Only after the system repeatedly urged him on did Li Xingkong stop directing the Spiritual Qi-or rather, playing with it. With a thought, he drew the Spiritual Qi back into his body.
"First of all, the most important thing in Qi Refining, and the first thing you need to do, is finish constructing your qi sea."
As the system spoke, it displayed a simulated image of a human body and pointed out the location of the qi sea.
For the Qi Refining stage, the qi sea could be considered the source of power. To compare it to a car, the qi sea was both its fuel tank and its engine.
During the Qi Refining stage, it would store energy and serve as the energy node for the entire body. At the same time, it would become the most important part of the body.
During the Qi Refining stage, nearly all the meridians would pass through the qi sea to complete their circulation, delivering energy to every part of the body.
As the system explained, golden threads gradually appeared inside the simulated human body. These golden threads were the meridians in the human body. They ran throughout the body, forming a dense, intricate web.
And at the heart of that web lay the qi sea.
"Then wouldn't my current organs and metabolic system be useless?"
After seeing the system's explanation, Li Xingkong still had plenty of questions. The qi sea would become the human body's energy source, replacing the entire digestive system in supplying the body with energy. If that were the case, wouldn't the stomach and intestines become unnecessary organs?
"Of course not. Although the qi sea and the digestive tract have similar functions, one doesn't completely replace the other."
The system enlarged the part of the simulated body showing the digestive system. Examining the details, Li Xingkong discovered that the virtual body's digestive system remained quite intact.
"The qi sea will eventually take over some of the stomach's functions and store energy, but that doesn't mean the stomach will be completely useless. Later on, your stomach will have an even more important function. Of course, its core function will still be related to absorbing energy."
"I wonder if you've played the first game that came out recently, called Dyson Sphere Program?"
The system suddenly brought up a game.
"No kidding. If I hadn't played it, how would you know about it? Aren't the two of us one?" Li Xingkong was a little speechless at the system's question.
"Uh, uh, all right." The system also felt it had been foolish. "Force of habit from teaching, force of habit."
"As far as energy goes, you should end up much like Icarus. You can move around by eating rice, and dirt and rocks can fuel you too. You can even digest nuclear fuel rods and neutron stars."
"Seriously, is there really any need to keep that function?"
Li Xingkong was a little speechless. Eating dirt and rocks was way too low-class. He definitely wouldn't do that.
As for nuclear fuel rods, they sounded pretty revolting. They probably didn't taste good, either.
"All right, say there's a heavenly treasure right in front of you, and you don't have a stomach anymore. How are you going to eat it?"
The system gave him a very simple, blunt example, and Li Xingkong had nothing to say.
"So, now, using the theoretical knowledge we studied earlier, let's start constructing your qi sea!"
The system had merely helped Li Xingkong refresh his memory. He still had to handle the actual cultivation process himself.
Li Xingkong recalled everything he had learned about the construction, then calmed his mind and began directing the Spiritual Qi to his qi sea.
First, he suspended the entire nervous system around the qi sea to prevent pain during the alterations from disrupting his concentration.
Pain in the human body was transmitted by nerves. It was the same principle as administering anesthesia during surgery.
Then Li Xingkong began manipulating the Spiritual Qi, starting the first stage of the transformation.
First, he had to clear out an area. Although it did have to be quite large, that was only relative to the size of the Spiritual Qi. To Li Xingkong himself, it was roughly the size of a glass marble he had played with as a child.
After using spirit and will to control and clear away all the matter in that area, he felt as though he were standing in the cosmos when he perceived it through the Spiritual Qi's field of vision. Boundless darkness surrounded him, and he couldn't see how far it extended. Ample empty space had been cleared all around the Spiritual Qi particle.
The second step was to use the Spiritual Qi to create the inner walls of the qi sea, enclosing it completely, just as the walls of a furnace enclosed the burning furnace. The inner walls of the qi sea would be constructed from the matter he had just cleared away from his body.
This step required a great deal of energy because it involved transforming the matter in his body on a microscopic level. His originally soft, weak flesh had to be transformed into an inner wall capable of storing energy, with its toughness and elasticity greatly enhanced.
With the Spiritual Qi's help, the individual particles formed a new barrier according to Li Xingkong's wishes, as though he were painting a picture.
Although the Spiritual Qi was tiny and consisted of only a single particle, much of the work involved in constructing the inner wall was repetitive: repeatedly forming the wall material and repeatedly assembling it. These repetitive steps did not take the Spiritual Qi much time.
From Li Xingkong's perspective, a small spherical object took shape from nothing inside his body, enclosing a space beneath his dantian at a speed he could perceive.
After roughly an hour, the construction of Li Xingkong's qi sea was basically complete. To him, a small, crystalline sphere had appeared inside his body, while from the Spiritual Qi's perspective, he was inside an enormous sphere.
It was as though he had added a Dyson sphere around himself, except this sphere absorbed energy from outside.
The construction of the qi sea was basically complete. The next step was to get it working.
What Li Xingkong needed to do was use his knowledge of Spiritual Qi and meridians to construct-or rather, open-his first meridian.
The choice of this first meridian was not fixed. As far as the meridians themselves were concerned, there was no particular order in which they had to be opened.
For Li Xingkong, the only requirement was that the meridian he opened had to connect to the skin on the surface of his body. Because he practiced the Sun and Moon Qi Refining Method, he needed to construct a layer on his body's surface similar to solar panels so he could absorb solar energy.
Li Xingkong decided to start by opening the meridian that ran upward along his spine, extending it all the way to the Baihui acupoint at the crown of his head.
For people, the tops of their heads and the backs of their necks were often not covered by clothing, so those areas naturally got more sunlight.
Having decided on the route of the meridian he would open, Li Xingkong immediately directed the Spiritual Qi to begin constructing it.
The construction of meridians was somewhat miraculous. It was not a transformation of the physical body; to Li Xingkong, it was more like a transformation of the mind.
Once the meridian was opened, energy could flow through the channel along its entire course in a manner similar to wireless power transmission. The obstructions posed by the physical body seemed not to exist for the energy within the meridian.
It was like a subway line: people standing on the surface couldn't see it, and only after boarding the subway would they know such a route existed.
Opening a meridian required the Spiritual Qi to do more work, so opening the entire meridian would undoubtedly take more time.
Although Li Xingkong had been working at it diligently, after concentrating on it for half a day, he had opened less than half of the meridian.
After guiding the Spiritual Qi with such focus for so long, Li Xingkong's mental energy was nearly exhausted. With no other choice, he could only stop for now and rest a while to recover his mental energy.