Qi Refining Third Layer

The Qi Condensing Pill entered his mouth and went down his throat, immediately dissolving within his body into a rather dense medicinal power that surged toward Qi Chuan's limbs and bones.

Seeing this, Qi Chuan immediately circulated the Evergreen Art.

As the spell power within his body began to circulate, a force of attraction emanated from his meridians.

Under the effect of this attraction, specks of spiritual qi appeared in the surrounding void, streaming into Qi Chuan's body through his breath, acupoints, and more.

At the same time, the dense medicinal power within his body was drawn along as well, strands of it entering his meridians.

Qi Chuan's original spell power then wrapped around that spiritual qi and medicinal power, flowing through his meridians along a particular route.

As it circulated, the spiritual qi and medicinal power gradually became assimilated into Qi Chuan's spell power.

By the time that stream of spell power finally returned to his dantian, it had grown considerably stronger.

You circulated the Evergreen Art, absorbed spiritual qi, refined medicinal power, and transformed it into your own spell power. Ninefold Critical Hit triggered. You gained ninefold harvest. Your total mana has increased slightly.

Qi Chuan opened his eyes, and words appeared before him.

He then examined himself internally and could sense that the spell power within his body had indeed grown more substantial.

Compared to a single cultivation session back when he was at the Qi Refining First Layer, this improvement was greater by an unknown amount.

Part of it was due to the Qi Condensing Pill, and part of it was due to the Ninefold Critical Hit.

Under normal circumstances, with his Lower Eighth-grade Spiritual Root, how many days of effort would it have taken to gain this seemingly slight improvement?

"Then my cultivation base should improve rather quickly, shouldn't it?"

Qi Chuan thought to himself.

He then closed his eyes and settled down to cultivate, no longer paying attention to the Hundredfold Critical Hit text.

Whether he watched it or not, it would trigger on its own and grant him rewards all the same.

Only after a full day of cultivation did Qi Chuan finish his practice.

You circulated the Evergreen Art, absorbed spiritual qi, refined medicinal power, and transformed it into your own spell power. Tenfold Critical Hit triggered. You gained tenfold harvest. Your total mana has increased slightly.

He looked at the words that had appeared before him.

This was the result of the final Great Heavenly Cycle he had run through with the Evergreen Art, and he was not surprised by it.

He then examined the spell power within his body.

After a day of cultivation, his spell power had improved quite a bit.

However, he was still far from breaking through to the Qi Refining Third Layer.

But that was not the key issue. The key lay in the medicinal power within his body.

According to Qi Chuan's own senses and estimates, more than eighty percent of the medicinal power still remained in his body.

After calculating briefly, he estimated that refining all of it would take roughly seven or eight days.

However, cultivation-boosting pills like this could not be taken too frequently.

At most, one could take a single pill each month.

Otherwise, pill toxin and the body's drug resistance would both increase sharply, causing immense harm.

"In other words, these eight Qi Condensing Pills will be used up in less than a year?"

Qi Chuan muttered to himself, though he did not care too much.

Being able to sustain his cultivation for that long was already quite good.

Then Qi Chuan turned to cultivating spells.

You successfully cast the Fireball Technique once and maintained it for a period of time. Twenty-fivefold Critical Hit triggered. You gained twenty-fivefold harvest. Your Fireball Technique proficiency has increased slightly.

You successfully cast the Water Arrow Technique once and maintained it for a period of time. Nineteenfold Critical Hit triggered. You gained nineteenfold harvest. Your Water Arrow Technique proficiency has increased slightly.

You successfully cast the Golden Skin Technique once and maintained it for a period of time. Fifteenfold Critical Hit triggered. You gained fifteenfold harvest. Your Golden Skin Technique proficiency has increased slightly.

Through such diligent cultivation, both Qi Chuan's cultivation base and his spells improved at a speed astonishing enough to leave people speechless.

Another year passed.

During this year, the matter of the Secret Realm finally settled completely. Even the fifty-li Forbidden Zone had been entirely reopened.

The lineages that had withdrawn forces and restrained their own members from going out began moving about once more.

Quite a few lineages even went to inspect the place where the Secret Realm had once stood.

Yet what made people curse under their breaths was that the place where opportunities should have existed now held nothing at all, only a bare mountain range.

Within this Bare Mountain Range, let alone a Secret Realm, there was not even a single hair left.

Many lineages felt inwardly resentful at this. At least leave something behind!

But there was nothing they could do. That was the Wind Moon Sect—what could they possibly do about it?

They could only inspect the Bare Mountain Range inch by inch. Even the regions surrounding it were examined again and again, swept over wave after wave.

Yet they found nothing.

The frequent appearance of cultivators around the mountain range even sparked quite a few Bloody Conflicts and Rogue Cultivator Incidents.

No matter what, however, the matter of the Secret Realm had completely come to an end.

Yet the situation outside did not settle down as people had expected. At this moment, another major piece of news spread, shaking countless lineages and Rogue Cultivators.

The Wind Moon Sect was about to greatly open its mountain gate and recruit new disciples!

In an instant, it stirred up endless discussion.

Qi Chuan saw these disturbances in the outside world and heard of them as well.

Yet his cultivation had never stopped. Instead, he worked even harder.

On this day—

You cultivated diligently and circulated the Evergreen Art through one Great Heavenly Cycle. Hundredfold Critical Hit triggered. You gained hundredfold harvest. Your spell power has increased greatly. You have successfully advanced to the Qi Refining Third Layer.

When Qi Chuan finished cultivating, a line of words appeared before him.

The next moment, a light breeze seemed to sweep through the quiet room, lifting Qi Chuan's Dharma robe.

The light faded from his eyes.

He sensed the state within his body. The spell power inside him was now utterly different from before. He had unmistakably reached the level only a Qi Refining Third Layer cultivator could attain!

"Finally, I've broken through to the Qi Refining Third Layer. It wasn't easy."

Feeling the strength brought by this breakthrough, Qi Chuan murmured softly.

Several months earlier, he had already used up all eight of his Qi Condensing Pills.

After that, he could only cultivate diligently through his own efforts to improve his cultivation base.

At last, after several months of painstaking diligence, coupled with his previous accumulation, everything fell into place as naturally as water flowing into a channel. In one stroke, he broke through and entered the Qi Refining Third Layer.

This realm was also the final realm before the Mid Qi Refining Stage.

The abundance of spell power was at least several times that of the Qi Refining First Layer.

Its strength naturally went without saying.

In the Qi Family, there were only a little over a hundred cultivators in total. Aside from the Foundation Establishment Patriarch, the single-digit number of Late Qi Refining Stage Elders, and the twenty or thirty Mid Qi Refining Stage cultivators, the highest cultivation base among all remaining lineage cultivators was this very realm.

Furthermore, Qi Chuan had already cultivated all the Basic Five Elements Spells to Minor Accomplishment. His strength was far from weak. If he were equipped with one or two decent Dharma artifacts, he would be among the very best of the Early Qi Refining Stage cultivators.

"However..."

Qi Chuan formed a hand seal, and a crimson fireball appeared above his palm, constructed from the Fireball Technique.

The fireball was now vaguely larger than half a fist. Moreover, throughout the process, Qi Chuan's casting speed had become much faster than when he had first reached the Minor Accomplishment Stage.

Still, though this improvement was substantial, it had not allowed his Fireball Technique to reach the Major Accomplishment Stage. There remained quite a distance to go.

"It seems the gap between Minor Accomplishment spells and Major Accomplishment spells is much greater than I imagined, making the breakthrough even harder to achieve."

After all, over the past year, Qi Chuan had taken Qi Condensing Pills to push his cultivation base. Every month, those seven or eight days were devoted to that.

During the rest of the time, as well as during the final months of the year, he had more time to cultivate spells.

Moreover, the critical-hit multipliers triggered while Qi Chuan cultivated spells had always been somewhat higher than those for improving his cultivation base.

Yet even under such circumstances, he had still failed to break through to the Major Accomplishment Stage. That alone showed how difficult it was.

But this was normal.

One had to know that for ordinary lower-level Early to Mid Qi Refining Stage cultivators, even a lifetime of diligent cultivation might not be enough for a single spell to break through to the Major Accomplishment Stage.

Even spells at the Minor Accomplishment Stage were rarely seen.

A Fireball Technique at the Major Accomplishment Stage possessed considerable power even among Late Qi Refining Stage cultivators.

If it were a Perfect Level Fireball Technique paired with Late Qi Refining Stage cultivation, it would be utterly terrifying.