Four Supreme Beings battled for supremacy. Two of them roared madly, rallying all living things and vowing to trample this land flat, leaving the entire territory reduced to ashes.
More than a dozen Primordial Remnants led the charge, rampaging across the region. They breached the homes of one race after another and wiped out one great clan after another, leaving rivers of blood in their wake.
The beast tide grew ever larger. As it surged toward the end of the land, more and more vicious birds and beasts from the mountain ranges along the way joined in. The sight was magnificent—and made one's scalp crawl.
The vicious birds and beasts ran amok, obeying the commands and slaughtering in every direction.
The entire land fell into chaos. Roars and cries filled the air as ferocious beasts surged like a flood, slaughtering in every direction.
This was a cataclysm that swept across the land. Led by the Heaven-Swallowing Sparrow and that towering, earth-spanning vicious beast, they stained the mountains and rivers red and wiped out every clan.
Once-prosperous giant cities became ruins. The vast plains where living beings had once thrived were now lifeless, strewn with bones and awash with blood.
But this had little to do with Stone Village. Thanks to the Willow Deity, everyone in Stone Village safely weathered the disaster.
No one knew what supreme divine ability the Willow Deity had used to move Stone Village to a wondrous and safe place.
It was a strange space, softly glowing as though it were dawn, just before the first hint of daylight appeared. Wisps of mist curled through the air.
With their safety assured and his Qi Refining gradually reaching completion, Bai Yixin began a period of secluded cultivation amid these peaceful days, preparing to break through to Foundation Establishment in one fell swoop.
"Fill the dantian with qi, let the governing and conception vessels flow as one.
Guard against danger, proceed along the meridians.
Cycle through the whole body, flowing freely until body and qi unite.
Return the qi to the dantian, and the work is done, the method revealed."
Foundation Establishment had three stages: in the early stage, one opened a qi sea; in the middle stage, one built a spirit platform; and in the late stage, one condensed a cauldron.
At this realm, one could basically be considered a true cultivator. The main reason was that one's lifespan increased as well. Qi Refining cultivators lived for roughly two hundred years, while Foundation Establishment masters could live for five hundred.
Upon reaching early-stage Foundation Establishment, a qi sea formed in the dantian, greatly increasing the speed at which one drew the spiritual energy of the surrounding world into the body. It was also the very foundation of cultivation.
At the Foundation Establishment stage, a master could fly through the sky and burrow underground, summon the wind and call the rain through their own power alone. Their spells also grew much more powerful: they could collapse a small mountain, even reverse the flow of rivers and split the earth apart.
Previously, Bai Yixin had been able to fly through the sky and burrow underground, summon the wind and call the rain even while at the Qi Refining stage, purely because of the unique nature of his cultivation method.
Upon reaching middle-stage Foundation Establishment, the spiritual energy in one's qi sea liquefied under high concentration and compression, condensing into solid form and eventually becoming a spirit platform of a particular grade. There were four grades of spirit platform, with the first grade being the highest. Through the spirit platform, one could continuously refine and purify spiritual energy, taking one's spell power to an even higher level.
Upon reaching late-stage Foundation Establishment, the quality of one's spirit platform, the cultivation method one practiced, and the depth of one's foundations determined what grade of cauldron one could further condense. Cauldrons came in four grades: purple, red, green, and gray. They were a prerequisite for reaching the Golden Core stage. The higher the grade of the cauldron, the higher the quality of the Golden Core formed after surviving the Three-Nine Heavenly Tribulation.
Now, after another month of secluded cultivation and refinement, Bai Yixin had finally seized that fleeting opportunity to break through.
Bai Yixin's tightly shut eyes suddenly opened, their light shining brilliantly.
The wisp of Heavenly Dao Qi that had floated incongruously above Bai Yixin's dantian finally stopped drifting on its own. In an instant, it merged into the mist throughout his dantian.
An indescribable aura surged skyward at that moment, imbued with holiness. It swept outward like a landslide and tsunami, spreading throughout Stone Village. Every villager looked toward the stone house where Bai Yixin was, aghast. They immediately saw an enormous face appear in the sky above the direction from which the aura came.
That face... was unmistakably Bai Yixin's.
"Is that Little Bai?!"
"What's happening?"
"Why has Little Bai's face appeared in the sky?"
The people of Stone Village talked among themselves, but at the old chief's instruction, no one went near the house where Bai Yixin was.
As the villagers looked on, stunned and overwhelmed by all sorts of emotions, the Heavenly Dao Qi and Bai Yixin's spiritual energy merged inside his dantian, forming a golden cloud above it.
The golden cloud grew larger and larger until it reached a tipping point. Suddenly, a torrential golden rain poured down.
The golden raindrops soon gathered in the dantian, forming a small golden pool. The pool gradually became a lake, then a sea of clouds. It continued to expand until it filled the entire dantian...
But the dantian was expanding, too. Once it could expand no further and the Spirit Sea filled it completely, that meant... Bai Yixin had succeeded...
He had forged a perfect Dao Foundation with Heavenly Dao Qi!
His cultivation, potential, and lifespan surged in that instant. He seemed to sense the true world beyond this World of Refuge responding to him as well. What shook Bai Yixin's mind even more was that, in that moment, he seemed to faintly feel—far above the distant sky—another layer of heaven and earth, filled with the weight of time and the ancient past!
The sensation vanished in an instant, leaving Bai Yixin bewildered and uncertain.
Was that...
the Three Thousand Provinces of the Upper Realm?
At the head of the village, a massive willow tree was rooted in the ground, its charred trunk split and its old bark peeling. Its sole willow branch was no longer fresh and dewy but had grown somewhat dim.
Yet as Bai Yixin broke through, the dim willow branch suddenly glimmered faintly, though it made no other movement.
"Ah~~~!"
An invisible force blew open the tightly shut door of the stone house. Bai Yixin slowly walked out and stretched with a great, long yawn.
"Hmm... Huh? Hi, everyone? Why are you all looking at me like that?" Bai Yixin stared in bewilderment at the villagers gathered in a ring around his stone house, a hundred meters away.
"Brother Little White, your face appeared in the sky just now. You scared us half to death!" Little One was already four years old. His big, black-gem eyes were growing more and more lively, and he was as pretty and cute as a little girl.
"Hahaha... It was probably an unusual sight caused by my breakthrough." Bai Yixin chuckled. He hadn't expected his Foundation Establishment breakthrough to cause such a spectacle, either.
Just as Bai Yixin was laughing and joking with a group of children—
"Crack!"
Suddenly, the sky split open, and a ray of sunlight shone in, scattering the hazy mist. The whole space brightened considerably.
"Crack!"
As though a jade vase had shattered, the space shook violently, then flickered between light and darkness. At last, with a rumble, the gray mist vanished completely. The chaos disappeared, and daylight poured down.
The sun hung high in the sky, enormous and dazzling. Yet everyone was thrilled, craning their necks to look up and cheering loudly. They had escaped and returned to the land.
"Hmm! Looks like I emerged from seclusion at just the right time!" Bai Yixin was delighted, too. Joy really did come in pairs.
"We've been cooped up for a month or two. I'm sick of it! We can finally leave the village and go play!"
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