Chương 114: 1.110 Late Stage of Qi Condensation~

The room was small and deliberately unremarkable, tucked behind one of the quieter storefronts near the sect market. A wooden desk separated Ning from the young man sitting opposite him, while several sound-isolation talismans pasted beneath the table ensured that anything discussed inside remained inside. Under normal circumstances, Ning appreciated that discretion.

It was always nice to see professionals actually acting professionally, because heaven knew how many people in this world seemed to be professionals solely because it was technically their profession. At the moment, however, Ning had more important concerns.

"Jade-Faced Hundred Tricks Young Master?" Ning stared at Tang Jin across the desk with the driest expression he could manage.

"How? No, seriously, how? When did this happen? Who looked at me and decided that was what people should call me?" Tang Jin's professional smile became increasingly strained as Ning continued.

"Jade-Faced. Hundred Tricks. Young Master." Ning counted each part on his fingers, seemingly growing more offended with every word.

"It's three separate embarrassing titles somehow stitched together into one even worse title. Who does that?" A bead of sweat appeared on Tang Jin's forehead as he tried to placate him.

"Brother Ning, calm down. This is honestly the first time I've seen you so... out of sorts." Ning slowly turned toward him.

"Would you be calm with a nickname like that?" Tang Jin considered it seriously.

"Probably. I'd just be happy to have a title."

"Traitor." Tang Jin laughed. To be fair, receiving a recognized title was something most disciples would be proud of. Among the thousands of disciples in the Pure Qi Sect, only those who distinguished themselves enough for others to remember their names ever received one. Unfortunately, Ning would have preferred to distinguish himself with something that didn't require an entire sentence.

Tang Jin was a member of the Hundred Whispers Pavilion, one of the loosely organized information networks operating throughout the Pure Qi Sect. It was also one of the few groups Ning had deliberately tried to maintain a good relationship with instead of avoiding the moment someone attempted to recruit, flatter, or sell him something.

The Hundred Whispers Pavilion's business was simple: information had value, cultivators wanted information, and the Pavilion was perfectly happy to stand between the two and collect spirit stones. To Tang Jin, Ning had always been a somewhat unusual customer. Most disciples came looking for something specific.

They wanted information about a rival, the price of a particular spiritual material, which missions paid well, which elders were accepting disciples, or whether the person they fancied had recently become involved with someone else. The last one was becoming increasingly popular. Ning, meanwhile, wanted to know everything.

He asked about elders, inner disciples, important families, recent incidents around the sect, changes in mission rewards, unusual rumors, and occasionally things so mundane that Tang Jin wondered whether there was some hidden purpose behind the questions. Usually, there wasn't. More strangely, Ning occasionally paid them to check on people he already knew. Fatty Li, Sun Jing, Xiao Fan, and several others had appeared in his commissions at one point or another.

Tang Jin had long since stopped trying to understand him. The Hundred Whispers Pavilion had customers considerably stranger than Ji Ning.

"Still," Tang Jin said, leaning back slightly, "I'm surprised you're only finding out about this now. You're normally quite attentive when it comes to rumors involving yourself."

"I did hear the title before. Someone called me that after the incident, but it didn't even register that they were talking about an actual title." Ning pressed two fingers against his forehead.

"I thought it was some nonsense they came up with on the spot." That was the part Ning found most disturbing. It genuinely hadn't occurred to him that he might be receiving one of those stupid xianxia nicknames. I mean, Jade-Faced Hundred Tricks Young Master. How the fuck did that happen? Xiao Fan got Unbreakable. One word. It was simple and cool. Tang Jin watched his expression shift through several stages of grief before finally taking pity on him.

"Well, if it helps, I can explain where the title came from." Ning immediately looked up.

"Please do." If he knew how this had happened, perhaps he could prevent it from happening again. Sure, nicknames were decided by the public, but that sounded like a problem for future Ning.

"Jade-Faced is rather obvious." Tang Jin gestured toward him.

"You're exceptionally good-looking. If your cultivation continues progressing at this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if your name eventually appeared among the Ten Gentlemen." Ning knew about that particular list. It was essentially the sect's unofficial ranking of handsome young male disciples, which meant somebody somewhere had apparently decided cultivation wasn't complicated enough without adding attractiveness rankings. Still, being called handsome wasn't exactly something he could complain about.

Tang Jin continued, "As for Hundred Tricks, that mostly came from your battle with Mei Long. Quite a few people heard what happened, and every retelling seems to add another method you supposedly used. Talismans, archery, poison, formations, pills, body techniques, hidden attacks... whenever people thought you'd exhausted your options, you somehow pulled out something else and reversed the situation. Eventually, people started saying you had a hundred tricks up your sleeve."

"Even I don't have a hundred tricks up my sleeve." Tang Jin's expression twitched slightly. The fact that Ning's objection seemed to be specifically about the number was something he decided not to examine too closely.

"Nicknames are usually exaggerated," Tang Jin explained.

"Even your friend Xiao Fan received the title Unbreakable because he kept getting back up after attacks that should have broken both his body and spirit. The only reason people didn't start calling him something like Unstoppable is that a Foundation Building cultivator already has that title." Ning couldn't argue with that. Still, two-thirds of the mystery had now been solved, leaving only the part that bothered him most. He narrowed his eyes.

"Then where did Young Master come from?" That was the truly dangerous part. Being called a young master in a cliché xianxia world felt suspiciously similar to painting a target on his back. What if some wild protagonist heard the nickname, assumed Ning had been bullying innocent villagers somewhere, and attacked him on principle? Tang Jin's lips twitched into a smile.

"The answer is actually very simple. Your fighting style is too expensive." Ning paused. Tang Jin began counting on his fingers.

"Talismans thrown around without hesitation, specialized arrows, pills, spiritual weapons, poison, consumable treasures... from what people heard, you fought Mei Long by burning through enough spirit stones to make an ordinary outer disciple cry. That's the sort of fighting style people associate with wealthy clan heirs and young masters." Silence settled across the room. Ning opened his mouth to retort, only to discover the rather unfortunate problem that everything Tang Jin had said was true.

"Fuck." Some of his anger disappeared immediately. It was difficult to remain properly offended when the reasoning was this annoyingly valid. Tang Jin was openly smiling now.

"See? It fits."

"Don't say that." Ning leaned back and stared at the ceiling, contemplating the series of perfectly reasonable events that had somehow culminated in him receiving the most cumbersome nickname imaginable. Then another thought occurred to him.

"Wait. There must have been other names."

"Of course." Ning immediately straightened.

"I knew it."

"Nicknames spread through word of mouth. There was never going to be one unified opinion from the beginning." Tang Jin thought for a moment.

"Hundred Tricks was fairly common on its own. I've heard Thousand Tricks a few times as well. There was also Spring Breeze, though that one seems more popular among the female disciples." Ning wisely decided not to investigate the last one. Instead, he reached into his storage pouch, pulled out a small bag of spirit stones, and placed it on the desk. Tang Jin looked at the pouch, then at Ning.

"What's this?"

"A commission. One thousand spirit stones." Tang Jin's eyebrows rose.

"Use it to spread rumors." For the first time since Ning entered the room, Tang Jin appeared genuinely caught off guard.

"You want the Hundred Whispers Pavilion to spread rumors... about your own nickname?"

"Nothing malicious. Just encourage the shorter ones." Ning pushed the pouch toward him.

"Hundred Tricks is fine. Thousand Tricks is fine. Anything that doesn't require someone to take a second breath halfway through saying it. If enough people start using one of those instead, maybe it'll eventually replace the current monstrosity." Tang Jin stared at him for several seconds before slowly taking the pouch.

"You really do come up with strange commissions."

"Will it work?" At this point, Ning wanted only one thing: to get rid of that damn nickname. He had thought cultivation nicknames were supposed to be cool.

"It might. Titles aren't official, so public opinion can certainly shift. However, Jade-Faced Hundred Tricks Young Master has already spread quite far after the recent incident, so I can't promise anything." Ning clasped his hands together.

"Brother Tang, please. My future reputation is at stake." Tang Jin blinked before bursting out laughing.

"Fine, fine. I'll see what I can do." Ning finally relaxed. Perhaps in a few months, this dark chapter of his cultivation career could be quietly buried and forgotten. Probably not, considering how his life had been going lately, but a man was allowed to hope. Once Tang Jin put the spirit stones away, the atmosphere gradually returned to normal, and Ning's expression became more serious.

"There's something else. Did you find the person I asked you to investigate?" Tang Jin's amusement faded.

"We looked into it." Ning leaned back slightly. He was referring to the mysterious woman Xiao Fan had encountered in the prison, the one who had conveniently appeared long enough to give him important information before disappearing again. Ning had been forced to let the matter go during the prison incident. The Tower Spirit had clearly recognized something from Xiao Fan's description, but it had been equally obvious that he had no intention of explaining it at the time.

With Lei Shen's ritual underway, prisoners escaping, and the entire sect descending into chaos, Ning hadn't exactly been in a position to sit the old spirit down and interrogate him about the mysterious jade beauty Xiao Fan had encountered. Even if he had asked, Ning suspected the answer would have been something along the lines of you'll understand when the time comes. The classic cultivation-world disease of knowing important information and refusing to speak properly.

Unfortunately for whoever had invented that particular cliché, Ning wasn't the type to conveniently forget something simply because the plot had moved on. So, after everything settled down, he had commissioned Tang Jin to investigate the mysterious girl. Was the information actually useful to him now? Probably not. Ning had already decided to maintain a healthy distance from Xiao Fan's protagonist shenanigans for a while, so whatever he discovered might have absolutely nothing to do with him. He was simply curious.

Tang Jin reached beneath the desk and pulled out a thin bundle of papers.

"The information you gave us wasn't exactly generous. An exceptionally beautiful young woman who either worked at the prison or had access to it sometime within the last five years."

"That's why I pay professionals." Ning smiled.

"I'm sure the great information network of the Hundred Whispers Pavilion can find something."

"That exact kind of description and expectation is what makes me question my choice of profession." Tang Jin sighed and slid the papers across the desk.

"These are the closest matches we found." Ning picked them up and began reading. The first was an inner disciple who had served several rotations as a prison guard. Twenty-three years old, seventh-stage Qi Condensation, reasonably talented, with no unusual background or apparent connection to Lei Shen beyond having worked in the same building where the man happened to be imprisoned. Ning moved on.

The second was the granddaughter of one of the prison stewards, who had apparently visited her grandfather several times over the past few years. The description somewhat matched, though she had been away from the sect during the period Xiao Fan claimed to have met the mysterious girl. The third was more interesting, a wandering cultivator who had stayed within the sect as an elder's guest, but the dates were wrong. Fourth. Fifth.

Ning continued through the reports, occasionally pausing over a detail before moving on. All of them were plausible, but that was exactly the problem. None of them had that spark. Ning couldn't explain it more objectively than that.

Perhaps years of consuming stories had damaged his brain beyond repair, but when Xiao Fan encountered a nameless jade beauty inside a restricted prison who somehow knew important information about an impending disaster and then vanished before giving him her name, Ning expected a little more than the assistant prison steward's granddaughter. Where was the suspicious background? The inexplicable access? The conveniently mysterious identity? Anything?

These women seemed distressingly normal, and for perhaps the first time since arriving in this world, Ning was disappointed by that. He lowered the final page.

"Is this all?" Tang Jin didn't answer immediately. Ning caught the hesitation.

"Brother Tang, you can say whatever you're thinking."

"Well..." Tang Jin paused.

"There is one more name, but this one is based almost entirely on rumor. You know the Hundred Whispers Pavilion prefers verified information, so I can't guarantee any of it is true." For an organization that sold information, credibility was everything. Ning ignored the disclaimer.

"Who?" Tang Jin hesitated for another moment before finally giving him the name.

"Li Yue." Li Yue. That was the name of the sole known living descendant of Founder Li Changsou. Ning's interest immediately sharpened as he looked through the information slip. Founder Li Changsou had lived thousands of years ago, and despite the man's ridiculous popularity during his lifetime, the records claimed that he had only ever taken a single wife.

Ning had found that surprisingly restrained by cultivation-world standards, where powerful cultivators accumulating wives, concubines, and enough descendants to populate a small town wasn't exactly unheard of. To put it simply, Founder Li Changsou was based as fuck. Of course, as a result, the Founder's direct lineage had never been particularly large to begin with. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! Time had done the rest.

Some descendants never cultivated far enough to leave children, others died young, while branch families disappeared or merged into unrelated clans. Generation after generation gradually whittled the once-prestigious bloodline down until, according to the information Tang Jin had gathered, Li Yue was now its sole known remaining member. That alone would have made her noteworthy. The stranger part was that the Founder's descendants had apparently wanted very little to do with the Pure Qi Sect for quite some time.

Exactly why was considerably harder to determine. Something had happened several generations ago that caused relations between the Li family and the Pure Qi Sect to deteriorate badly, though the surviving accounts were frustratingly vague and often contradicted one another.

Some claimed there had been a dispute over the Founder's remaining inheritance, while others blamed a former Sect Master, an ancestral treasure, or some insult that had apparently been important enough for several generations of cultivators to remain angry about it. In other words, nobody seemed to know what the hell had actually happened. Whatever the original reason, the result was clear.

The Li family had gradually withdrawn from the Pure Qi Sect, and by Li Yue's generation, their relationship with the sect existed mostly in name. She wasn't officially a disciple, rarely appeared within the sect, and was rumored to spend most of her time traveling with an older guardian whose identity Tang Jin's people hadn't been able to confirm. That certainly explained why Ning had never heard of her. Of course, it also raised a considerably more important question. What was she doing in the prison?

Ning continued down the slip. There were scattered mentions of her cultivation talent, though nothing reliable enough to give an exact realm. Then, near the bottom of the report, his eyes stopped on a single line. Unlike most of the information above it, Tang Jin had clearly marked this section as unverified. Possessor of a supernatural power said to be related to divination. Ning slowly looked up from the slip.

A mysterious jade beauty, the sole remaining descendant of the Founder, and she even has a divination-related supernatural power? Yeah. There was no way this wasn't the girl Xiao Fan met. Ning had been willing to entertain the possibility that one of the more ordinary names on Tang Jin's list might be her, but this was simply too much jade beauty energy concentrated into a single person.

If Li Yue really had been inside the Pure Qi Sect around that time, Ning would bet good spirit stones that she was the nameless girl from the prison. It also gave him a possible explanation for why the Tower Spirit had recognized her from Xiao Fan's description and then immediately decided that explaining anything further wasn't important. More interestingly, Ning couldn't help wondering why Li Yue had suddenly appeared in the Pure Qi Sect at all.

Her family had kept its distance for generations, and she herself supposedly went years without visiting, yet she happened to return shortly before the Heavenly Origin Tower opened and then crossed paths with Xiao Fan, who later received the true inheritance left behind by her ancestor. Coincidence? Of course not. Ning narrowed his eyes. If Li Yue's supernatural power truly involved divination, perhaps her appearance hadn't been accidental at all.

Maybe she had divined something concerning the Founder's inheritance. Perhaps she hadn't known exactly what would happen, only that something important awaited her within the Pure Qi Sect, which would explain both her sudden appearance and why she had apparently known trouble was coming. Ning's gaze returned to the final line. Divination itself was already an obscure field.

From what little he knew, cultivators capable of reliably divining matters of fate, fortune, calamity, or heavenly secrets were rare enough that even the Pure Qi Sect didn't have many practitioners worth mentioning. And Li Yue had supposedly been born with a supernatural power related to it. How broken is that talent going to become once she actually gets strong?

"Junior Brother, did you finish what you wanted to do?" Ning looked up. Ling Yinran had entered the room at some point and was standing near the doorway, her gaze briefly passing over the papers scattered across the desk before settling on him.

"Just finished." Ling Yinran glanced toward him.

"Did you get everything you needed?"

"I did. Thanks to you, Senior Sister." Ning smiled.

"And for the spirit stones as well. I'll return them as soon as the sect pays me." Ling Yinran gave him a slightly strange look. This was the first time Ning had ever asked to borrow spirit stones from her. For all that her junior brother was perfectly willing to ask questions, borrow books, seek advice, or take advantage of whatever cultivation guidance she and her aunt offered, spirit stones had always been different.

He had never asked either of them for spirit stones, even during the period when his finances had been considerably worse. When Ling Yinran had once asked why, Ning had given her one of his peculiar explanations about spirit stones having a strange tendency to change relationships once too much of it became involved. She hadn't entirely agreed, but she had come to understand that Ning preferred earning his own cultivation resources whenever possible.

So when he had finally approached her for a loan, she had simply given it to him.

"There's no hurry," Ling Yinran said.

"Return it whenever you have enough."

"I should have it soon. The sect still hasn't paid the invoice I submitted." It had already been a month, though admittedly the sect had given him several reasons for the delay. Between repairing damaged halls, settling compensation, replacing destroyed resources, and dealing with the aftermath of the entire incident, apparently his payment had joined a very long line. Still... Why does a fantasy cultivation sect have the same problems with invoices as his previous world? Ning sighed.

Some things truly transcended space and time. Ling Yinran glanced at him.

"Are you ready for your breakthrough?" That immediately pushed thoughts of sect bureaucracy aside.

"Yes."

"If Aunt were here, I would feel more comfortable," Ling Yinran admitted, a slight crease appearing between her brows.

"She could watch over the process herself." Ning shook his head.

"I've already studied the breakthrough thoroughly, and your experience has helped me plenty, Senior Sister. Besides, Master has her own matters to handle. I can't wait for her every time I advance a stage." Ling Yinran studied him for a moment before eventually sighing.

"Come, then. I've already prepared the chamber." The two walked deeper into the pavilion until Ling Yinran stopped before a heavy stone door engraved with several interlocking formations. The breakthrough chamber. Ning knew Spiritual Peak possessed dedicated cultivation rooms for important breakthroughs, though this was his first time actually using one. The moment Ling Yinran opened the door, a noticeably denser wave of spiritual energy rolled outward. Ning stepped inside and stopped.

A meditation cushion rested at the center of a Spirit Gathering Formation, with pieces of spirit jade embedded at several important nodes to maintain the density and stability of the surrounding qi. A thin stick of pale blue incense waited beside it, accompanied by a small bottle of Meridian-Nourishing Dew, while several additional talismans had been placed around the chamber to calm turbulent spiritual energy and protect the cultivator's meridians if something went wrong. Ning looked from one item to another.

"Senior Sister... isn't this a bit much?"

"These are the standard preparations Aunt and I use for important breakthroughs," Ling Yinran replied as she checked the formation one final time. Ning looked around again and couldn't help comparing it to the considerably more modest breakthroughs he had gone through over the previous six stages. Even the cushion his future ass was going to sit on was probably worth more than everything some outer disciples carried in their storage pouches.

"And now," Ling Yinran added naturally, "you'll use them as well." Ning fell silent. All those stories about lone cultivators sitting inside caves, risking cultivation deviation while breaking through with nothing except determination and some heavenly opportunity sounded less impressive now. Why struggle against the heavens when you could simply throw money at the problem? Pay-to-win cultivation really is something else.

Then Ning remembered the spirit stones he'd just spent trying to manipulate public opinion about his nickname. Fuck. I really am becoming a young master.

"Thank you, Senior Sister." Ning bowed slightly. Ling Yinran nodded and stepped back through the entrance.

"I've isolated the chamber completely. No one will disturb you. Once you begin, forget everything outside and focus only on the breakthrough."

"I will." The stone door slowly closed, and a moment later Ning felt the surrounding formations activate, sealing away the sounds and spiritual fluctuations of the outside world. Silence descended. Ning walked to the center of the formation and sat cross-legged on the meditation cushion. The moment he settled into place, a faint coolness spread through his body, easing the tension in his muscles and clearing the last traces of distraction from his mind.

Combined with the Clearheart Incense and the dense spiritual energy maintained by the formation, the difference from cultivating inside his little hut was immediately obvious. Ning adjusted his posture and rested his hands over his knees. He took several slow breaths, waited until his thoughts had completely settled, then opened his panel. [Cultivation: Sixth Stage Qi Condensation: 3199/3200] Only one point remained.

Looking at the number, Ning couldn't help feeling that reaching this point had taken considerably longer than it actually had. His sixth stage hadn't lasted much longer than the fifth, yet between the Heavenly Origin Tower and everything else that had happened along the way, his previous breakthrough already felt strangely distant. Still, he had finally arrived. The first six stages of Qi Condensation were ultimately concerned with qi gathering, refining, and circulation.

The seventh stage marked the point where that simple progression began to change. The cultivation text called it Returning the Breath to the Self. Qi followed breath. Breath followed intent. Intent returned to the heart. Once all three ceased pulling in different directions, the cultivator could begin perceiving themselves through something deeper than the five senses. That was the threshold Ning needed to cross. Ning closed his eyes and began circulating the perfected Pure Qi Sutra.

The Spirit Gathering Formation responded almost immediately, drawing the dense spiritual energy within the chamber toward him. Ning absorbed it steadily and refined it through one circulation after another, allowing the foreign spiritual energy to lose its turbulent nature before gradually merging with the qi accumulated within his dantian. He didn't hurry. With his cultivation already sitting at the very edge of completion, there was no reason to force what would come naturally.

Sure enough, after several complete revolutions, the final point arrived. [Cultivation: Sixth Stage Qi Condensation: 3200/3200] Ning sensed the limit at almost the same moment. His dantian had reached the limit of what the sixth stage could sustain, and the qi accumulated within had grown so dense that further accumulation would accomplish little without the qualitative change brought by the late stages of Qi Condensation. Before proceeding, Ning turned his attention toward the weakened Infinite Circle.

Normally, dismantling it wouldn't have been so simple. The Infinite Circle maintained itself through the continuous movement and compression of the qi accumulated within it, and once properly established, attempting to forcibly disperse that structure while it was still operating at full strength would send the compressed spiritual energy violently out of balance inside his own dantian. Ning had thought about that problem extensively while creating the technique.

He wasn't about to invent something that gave him an advantage in battle only to shoot himself in the foot every time he needed to advance his cultivation. Fortunately, the Infinite Circle possessed a natural point of weakness. Without sufficient qi maintaining its rotation, the structure gradually weakened. That was why Ning had deliberately exhausted the accumulated qi beforehand.

What had once been a dense, continuously rotating reserve had already been reduced to a faint and unstable circulation, leaving the structure weak enough that dismantling it no longer carried the same risk. Ning carefully interrupted the remaining current. The weakened circle shuddered once before gradually losing its shape, its remaining traces of qi merging harmlessly into the ordinary circulation of the Pure Qi Sutra. Soon, nothing remained.

Ning examined his dantian for several breaths and found everything stable. Good. This limitation was slightly inconvenient, but Ning could live with it. If he wanted to advance in the future, he would simply need to exhaust the Infinite Circle first and rebuild it after his cultivation stabilized. With the last complication removed, Ning finally stirred the resource he had spent so long preparing. Alchemy Qi. The reserve within his body responded immediately.

This was the real reason Ning had delayed his breakthrough even after approaching the peak of the sixth stage. Opening the Ren and Du meridians, completing the greater circulation, stimulating the mind, and beginning the condensation of spiritual energy were all possible with ordinary qi, yet Alchemy Qi was particularly suited to every part of the process. After all, it was the product of the Alchemy King Sutra, one of the Four Great Arts of the Pure Qi Sect.

If all it provided was increased pill efficiency, that reputation would have been rather disappointing. Ning released it into his circulation. A warm current spread through his body, carrying none of the harsh pressure ordinary qi produced when driven against unopened pathways. Wherever the Alchemy Qi passed, his meridians absorbed traces of its medicinal vitality, while the surrounding spiritual energy seemed to settle naturally around it.

Ning guided the current toward the first obstruction along the Ren and Du meridians. He had prepared himself for resistance. Instead, the Alchemy Qi seeped into it. Rather than battering against the blocked pathway, the warm current gradually permeated the obstruction, nourishing and loosening the meridian while drawing his ordinary qi behind it.

What should have required repeated attempts began yielding beneath a steady pressure, and after several breaths, warmth spread through the pathway as qi passed through unobstructed. Ning's eyebrows twitched slightly. Oh. Even though I read about it, it still surprises me. He maintained the circulation and allowed the Alchemy Qi to continue ahead. One obstruction loosened, then another, with the medicinal current opening and nourishing the pathways while his ordinary qi followed behind and stabilized them.

There was still pressure, particularly around the narrower sections, yet the entire process remained remarkably smooth. Eventually, the final obstruction yielded. The change was immediate. Qi rose through the Du meridian along his back, passed over his head, descended through the Ren meridian along the front of his body, and finally returned to his dantian. For the first time, the circulation closed upon itself. Ning continued without pause.

Opening the pathways was only the physical half of the breakthrough, and now that the greater circulation had been completed, the Alchemy Qi revealed another reason it was so valuable. With each revolution, the warm current passed through the newly opened pathways around his head, and a peculiar clarity gradually settled over Ning's thoughts.

The Alchemy Qi nourished the meridians as they adapted, maintained the stability of the greater circulation, and softened the strain produced as that circulation began stimulating something ordinary qi control had never needed to reach. His consciousness. Ning allowed his attention to turn inward. He had always possessed an instinctive understanding of his qi and meridians, just as every cultivator did.

He could sense the fullness of his dantian, recognize the movement of qi through familiar pathways, and notice irregularities in his circulation without needing to consciously examine each one. What changed now was how those individual impressions came together. At first, Ning's attention naturally followed whatever sensation was strongest.

The unfamiliar flow through the Ren and Du meridians repeatedly drew his awareness away from the rest of his body, while the pressure within his dantian demanded attention whenever the circulation returned there. Ning corrected himself several times before realizing that constantly correcting himself was part of the problem. He was still trying to manage every individual process. So he stopped trying. The perfected Pure Qi Sutra had traveled these pathways thousands upon thousands of times.

His meridians knew the circulation, his dantian naturally received the returning current, and even his breathing had long since adapted to its rhythm. The Ren and Du meridians were new additions to that cycle, yet with the Alchemy Qi maintaining their stability, Ning no longer needed to consciously guide every strand of spiritual energy along its proper route. When he gradually loosened his control, the circulation didn't descend into chaos as he had half expected.

If anything, it became smoother, as though his constant interference had been the only thing preventing his body from settling naturally into the completed cycle. Interesting. Ning finally understood why the seventh stage was considered the first true obstacle on the path to completing Qi Condensation. This breakthrough was fundamentally different from everything that had come before it.

Opening the Ren and Du meridians was difficult enough, but afterward, a cultivator had to adapt to an entirely new circulation while turning their awareness inward and maintaining control over the whole process. Without the Alchemy Qi, the perfected Pure Qi Sutra, and all the preparations he had made beforehand, even Ning wasn't confident he could have crossed the threshold successfully on his first attempt. Ning let the thought fade and sank deeper into the rhythm.

His breathing gradually aligned with the circulation, the tension throughout his body eased, and the warmth of the Alchemy Qi became increasingly difficult to separate from the greater current moving through him. The qi leaving his dantian no longer felt like one process and its return another, while the meridians, breath, body, and consciousness directing them stopped competing for his attention. Little by little, everything aligned.

One circulation passed into another, and somewhere along the way, maintaining awareness of the whole stopped requiring deliberate effort. Ning simply understood the complete cycle occurring within him, his instinctive awareness of his cultivation gradually becoming broader and more complete. For the first time, Ning understood a little of what those old Daoist texts meant when they spoke of returning many things to one. Nothing had actually become one; everything had simply found the same rhythm.

And once that harmony settled naturally into place, the transformation within his dantian began. The dense qi gathered there drew inward. Ning felt the pressure rise sharply, yet the sensation was completely different from simply cramming more spiritual energy into an already full dantian. The completed circulation continued feeding qi through the Ren and Du meridians, while the Alchemy Qi repeatedly passed through the dantian and steadied the increasingly compressed spiritual energy within.

The qi condensed further and further. Until something changed. Amid the dense spiritual energy filling his dantian, the first trace of qi passed beyond the state Ning had known throughout the previous six stages and condensed into something heavier, purer, and vastly more concentrated. A single drop of spiritual liquid formed. Ning couldn't see it in the ordinary sense, yet with his newfound inward awareness, the difference was unmistakable.

The first drop remained suspended within his dantian as the surrounding qi continued circulating. Then another began to form. The Alchemy Qi moved through the gathering spiritual energy, and Ning immediately noticed how much easier the transformation became wherever it passed.

Its medicinal nature didn't simply protect his meridians during the breakthrough; it stabilized the increasingly dense qi itself, allowing the surrounding spiritual energy to compress without becoming turbulent as it approached the point of condensation. Ning maintained the Pure Qi Sutra and allowed the process to continue naturally. He wasn't transforming his entire cultivation into liquid in a single sitting; the seventh stage only marked the beginning of that transition.

Most of his spiritual energy remained in its previous state, yet among the dense qi now rested the first few drops of spiritual liquid that would gradually become more prominent as he advanced through the late stages. As more qi condensed, space naturally opened within his dantian. The dantian itself strengthened and expanded with the advancement, yet the greater increase in capacity came from the condensed spiritual energy occupying only a fraction of the space it had required before.

The Spirit Gathering Formation responded immediately. Fresh spiritual energy flowed toward Ning and entered the completed circulation, where the perfected Pure Qi Sutra refined it before returning it to his dantian. The remaining Alchemy Qi moved alongside it, nourishing the newly opened pathways and smoothing the transformation as his seventh-stage cultivation gradually stabilized.

Ning remained immersed in that state, his qi, meridians, breathing, and consciousness settling into a harmony that no longer required deliberate effort to maintain. At the same time, the spiritual sense awakened during the breakthrough continued reaching inward, instinctively trying to grasp the boundary between his physical body and the consciousness directing it. Then something responded. [Know Thyself] The talent activated on its own.

Perhaps it was because Ning's newly awakened perception was doing precisely what Know Thyself had always done in its own strange way: attempting to understand him. For less than a heartbeat, the two seemed to overlap. Ning's inward awareness suddenly sank far deeper than it should have been capable of reaching, passing beyond qi and meridians until something normally intangible briefly took on a form his mind could comprehend. Himself. Or at least, Ning thought it was.

For that single instant, his awareness gave him the impression of something wrapped in layers, one resting so naturally over another that he might never have noticed the distinction if Know Thyself hadn't sharpened his perception. The outermost layer shifted. And beneath it, Ning glimpsed something else. He couldn't make out a shape, much less understand what separated one from the other.

The impression lasted only long enough for him to recognize that what he had always instinctively regarded as a single, indivisible self possessed some distinction his ordinary perception couldn't detect. Then Know Thyself fell silent. The deeper awareness disappeared with it, leaving Ning's newly awakened spiritual sense exactly as it had been before, its momentary perception of those deeper layers vanishing completely. The Pure Qi Sutra continued circulating without interruption. W-what?

Ning wanted to figure out what he had just sensed, but the middle of a breakthrough was probably the worst possible time to start poking at something he didn't understand. Whatever it was, it wasn't going anywhere. Probably. Ning pushed the matter aside and completed several more revolutions of the Pure Qi Sutra, allowing the changes brought by the breakthrough to settle naturally.

His qi flowed smoothly through the newly completed circulation, the first traces of spiritual liquid remained stable within his dantian, and the strange inward awareness he had awakened no longer required nearly as much concentration to maintain. Only after confirming that nothing felt wrong did Ning gradually relax and open his eyes. [Cultivation: Seventh Stage Qi Condensation (Consolidating)] For a moment, Ning simply stared at the words. Then a smile slowly spread across his face.

"Finally. Late-stage Qi Condensation." Ning let out a long, turbid breath. It had taken considerably more preparation than any of his previous breakthroughs, but he had finally crossed the threshold. His cultivation was still consolidating, and he would need some time before the seventh stage became completely stable, but the dangerous part was over. Only then did Ning properly notice the state of himself and the chamber.

The Clearheart Incense had long since burned down to ash, his robes were damp with sweat, his hair clung loosely to his forehead, and a thin layer of impurities expelled during the breakthrough covered his skin. More importantly, he had absolutely no idea how long he had been sitting there. It certainly hadn't felt that long. Ning rose from the cushion and stretched, taking a moment to familiarize himself with the changes in his body.

His qi flowed noticeably smoother than before, particularly through the newly opened Ren and Du meridians, while his awareness of that circulation lingered even without deliberate concentration. There would be plenty of time to examine everything properly once his cultivation finished consolidating. For now, he desperately needed a bath. Ning opened the chamber door and immediately stopped.

"... Master?" Ling Xin was standing outside. Her expression brightened the moment she saw him.

"You're finally out. Good, you look fine." Before Ning could even process the fact that his master had apparently returned while he was cultivating, Ling Xin stepped forward with her arms already open.

"Wait, Master." Ning quickly raised a hand and pointed down at himself.

"You might want to reconsider that." Ling Xin paused and followed his gesture. Her gaze traveled over his sweat-soaked robes and the layer of dark impurities still clinging to his skin before she quietly lowered her arms.

"Oh." She considered the situation for a moment before nodding.

"After you bathe, then." Apparently, Ning had only postponed the inevitable.

"When did you-""Right!" Ling Xin suddenly interrupted, as though remembering something far more important.

"I was waiting for you to come out anyway. Look what I got you." Her hand disappeared into her sleeve. Ning's question died immediately as his curiosity took over. A moment later, she pulled out a small white worm. It wriggled between her fingers. Ling Xin held it toward him with obvious satisfaction.

"Eat this." Ning stared at the worm for several seconds, then slowly raised his eyes to his master's expectant face.... Was this the result of her seclusion?... Thanks for reading~