Foundation Establishment

Xiao Yu gazed at the fifteen Foundation Establishment Pills before him, unable to contain his excitement any longer.

"Hehe! With these pills, Foundation Establishment is within arm's reach! Hahaha!" Xiao Yu's foolish laughter echoed through the Earthfire Room.

Once he had calmed down, Xiao Yu put away the pills and pill furnace, then rose and walked toward the stone door.

At the Earthfire Hall's registration desk, a young man stared in disbelief at the disheveled Xiao Yu and clicked his tongue.

"So it's you, senior brother! I've worked here for years, but I've never seen a Qi Refining Stage disciple spend so long refining pills in an Earthfire Room. I thought something had happened to you in there and almost reported it to a Sect steward. You look so haggard. Are you all right?"

"Ah, don't even mention it. I never imagined pill refining would be so difficult. I used up every last ingredient without a single success. I've lost everything I invested, and I was so angry I got blisters in my mouth. How could I spare a thought for my appearance?" Xiao Yu complained, pretending to be destitute.

While he was still weak, pretending to be poor would keep others from coveting his possessions. Xiao Yu understood that much.

The young man's expression turned sympathetic at his words. "Try not to take it too hard, senior brother. Still, you must pay the fees. Those are the Sect's rules. Based on the time you spent inside, you owe another eighteen Spirit Stones."

"Here!" Looking thoroughly displeased, Xiao Yu tossed a dozen or so Spirit Stones onto the desk, then left the Earthfire Hall without looking back.

After returning to the Medicinal Garden, Xiao Yu rested for a day, then used the Purple Gourd to ripen the spirit medicines he needed to hand over for this half-year. Afterward, he quietly waited for the steward to collect them.

More than ten days later, Xiao Yu saw off Steward Song, who had come to collect the spirit medicines, and returned to his thatched hut.

This day has finally come. Xiao Yu slapped his Storage Bag, and a jade bottle appeared in his hand out of thin air.

He removed the stopper and poured out a pale blue pill the size of a broad bean. It gave off a pungent smell. This was one of the Foundation Establishment Pills Xiao Yu had painstakingly refined.

After holding it in his hand and studying it for a while, he tilted back his head and swallowed it, then sat down to meditate and refine its medicinal power.

Xiao Yu intended to establish his foundation here in the Medicinal Garden. The spiritual energy was relatively abundant, making it a good place to break through his bottleneck.

Now that he had seen the steward off, no one would disturb him for the next three months, so he had chosen this place to attempt Foundation Establishment.

The Foundation Establishment Pill took effect quickly. After just four hours, Xiao Yu felt a ball of raging fire begin to burn ever more fiercely in his dantian. His limbs and the rest of his body, however, were ice-cold, leaving him caught between two stark realms of ice and fire!

A short while later, the burning sensation in his dantian suddenly vanished without a trace, and his limbs returned to their normal temperature.

But moments later, an agonizing pain suddenly erupted from his dantian. It felt as though seven or eight sharp knives were churning inside it at once.

Xiao Yu's face instantly went deathly pale. Soybean-sized beads of sweat dripped incessantly from his chin, and his entire body doubled over!

After this continued for a while, the terrible pain in his dantian suddenly burst into countless streams of heat. They immediately spread throughout his body along his meridians, even penetrating his bone marrow.

Then the heat instantly turned into an unbearable tingling itch, as though countless ants were crawling ceaselessly over every part of his body.

"Ah..." The intolerable itching made Xiao Yu want to bash his head against the ground just to ease the torment a little!

The torture nearly drove Xiao Yu mad. It lasted for the time it took to eat a meal before the terrible itching finally began to fade.

Xiao Yu slowly sat up from the ground. He was drenched in sweat, his entire body covered in a layer of some strange gray substance. It felt sticky to the touch and gave off an indescribably foul odor.

Only after closing his eyes and examining his body internally did Xiao Yu feel delighted, for his basic cultivation technique had advanced straight to the thirteenth level.

His whole body was pleasantly warm, without the slightest discomfort anywhere! Clearly, that Foundation Establishment Pill had improved his constitution, cleansing his marrow and transforming his sinews.

The warmth in his body came from the pill's remaining medicinal power, which he had yet to fully refine.

Most people who took a Foundation Establishment Pill would enter seclusion for several months to a year to refine this residual medicinal power.

Those with good aptitude or good luck would successfully establish their foundations under its effects. Those with poor aptitude or bad luck could only use it to advance their basic cultivation technique considerably.

But Xiao Yu did not want the trouble of spending a year in seclusion waiting for the medicinal power to take effect slowly. With fifteen Foundation Establishment Pills in hand, he had no need to worry about wasting their residual power. He could simply press straight ahead.

Thus, he sat cross-legged in meditation to recover his energy and strength, preparing to take the next pill.

A day later, feeling that his vitality, energy, and spirit had all returned to their peak, Xiao Yu took his second Foundation Establishment Pill.

Xiao Yu experienced all the same agony again. Having gone through it once already, however, he was able to endure it a little better this time.

Once the pill's effects had passed, Xiao Yu looked at the sticky, foul-smelling gray substance covering his body and thought:

The Foundation Establishment Pill's ability to transform the sinews and cleanse the marrow must be its most important effect. Only once my constitution has improved sufficiently can Foundation Establishment proceed smoothly!

His cultivation was still at the peak of the thirteenth level, but the magical power in his dantian had begun to show signs of liquefying.

After another day of meditation to recover his strength and energy, Xiao Yu examined his dantian and found that the liquefaction was progressing so slowly that he could barely notice it without looking closely. If he waited for it to liquefy at its own pace, who knew how long it would take?

Without further hesitation, he took out another Foundation Establishment Pill and swallowed it.

Perhaps because there were fewer impurities left in his body, the pain was less intense this time.

Once the agony had passed, the first drop of liquefied magical power finally appeared in his dantian.

More of his gaseous magical power began turning into liquid, but the process was extremely slow, as though it lacked the strength to continue.

Gritting his teeth, Xiao Yu took out yet another Foundation Establishment Pill and swallowed it...

As he refined this pill, the speed of liquefaction suddenly increased, giving Xiao Yu quite a fright. He did not dare relax in the slightest and focused all his attention on examining his dantian...

The liquefied magical power at the center of his dantian had formed a clockwise-spinning vortex.

The vortex did not spin quickly, but with every revolution, it drew in a strand of the wispy gaseous magical power around it. That strand ultimately liquefied and merged with the vortex.

The process continued in steady order. Xiao Yu was overjoyed at the sight. At this rate, he would succeed before long.

He quickly reined in his emotions and concentrated fully on circulating his cultivation technique over and over, refining the Foundation Establishment Pill's medicinal power within his body.

Finally, ten days later, the last strand of gaseous magical power in his body turned into liquid true essence.

With a hum, the surrounding air trembled. A vortex of spiritual energy formed around Xiao Yu, and wisps of spiritual energy in the air surged madly into his body.

Meanwhile, two uninvited visitors flew over on magic tools and arrived at the entrance to the Medicinal Garden's ward. One was a burly, rough-looking man: He Liang, who had tried to seize the assignment of tending the Medicinal Garden on the day Xiao Yu returned from the Forbidden Grounds. The other was a lean old man with a goatee.

After landing, He Liang spoke. "Uncle, that brat is in this Medicinal Garden.

"Tending this Medicinal Garden is a truly lucrative assignment. It earns a substantial reward in Spirit Stones every year. More importantly, you can skim off plenty of spirit medicines to use in pill refining.

"If you can secure this job for me, Uncle, I'll offer you every last stalk of spirit medicine I obtain each year!"

"Mm, that's thoughtful of you, Liang. Don't worry. He's merely a Qi Refining Stage junior. Now that your uncle is here, he'll have no choice but to obediently fall in line!" The lean old man stroked his goatee and spoke unhurriedly.

Had he not recently begun learning pill refining and urgently needed large quantities of spirit medicines to practice with, he would not have wanted to earn a reputation for bullying the Sect's low-ranking disciples for no reason.

The temptation offered by this distant nephew of his was simply too great. As soon as he heard there were spirit medicines to be had, he had come along.

The old man took out a red talisman, murmured a few words to it, then sent it toward the ward. The talisman turned into a streak of fiery light and instantly vanished into the ward.

The two then settled down to wait.