Seven sunrises and sunsets passed, yet Li Bufan remained motionless, seated cross-legged at the center of the small island. His breathing grew deeper and longer, each inhalation and exhalation seeming to draw all the island's spiritual energy into his body.
Within his dantian, the three nine-petaled flowers spun at an extreme speed. Golden, five-colored, and violet radiance was stripped into ever finer fragments, like three differently colored mists endlessly intertwining as they rotated. Gradually, they merged into one and flowed toward the center of his chest in a chaotic stream of light.
By the dusk of the seventh day, after the final streak of sunset glow sank behind the distant mountains, the three powers finally completed their last fusion at the very center of his chest. All their essence gathered in one place, condensing into a fist-sized sphere of light that hovered deep within his heart.
Li Bufan suddenly opened his eyes, and three-colored radiance flashed through his pupils before vanishing. He slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air. Before it had traveled three feet from his lips, it condensed into a grain of gray crystal dust and fell into the soil. It was the last trace of impurity remaining within his body.
The Three-Flower Power had finished gathering. This was the first step on his path toward the Golden Core.
The Sun-Moon Martial Canon recorded it clearly: the reason it was called a Golden Core was that one had to use intent as the guide and truly shape this power into form. Without the infusion of will, this mass of power would remain nothing but chaos; no matter how pure it was, it could never become a vessel.
Li Bufan closed his eyes and sank his mind deep into his Spirit Sea, extending his awareness toward that sphere of