Qi Refining, Fourth Layer

After finishing his cultivation, Li Yuan let out a long breath of turbid air. When he opened his eyes, the sky outside the window was already fully bright.

The spiritual power in his dantian had been refined to the utmost limit.

His spiritual power was indeed somewhat purer, but the increase was negligible. His dantian had long since reached its limit of saturation.

Li Yuan rose, straightened his clothes, hung his waist token at his belt, and pushed open the door to begin his patrol.

The market was already beginning to stir in the early morning. Li Yuan walked along East Street before turning into North Alley.

In the middle of North Alley, Zhao Wu's stall looked the same as ever.

A filthy piece of coarse cloth was spread over the ground, with a small heap of ore fragments piled atop it. The gaunt man sat against the wall behind the stall, his hands tucked into his sleeves, looking thoroughly listless.

As Li Yuan passed by, his peripheral vision swept over it as usual. Those few dull gray stones were still stacked exactly as before.

Several days had passed. Not a single item had sold, yet the man was not the least bit anxious.

Li Yuan did not slow his steps and walked past just as he had in the previous days.

But before his gaze shifted away, he caught another detail.

Zhao Wu was not looking at the stall before him. His half-open, half-closed eyes made him seem as though he were dozing off, but his gaze was actually fixed on the entrance to North Alley—directly opposite the market's main gate.

After walking past, Li Yuan paused at a corner ahead and pretended to examine the notice board.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zhao Wu's gaze leave the entrance of North Alley and slowly turn toward the Management Office.

The Management Office stood at the end of West Street. From this angle in North Alley, one could see the guards standing watch at its entrance.

A Qi Refining Second Layer Rogue Cultivator selling ore scraps was neither worried that his goods would not sell nor doing anything else with his time except observing the market's defenses.

Li Yuan filed the thought away and turned to continue his patrol.

When he returned to the Wooden Cabin at dusk, Li Yuan sat cross-legged and circulated the Spirit Guiding Art. Pure spiritual qi surged into his meridians, his circulation revolved at high speed, and the spiritual power in his dantian was refined to the extreme. The improvement brought by each cycle was now almost negligible.

There was no point in grinding on any longer. He could already attempt a breakthrough.

Spirit Qi Filtration had become permanent, and the purity of his spiritual power far surpassed the original owner's condition back then.

With Viscera Strengthening, the resilience of his internal organs was more than a level stronger than when the original owner had attempted to break through the bottleneck.

With Circulation Acceleration, the speed at which his spiritual power circulated far exceeded that of the original owner.

On top of that, he had experienced one breakthrough already and understood all manner of details involved.

Even without a Breakthrough Pill, his chances of success were extremely high.

With that thought, Li Yuan directly closed his eyes and began regulating his breath.

His breathing gradually slowed, leveled out, and became even. Stray thoughts sank one after another, while his consciousness slowly gathered at his dantian.

The saturated spiritual power in his dantian condensed into a mass, pure and tightly compressed, lying dormant in silence.

Beyond the boundaries of the dantian, however, an invisible barrier shut everything out. No matter how abundant the spiritual power became, it could not cross that threshold.

The original owner had spent nearly two years before this barrier. In the end, he had swallowed a Breakthrough Pill and forced his way through. His internal organs could not withstand the spiritual power's backlash; he suffered qi deviation, and his meridians were damaged.

There had been two reasons for the original owner's failure. First, his spiritual power had not been pure enough, and its impurities had created an additional burden during the charge. Second, his internal organs had been too weak to bear the backlash.

After regulating his breath for roughly half an hour, his body reached its peak condition.

Li Yuan no longer hesitated and operated the Spirit Guiding Art with all his strength.

Spiritual qi surged madly into his body, becoming incomparably pure after filtration.

Driven by Circulation Acceleration, his spiritual power raced through his meridians faster and faster, changing from a stream into a river, then from a river into a rushing torrent.

The spiritual power in his dantian was swept along by the rapidly circulating cycles and expanded outward, pressing against that barrier.

Once, twice, three times—the pressure grew greater and greater.

Then Li Yuan fiercely blasted all of his spiritual power at the barrier.

The barrier shattered. It broke just like that, with absurd ease.

Compared with the original owner's hardship, Li Yuan's breakthrough, bolstered by three Affixes, could practically be called smooth sailing.

His dantian abruptly expanded, and the spiritual qi outside surged madly into his body as well, pouring into the enlarged dantian. The total amount of spiritual power rose at breathtaking speed.

The entire process lasted roughly several dozen breaths. The influx of spiritual qi gradually slowed, and the spiritual power in his dantian stabilized, reaching a new balance.

Li Yuan slowly opened his eyes.

Though the breakthrough had taken little time, Li Yuan was drenched from head to toe as if he had been soaked in water. His clothes were thoroughly saturated with sweat.

Yet the spiritual power in his dantian was full and abundant, thick and powerful as it circulated, utterly incomparable to what it had been before the breakthrough.

[Current Realm: Qi Refining, Fourth Layer]

Li Yuan opened the Panel, which now clearly displayed his realm after the breakthrough.

By dawn, Li Yuan had recovered most of his vigor.

The spiritual power in his dantian circulated steadily, showing no signs of disorder.

He pushed open the wooden door, and a cool breeze met him head-on. His clothes were spotless; the sweat that had drenched him through the night had long been dealt with by the Clean Physique.

Compared with Qi Refining Third Level, the total amount of spiritual power at the fourth layer had nearly doubled, and its circulation speed had increased considerably. Even the noisy voices drifting over from distant East Street sounded clearer than before.

Mid Qi Refinement. Unless something unusual happened, he would no longer be forcibly conscripted. He had crossed this hurdle at last.

North Alley, Zhao Wu's stall.

As Li Yuan passed by, he glanced over it as usual, letting his attention linger for an extra moment.

The pile of fragments had changed.

The heap of ore scraps that had once filled a small half-pile was now reduced to only a thin layer. At least two-thirds of the goods had vanished.

But it did not look as though Zhao Wu had sold them—there was no way a stall that had failed to sell a single item for days had suddenly found customers overnight.

Li Yuan shifted his gaze away from the pile of fragments and observed Zhao Wu himself without revealing anything.

For the past few days, Zhao Wu had leaned against the wall with both hands tucked into his sleeves, looking loose and languid, as though bored beyond measure.

Today, Zhao Wu sat somewhat straighter. His back was faintly taut, his cuffs drawn tight, and his shoulders held a little higher than usual.

It was not obvious, but compared to his slack posture over the past few days, the change was clear.

Li Yuan walked several more steps, then stopped before a stall ahead and pretended to inspect its wares.

At that moment, voices came from Zhao Wu's direction.

"Fellow cultivator, are you from outside? Are Demonic Beasts still causing trouble in the mountains?"

From the corner of his eye, Li Yuan saw Zhao Wu striking up a conversation with a passing Rogue Cultivator.

The Rogue Cultivator carried a filthy cloth bundle on his back. He froze briefly after being called out, then casually answered a few questions.

Zhao Wu asked another question. "There have been quite a few people in the market lately. Does the Guard Squad have enough men?"

The Rogue Cultivator shook his head to indicate that he did not know. Zhao Wu smiled and did not press further, and the Rogue Cultivator left.

Zhao Wu had never spoken to passersby over the previous days. Today, he had suddenly taken the initiative to chat, and what he asked about was not business, but the Guard Squad's numbers.

The fragments had decreased, his body was tense, and he was probing for information about the guards' manpower.

Zhao Wu might be about to make his move.

With that thought, Li Yuan did not act directly. Instead, he decided to find Wang De, the captain of the Patrol Squad.

What if his analysis and guess were wrong? Acting rashly could easily cause problems.

And if Zhao Wu truly had a problem, and something happened right under his nose, then as a Patrol Inspector, Li Yuan would definitely be punished as well.

Better to dump the blame on Wang De.