Qi Refinement Stage

Seeing Fuling get thoroughly shown up and run off in emotional disarray,

Li Fan merely shrugged. Well, there was nothing he could do. He did not want to be this outstanding either, but as a transmigrator, he was destined never to become an ordinary man. He could only adapt to his own excellence as quickly as possible.

'Li Fan's mood has increased by 1 point.'

Oh? Fine, a fair lady was sought by gentlemen. But even bragging to himself could improve his mental health? Then what was the point of having a system? Couldn't Li Fan just perform naturally...

'Profound Heaven Sword Intent states that the host should stop fooling around. What is so interesting about women? Cultivating immortality and proving the Dao are true happiness. Hurry up and begin cultivating.'

Tch. Profound Heaven Sword Intent must have followed some cultivation fanatic, some thousand-year-old shut-in, in its previous life. It did not understand at all that life needed a little romance, and work and rest had to be balanced. At three-something, one had to drink tea...

Still, though Li Fan grumbled, he sat cross-legged on the meditation cushion and took out the Basic Sword Qi Primer, spreading it open across his knees for a careful read.

After all, he found it pretty novel too. This was cultivating immortality!

Though he had been through a whole night of turmoil today, after witnessing so many bizarre and fantastical sights, how could he possibly sleep and wait until tomorrow? What if he woke up after one night and had transmigrated back? Wouldn't that be a huge loss?

Anyway, he was officially certified as a peerless genius. While this strange dream had not yet ended, he might as well see what Qi Refinement was like. Meanwhile, his right hand and the system kept chattering and buzzing incessantly by Li Fan's ear.

Li Fan decided to endure it. After all, he did need to get a rough grasp of some of the basic settings. Wasn't that what a system cheat was for?

So he studied by himself, listened in, complained, and read a guide all at once, much like when he used to research materials and write papers...

With Profound Heaven Sword Intent offering guidance beside him and the system providing real-time translation, Li Fan was at least a college graduate raised by compulsory education, an office drone long engaged in mental labor. Once he understood those abstruse ancient terms, he quickly gained a rough understanding of this world's setting—at least, the setting of the ancient Postnatal Immortal Dao.

The core concept of the Postnatal Immortal Dao was qi.

It was the energy between Heaven and Earth described in Daoist teachings. There was no need to fuss over what it really was, whether microorganisms or atoms. This was basically just a setting of the worldview, and Li Fan could not be bothered to nitpick.

In any case, in this postnatal world born from the transformations of Taiji, qi was the fundamental component of all immortal arts, Daoist spells, divine abilities, transformations, magical treasures, and medicinal pills. Without qi, there was no Dao, and nothing else either. Whether one could command qi was the essential difference between Qi Refinement cultivators and mortals.

The qi filling Heaven and Earth was collectively called spiritual qi, or postnatal spiritual qi. What cultivators absorbed through breathing and meditation into the Qi Sea of their Inner Landscape below the navel was true qi. Enlightened cultivators who reached the Nascent Soul Realm were also called Real Persons.

True qi was often called Dao Breath, because "one breath of Dao" was a unit of measurement, equivalent to one cycle of breathing and meditation, or the total amount of true qi needed to cast a spell once. Naturally, it varied from person to person.

Qi Refinement, or qi cultivation, was as Fuling had just explained: refining and purifying the true qi absorbed into one's body, eventually converting it into usable Five Elements True Qi.

Of course, one did not necessarily need to refine and purify qi. For example, in the Ink Bamboo Mountain Grotto-Heaven where Li Fan currently was, there was no concern over spiritual qi being as mixed and unusable as it was in the Human Dao. And Wangshu Residence, where he lived, had simply been built atop a Dan Pool filled with Dark Underworld True Qi. The Dark Underworld spiritual qi in the surrounding Heaven and Earth was so abundant and pure that it was countless times better than what he could refine himself using an Escape Method.

That was why those Outer Sect Disciples would fight tooth and nail to cultivate on the inner mountain. They could safely and quickly refine qi and establish their foundation, saving at least several years or even decades of hard polishing.

If this had been ancient times, when everyone cultivated the Postnatal Immortal Dao, the privilege of refining qi and establishing one's foundation in a grotto-heaven blessed land could only be enjoyed by Inner Sect Disciples or elders' personal attendants like Fuling. How could it possibly have fallen to Outer Sect registered disciples, who had probably bought their qualifications with money?

It was only because cultivators nowadays were all rushing toward the Innate Great Dao that spiritual qi had become oversupplied. Ahem, that was getting off topic.

But that did not mean low-level cultivation methods like Qi Refinement were useless now. The greatest use of qi cultivation methods such as the Five Elements Escape Method was to convert postnatal spiritual qi into true qi of different attributes for use.

Different qi cultivation methods had different purification efficiencies, conversion speeds, and resulting true qi quality. Moreover, in the era of immortal cultivation, there truly was a general distinction between superior and inferior cultivation methods among the various sects.

For example, Profound Heaven Sword Intent had dismissed a whole pile of Five Elements Escape Methods in the Scripture Pavilion as trash, yet specifically pointed to the Sword Qi Primer in Li Fan's hand and said this one was good. There was indeed a reason for that.

The Basic Sword Qi Primer section of the Bamboo Mountain Sword Method had a unique feature that even an outsider could see: it could refine all spiritual qi into Sword Qi.

Sword Qi was also a transformation of qi, a special material transformation. It was purer, more refined, swifter, and sharper. Literally speaking, when Five Elements True Qi was expelled, it was "qi," at most carrying some five-element effects. But when Sword Qi shot out from the meridians and acupoints, it was a "sword"!

However, in essence, it did not alter the five-element nature of spiritual qi. Thus, the Basic Sword Qi Primer could not convert spiritual qi's attributes. It could only remove impurities and preserve the essence, storing strand after strand of sword qi within the Qi Sea.

Once Li Fan saw this, he understood why Profound Heaven Sword Intent had insisted on choosing this cultivation method for him.

Sword Intent, Sword Intent—it did not matter what methods it had possessed before; they were all supernatural attainments in swordsmanship. The Bamboo Mountain Sect might not have any profound late-stage cultivation methods, but Profound Heaven Sword Intent did! It had fought its way all the way to the Void Star Dao Ancestor. Would it lack advanced sword arts?

So from Profound Heaven Sword Intent's perspective, this Basic Sword Qi Primer, a Qi Refining Stage cultivation method that could produce a whole bunch of qi swords right from the start, truly was a top-tier cultivation method.

So how exactly was one supposed to refine it?

It was actually very simple: use one's mind.

Put plainly, one first visualized and projected a "visualization" within the divine court—that was, the brain. Taking the Basic Sword Qi Primer as an example, one directly imagined a treasured sword in one's mind. Then, by illuminating the formed "Sword Visualization" with spiritual light within the Qi Sea of the Inner Landscape, the true qi in the Qi Sea could condense according to that "visualization" and be tempered into "sword qi."

From this, it could also be seen that the final quality of the "sword qi" depended entirely on the initial "visualization." If one went astray from the source, one would naturally end up a thousand miles off course and fail to temper anything at all. That was why one needed to seek true scriptures and study orthodox cultivation methods, using "visualization" to correct one's Dao.

In particular, the true qi cultivated by ordinary Five Elements Escape Methods belonged to natural phenomena and was rather difficult to describe through words and pictures. Thus, those Ink Bamboo cultivation methods used spells to record illusion-like "visualizations," allowing cultivators to enter an illusory realm during meditation and more conveniently cultivate Five Elements True Qi.

The Basic Sword Qi Primer did not need to be so complicated. After all, it visualized a physical object, which was indeed easier to imagine. And Li Fan recognized the sword form the moment he saw it. It was the sword hanging at the entrance of the Scripture Pavilion! The damn thing had even flashed in his face!

'Profound Heaven Sword Intent suggests that the host first refer to the dimensions recorded in the cultivation method and reproduce the sword exactly as it is...'

Tch, was that not just CAD drafting? Easy.

Referring to the dimensions and details marked in the Sword Qi Primer, Li Fan directly created a three-dimensional projection in his mind—jig design, mold opening, laser printing, all in one go!

Whoosh! A peerlessly sharp qi sword leaked out from the meridians in Li Fan's right hand, through which he had just circulated qi. With a single strike, it split the curling incense smoke in the quiet room and condensed in midair into an eight-sided Han sword.

The sword body was straight, with a round hilt and pointed blade. It was three chi long, with a five-cun hilt, exactly the same dimensions as that Black Sword. If there was any flaw or difference, it was that this sword was not made of metal or jade. Clearly, it had been formed from the Zixia Zhenqi Li Fan had absorbed through breathing and meditation while sitting for a hundred seconds on the cushion in the Ink Bamboo Grove of the outer mountain, when he had opened up the Qi Sea of his Inner Landscape.

The sword ridge was dark as ink, while purple qi coiled around the edge. As Li Fan held the sword in his hand, he could clearly feel that its hilt remained connected to the meridians in his right arm, piercing through his palm directly into his Qi Sea and constantly consuming true qi to maintain its form.

He casually swung the sword, only to discover that the qi sword had no weight at all. It flashed like purple lightning, and its edge swept past the bed and table in the quiet room, slicing the tables, chairs, and stools cleanly in half. Brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones clattered to the floor.

"What happened?" Fuling's voice came from next door.

"Nothing, nothing. I fell off the bed."

Startled, Li Fan casually flung the Purple Radiance Sword Qi toward the outside wall. It pierced a sword mark through the bamboo wall, transformed into a streak of purple light, and flew toward the center of the lake.

Fuling seemed to mutter something about children, then rolled over and apparently lay back down to sleep.

So Fuling lived next door. Li Fan wiped away a cold sweat and checked his Inner Landscape. Ouch, what a loss. That single qi sword had actually consumed more than half the true qi in his Qi Sea! What a waste, what a waste. He had squandered at least sixty seconds of cultivation!

'Profound Heaven Sword Intent states that the host's talent is simply astonishing, insane, and outrageous.'

...Was that really a compliment?

Well, there was no need to brag. Li Fan knew his own limits. He had merely drawn a diagram; surely at least a billion people from his previous life could do that.

But merely refining sword qi did not seem enough to establish a foundation.

According to the setting Li Fan had just understood, Qi Refinement was the foundational process of developing the body's instinct to refine true qi. Foundation Establishment, simply put, was expanding and opening the meridians and qi apertures in the human body, creating an internal automatic true qi reactor.

For example, with the Five Elements Escape Method, one would open several specific meridians in the body and form a circuit. Then, the spiritual qi drawn into the body through ordinary breathing could circulate on its own and generate true qi, forming a self-contained minor heavenly cycle. Dao Breath would arise from the body itself, endlessly and without interruption, so one would no longer need to spend time each day sitting in bitter meditation.

But the Bamboo Mountain Sword Method fell short in this regard, because it was merely a sword method. Sword qi was entirely an application for slaughter and combat. If one truly circulated sword qi through the body's meridians in cycles, would that not be like poking holes through oneself?

However, Profound Heaven Sword Intent told the host not to panic!

'Profound Heaven Sword Intent states that the host's talent is astonishing, so it need not waste time explaining. It will directly circulate qi and demonstrate shortly. The host need only remember the meridian circuit traveled by Profound Heaven Sword Intent and circulate qi accordingly to convert the Dark Underworld True Qi accumulated in the body into Zixia Zhenqi.'

As the system explained, Li Fan could already clearly sense Profound Heaven Sword Intent moving through his body. The sensation was indeed quite distinct. After Profound Heaven Sword Intent repeated it three times, Li Fan had memorized the route of qi circulation. He then copied it, feeling a chill rise from his kidneys and travel through the meridians to his liver. It then transformed into a clear current and dropped into his Qi Sea. In an instant, his Inner Landscape filled with Zixia Zhenqi, replenishing the Qi Sea that had just been more than half emptied by that sword strike.

'Profound Heaven Sword Intent states that the host is simply insane. Now it will demonstrate the route for converting Zixia Zhenqi into Chisha Zhenqi. Please memorize it.'

Then Li Fan felt Profound Heaven Sword Intent travel from the Qi Sea below his navel through another meridian back to his liver, circle around his heart, and finally descend once more into his Qi Sea.

Li Fan was beginning to understand the principles of the Postnatal Immortal Dao. So he did the same, gathering the Zixia Zhenqi within his Qi Sea and circulating it through the circuit Profound Heaven Sword Intent had traveled. When it returned to his Qi Sea, it had transformed into a warm, overflowing current. It was undoubtedly Chisha Zhenqi.

"The mutual generation of the inner five elements..."

Water, wood, fire, earth, metal—the five elements generated one another endlessly. The human body also had the heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys, corresponding respectively to the five divine organs.

Profound Heaven Sword Intent disdained the Foundation Establishment method of the Five Elements Escape Method, while Real Person Wanshu was similarly unconcerned about choosing a Foundation Establishment cultivation method. Cultivators in ancient times might not have understood meridians and qi apertures, but cultivators today had likely mastered these basic principles long ago.

Thus, for proper cultivators, Foundation Establishment probably did not even count as a threshold anymore.

'Profound Heaven Sword Intent states that the host understands at a touch and is teachable. As long as the host memorizes the principles of the mutual generation of the five elements and cultivates a cyclical heavenly circuit within the body, he may breathe, circulate qi, and increase his cultivation while walking, standing, sitting, or lying down. Within a few months, his qi body will be full, and Foundation Establishment will succeed.'

Indeed, if he had had to figure it out himself, it would likely have taken considerable effort. At the very least, he would have needed to study meridians and qi apertures for years, memorizing the composition of the human body forwards and backwards. One careless mistake might even have caused qi deviation and injured his internal organs.

But with Profound Heaven Sword Intent directly moving through his body, it was like using a pen to clearly trace out the meridians inside him. Li Fan only had to copy it exactly. It truly was quite simple.

After simply completing one heavenly cycle of qi circulation, Li Fan felt every pore of his body refresh. Like he had eaten a ginseng fruit, he felt indescribably clear and invigorated.

How should he describe that feeling? It was like, in the past, when one only ran through the kidney channel, one followed a single meridian, rushed to the climax, and spilled out. It was over in three to five seconds.

But a full heavenly cycle ran through all the extraordinary meridians and eight channels throughout the entire body! That complete, all-encompassing comfort was truly beyond words!

Ahhh—so cultivation was such a wonderful thing~~~

'Li Fan's mood has increased significantly by 1 point.'

'Profound Heaven Sword Intent states that the host understands now, yes?'

Li Fan understood. He finally understood what it meant to desire immortality and have joy reach the heavens...

Cultivate! Cultivate the hell out of it!