Foundation Establishment Yuan Transformation Secret Ritual

The ice-cold touch, along with the endless pain wracking his body, jolted Yu Man awake.

"Ugh... where is this?"

Yu Man opened his eyes. Above him was a ceiling, while the air was steeped in a chilly, dry atmosphere. This place seemed to be a Secret Room.

"I remember... wasn't I refining the [Child-Mother Soul Chasing Blade]... Why... am I here?"

The Child-Mother Soul Chasing Blade was a special magical artifact used during the Qi Refining Stage. It consisted of one mother blade and six child blades. Not only could the mother blade control the child blades, allowing multiple magical artifacts to attack at once, but they could also be condensed into one, raising their offensive power to an even greater level.

However, refining this artifact required the user's mental power, and it had to be kept close at all times and nourished with true qi. It was not only time-consuming and laborious, but also greatly harmed one's vital essence, so hardly anyone refined it.

Yet among Rogue Cultivators, those of the demonic path had come up with an utterly inhumane method of refinement. That was:

Refining artifacts with human beings!

Find a Female Cultivator—the stronger, the better. Leave one's bloodline within her body, then wait for her to bear children. Take their essence blood and souls to refine the child blades; once there were enough, refine the Female Cultivator into the mother blade.

Artifacts refined this way contained terrifying baleful qi, and their power surpassed even conventionally refined artifacts by another level. Thus, they were avidly sought after by countless evil cultivators.

Naturally, the Azure Cloud Sect loathed this practice to the core—not only because its refinement method was exceptionally cruel, but also because it caused massive population losses and harmed the Azure Cloud Sect's interests. Therefore, they strictly prohibited and suppressed it!

Although this method was profoundly inhumane, in Yu Man's eyes, wasn't the Azure Cloud Sect's harvesting of Lower-level Cultivators' resources also a form of plunder? A form of exploitation? An act of feeding upon the flesh and blood of Lower-level Cultivators?

It was simply that, compared to their covert methods, he was a little more direct, that was all.

In Yu Man's view, in this world, strength was the sole truth.

What was so terrible about sacrificing a few people in order to become stronger?

And in his eyes, compared to those so-called righteous hypocrites who loved to use great righteousness as a fig leaf, he could at least be called frank!

At This Moment, Yu Man struggled to move. He Only Felt unceasing pain throughout his whole body, his memories muddled and confused. At the same time, he felt a chill against On His Body. Clearly, someone had stripped him naked.

Not only that, there was an indescribable, agonizing pain in his dantian and all over his body. His mouth was toothless, leaving behind a hollow emptiness, and there was even a shackle around his neck.

"I've been... captured? Damn it... what exactly Happened?" Yu Man turned his head, intending to inspect his surroundings, but his pupils suddenly contracted.

Beside him stood One After Another iron cage. Within those cages were One After Another naked people, imprisoned just like him!

Of course, what Shocked him was not This Scene before his eyes, but one of the prisoners not far from him!

The man had a smooth, beardless face, skin like congealed cream, and features that made him look more like a woman than a man. At this moment, he sat slumped in the iron cage with a numb expression.

"It's you!!!" At This Moment, rage surged into Yu Man's heart. He completely disregarded his surroundings, staring at the other man with eyes that nearly spat fire.

He would never forget that face!

The person before him was immensely famous among evil cultivators like them, known as the Jade-Faced Evil Cultivator.

And the reason for his fame was not his strength, but his bizarre conduct.

Jade-Faced Evil Cultivators in other regions would prey on Female Cultivators, but he did the opposite, specializing in seducing Male Cultivators.

Each time, he disguised himself as a bewitching Female Cultivator to lure others in. Then, after cultivating together with his prey, he would brazenly Make A Move when the clothes came off, dealing his victims a double blow—both mental and physical.

Yu Man was one of his victims. Heaven knew what he had gone through back then!

Had he not reacted quickly and fled fast enough, he would have nearly lost his life!

"Oh? You know him?" Just then, a puzzled voice came from the darkness.

"Of course I know him. Even if he turned to ashes, I'd still recognize him!" Yu Man's face was full of fury.

"Oh?" A calm voice came from nearby. "To run into an old acquaintance even in a place like this—it truly is fate! How does that saying go? To meet an old friend in a foreign land is one of life's greatest joys!"

"Foreign land, my ass..." Yu Man had just been about to curse aloud. Meeting an enemy in a prison cell counted as meeting an old friend in a foreign land?

But just as he was about to swear, he suddenly froze and whipped his head around.

Only then did he discover a figure emerging from the darkness not far behind him.

The other party wore white robes, with a face as fair as polished jade, sword-like brows and starry eyes. He held a booklet in his hand, his expression calm.

"It's you!" Yu Man instantly recalled that while refining the Child-Mother Soul Chasing Blade, he had suddenly smelled a strange fragrance. Then he had uncontrollably fallen asleep.

And the last thing he had seen before losing consciousness was this very figure.

So this was the person who had captured him!

"Kid, if you know what's good for you, release me at once. Otherwise..." Yu Man said viciously.

Lin Chen did not reply. Instead, he stepped forward and took several people, Yu Man included, out of their cages.

Yu Man sensed that something was wrong. He had just tried to resist when he found his whole body powerless. The true qi within him had also been sealed by some unknown method, leaving him only able to let Lin Chen drag him out of the cage with iron chains.

Lin Chen brought him directly outside a Laboratory.

Then Yu Man watched helplessly as the people brought here alongside him were taken inside One After Another.

At This Moment, inside the Laboratory, Lin Chen was setting up an array.

Low-grade Spirit Stones, precious Spirit Ink, Earth Origin Spirit Jade for array formation, and all manner of spirit materials bearing the five elemental attributes were consumed by Lin Chen in vast quantities as though they cost nothing.

Though earning Spirit Stones was difficult, Lin Chen never hesitated in the slightest when it was time to spend them.

Perhaps he truly was stingy in other matters, but whenever it concerned research, he had always adhered to the principle of preferring absence to inferior goods!

After all, if one passed off shoddy goods as quality materials in scientific research, major problems would arise!

"The three major passes in breaking through to the Foundation Establishment Realm are the Body Pass, the True Qi Pass, and the Soul Pass."

"According to the classics, the first of the three Foundation Establishment Passes is the Body Pass! When establishing one's foundation, a cultivator's physique must be strong, their qi and blood abundant, with no hidden injuries. The Cultivation World generally believes that cultivators over sixty, even if they reach Qi Refining Perfection, will find it difficult to establish their foundation."

"The second pass is the True Essence Pass. One's true qi must be sufficiently rich and vigorous to fulfill the requirement of condensing true qi into liquid and transforming it into true essence."

"The final pass is the Soul Pass. The cultivator condenses their scattered soul, transforming [Mental Power] into [Spiritual Sense]!"

Though deep in thought, Lin Chen's hands did not slow in the slightest. They moved so swiftly they nearly left afterimages as large quantities of spirit materials were arranged in a specific manner.

"Through my research, I've found that although the Foundation Establishment process is divided into three passes, at its root, there is only one core: liquefying true qi into true essence!"

"However, because of the difficulty and process of true qi liquefaction, it can broadly be divided into three steps. Each step has its own obstacle. If even one cannot be overcome, the attempt to establish one's foundation will fail. Thus, cultivators call these three obstacles the three Foundation Establishment Passes."

"First, the amount of true qi stored within a cultivator's body is limited. At most, it can reach the bare minimum required for liquefaction, and even then success is not guaranteed. Therefore, external heaven and earth spiritual energy must be introduced to assist in the liquefaction."

"Yet external heaven and earth spiritual energy has not been refined. Coupled with the enormous amount flooding in all at once, it cannot be controlled, so it damages the body. That is why a strong body is needed to withstand the influx of spiritual energy—this is the origin of the Body Pass."

"The second pass, true qi liquefaction, is the process of condensing the cultivator's internal true qi and external spiritual energy into true essence, achieving Quantitative Change Leads to Qualitative Change. But because the amount of external spiritual energy exceeds the true qi within the cultivator's body, and cannot be controlled, the cultivator must use their true qi to guide the process."

"This process demands an extremely high degree of control over the true qi within one's own body. In other words, the true qi in the cultivator's body must have been refined bit by bit from heaven and earth spiritual energy by the cultivator themselves, rather than gained simply by swallowing pills. Otherwise, it will be difficult to control. That is the key to the True Essence Pass."

"The Soul Pass, also called the Divine Soul Pass, uses true essence as a guide to condense the cultivator's own soul. During this process, the cultivator will endure immense pain. Should they fail to withstand it and faint, all efforts will be wasted!"

As Lin Chen understood it, pills such as the Foundation Establishment Pill had been created by ancient cultivators to solve these three obstacles.

Their medicinal effects could repair a cultivator's meridians during an attempt to break through to the Foundation Establishment Realm, preventing the body from collapsing. They could also provide gentle spiritual energy to assist refinement and ease the pain of soul condensation. Thus, they were sought after by countless cultivators.

But because the Lingnan Cultivation Land was poor in resources, coupled with the fact that the three main ingredients for refining Foundation Establishment Pills—[Immortal Foundation Fruit], [Hundred-Year Spirit Milk], and [Purple Jade Orchid]—could not have their growth cycles shortened by special means, the number of Foundation Establishment Pills was extremely limited.

Azure Cloud Sect could only refine a batch of Foundation Establishment Pills roughly every fifty years, and each batch contained only around ten. They were exceedingly scarce.

Thus, across the Lingnan Cultivation Land, even among Foundation Establishment Cultivators from the Three Major Powers, most had broken through with the aid of one or several Foundation Establishment Spirit Items.

Lin Chen did not consider Foundation Establishment Pills.

After all, only twenty years had passed since the sect last refined a batch. If he waited for the next batch, he would have to wait at least another thirty or forty years. Lin Chen would be in his fifties or sixties by then. Even If he obtained such a pill, his chances of breaking through to Foundation Establishment would be vanishingly slim. So Lin Chen immediately discarded that option.

As for Foundation Establishment Spirit Items, they were likewise not easy to obtain.

One had to know that even Second-tier Talismans were regulated by Lingnan's Three Major Powers, much less spirit items capable of helping one establish their foundation.

Even Though it was Azure Cloud Sect, it only released a batch every twenty years. Even so, they were fought over by countless people. Those with connections, seniority, or Exceptional Talent were all competing for them, so the chances were exceedingly slim.

Therefore, after consulting a vast amount of information, Lin Chen discovered that with the methods currently at his disposal, he had only one choice if he wanted to break through to the Foundation Establishment Realm: a Foundation Establishment Secret Method!

A Foundation Establishment Secret Method was a way of establishing one's foundation developed by ancient cultivators apart from using pills.

However, this method had a lower success rate for breaking through to the Foundation Establishment Realm than pills. Coupled With its demand that cultivators possess sufficient understanding of their own cultivation techniques, the obstacles to breaking through to Foundation Establishment, and the mysteries of the next realm, it was not particularly favored by cultivators and had even gradually been lost.

After all, with the shortcut of pills available, who would choose the great road strewn with thorns?

But Lin Chen was different. Compared to blindly breaking through with pills, he preferred this Foundation Establishment Secret Method, which required research and understanding!

And after combing through all manner of records and combining them with his own research into the Foundation Establishment Realm, Lin Chen had finally Researched and Developed a Foundation Establishment Secret Method Belonging Solely To himself!

At This Moment, in the Laboratory, a naked cultivator lay upon an experimental table. His Whole Body had been inscribed by Lin Chen with one talisman after another in Spirit Ink, their light echoing the Formation Spiritual Light beneath the table.

At the eight positions surrounding the experimental table stood enormous Radiant Spirit Beads. Directly overhead was a giant screen formed from condensed spiritual energy.

"The key to the Body Pass is that the influx of massive amounts of external spiritual energy forms spiritual pressure within the cultivator's body, tearing apart their meridians and damaging their body. In severe cases, they may even explode and die."

"I have placed Spirit Beads around the cultivator. When breaking through to the Foundation Establishment Realm, they will form an Anti-Cyclone to offset the immense spiritual pressure generated during true qi liquefaction..."

"Then, I'll use the Formation Restrictions inscribed upon the body to channel spiritual energy into it. This can greatly ease the pressure borne by the body's meridians and lower the difficulty of the Body Pass."

"True qi liquefaction may involve a leap in Spiritual Energy Level. I am confident I can process Mid-grade Spirit Stones into Spirit Condensing Liquid, which can aid true qi liquefaction."

"As for the pain of the final Soul Pass..." At this thought, Lin Chen took out the Soul Nurturing Incense he had recently Researched and Developed.

In Lin Chen's conception, this Soul Nurturing Incense was not merely a restorative medicine for cultivating the soul; it could also assist cultivators in breaking through the Soul Pass.

Its calming effect could greatly ease the pain of the soul's condensation and transformation!

This method of establishing one's foundation through formations, spirit liquids, and medicines specifically developed for the difficulties of each pass was named by Lin Chen the Foundation Establishment Yuan Transformation Secret Ritual!

It was also a Foundation Establishment Secret Method Belonging Solely To himself, created through the combination of his own research!

"By simulating a breakthrough to the Foundation Establishment Realm, I can determine whether spiritual energy possesses levels."

"However, this method has only just been created. To perfect it, it still has to undergo experiments!"

At this thought, Lin Chen swept out a hand. Countless Formation Restrictions, their strokes like dragons soaring and phoenixes dancing, began to gleam with spiritual light as endless spiritual energy surged in.

The experiment officially began!