Chapter 14
Chapter 14
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: Foundation Establishment
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Foundation Establishment
What sort of realm is Foundation Establishment?
Naturally, there is no clear definition.
Every cultivator, every sect interprets it differently.
But there is one element they all universally agree on.
Foundation Establishment is the realm of accumulating spiritual power.
First, one gathers spiritual energy and converts it into spiritual power, using the body as a vessel to store it.
This process is repeated until advancing to the next realm, Core Formation.
In a sense, Qi Building cultivation is no different from molding clay and shaping it.
Once that clay is fired and hardened into pottery, one enters Foundation Establishment.
The water contained within that pottery is spiritual power.
A cultivator who reaches Foundation Establishment becomes a true superhuman.
A lifespan of two hundred and fifty years comes as a bonus.
The body, tempered endlessly, turns as tough as armor, deflecting even weapons.
Moreover, like pottery fired and set in form, it does not age outwardly with the passage of time.
At last, one achieves the indestructible body impervious to blades and longevity unbound by death.
But the most important part is finally being able to wield spells with spiritual power.
At this point, ordinary mortals can no longer harm a Foundation Establishment cultivator.
A surprise slash from a blade is blocked by the skin, and poison is incinerated by spiritual power the moment it enters the body.
Even a grand general commanding a million-strong army has no way to capture a cultivator who uses spells.
A true superhuman who has transcended limits is this magnificent.
And correspondingly difficult to reach.
Five Spirit Root Holders and Four Spirit Root Holders are fortunate if they escape Qi Building before their lifespan ends.
Three Spirit Root Holders and Dual Spirit Root Users vary by talent, effort, and circumstances.
Single Spirit Root Holders who drain their sect's resources reach it in about ten years.
In that sense, Seoran's talent was astonishing.
Just short of seven years since starting cultivation, at sixteen, Foundation Establishment was already within reach.
Five of those years had been self-study without a master or aid.
It was something any cultivator would find shocking.
Even though she was currently facing a bottleneck.
*****
Lately, Seoran had been in a foul mood.
It had been nearly a month with no progress in her cultivation.
It was like assembling a puzzle.
Like dumping out a ten-thousand-piece puzzle on the floor and fitting them together one by one.
A blank puzzle without even a picture, making it excruciatingly difficult.
Yet Seoran did not give up and kept trying through trial and error.
After a long ordeal, completion was finally near.
Just one last piece to slot into the empty spot, and it would be done.
Grinning in anticipation of reaping the fruits of her labor, Seoran fitted the final piece into place.
But the puzzle piece and the hole did not match.
It was clearly the last piece, for the last spot.
No matter how hard she tried, it would not fit.
Flustered, Seoran examined the puzzle she had assembled.
No matter how closely she inspected it, the other nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine pieces fit together perfectly.
It was enough to make a ghost weep.
For the past month, Seoran had denied reality and exerted herself to force the final piece in.
During that time, she had sought advice from many people.
They all said the same thing: she needed enlightenment, so she should meditate and contemplate her inner self.
When she asked what that enlightenment was, they only replied that it differed for each person.
As always, while beating on the wooden training dummy, Seoran made a decision.
Continuing to fight this wooden block would yield nothing more.
So she resolved to meditate all day.
Seoran shoved the battered wooden dummy into a corner of the training ground.
Ever since awakening after the friendly tournament, she had pummeled it daily.
The ragdoll loser had long fallen from her interest.
Leaving home, Seoran headed straight for a secluded waterfall.
A small waterfall near a bamboo grove.
She planned to meditate while standing under it.
She tossed a large rock into the spot where the water fell and sat atop it.
While meditating under the fiercely pouring waterfall, a drifting tree branch struck Seoran's head.
“Argh!”
It did not hurt, but she yelped in surprise.
Rubbing her scalp, Seoran looked at the branch snapped in half.
This was no place to concentrate.
Was meditating under a waterfall just a fantasy fed by the mass media after all?
Fine, then she would use it as white noise.
Seoran moved to sit on another nearby rock.
And that was when someone spoke to her.
“Hm? What are you doing here?”
The man appeared to be in his early twenties.
As a cultivator, his exact age was unclear, but he was definitely older than Seoran.
She replied politely.
“Hello. I am Ryu Seoran. I was meditating because my cultivation has stalled.”
The man nodded, seeing the waterfall and Seoran’s wet clothes.
“Ah, you were planning to meditate under the waterfall? It’s not as good for focus as you might think. Things keep falling, and your clothes get soaked.”
“You’re right. Heh heh.”
Caught red-handed, Seoran smiled awkwardly.
The man, who had been laughing along, made an “oh” face and introduced himself.
“I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Yeo Mujin. Just call me Ye Susa. I came to the bamboo grove over there to dig up some bamboo shoots.”
Their meeting was pure coincidence.
The mountain range claimed by the Black Bamboo Sect was full of bamboo groves.
Despite the sect’s name, it was all verdant bamboo.
“Bamboo shoots?”
“Yeah, my wife loves bamboo rice.”
The crescent curve of his eyes conveyed affection for his spouse.
Ye Susa deftly dug up a few shoots with practiced skill.
He handed one to her, saying,
“Here, have one. We met like this, so it must be fate.”
Fate?
Seoran blankly accepted the shoot and suddenly asked,
“Do you happen to know what enlightenment is? Everyone just says to contemplate my inner self to pass the bottleneck, but I don’t really get it.”
It was a somewhat out-of-left-field question.
He had given her a bamboo shoot, and suddenly it was about enlightenment.
Her mind, filled with worries, had blurted it out unbidden.
But Ye Susa smiled kindly at the abrupt question.
“Enlightenment? At your age, already on the cusp of Foundation Establishment. The heavens are vast, and the world is wide. Yes, enlightenment...”
After pondering briefly, Ye Susa offered his own answer.
“The cultivation of becoming a sage aims to transcend human limits.
So, what exactly is transcendence?
Here’s my personal view: I think transcendence is essentially fulfillment.
Filling one’s deficiencies until there are no gaps left—that’s the ideal state of transcendence.
Then another question arises.
What do you fill them with?
You need to recognize the deficiencies to satisfy them, right?
No one knows better than yourself if you’re hungry or what you crave.
I believe it’s the same with deficiencies.
In the end, the way to know your own lacks lies within yourself.
No need to spell out the method—you already know it, yes?”
Seoran hesitated before answering.
“Meditation, right?”
“Exactly.”
In the end, it circled back to the same place.
Seeing Seoran’s crestfallen, crumpled expression of disappointment, Ye Susa chuckled heartily.
“You’re still not getting it? What you really want are concrete examples, I bet. I was the same. Alright, I’ll share the enlightenment I gained.”
Seoran’s eyes lit up as she focused intently.
Ye Susa then recounted his own experience.
“As a child, I lost my family and relatives to bandits. Fleeing a village burning from their pillage, I lived as a beggar.
Scraping by on alms, I entered the Black Bamboo Sect and threw myself into training. Back then, I fiercely hated the lawless scum of the mundane world.
My talent carried me swiftly to the brink of Foundation Establishment. But there I hit my bottleneck. My plan to massacre the evildoers in the secular world as a Foundation Establishment cultivator was derailed.
It drove me mad. In the end, I stooped to any means necessary. I was that desperate.”
Seoran was momentarily speechless.
She had not expected such a dark backstory.
Had she carelessly reopened old wounds?
Ye Susa, laughing playfully, reassured the fidgeting Seoran.
“I can guess what you’re thinking. But hear me out a bit more. The ending feels different.
Anyway, at the time, I seduced and exploited a woman who admired me. I saw her only as a partner for dual cultivation to aid my training. Truly despicable.
She probably knew my intentions. Yet she never gave up and showered me with love. She believed love could change a person.
So, what do you think happened?”
Deeply immersed in the story, Seoran asked,
“Did you turn over a new leaf?”
“Exactly. Now we’re husband and wife. I still live atoning for it.”
“Oooh!”
Seoran had long forgotten about enlightenment or whatever.
Fortunately, Ye Susa remembered.
“Here’s the lesson.
In my youth, I was desperate to grow strong. When cultivation stalled, I even exploited someone else’s love.
Why do you think I obsessed over power?
Approach it from the view that all obsessions stem from deficiencies.
What lack drove me to crave strength?”
“Hmm, a thirst for revenge or hatred?”
Ye Susa shook his head.
“No. Though I thought so at first.
But one day with my wife, it hit me. The emotion tormenting me was grief. My obsession with strength wasn’t from revenge or hatred.
It was the grief and helplessness of fleeing without protecting my loved ones. That was my deficiency, my lack. That was my enlightenment.
Only after filling the hole of grief in my heart with love did I become a Foundation Establishment cultivator.
Remember this: if you don’t know yourself, you can’t know your lacks or fill them.
That’s the moral of my story.”
Staring blankly at Ye Susa, Seoran said,
“That love—was it for the woman who became your wife?”
“Of course. I truly love her.”
Ye Susa thanked her for listening to his long tale, gave her one more bamboo shoot, and left.
As time grew late, Seoran headed home with shoots in both hands.
Along the way, she kept mulling over what she had just heard.
Something seemed on the verge of dawning on her.