Eight months later, Jiang Che was slowly making his way back through the Azure Mystic Lower Court.
For the past eight months, he had lived quietly and unremarkably. Day after day, he stayed in his courtyard, cultivating in silence. On the rare occasions he went out, it was only to pick up simple assignments from the Verdant Mist Hall: weeding unwanted seedlings from the Medicine Garden, copying old texts at the Scripture Pavilion, or patrolling the mountain with other senior disciples...
These were all sect assignments. There was little danger involved, just exhaustion and time, all for a few spirit stone fragments and a little sect contribution.
The pay from those chores, his monthly allowance of twenty from the sect, his small share of the spoils from the battle at the mountain stronghold on North Luan Mountain, and the private savings Uncle Weichuan had slipped him before they parted... added together, they had brought his savings to four hundred.
Today, he had spent it all on a dose of "Transforming Force Powder."
As its name suggested, this was a medicine that offered considerable help to cultivators breaking through from early to middle Embryonic Breath.
For an early Embryonic Breath cultivator with sufficient accumulated cultivation, using this medicine as a catalyst would improve the odds of a breakthrough.
Of course, success was not guaranteed. After all, this "Transforming Force Powder" barely qualified as a lower ninth-grade medicine and was hardly precious. Truly wealthy cultivators had plenty of cultivation resources better than this powder at their disposal.
Yet it had still drained all of Jiang Che's savings.
That said, he did have other resources available. To him, the "Transforming Force Powder" merely added flowers to brocade. The true cornerstone was the full ten wisps of [primordial origin first spirit].
Over these eight months, he had not devoted himself solely to cultivation and chores. He had also run the instance three times.
He had long since cleared the time fragment of Willow Source's Old Dream. With the [Blazing Fire Spirit Talisman], which could be used again each time he entered the instance, he could reliably earn a grade Jia rating.
Those three runs had yielded one set of Liu Bingyi's cultivation insights, while the other two had each awarded nine wisps of [primordial origin first spirit]. Together with the three wisps he had left before, that made twenty-one in total.
Over the preceding eight months of cultivation, he had gradually used up eleven wisps. He intended to pour the remaining ten into this breakthrough as well.
Returning to his little courtyard, he entered his room and locked the door. After regulating his breathing for a while and confirming that he was in peak condition, he swallowed the powder, then mobilized the spirit essence within his body. His breakthrough officially began.
Transforming force was a major hurdle on the path of Embryonic Breath. It required drawing all the force within one's body inward, concealing it without letting it show. While nourishing the organs, it would also allow for sharper bursts of power that surpassed one's former limits.
It was perfectly normal for ordinary cultivators to spend five or ten years taking this step. Some even labored until their hair turned white, only to remain at the inner force stage, never touching the threshold of transforming force in their entire lives.
Jiang Che's clan uncle, Jiang Weichuan, was one such example.
Granted, Jiang Weichuan's ambitions lay elsewhere. Having recognized the reality of his poor aptitude, he had stopped cultivating seriously long ago. But before accepting his fate, he had worked hard too. Only after confirming that he could not succeed had he given up.
By contrast, Jiang Che had reached the brink of transforming force in eight months.
After swallowing the medicine, he stirred those ten wisps of [primordial origin first spirit] into motion. The force within him swept up the medicine's power and the refined spirit essence, circulating rapidly through his body.
He could clearly feel how his force grew more concentrated and more deeply contained, little by little, seeping into his organs, flesh, sinews, and bones.
After an unknown length of time, Jiang Che's eyes snapped open!
It worked!
Transforming force!
Eight months of arduous cultivation had transformed, in a single moment, into force surging ceaselessly through his body. He sprang up from his cushion, feeling exceptionally light and nimble.
In a burst of enthusiasm, he picked up his sword, stepped outside into the courtyard, and began wielding "Azure Flow."
He went through it again and again, stopping only when that exhilarating sense of release gradually subsided.
Yet he could not help feeling a little wistful.
The road of cultivation truly was difficult.
Without resources, it was harder still.
The advantages he had relied on along the way were things others could not obtain no matter how desperately they begged for them.
Yet even with all those advantages at hand, it had still taken him a full eight months to progress from entering the path to transforming force.
To other cultivators, eight months would naturally seem like a frighteningly rapid pace. But Jiang Che knew that this speed had come at the cost of almost entirely exhausting his reserves.
He had the cultivation insights of two transforming force cultivators, saving him untold effort fumbling his way forward. But now that he had broken through to transforming force himself, those benefits were exhausted. They would be of no use beyond this point.
He had possessed [primordial origin first spirit], special spirit essence whose attributes could be freely transformed. It had supported his cultivation, yielding twice the results for half the effort, but now he had used it all up.
The four hundred spirit stone fragments he had painstakingly saved were gone.
More importantly, he had very few chances left to cross into the instance. Each entry into the time fragment of Willow Source's Old Dream depleted its spiritual body a little. By now, he could enter only twice more.
What about after that?
Without the instance, relying on ordinary cultivation resources alone, who knew in what year of the monkey and month of the horse he would finally earn enough to match twenty-one wisps of [primordial origin first spirit]?
And that was without even considering something as good as cheating: "cultivation insights."
His monthly allowance was fixed at twenty fragments. Although he could earn extra through sect assignments, did those menial jobs not cost time? Every hour spent on them was a real hour stolen from his cultivation!
Yet even in these straitened circumstances, Jiang Che had never regretted refusing his lineage's support.
What could the Jiang give me?
At most, they could multiply those four hundred spirit stones tenfold or twentyfold. Four thousand, eight thousand-it sounds like a lot, but how many cultivation supplies could that buy me? Could it compare to a few wisps of [primordial chaos first spirit]?
Not worth a glance.
Besides, the Jiang's support came at a price.
Still, now that things had come to this, Jiang Che was beginning to feel the urge to move after so long at rest.
His main priority was finding a way to obtain some transmigration energy. Finding another instance came second.
For the former, there currently seemed to be only one method: killing enemies.
Naturally, there were no such opportunities within the sect.
As for the latter... he had not been entirely inattentive over the past eight months. He had searched all around the Azure Mystic sect grounds, hoping to find the same blue light he had seen at Willow Source: hidden somewhere, visible only to him, flowing like ripples on water.
Yet to this day, he had not found a single trace of an instance.
No matter how he turned it over in his mind, he could not understand it.
Liu Bingyuan's death at Willow Source was such a "minor matter" that, set against the vast, rolling river of history, it did not amount to even a speck of dust. Yet it had still condensed into an instance.
Azure Mystic was a powerful sect with a long-standing heritage. Who knew how many great events had taken place here, some earth-shaking, others unfolding in secret? By rights, its instances should have been as numerous as the stars in the sky.
How could there not be a single one?
There had to be some crucial factor he had yet to fathom.
The formation of an instance probably required more than simply "a major event having occurred."
But for the moment, he could not work out exactly what that restriction was.
As he pondered, a soft female voice suddenly came from outside the courtyard gate:
"Senior Brother Jiang, are you there?"
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