Lin Yan sat cross-legged in the center of the room, his eyes closed.
His awareness sank like a stone into a deep pool, descending all the way to his sea of qi.
Looking inward, he saw that the Dantian Embryo had shed its initial roughness through a week of life-and-death trials on Zevil Island, growing increasingly solid and rounded.
Beside the lone golden marking, the faint outline of a second had now begun to emerge.
Although it was still pale and broken, it meant his cultivation had finally broken through its bottleneck.
He had reached the middle stage of refining essence into qi.
The Dantian Embryo slowly rotated, like an enormous, ravenous maw, drawing in and releasing power that had never been tapped in this world.
The natives of this world only knew how to squeeze out their own life energy and turn it into "Nen," oblivious to the "spiritual energy of heaven and earth" that filled the mountains, rivers, trees, and grasses.
To Lin Yan, it was gold scattered across the ground, an inexhaustible treasure.
As he circulated his cultivation technique, the pure, unclaimed spiritual energy around him surged into his dantian like countless rivers flowing into the sea.
True Qi flowed along the meridian pathways he had simulated within his body like molten mercury, nourishing his internal organs and repairing the subtle, hidden injuries left by battle.
Marrow-Washing.
Lin Yan silently repeated the words.
This was a hurdle everyone in Foundation Establishment had to cross.
True Qi circulated throughout his body, gradually squeezing out and stripping away impurities deep within his marrow, forcing them outside his body and restoring his flesh to its "innate state."
A fine, prickling itch rose from deep within his bones. Then black, sticky matter began to seep from his pores.
It gave off