After the meeting ended, the six temple masters went to make their respective arrangements.
After all, gathering personnel and starting construction on the site would take considerable time. The sooner they finished preparing, the sooner work could begin.
Among the Six Great Temples, the five temples other than the Magic Temple each contributed one million gold coins to cover all the initial expenses, including construction of the site, workers' wages, materials to be purchased later, and the wages of ordinary blacksmiths.
The Magic Temple wasn't left idle, either. To show his sincerity, Li Zhengzhi dispatched twenty alchemists from the Magic Temple headquarters to the Holy City. The plan was to have Huo Yuhao teach them first, then formally begin production once the factory was complete.
Huo Yuhao didn't waste this free time. After leaving the Alliance Council Hall, he went straight into seclusion to break through to the Fifth Tier.
Although no one had taught him how to break through to the Fifth Tier and liquefy his Spiritual Energy,
He had lived two lives, and his comprehension was absurdly high. After only a short time in seclusion, he grasped the trick: compressing the gaseous Spiritual Energy in his body. As long as he compressed all of it into liquid, he could successfully break through to the Fifth Tier.
Not only that, but to speed up the compression, Huo Yuhao drew on the way he had formed a Soul Core in his dantian in his previous life and formed the center of a vortex within his dantian.
As long as all the Spiritual Energy in his body circulated through one complete cycle, it would all be compressed into Liquid Spiritual Power.
But compressing one pure point of Liquid Spiritual Power required five or six points of Liquid Spiritual Power, so besides compressing the Spiritual Energy in his body, he also needed to absorb Spiritual Energy from outside to replenish it.
With this plan in mind, Huo Yuhao began his seclusion in a secret chamber of the Knight Temple.
Inside the chamber, Huo Yuhao sat upright in the center, his eyes closed and his consciousness sunk into his dantian.
Within his dantian was a sea of ice-blue mist, thin and dispersed.
He used his Spiritual Power to gather the sea of mist toward the center of his dantian, forming a spinning vortex.
The vortex spun faster and faster, and an invisible suction appeared at its center.
The Spiritual Energy in his dantian all drew toward the vortex. As for the Spiritual Energy throughout his limbs and bones, he circulated his cultivation technique, and it all gathered toward his dantian.
As more and more Spiritual Energy gathered in the vortex, the gaseous Spiritual Energy finally fused together, forming a drop of Liquid Spiritual Power.
The drop was ice-blue and crystal clear, like the tip of a needle.
But the instant the Liquid Spiritual Power appeared, Huo Yuhao's entire body trembled slightly.
Although there was only one drop, its intensity far surpassed that of gaseous Spiritual Energy, causing the vortex to speed up naturally.
"It worked. Pick up the pace!"
After seeing the Liquid Spiritual Power appear, Huo Yuhao began circulating the Liquid Spiritual Power in his body faster, filling the Spiritual Energy vortex in his dantian.
As the vortex grew larger, all the ambient Spiritual Energy in the chamber was absorbed by it.
As soon as this happened, the Spirit Gathering Array in the chamber activated, and countless streams of ambient Spiritual Energy from outside converged on the chamber.
News of this phenomenon soon reached Yang Haohan.
He came to the chamber and, seeing the commotion caused by the breakthrough, looked surprised.
"Yuhao truly is a heaven-sent genius. Even his breakthrough to the Fifth Tier is causing such a commotion. I wonder how great the commotion will be when he breaks through in the future."
"I should have brought that child Wenzhao here to learn from Yuhao. He's still a little proud. His talent is good, but he hasn't suffered any setbacks."
After a brief moment of reflection, Yang Haohan sat down not far from the chamber to stand guard for Huo Yuhao.
As his elder brother's sworn grandson, Huo Yuhao was family to him and, more than that, the future hope of the Knight Temple. He couldn't let anything happen to him.
But as time slowly passed, Yang Haohan's expression grew somewhat grave.
Normally, once the process of liquefying Spiritual Energy began smoothly, the breakthrough would proceed quickly, and the commotion would gradually die down.
But he had been sitting outside the chamber for four to six hours, and the commotion from Huo Yuhao's breakthrough had not only failed to subside, but had grown stronger. Something wasn't right.
However, when he swept the chamber with his Spiritual Power, he found no signs of cultivation deviation, which put him a little more at ease.
"Could this be the strength of an Elemental Body? I hope nothing happens to Yuhao."
Yang Haohan closed his eyes and waited patiently.
Inside the chamber, dense ambient Spiritual Energy poured into Huo Yuhao's body.
Under the vortex's compression, Liquid Spiritual Power appeared strand by strand. In less than two hours, it had exceeded a hundred drops.
Compared with the Liquid Spiritual Power, Huo Yuhao was now more concerned about the state of the vortex.
For an ice crystal the size of a grain of rice had now appeared at its center.
With every drop of Liquid Spiritual Power he formed, the ice crystal grew a little larger.
Just like that, a day and a night passed.
After a day of cultivation, the Liquid Spiritual Power in Huo Yuhao's dantian had exceeded fifteen hundred points. The vortex was spinning faster than the naked eye could follow, and even Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Power could barely keep track of its speed.
Now, even when Huo Yuhao didn't deliberately direct it, the vortex in his body actively absorbed ambient Spiritual Energy from outside.
The ice crystal in his dantian had grown to the size of a soybean. A terrifying pressure emanated from it, far surpassing that of knights at the same tier.
By the third day, the Spiritual Energy in Huo Yuhao's body had long since been converted into Liquid Spiritual Power.
Not only that, but his Liquid Spiritual Power had long since exceeded two thousand points and was approaching twenty-two hundred. It was still increasing at an extremely rapid pace.
The ice crystal in his body had grown to the size of a thumb and had already reached its maximum size. It hadn't grown any larger for a long time.
The Spiritual Energy vortex surrounding the ice crystal was also slowly shrinking, then merging into his Spiritual Core.
Seeing this, Huo Yuhao was somewhat shocked.
If there was a Spiritual Energy vortex inside his Spiritual Core, just how terrifying would his Spiritual Energy recovery speed be? He might recover even faster than a professional with Spirit Apertures.
Not only that, but after entering the Spiritual Core, the Spiritual Energy vortex continued to spin, actively absorbing the surrounding ambient Spiritual Energy.
So even if he didn't cultivate in the future, relying on this Spiritual Energy vortex each day, he could break through to the Sixth Tier within five years.
As the Spiritual Energy vortex and the Spiritual Core became one, the commotion around the chamber slowly died down.
In the center of the chamber, Huo Yuhao slowly opened his eyes, his face full of excitement.
He had gained a great deal from this seclusion. Not only had he successfully broken through to the Fifth Tier, but he had also formed a Spiritual Core.
More importantly, this seclusion had increased his Internal Spiritual Power by nearly three hundred points.
With his Internal and External Spiritual Power added together, his total Spiritual Energy had now reached just over twenty-six hundred points. He was a genuine third-rank Fifth Tier Earth Knight.
After sensing the changes in his body, Huo Yuhao composed himself and opened the chamber doors.