Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment, she continued to condense the spiritual energy more deeply.

She hardened the spiritual energy again and again, driving the dantian to its limits.

The deeper the condensation went, the more heavily the spiritual energy clumped together.

Before long, she reached the point where she no longer even dared try pressing it down.

'Enough.'

She resisted greed and held fast to the limit she had reached.

The spiritual energy pressed to the limit gathered at the very center of the dantian.

The surging sea of spiritual energy was drawn inward and gradually subsided.

The five-element spirit roots and the condensed spiritual energy blended together and condensed into one point.

Then a luminous bead formed deep within the dantian.

It was a bead that held a clear light, as if a star had been forged and set in place.

It was something on an entirely different level from the true qi that had filled the dantian throughout Qi Refining.

It was the core.

At last, she finished Qi Refining and stepped into Foundation Establishment.

'At long last, I'm in Foundation Establishment too!'

Her heart swelled, and her tiny, tiny, tiny chest pounded.

She had trampled the notion that those with Five-Element Spirit Roots could never escape Qi Refining in a lifetime.

The formed core was even sturdier than the core of an ordinary Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment cultivator, and its aura was extraordinary.

That was thanks to her continuing to condense it for quite a while even after crossing the threshold of Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment.

Though she had just entered Foundation Establishment, the degree of condensation was comparable to that of a late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator.

The spiritual force radiating from the core was beyond comparison with what it had been during her Qi Refining days.

The spiritual force filling the dantian spread powerfully into every corner of her body.

Spiritual force surged all the way to her fingertips and toes, making her body feel as light as a feather.

With a core like this, even the magic treasures that had long been out of reach might now gradually be brought into play.

'Now I can even call myself an immortal...'

Baek Cheong was just about to savor the sight of the core and let herself feel moved when—

For some time now, the unsettling will of the Heavenly Dao had been bearing down from above on her skin.

The prickling sensation was so sharp it could be felt clearly even on her skin.

'I knew it.'

The Heavenly Dao had indeed bristled at her breakthrough into the Foundation Establishment realm.

Last time, it had only blustered and backed off because she had refined a pill-pattern Foundation Establishment Pill.

But this time, the breakthrough could not be taken back, so the Heavenly Dao had more than enough excuse to pick a fight.

She slowly opened her eyes and looked up at the sky.

Pitch-black thunderclouds had blanketed the peak in darkness.

Lightning ripped openly through the dark clouds, flashing fiercely.

Each flash sent a blue-white beam all the way to the courtyard.

Its momentum was entirely different from last time, when it had merely blustered and withdrawn.

This time, it seemed determined to strike her with lightning no matter what.

'This time it's for real.'

Baek Cheong calmly accepted it, since what was bound to come had come.

Beside her, the Five-Elements Banner and the Cloud Spirit Pearl were within reach, and the pill-pattern Cloud Tribulation Pill lay there as well.

'Let's see what you've got.'