Purple Qi and Concepts

Benjamin's gaze pierced through the window toward the distant sky.

The moment his eyes focused, a strange, indescribable sensation surged into his heart.

To mortal eyes, it was merely ordinary dawn sunlight.

A wizard would probably have seen dense energy particles and rays of dazzling color.

But through Benjamin's newly advanced, exceptionally sharp senses, at the core of that gradually brightening sunlight, he actually saw a trace of... barely discernible purple!

That purple was extremely faint, as though it were the condensation of some energy deep within the sunlight.

Purple Qi of the East!

Benjamin's heart jolted!

The Great Dao Library indeed contained records concerning "Purple Qi Comes from the East."

Under certain celestial phenomena, at the moment of sunrise, a trace of incomparably pure innate qi would escape from the sun's core, bringing boundless benefits to Cultivators.

This thing existed only for the instant when the sun rose. It was exceedingly rare; catching even a trace of it was an immense stroke of fortune.

He had assumed that something so steeped in the "concept of Cultivation" existed only in that Immortal Cultivation World whose location was unknown.

Yet he had never expected that, in the Wizard World, inside a laboratory at Noren Academy, at the very moment the sun rose... he would also "see" this strand of Purple Qi of the East!

Before he could consider why, a Cultivator's instinctive craving for this innate qi made him subconsciously circulate his cultivation method.

The True Essence of the second level of Qi Refining, which had just broken through within his body, circulated according to a specific method, drawing in that strand of Purple Qi of the East floating in the sunlight.

The purple qi, which had been faint and on the verge of dispersing, seemed to be drawn by some invisible force. It passed through the laboratory walls and windows, slowly drifting toward Benjamin.

It was not obstructed by the isolation array, nor did it even trigger a reaction from the monitoring array, as though it did not exist at all!

But when the purple qi entered Benjamin's body, he immediately felt the effects of the Qi of the East.

The purple qi almost instantly melted into Benjamin's True Essence, continuously circulating through his body along with it.

It refined his True Essence, making it more condensed and pure!

It cleansed his physique, leaving the newly advanced Benjamin feeling clearer and lighter than ever before!

What astonished Benjamin most was that this strand of purple qi was also purifying his spiritual power!

Nourished by the purple qi, his Spirit Sea became clearer and brighter. Fine impurities in his spiritual power were stripped away, making it purer and more active.

Purifying spiritual power... in the Wizard World, that was practically a supreme divine treasure capable of increasing one's innate aptitude!

A wizard's talent rating depended largely on the "purity" of the soul and the "depth" of the Spirit Sea. Purple Qi of the East could actually improve such fundamental aptitude?!

Benjamin could not help but feel shocked.

Most terrifying of all, the method of obtaining this thing... was almost completely effortless!

All he had to do was circulate his cultivation method each day just before sunrise and absorb it. It was practically a free gift of fortune.

But he utterly could not understand why the Wizard World possessed Purple Qi of the East, which he had thought existed only in the Immortal Cultivation World.

He subconsciously thought of the Adamantine he had refined before.

When refined using a cultivation method, a vast amount of gold's mass had vanished into thin air, yet it had ultimately condensed into that substance containing the "concept of eternal constancy."

This seemed to completely violate the conservation of mass and energy. It was more like refining something invisible and intangible.

With that question in mind, Benjamin sent an inquiry to the Great Dao Library within his thoughts.

The Great Dao Library responded swiftly. In the blink of an eye, three streams of light appeared before Benjamin.

"Record of Mortal Realm Calamity Ashes, <True Explanation of the Mystic Pivot: A Preliminary Exploration of Concept Harvesting and Condensation>, <Return to Origin of the Artifact Dao: Concept Attachment and Low-Spirit Artifact Refining Techniques>... What the hell is this?"

Benjamin quickly flipped through them. The latter two were easy enough to understand, both containing knowledge related to artifact refining.

As for the first book, after reading through it, it was a biography of a Great Ascension cultivator known as Dust Calamity Master—or perhaps memoir would have been more fitting.

"Dust Calamity Master seemed to have been born during the Dharma-Ending Age, when resources in the Cultivation World had been completely exhausted. At that time, Spirit Energy was nearly nonexistent, and traditional spiritual materials and immortal herbs had become legends. Yet under such circumstances, cultivation in the Cultivation World had not been cut off. It had instead become even more prosperous?"

After studying them carefully, Benjamin finally confirmed that the three books provided by the Great Dao Library had indeed resolved his doubts.

"The Immortal Cultivation System is not merely energy refinement." The Library's stream of knowledge unfolded in his mind. "According to this memoir, during the later stages of the Immortal Cultivation System, as resources became scarce and understanding of heaven and earth deepened, the 'raw materials' used in cultivation and item refinement gradually shifted from tangible 'spiritual materials' toward more abstract 'concepts.'"

"Refining Adamantine was not, in essence, compressing the physical mass within gold. Rather, through the guidance of True Essence and divine sense, it stripped away every concept of 'mundanity' and 'change' from the gold, condensing the concept of 'eternal constancy' contained within it onto a small portion of matter, granting it properties akin to immutability. The 'mass' that vanished was those 'mundane concepts' that had been stripped away and dispersed."

"Purple Qi of the East was the same. It was neither a tangible energy nor a gas. At the moment before sunrise, when yin and yang converged and the old departed as the new was born, it was fundamentally the manifestation of a vast concept permeating heaven and earth—'dawn,' 'hope,' and 'new life.' What Cultivators absorbed as Purple Qi of the East was, in essence, this concept, used to cleanse themselves."

"However, to allow practitioners to perceive and absorb it more easily, cultivation methods gradually modified and perfected ways to absorb such 'concepts' over countless ages, allowing them to manifest through a special kind of 'perception'—the 'purple qi' one saw—and be absorbed with True Essence as the guide."

After closing the three books, Benjamin's heart could not calm for a long while.

This explanation was like a bolt of thunder, completely overturning Benjamin's understanding of the Immortal Cultivation System and the Wizard World!

Cultivation had begun playing with "concept refinement" as early as the Qi Refining stage?

So even in the Wizard World, he could materialize "Purple Qi of the East" by drawing upon concepts?!

Benjamin felt his mind racing madly as countless new possibilities exploded within it!

If that were truly the case, then theoretically, he would not be limited by raw materials at all.

Using methods of extracting concepts, not only gold—even the most common air and soil could, through continual refinement, yield super materials far beyond anyone's imagination!

If so, the things he could accomplish in the future would vastly exceed everyone's imagination!

Benjamin took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed the wild joy in his heart.

He looked at the sun, which had already risen fully outside the window, his eyes extraordinarily bright.