And yet!
What seemed like a difference of only an inch was in truth a chasm like a heavenly moat, barring the path of countless cultivators.
To ordinary cultivators, this step appeared almost within reach, with no fixed realm bottleneck holding them back.
But only upon truly setting foot upon it did one realize...
This step was so difficult as to defy the heavens, ten thousand times harder than every previous breakthrough.
In the Cultivation World, Nascent Soul Late Stage cultivators were innumerable, yet ninety-nine percent of them would remain stuck there for life. Even after exhausting their lifespan, they would be unable to take that final step and ascend to the lofty rank of Half-Venerable.
At its root, spirit pills and wondrous medicines, Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, vast quantities of Spirit Energy...
None of them could propel one through this final breakthrough.
For a Nascent Soul to transform into a Half-Venerable, the key lay in tempering one's own Dao foundation. One had to gather two uniquely scarce things—
Innate Gang Sha suited to one's own Dao path, and pure, dense Earthly Turbid Qi.
Neither of these opportunities could be lacking.
Without even one of them, a breakthrough would remain forever hopeless.
No matter how heaven-defying one's talent or how abundant one's resources, it would all be in vain.
It was precisely because Innate Gang Sha and Earthly Turbid Qi were so rare in this world, things that could be encountered but not sought, that Half-Venerable cultivators were so few. Only then could they stand firmly at the pinnacle of the Cultivation World and possess a status of supreme honor.
If these two things could be found everywhere, the number of Half-Venerable cultivators in the world would surely surge a hundredfold, a thousandfold.
Half-Venerable cultivators would no longer possess