Zhi Lianshan relaxed for a moment. "...Actually, it wasn't quite as you imagined."
"Then what was it like? One person was here drinking tea and torturing himself, while the other had been pacing outside this poor monk's courtyard for half the day. Keep pacing, and you'll rub sparks out of the ground."
Lianshui isn't a cultivator with a Fire Spiritual Root. He can't rub out sparks.
"You really won't go out? I heard that when he last attempted Nascent Soul Formation, he tried to force a breakthrough but fell short halfway through. Fortunately, he was treated in time and avoided having his cultivation regress."
The Nascent Soul Tribulation could be called the first great hurdle a cultivator faced after entering the path of cultivation. For most people, Foundation Establishment was manageable. Even cultivators with the poorest talent could usually succeed after cultivating for a long time and taking a Foundation Establishment Pill. It was like advancing from elementary school to middle school—so long as one qualified for admission, one could enroll successfully.
A Golden Core, meanwhile, required a cultivator to learn how to twist the spiritual energy within their body into a "spiritual pill." Put bluntly, it was a process where quantitative change gave rise to qualitative change. At the same time, one had to strengthen one's state of mind, confirm one's Dao Heart, and cultivate a "prototype of the self" atop one's original foundation. Yet not everyone could accomplish such a transformation. It was like moving from middle school to high school—more than half would be screened out.
Nascent Soul Formation was the college entrance examination where one had to pass five checkpoints and slay six generals. As the name implied, Core Formation meant gathering spiritual energy within the Dantian and forming it into a perfectly round pill. Nascent