Until the eastern sky turned pale and the first faint light of dawn appeared, the bright moon finally faded from the heavens, its last glimmer disappearing.
The vortex of spiritual energy beneath the cliff slowly settled, and the strange joint cultivation between Xia Dong and the Great Serpent came to an end.
Xia Dong slowly eased out of the Crane Stance, exhaled a long breath of turbid air, then closed his eyes and focused inward, carefully examining the changes in his cultivation.
To his surprise, after a whole night of breathing in and out, the mana in his dantian had barely increased in quantity. Yet it seemed to have undergone a thorough tempering from within, becoming denser and suffused with a mysterious quality.
His Mysterious Yin Mana, the path he had originally focused on cultivating, had become visibly purer.
The purer one's mana, the sturdier one's foundation.
Xia Dong knew his own weakness well—most of his mana had been forcibly piled up by swallowing vast quantities of Qi-Gathering Pills. His progress had been gratifying, but his foundation inevitably carried a certain hollowness.
After being cleansed by the moonlit spiritual mist the previous night, his mana had been repeatedly refined. Even the hidden dangers and side effects of taking too many pills had been greatly reduced.
It felt as though his whole being, body and mind alike, had been thoroughly purified—clear and flawless, with an indescribable sense of ease.
What delighted him even more was that even the Divine Treasury Chapter of the Evergreen Qi-Circulation Art, whose progress had always crawled along at a snail's pace, had advanced by a small but noticeable step under the nourishment of the moonlight.
Xia Dong looked at the Great Serpent beside him, and an astonishing thought rose in his mind. *Could breathing in the