Li Qingyun let out a breath of stale air and rose to his feet, feeling clear in body and mind, brimming with energy.
"Ninth layer of Qi Refining! And the minor bottleneck after the ninth layer broke with the slightest exertion of will. My cultivation has begun closing in on Qi Refining Great Perfection."
After killing Cui Xinghuo, his thoughts had become unimpeded, while a keen edge surged within him.
With a single thought running through it all, when he sat down to cultivate, his momentum became like bamboo splitting before a blade.
Having encountered a minor bottleneck at the seventh layer of Qi Refining before, he had thought breaking beyond the ninth layer of Qi Refining would meet considerable resistance. Yet under the force of his will, it shattered at a single touch!
The Precious Furnace Qi Absorption Art mentioned that after breaking through the ninth layer of Qi Refining, on the road toward Qi Refining Great Perfection, there would be a major obstruction—the so-called "bottleneck."
Those with decent aptitude only needed to spend more time on it; it was merely the slow work of water wearing down stone.
But for those whose Dao Bone Spiritual Root was barely passable, this point could become a colossal sluice gate, one they might fail to cross even after ten or twenty years.
Yet after Li Qingyun exterminated Cui Xinghuo, his mind had entered a rare, subtly rounded and lucid state. After five consecutive days of seated cultivation, he had subconsciously not taken this "bottleneck" to heart at all. When he encountered it, a flicker of thought sent his mana surging like a tide, smashing straight through.
"Cultivation truly is a mysterious art. Killing Cui Xinghuo actually brought such an unexpected gain in state of mind..."
At the ninth layer of Qi