Chapter 109

Chapter 109: Life Fire and Profound Brilliance, Illuminate the Heavenly Palaces

Xu Qing had an excellent harvest that night. In total, he caught more than 700 ammonites.

As he looked at his storage bag, now full of frozen ammonites, Xu Qing had already thought up six or seven recipes for new poisons, each of which was incredibly toxic.

“There’s also the Ghost Desire Limuli. If I mix it with the ammonites, then add some herbs according to the yin-yang dual extremes… Maybe I can make a poison that can kill Foundation Establishment experts?”

Xu Qing thought about it for a while before concluding that he was being too optimistic. Back when he fought the Vajra Sect ancestor, he’d noticed that Foundation Establishment experts seemed to have extremely strong resistance against poison.

By combining the Ghost Desire Limulus with the ammonite, the resulting concoction would most likely have a fatal attraction to mutated beasts. Of course, the ammonite’s unique properties would allow him to adjust the strength of this attraction.

“I need stronger poisons!” A cold light flashed through Xu Qing’s eyes. He needed to find a chance to head out to sea again in the future and search for more poisons while he was there.

When his thoughts arrived at this point, he retracted his gaze from his storage bag and picked up the three jade slips that Ding Xue had given him, pouring in his spiritual energy to read them.

After a while, Xu Qing’s brow furrowed as he muttered.

“Hundred Days of Establishing Foundation?”

Xu Qing pondered for a while before picking up the second slip. Just like that, the entire day passed.

When dusk fell once again, Xu Qing finally felt that he had a thorough understanding of these jade slips’ contents. He muttered under his breath.

“Life Fire and Profound Brilliance, Illuminate the Heavenly Palaces!”

“Hundred Days to Open the Apertures, Deceive the Heavens and Conceal Cultivation!”

According to the jade slips, when a cultivator broke through to the Foundation Establishment Realm, they would encounter great terrors.

It was as if there was an unknown evil that wanted to interfere with cultivators’ breakthroughs.

Moreover, breaking through to Foundation Establishment took a long time and was called Hundred Days of Establishing Foundation.

It wasn’t that reaching Foundation Establishment took a full hundred days, but rather that the process of breaking through must not exceed a hundred days at most. Furthermore, the longer it took, the greater the terrors would be.

As for what specifically these terrors were, the three jade slips didn’t go into detail. However, they did mention that the process of establishing a foundation would attract eerie existences.

Thus, when cultivators of this world established their foundations, they had to always pay attention to the time, as if they were eavesdropping on a master’s lesson and couldn’t be caught.

At the same time, in order to avoid these terrors, many cultivators would use some special magic tools in order to conceal themselves while they were breaking through.

This type of magic tool wasn’t uncommon, but most of them were in the hands of major factions. Naturally, Seven Blood Pupils had one, and it was left in a fixed location. If a Seven Blood Pupils disciple wanted to break through to Foundation Establishment, they would usually apply to for a stay there.

However, the price to break through there was extremely high, at a rate of one hundred spirit stones per hour.

As for loose cultivators and those who couldn’t afford the cost, they had to take on a huge risk if they wanted to reach Foundation Establishment.

For such people, an attempted breakthrough would often be met with failure or even death. Thus, unless absolutely necessary, no one would choose to break through without the protection of a magic tool.

There was no need to think about why the process of breaking through was like this. Xu Qing just had to look up at the sky and see the fragmented face of God to know.

After a while, Xu Qing inhaled deeply and closed his eyes, continuing to run through the jade slips’ information in his mind.

The basic principle of establishing a foundation was to use the accumulated spiritual sea to open the magic apertures!

The so-called magic apertures were spots hidden in the body that contained a profound spirituality. After opening a magic aperture, a cultivator’s level of existence would rise.

Qi Condensation and Foundation Establishment were fundamentally different. In Qi Condensation, cultivators accumulated spiritual energy in their spiritual sea, while in Foundation Establishment, they focused on opening their magic apertures.

After reaching the peak of Qi Condensation, the first step in breaking through to Foundation Establishment was to sense the location and quantity of your magic apertures.

Afterward, the cultivator would mobilize their spiritual sea to strike at a magic aperture to break it open. Spiritual energy would fuse into the aperture and form a whirlpool, eventually giving birth to magic power, which far surpassed spiritual energy!

The body of a Qi Condensation cultivator contained spiritual energy, while the body of a Foundation Establishment cultivator contained magic power!

The difference between the two was like the difference between heaven and earth!

Because different cultivators had different qualities of spiritual energy, the amount of magic power produced by magic apertures was also different. The denser a cultivator’s spiritual energy was in Qi Condensation, the more magic power they would have in Foundation Establishment. This advantage would snowball with every opened magic aperture, eventually accumulating into a vast chasm that separated different Foundation Establishment cultivators.

The key point here was sensing the location.

If you wanted to open a magic aperture, you had to first sense its location. If you wanted to open more magic apertures, you had to sense more locations. This was what a Foundation Establishment Pill was designed to help with.

And this also determined how far a cultivator could go in the future, so it was extremely important.

With regard to sensing magic apertures, the biggest obstacle for a normal cultivator was heterogeneity.

In this world polluted with God’s aura, it could be said that over 99% of all living things contained a certain degree of heterogeneity.

When a cultivator broke through to Foundation Establishment, the heterogeneity in their body would make it difficult to sense the magic apertures.

Generally speaking, someone who could sense 80 magic apertures was considered a talent.

Those who could sense 90 were at the forefront of their generation. Only disciples of major factions could accomplish such a thing.

Sensing magic apertures was like feeling around in the dark, and there was great danger in the process. For example, a cultivator would easily attract the attention of some eerie existences during the breakthrough.

Thus, there was the saying “Hundred Days to Open the Apertures, Deceive the Heavens and Conceal Cultivation”.

In fact, the maximum number of magic apertures was 120, but it was extremely rare for anyone to achieve that limit.

The jade slips mentioned that even in Ancient Hope Mainland, the origin of the human race, only those who had used special methods to completely purge their bodies of heterogeneity were capable of attempting such a thing.

However, they would still require the support of dense spiritual energy. After all, even if their bodies were free of heterogeneity, differences in talent could still affect the sensing process.

People who could sense 120 apertures all had terrifying backgrounds and extraordinary prowess. Usually, such people were geniuses who the super forces of Ancient Hope specifically nurtured to walk the path of the ancient sovereigns and overlords.

Although Seven Blood Pupils was strong, that was only relative to the South Phoenix Continent. Only the main Seven Sect Alliance could barely be considered a super force on the Ancient Hope Mainland.

Seven Blood Pupils wasn’t qualified to have this sort of disciple. Indeed, throughout the ages, there hadn’t been a single one that sensed 120 magic apertures.

“Not a single one…” Xu Qing retracted his gaze from the jade slips and looked up at the dark night sky. The sky seemed darker than usual, but there were still a few stars shining brightly.

Looking at those stars, the second step of establishing a foundation appeared in Xu Qing’s mind.

The first step was to sense the magic apertures.

The second step was to open the first magic aperture and produce magic power. This magic power would course through the whole body and raise his level of life!

At that point, he would be considered to have successfully entered Foundation Establishment.

Afterward, cultivating in the Foundation Establishment Realm involved opening up magic apertures one after another according to the methods described in each sect’s cultivation techniques. After opening 30 magic apertures, the magic power of the 30 apertures would form the Foundation Establishment Realm’s first ball of Life Fire.

60 magic apertures would form the second ball of Life Fire, and 90 would form the third.

At that point, a cultivator could attempt advancing to the Golden Core Realm. As for the fourth ball of Life Fire, only someone with great fortune and talent could reach it.

Once Life Fire appeared, even if it was only the first ball, it was enough to light up the whole body, like a torch in the night shining under the starry sky.

At the same time, a Foundation Establishment cultivator with Life Fire and one without were two completely different levels of existence.

That was because the first ball of Life Fire provided a cultivator with the ability to enter the Profound Brilliance state.

Because using it consumed too much strength, a Foundation Establishment cultivator’s Life Fire was normally in a dormant state. They would only ignite it when they went all out.

Once the Life Fire was ignited, the cultivator’s battle prowess would instantly surge. Cultivators in this state were far stronger than usual, so it was called Profound Brilliance.

Generally speaking, if a cultivator’s spiritual sea was a hundred meters wide before breaking through and opening the magic apertures, their magic power would be able to support 1,800 breaths of time in the Profound Brilliance state after forming the first ball of Life Fire.

Every breath consumed an immense amount of magic power.

Xu Qing exhaled deeply and stopped thinking about Foundation Establishment.

The information in Ding Xue’s jade slips was quite comprehensive, but Xu Qing’s personality was extremely cautious. Although there was a very low probability of the information being false, he still didn’t fully believe it and intended to verify it later.

During the past few days of cultivation, Xu Qing could feel his spiritual sea expand every time he breathed in an out. From the previous 270 meters, it had already reached 290 meters wide.

But this was still far from his limit, and it was the same for the Sea and Mountain Art. Xu Qing intended to only attempt entering Foundation Establishment after tempering the spiritual sea in his body to the limit.

However, there were some things like the Foundation Establishment Pill that Xu Qing could still prepare spirit stones to purchase in advance.

“Although my body doesn’t have any heterogeneity, I still have to prepare some Foundation Establishment Pills. It would be best to have at least two, but they’re too expensive…” Xu Qing opened his storage bag and looked inside. After calculating his wealth, he frowned. He was still a distance away from being able to buy them.

“Although renting the shelter to hide me while establishing my foundation is also extremely expensive, the jade slips mentioned that Seven Blood Pupils provides loans to encourage disciples to establish their foundations. A hundred days of rent can be paid off within three years after successfully breaking through.”

“But I would still have to prepare my own Foundation Establishment Pills…” Xu Qing felt a little distressed as he thought of paying back the loan. According to his calculations, the interest alone was over half again on top of the principal.

“5,000 spirit stones a month, that’s 180,000 spirit stones in three years. 120,000 of that to pay back the loan… it’s not worth it.” Xu Qing sighed. Entering Foundation Establishment was too difficult.

At that moment, he suddenly understood the captain’s earlier words – many disciples suppressed their cultivation and refused to break through, waiting for the tridecennial great competition.

In all likelihood, they were too poor to attempt a breakthrough, so they could only wait for the great competition for a chance to make a fortune.

Thus, Xu Qing had strong expectations for the Seventh Peak’s upcoming great competition.

After a while, he inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and began to cultivate.

The night passed without incident. When dawn arrived the next day, Xu Qing suddenly felt a shock that awoke him from his cultivation session. Opening his eyes, he stepped out of the cabin and looked toward the sky. His cultivation base was circulating at full speed and spiritual energy spread out from his body.

Almost as soon as he looked up, a long arc of light approached Xu Qing’s boat at high speed.

The arc of light didn’t slow down at all, as if it planned to break the protective barrier and enter Xu Qing’s magic boat by force.

But after seeing Xu Qing step out of the cabin, a noise of surprise came from within the arc of light. It came to a stop in mid-air just outside the magic boat, turning into a young man wearing a dark purple Daoist robe.

This young man’s Foundation Establishment cultivation base was clearly revealed. Standing in the air, he looked down at Xu Qing within the barrier with some surprise in his eyes.

"I greet Deacon Li."

Xu Qing’s expression was calm, but internally, he immediately turned vigilant. His mind whirled as he thought about why this person would come here.

Deacon Li was the person said to be favored by Elder Zhao who had taken Zhao Zhongheng away during the Dispatch Department incident the other day.

“Interesting. You actually silently cultivated to the peak of Qi Condensation and reached a point where you can try to break through at any moment.”

Deacon Li had a smile on his face as he looked at Xu Qing. His attitude was obviously much better than before.

“There’s no need to think too much. I’m here because Elder Zhao has summoned you regarding the matter of the giant and the dragon carriage that you reported. Rest assured, it has nothing to do with anything else!”

Deacon Li obviously noticed Xu Qing’s vigilance. Before he reached Foundation Establishment, he was also a mountain-foot disciple like Xu Qing, so he was already familiar with the wolf-like personalities of those at the bottom of the mountain.

If it were some other disciple, he wouldn’t care to explain this much, but since this disciple in front of him had a high chance of entering Foundation Establishment in the near future, he naturally had a better attitude.

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