Advance to Dou Shi

"Yin Lin, this is yours." At night, by the campfire, Lin Ming cut a piece from a roasted monster beast leg and gave all the rest to Yin Lin.

Ever since Yin Lin had been able to eat meat, Lin Ming had fed it cooked food. Now, every meal required Lin Ming to roast a great deal of meat before it was enough for Yin Lin. Fortunately, this was the Dou Qi Continent. Starting a fire could be handled directly with Dou Qi, so it was not too troublesome.

Another three days passed. During those three days, Lin Ming maintained high-intensity battles, yet the feeling of advancing to Dou Shi still had not arrived. He always felt that he was just a little short. After searching through his Storage Ring, Lin Ming discovered that he had just enough medicinal materials to refine a batch of Speed Qi Liquid, so he planned to find a place and refine it later.

As its name suggested, Speed Qi Liquid was a liquid that could accelerate the absorption of Dou Qi. It was a Rank 2 Pill and could increase the absorption speed of those at the Dou Practitioner Stage by twenty percent. It only needed to be applied to the body. However, Speed Qi Liquid had a very serious flaw: after applying it, one would experience pain like Flame Burn for a period of time. Only by cultivating after enduring that flame-like pain could one accelerate Dou Qi absorption in the following cultivation. Most people gave up immediately after hearing about such pain. Even those who were not frightened would never use it a second time after trying it once.

If he had a better choice, Lin Ming would not have wanted to torture himself either. But the feeling of advancing to Dou Shi had yet to come, and he did not want to keep waiting. No one knew when that feeling would arrive. He did not want to rely entirely on waiting for something beyond his control. Besides, he also wanted to know how much physical pain he could endure.

In truth, Lin Ming had another little thought. After all, he was a transmigrator. In the novels from his previous life, whenever other people encountered problems that were especially difficult, those transmigrators never seemed to find them all that hard. So perhaps this pain was not as exaggerated as people claimed! What if he was the protagonist too? Of course, he would regret that thought after using it.

After searching around, Lin Ming found a cave. He tossed several stones inside and, seeing no reaction, took out the Star Dragon Saber and slowly walked in.

After entering the cave and looking around, Lin Ming found nothing inside. He decided to refine pills here. Yin Lin could guard the cave entrance while he refined pills inside without worry.

With a flash of his Storage Ring, a bronze-colored medicinal cauldron appeared in the cave. Looking at it, Lin Ming remembered that he had not refined any pills since entering the Monster Mountain Range. With that in mind, he decided to refine some other pills first to warm up.

Dou Qi flowed into the Bronze Medicine Cauldron as Lin Ming watched the golden flames rise within. Just as he was about to toss in the medicinal materials for refinement, his hand stopped. Lin Ming realized what he had been lacking during this period.

Lin Ming had come out to train himself, to become steadier, calmer in the face of danger, and more precise in controlling his techniques. Yet he had never truly faced life and death. Deep down, he had always known that he possessed a trump card left behind by a Dou King Expert, one capable of resolving every problem he encountered. Thus, whether he had been surrounded by Harmonious Apes, fighting Pei Xiong, or facing the two Dou Masters who arrived after his battle with Pei Xiong, he had been able to calmly recover his Dou Qi. Although he had always tried to solve such matters himself first, he could not deny that when something exceeded his abilities, he could use that trump card to kill his enemy in return.

Thinking of the original story, Xiao Yan had grown quickly under Old Yao's protection. Yet later, after his cultivation became higher and Old Yao was captured, his advancement speed remained the same as when he had been at lower levels. That was terrifying. It was like drawing water: filling a pond or a lake took as much time as filling a vat. At that time, he knew he had no one to rely on. His family's hatred, his teacher's capture, and the need to rescue him forced Xiao Yan to grow stronger by relying only on himself. That mindset allowed him to grow at lightning speed, until he became the first Dou Di since ancient times.

What about himself? Lin Ming asked himself in his heart. With an unparalleled cultivation method like the Chaos Spirit Five Elements Art and the innate advantage of knowing the plot, he should have been able to reach the level of Dou Di as well. Yet now, having come to this unfamiliar Monster Mountain Range for one small training expedition, he had developed a mentality of wishful luck simply because he had that trump card. How would he face an even more complicated life in the future? This was not a novel where things could be glossed over in a few words. This was a real world, a real life. Even if he knew where those opportunities lay, how would he deal with the dangers along the way?

Those things would not come running to him for no reason. He had to face them himself. Take the Green Lotus Core Flame, for example. Not only would he need to dive into the depths of magma, but he also risked being noticed by Queen Medusa. If he truly encountered Medusa, there would be only one outcome: death. When someone without equal strength stumbled upon things they should not touch or know, making them disappear was the best solution. Even if he obtained it by luck, absorbing it would be another great difficulty. To swallow and refine a violent Heavenly Flame—an ordinary person could be half-killed by the pain of drinking a mouthful of boiling water, let alone a spiritual flame nurtured by heaven and earth.

Thinking of this, Lin Ming decided not to warm up. He took out the formula for Speed Qi Liquid, slowly studied it, then immediately began refining it. If refining Speed Qi Liquid required all sorts of preparation now, then he might as well stop pursuing the end of this path and go cling to the Flame Emperor's thigh. After all, he had no grudge against him, and their families would become friendly in the future. With the foresight he possessed now, it was not too late to seek his protection. But was such flattery what he wanted? Was that not precisely why he had lived so unsatisfactorily in his previous life? Was he going to become that kind of person in this life too? Had he transmigrated here only to watch others charge ahead while he followed behind? No. Since he was here, Lin Ming would give it his all himself. Even if he failed, he would have no regrets.

The flames inside the medicinal cauldron suddenly blazed fiercely. At this moment, Lin Ming felt as if his thoughts had become clearer. If an alchemist above the Seventh Order had been present, they would have discovered that Lin Ming's soul possessed the spirituality they had dreamed of. Though there was only a trace of it, it was the opportunity they sought—the opportunity to break through the Mortal Realm of the soul.

This time, Lin Ming's refinement process went exceptionally smoothly. It went so smoothly that even he found it surprising. He could not help wondering whether figuring out some things in his heart could also help with pill refinement. However, he did not yet know about the changes to his soul.

"Since the Speed Qi Liquid has been refined, let's try it and see whether it is truly as painful as everyone says!" Lin Ming said to himself. He had just refined pills and consumed quite a bit of Dou Qi, so now was the best time to cultivate. He put away the medicinal cauldron, removed his clothes until he wore only shorts, and applied the bottle of Speed Qi Liquid all over his body.

Lin Ming sat cross-legged and entered meditation. At first, he did not feel much, only a faint warmth. But as time passed, the heat grew more intense, as though he were being slowly heated from warm water to boiling water at one hundred degrees. Lin Ming cried out, "Ah!" Though he shouted from the pain, he remained seated cross-legged instead of rolling around on the ground.

Forcing himself to endure the pain, Lin Ming began cultivating. Although it was intermittent at times and the corners of his mouth occasionally twitched, he persisted. Time felt incomparably long at this moment. Several times, Lin Ming wanted to give up cultivating, but whenever he thought of why he had come out to train, and why he had failed to find the feeling of breaking through to Dou Shi for so long, he gritted his teeth and desperately held on.

At last, after gritting his teeth and enduring through the painful period, his suffering brought the results it deserved. Dou Qi circulated rapidly and surged wildly toward Lin Ming's body. As huge amounts of Dou Qi gathered, the long-awaited feeling of breakthrough poured into Lin Ming's heart along with it.

Although the arrival of that feeling thrilled Lin Ming, this hard-won opportunity would vanish in an instant. So Lin Ming cast aside every other thought and focused entirely on breaking through.

Inside Lin Ming's body, as he relaxed his mind and cultivated wholeheartedly, he no longer suppressed the conversion between attributes. A five-colored Dou Qi vortex spun rapidly. A layer of golden flame circled its outer edge, scorching all incoming Dou Qi. A stream of Dou Qi as thick as a finger was reduced to the size of a strand of hair after being burned by the golden flames, then flowed into the Five-Colored Qi Vortex and was divided among its five colors. Beneath the vortex, transparent liquid like water droplets began to condense.

Outside, Heaven and Earth Energy rushed madly toward the cave. Yin Lin, which had been lying at the cave entrance, stood up and stared fiercely outside, guarding against anything entering and disturbing its master. More and more Dou Qi poured into the cave until it formed a mist visible to the naked eye. Around Lin Ming's body, the phenomenon was even more obvious. The Dou Qi resembled water mist sprayed from a humidifier as it drilled into Lin Ming's body.

The Five-Colored Qi Vortex was now nearly one third smaller than at the beginning, but the formerly loose vortex, which still contained gaps, now looked almost solid.

Lin Ming could feel his body and his strength improving as the vortex spun at high speed and condensed water droplet-like liquid. This comfortable feeling formed a complete opposite to the burning pain from before, so much so that he could not stop himself from moaning again. The sensation lasted for a full hour.

An hour later, the comfortable feeling gradually faded amid Lin Ming's reluctance until it vanished completely. The outside world also returned to calm. Other than Lin Ming and Yin Lin, no one knew what had happened here.