The fourth day of the third month, Ming year 454.
The morning sun had just risen. The weather was splendid.
Cheng Xinzhan glanced east and made two quick calculations on his fingers inside his sleeve. Five quarters past the hour of the Rabbit. Just right.
This was precisely the best time to ingest purple qi.
There was only a quarter of an hour each day in which to ingest purple qi, and the exact starting time shifted with the seasons and geographical location.
Sometimes rain would make one miss it altogether. Clouds, rain, and thunder arose between the First and Third Heavens. Although rainclouds would not obscure the purple qi above the Third Heaven, the sunlight there was too fierce. Ingesting purple qi there would expose one to injury from Yang Fire, making it inadvisable.
Then there were periods of seclusion, technique practice, pill refining, treasure refining, meditation, inward observation, or even magical combat, among other things. That daily quarter of an hour could slip past all too easily.
Cheng Xinzhan considered one good habit he had maintained ever since embarking on cultivation to be this: wherever he was, whatever he was doing, and whatever plans he had, he always tried to leave this interval at sunrise free to ingest purple qi.
He had deliberately set out early to reach Cliffside Mountain's rock face today so as not to delay this either.
He sat down on a rocky ledge barely five feet across and began breathing in and ingesting the qi.
Taichu Purple Qi was the innate Great Yang's true ardor, capable of scouring away acquired impurities. Regardless of one's realm, the more one obtained, the better.
In the First Realm, Cheng Xinzhan had ingested purple qi to cleanse his marrow and purge his flesh. In the Second Realm, he