Pou's New Features

The path from Pre-Qi Refinement to the Qi Refinement Stage was simple enough, in principle.

You took the spiritual power that had filled your dantian and scattered through it without order, compressed it all into a single point, and gave birth to a star of spiritual energy — a Spiritual Star.

The methods for doing so differed wildly from one cultivation art to the next. Yet among that throng of methodologies, one truth never changed: a Spiritual Star forged with a higher-grade art tended to be larger, denser, and a firmer foundation when the time came to break through to Foundation Establishment.

The Qi Refinement Stage was divided into nine stars in all.

Raise one star and you were one-star. The more stars you formed, the higher your realm climbed. Stars one through three were Early Stage; four through six, Mid Stage; seven through nine, Late Stage. Peak Stage meant the period of laying the groundwork to cross from Qi Refinement into Foundation Establishment.

The formula that defined Qi Refinement was Nine Palaces, One Dao Returning to One — arrange nine Spiritual Stars in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the dantian according to the principle of the Nine Palaces, and at last gather them into a single Dao in preparation for Foundation Establishment.

It was the first step on the Immortal Path: the Qi Refinement Stage.

Nain's tightly shut eyes opened.

What she saw was her own body, blazing white with heat. The skin beneath her clothes was glowing of its own accord.

"Hwek—! Cough, cough!"

Nain coughed against a stinging throat. Her mouth was so dry the parched walls of her throat scraped raw.

"What… How long has it been?"

Her mind felt clear. Her body was not heavy; it was so light she almost thought she could take flight.

"Cough. Cough."

When she stood, a layer of dust that had settled over her rose with her. It prickled the membranes of her nose. In the dark, the self-luminous human slowly swept her gaze around the subdued training chamber.

The room was bare and clean. The low-grade spirit stones she had prepared, the pills and talismans she had set out just in case, even the spare clothes — all of it was gone. Only black ash remained where those things had been.

Nain stared blankly for a moment, then pulled herself together. Thoughts spinning faster than before dredged the recent past back up.

"Qi Refinement!"

The realm that had been as good as a lifelong wish. She had been the one shattering that wall. Her mind went cold, as if someone had dumped ice water over her head.

Nain settled back onto the floor, crossed her legs, squeezed her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠eyes shut, steadied her breathing, and stretched her consciousness inward to look upon her own body.

Whoa…!

Nain marveled in silence. Her body had changed to a degree that felt like the remaking of heaven and earth.

Thump. Thump!

Her heart pulsed with a force deeper and more vivid than before, a richer crimson that radiated vitality. Every meridian in her body was scoured clean of waste, and even the fine vessels so slight she had never felt them before were open and unobstructed.

Her five organs and six bowels had grown sturdy, as if newly born. The density of her bones had risen; the grain of every muscle had been woven tighter, granting her strength beyond that of an ordinary person.

And the dantian?

Her gaze turned to the most important place of all. What she saw first was her own spiritual power, pure black. Fragments of energy were flowing out from the deep core of the dantian.

Nain tilted her head at the sight.

No… that isn't spiritual power…

Focusing harder, she finally caught the nature of the uncanny dissonance. What she had mistaken for spiritual power was only the tiniest portion of something so vast she could not even imagine its whole. She slowly widened her tightly fixed gaze.

Uh… uh…!

Her field of vision stretched without end. Wider, wider, wiiiiider — and still the vast thing refused to show its true form.

Only when her endlessly expanding sight took in the entire dantian did Nain at last understand what it was.

A Spiritual Star. An utterly, utterly enormous star of spiritual power. A pure-black Spiritual Star of overwhelming size was turning, heavy and deliberate, at the heart of her dantian.

A dantian was generally divided into three parts: the deepest core, the center that wrapped around it, and the outer region that claimed the greatest share of space.

An ordinary one-star Qi Refinement Spiritual Star never left the core. It barely occupied a fingernail's worth of that deepest place and shone only faintly.

Even a cultivator blessed with genius talent, a brilliant master, a superior art, and pills inscribed with rare formulae — even one who created a star with all of that — only just filled the core and lit the center on first stepping into Qi Refinement.

Nain's Spiritual Star was different.

A pure-black star occupying more than a third of the center blazed with overwhelming radiance, pouring that light all the way out into the outer region. What she had first mistaken for spiritual power had been nothing more than the light the star itself was casting.

The size of the Spiritual Star she carried was greater even than those of dual-root cultivators who had reached Late Qi Refinement. Only the geniuses at Peak Stage, polishing a perfect foundation for Foundation Establishment, would hold stars larger than hers.

"Heh… heheh…"

A silly laugh slipped out. The corners of her mouth lifted of their own accord; sheer good humor flooded her. A soaring elation rose — the feeling that she could do anything.

It had been a perfect first step. Pushing herself to buy a superior art and compressing her spiritual power to the absolute limit had been the right choice.

The foundation of Qi Refinement was the most important part of the long path of cultivation still ahead — Foundation Establishment, the Golden Core, and everything beyond. Potential was decided on the basis of this stage.

The stride and direction of the very first step determined the destination.

Nain had taken the finest possible first step.

That fact filled her with satisfaction from the deepest place in her heart.

Feeling the fullness of spiritual power saturating her body, Nain left the training chamber.

The house was dark. It was dawn — the hour when the sun was just beginning to light the world. Self-luminous Nain brightened the dim morning air as she moved.

With her improved physique she bounced lightly across the floor and threw herself onto the living-room sofa. Then the bedroom door creaked open, and Pou drifted out in a lazy float. The white scroll had a small blanket pulled snugly over itself.

"…You're really that carefree, huh?"

While her master had been crossing the vast wall into Qi Refinement, this thing had been lounging around in the bedroom? Unforgivable. She snatched the leisurely hovering Pou out of the air.

Flap? Flap!

Pou thrashed, but Nain paid it no mind. She buried her face in the plump white paper and mercilessly blew a long, wet raspberry against it.

The blanket flapped wildly under Pou's fierce resistance, but Nain never let go. Without a scrap of mercy she kept blasting air into the scroll.

Several minutes later, Nain rubbed her raspy throat and lips, then called to the ragged, despairing Pou sprawled across the sofa.

Fla~p…

The oddly limp floatiness drew a snort of laughter from her. She unrolled the scroll.

"Huh?"

Nain tilted her head. Aside from her Five Spirit Roots proficiency having risen by a thousand and the Five Elements Spirit Ascension Enlightenment Method having been added to her arts, nothing seemed different.

Beneath the realm entry — on the very last line — sat text that made her heart skip. Unlike the usual black lettering, the notice shone with a brilliant golden light.

She swallowed hard, and with slightly trembling fingertips pressed the notice.

Fwaaaash!

Pou blazed with light.

Every character that had displayed Nain's status, along with the notice itself, vanished, and a single sentence rose in their place.

The moment Nain finished reading, the characters sank back into the paper as if they had been watching her eyes.

Nain's mouth fell open. So Pou's functions hadn't ended there? Even the basic features were already brokenly strong — and now there was more?

Anticipation set her heart pounding.

And that still wasn't the end. The golden letters faded away, then reappeared.

"Uh… uh…"

Nain stared at the sentence, utterly vacant. It was an absurd function. Cultivators who spent their entire lives grinding through bitter practice would have flipped their eyes white at the sight of it.

And even that was not ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the end!

The sentences kept coming.

Nain no longer had the strength left to be surprised. She slumped against the sofa and stared blankly at the options blinking as if to hurry her decision.

She needed time to think. So she closed her eyes, meaning to sink into deep consideration —

—when something suddenly appeared beside the choices.

"Uh… uh!?"

No — wait. She had trained in a five-element art. If one of her spirit roots suddenly turned into a lightning attribute…

At best her Spiritual Star would collapse. At worst, her mind and soul could shatter!

Imagining that future drained the color from Nain's face.

"No!"

In the instant before the blinking number vanished, Nain stabbed her finger down on Constitution: Geumhae Changcheon.

"…"

Silence settled. Tense, Nain stared at the blank space on the scroll.

Sssss—

The options faded. The golden light sank into the white emptiness and disappeared.

Fwaat!

Nain let out the breath she had been holding. In place of the hair-raising gold, familiar black characters slowly rose and reported her status.

"Haaaah…"

She leaned back against the sofa again. Cold sweat ran down her skin, only to evaporate on its own against the heat of her glowing body.

"Crazy… Pou, you're getting a full hour of raspberries later…"

Shudder!

Pou trembled faintly in her hands. Ignoring the tremor, Nain scanned her newly rearranged and updated status.

It had gotten a lot longer. Completely drained and exhausted, Nain only skimmed it, then released Pou. She would study it properly later and experiment with the functions.

"Hiiih… I'm so tired."

Beep!

She switched on the television. To soothe her worn mind and body, she put on the documentary she watched without fail every morning — The Ten Saviors Who Protected Earth.

"Huh?"

A square Ascension Ground floating alone in the void of space. It was a place familiar even to Nain. Every New Year's Day, on the first of January, Peak Qi Refinement cultivators were reborn there as true Foundation Establishment Half-Gods.

"Wait — then…"

She hurriedly powered on her terminal and checked the date and time. A screen rose into the air and displayed the information.

"Two whole weeks have passed!?"

Nain's shriek rang through the quiet living room. She clutched her head and rolled back and forth across the sofa.

It was the moment her arrogant vow — to reach four-star Qi Refinement within a month — crumbled into empty air.