Fourth Layer of Qi Refining

Time slipped by day after day amid the bustle.

Before long.

A month had passed.

Ever since discovering an Immortal Seedling in the family, Chen Daoxuan had been caught between joy and worry.

In any other family, discovering a potential immortal cultivator would be good news no matter what.

But the Chen Family was, after all, a small clan with shallow foundations.

There was not even a Spirit Vein within the clan—only a single Spirit Eye, and that was barely enough for Chen Daoxuan's cultivation alone.

As a result.

Even though they had discovered Chen Daochu, an Immortal Seedling, the Chen Family had no additional spiritual Qi to support his cultivation.

Inside the Cave Mansion.

After guiding Chen Daochu through his Mortal Realm cultivation for the day, Chen Daoxuan thought urgently:

No matter what, I have to cultivate a Spirit Vein for the family within this year.

Chen Daoxuan had not come up with this goal out of thin air.

The explosive output of the Flying Sword Factory over the past month had given him the confidence to do so.

In one month.

Excluding Flying Swords that had failed during refining due to improper operation by the workers, Chen Daoxuan had refined a total of 148 Flying Swords.

That averaged nearly five a day.

Even if he sold all those Flying Swords at Guang'an Prefecture's market price, they would fetch 7,400 Spirit Stones. Not only would that recover all of Chen Daoxuan's investment, it would even turn a modest profit.

And that was only for one month.

Over a full year, Chen Daoxuan calculated, he could earn at least more than 34,000 Spirit Stones.

Three years would be enough to save up the Spirit Stones needed to cultivate a Spirit Vein.

Yet Chen Daoxuan intended to solve the family's Spirit Vein problem within a single year. Clearly, relying solely on the Guang'an Prefecture route would not be enough.

At this thought.

He silently took an azure scale from his Storage Bag.

The scale was diamond-shaped, with a faint trace of dark-red bloodstain upon it.

It was the Lifebound Scale the Merfolk princess Luo Li had left with Chen Daoxuan.

But two months had already passed, and the scale did not seem to have reacted in the slightest.

Chen Daoxuan had tried channeling true Qi into it three times, but every attempt had vanished like a stone sinking into the sea.

This could not help but make Chen Daoxuan wonder whether that Merfolk woman named Luo Li had deceived him.

But on further thought, the possibility of her deceiving him was infinitely close to zero.

There was simply nothing on Chen Daoxuan worth deceiving him for.

And trading with him was something that benefited both the Merfolk Tribe and the Chen Family.

"Alas."

With a sigh.

Chen Daoxuan stopped dwelling on it and put the azure scale back into his Storage Bag.

Then he began his cultivation for the day.

Of course.

Over this period, aside from the explosive number of Magic Artifacts produced by the family's Flying Sword Factory, Chen Daoxuan's increase in cultivation had far exceeded his expectations.

He had originally thought that breaking through to the fourth layer of Qi Refining would take four or five months, perhaps even half a year.

Yet after cultivating for only two full months, he already felt as if he were on the verge of a breakthrough.

Such a terrifying cultivation speed finally made him understand why Zhou Mubai had achieved Foundation Establishment success at the mere age of twenty-one.

Normally.

A cultivator at the ninth layer of Qi Refining who wished to establish their foundation had to temper their true Qi for a long time, refining it until it could not be refined any further, before they could attempt to break through into the Foundation Establishment Realm.

Of course.

That was merely one of the most basic requirements for breaking through to the Foundation Establishment Realm.

It did not even include Foundation Establishment's demands for resources such as Spirit Veins and Foundation Establishment Pills.

Precisely because of the many requirements for a cultivator's Foundation Establishment, cultivators capable of achieving it among Rogue Cultivators were few enough to count on one's fingers.

Basically, they had to accumulate Battle Merit on the battlefields of Cloud Country, obtain resources, and break through that way.

As for ordinary Rogue Cultivators unwilling to go to war, they did not even have enough spiritual Qi for everyday cultivation, much less any hope of breaking through to the Foundation Establishment Realm.

Inside the Cave Mansion's cultivation chamber.

Chen Daoxuan sat with his eyes shut as pure spiritual Qi continuously surged forth from the Water Spirit Pearl.

Combined with the aid of the Qi Gathering Pill, Chen Daoxuan's speed of refining spiritual Qi at this moment left even cultivators with Heavenly Spiritual Roots far behind in the dust.

As the pure spiritual Qi entered his meridians and was continuously circulated and refined, it all transformed into true Qi and was stored bit by bit within his Dantian sea of Qi.

Within the Dantian sea of Qi.

His true Qi was expanding at a rate almost visible to the naked eye.

Suddenly.

A flash of inspiration struck Chen Daoxuan. He felt that the moment to break through to the fourth layer of Qi Refining was now!

His premonition was correct.

As true Qi continued to accumulate in his Dantian sea of Qi, the total amount of true Qi within his Dantian seemed to reach a threshold.

Boom!

A thunderous roar exploded within Chen Daoxuan's Sea of Consciousness.

He felt his Divine Sense suddenly strengthen by a great deal. Nor was that all—his Dantian sea of Qi underwent a transformation as well.

When his awareness returned the next instant, he discovered that the vortex in his Dantian sea of Qi had abruptly grown a full circle larger.

Compared to before, his total true Qi had increased by at least fifty percent.

"The fourth layer of Qi Refining—success!"

Chen Daoxuan opened his eyes, his face brimming with delight.

Thinking it over carefully.

It had only been a little more than four months since he broke through to the third layer of Qi Refining—not even half a year.

Compared with when he had broken through from the second layer of Qi Refining to the third layer of Qi Refining, the time he had spent had not increased. Instead, it had shortened severalfold.

This clearly did not conform to the normal laws of cultivation.

Under normal circumstances, the further a cultivator progressed, the slower their breakthroughs would become.

In other words, breaking through from the third layer of Qi Refining to the fourth layer of Qi Refining should certainly have been somewhat slower than breaking through from the second layer to the third.

But Chen Daoxuan had broken that pattern.

Chen Daoxuan knew perfectly well that it was not some sudden explosion of talent that had allowed him to defy the laws of cultivation. It was thanks to the Water Spirit Pearl and the Qi Gathering Pill.

In the end, it was still the credit of cultivation resources.

At this thought, he could not help thinking of those great cultivation clans, and even the core disciples of the Qianyuan Sword Sect. What kind of cultivation conditions did they enjoy?

Every core disciple of the Qianyuan Sword Sect was a genius among geniuses.

As Chen Daoxuan knew.

Qianyuan Sword Sect disciples were divided into three categories: Outer Disciples, Inner Disciples, and Personal Disciples.

He had heard that even the lowest-ranking Outer Disciples required the outrageously demanding qualification of an Upper Spiritual Root, not to mention the various trials and tempering of one's character and perseverance.

Thus, any random Qianyuan Sword Sect disciple would be invincible among Rogue Cultivators of the same realm.

Without that capability, the sect could not have dominated the Myriad Star Sea for a thousand years.

Of course.

Though Chen Daoxuan knew that he could not compare to Qianyuan Sword Sect disciples in Spiritual Roots, resources, and other such aspects, there was one thing that even they could not match him in, no matter how hard they tried.

That was Comprehension!

He possessed the "Primordial Enlightenment Scripture," which stored Comprehension each day and granted him Enlightenment once every ten days.

Over time, the results would be terrifying.

At this thought, Chen Daoxuan could not help sinking his consciousness into his Sea of Consciousness space.

Within his Sea of Consciousness.

Ten motes of Star Dust revolved around a golden scroll of scripture. The ten motes attracted one another, but Chen Daoxuan had deliberately kept them from gathering together.

Perhaps because he had just broken through to the fourth layer of Qi Refining, Chen Daoxuan vaguely felt that the opportunity for the "Chasing Wind Sword Art" to break through might also lie tonight.

At this thought.

He no longer suppressed the ten motes of Star Dust from merging, allowing them to converge into a larger mote of Star Dust before finally erupting and spreading throughout his entire Sea of Consciousness.

Immediately afterward, Chen Daoxuan's consciousness rose higher and higher, while every kind of insight regarding the "Chasing Wind Sword Art" surged endlessly into his mind.

Chen Daoxuan quickly immersed himself within them, forgetting the passage of time.