The Seventh Star of Qi Refining
Qi Refining 7th star! The next morning, when I entered the training ground, the Pacheon Sword Sovereign was already standing there with a wooden sword. As I approached, he didn't hand me the sword. Instead, he just watched me quietly. His gaze seemed to look past my body, piercing through to something beyond. It was a deep, penetrating stare that seemed to peer into my very mind. It was the same look he’d given me when he realized I had grasped the Meteor Strike.
“You have awakened the third sword form.”
I flinched at being found out so quickly. I had guessed as much while grasping the sword intent, but his ghost-like perception was terrifying. “How did you awaken it?” he asked, his voice carrying a slight hint of curiosity—a rarity for him. It was only natural; he must have been intrigued that the sword intent of a form he hadn't even taught me yet had manifested overnight.
I was flustered by the unexpected question. I couldn't exactly say, “Well, I posted a ‘shushuk’ sound effect on the Mumyungbang forum, and the sword-cultivator users helped me break down the sword path, so I realized it.”
“Well... last night, while I was ruminating on the sword intent of Meteor Strike...” I trailed off, fumbling for an explanation. “I went like this... and *shushuk*... and then I just realized it.” It was an embarrassing explanation even to my own ears. But the Pacheon Sword Sovereign nodded slowly.
“So, you awakened it naturally while reflecting on the sword intent.” He seemed to have found his own meaning in my nonsensical answer. A faint flicker of agitation passed through his eyes—a look that rarely appeared beneath his stoic expression. “It is still quite blurry, but it is undoubtedly there. To teach one thing and have the student realize not just two, but something even further beyond...”
He murmured in genuine admiration. But the deeper his admiration, the darker the shadow that fell over his eyes. No matter how much talent I showed for flying swords, I was a disciple who could not inherit the transmission of a body cultivator. The brighter my talent shone, the deeper his regret seemed to grow. He shook his head, brushing away the thought, and after a brief silence, he spoke in a low voice.
“The third sword form is called Star Map Opens the Heavens.”
Meteor Strike, Galaxy Single Line, Star Map Opens the Heavens. A sword manual that proceeds from point to line, and from line to plane.
“Since the sword intent has already taken root, the meaning of the form must be within you. However, your current realm cannot handle it yet, so do not attempt it recklessly. Even Galaxy Single Line was cut short because your spiritual energy was insufficient; Star Map Opens the Heavens consumes several times more.”
I bowed my head obediently, ruminating on the name. Now that I had a name for it, the image of the sword form floating in my mind felt significantly clearer.
“First, refine Meteor Strike. Even if it is a flying sword, if you repeat it enough, the sword intent will become vivid.” The Pacheon Sword Sovereign withdrew his expression and nodded.
From then on, training with the flying sword became my routine. The Pacheon Sword Sovereign had me repeat Meteor Strike while correcting the minute details of my sword path: the trick to gathering energy into a single point, how to eliminate tremors in the sword path, and the sense for shifting the speed and direction of the flying sword. While correcting my hand-held swordsmanship had been impossible because my body couldn't keep up, the flying sword was different. I could correct my movements immediately when he pointed out a flaw, and those corrections were perfectly maintained in the next motion.
“Even if you do not walk the path of a body cultivator, having sturdy bones and blood vessels is never a bad thing. Since you have the Jade-Refining Body, you should be able to advance as a body cultivator using only pills, without the need for grueling training. Do not forget to take your Bone-Tempering Pill and Blood-Vigor Pill.”
One day, the Pacheon Sword Sovereign set down his wooden sword and spoke. He took out a jade bottle and handed me some supreme-grade pills. ‘Uh, um...’ I accepted the pills politely, but my heart was complicated. Still, since I didn't have to worry about being a transmission disciple anymore, there was no reason to endure the pill toxin just to take supreme-grade pills. ‘I’ll have to make these into Danmun pills, too.’ Since body-cultivation pills had such strong effects on the body, it was fine if I took them separately. Even though the number of pills I had to take periodically was increasing, I didn't have to worry about pill toxin buildup, so I didn't mind.
“Those who use hand-held swords carve the sword path into their bones, while those who use flying swords carve the sword path into their divine sense.”
Thus, I absorbed one teaching after another every day. It was training to look the part of a sword cultivator. If I could just skillfully perform Meteor Strike with my flying sword, no one would doubt that I was a sword cultivator and a disciple of the Pacheon Sword Sovereign. The time outside of sword training wasn't much different from usual. I increased the process of refining Danmun pills by operating puppets in the alchemy room, logged into Mumyungbang to browse the backlog of posts when I had a spare moment, and spent my days expelling impurities before bed. Since my sword training had switched to flying swords, there was no strain on my body, and because training ended quickly, I was satisfied to have more time to spend on the forum.
A month had passed. It was a day when I was filling my dantian with natural qi intake, as usual. However, when I tried to absorb spiritual energy, my dantian wouldn't accept any more. It felt like pouring water into a jar until the surface reached the brim, and not a single drop more could fit.
“Huh?” I observed my inner self and examined my dantian. It was completely full, like a vast ocean. Finally, it was time to break through to the next realm. ‘Wait, don't I have to cross a major boundary—no, a minor boundary?’ But the pressure of the barrier I felt in my dantian was extraordinary. When I broke through from the 3rd to the 4th star, it had been a minor boundary, but I had barely managed to pierce it by using both a supreme-grade breakthrough pill and the Semi-Union technique simultaneously. Because my spiritual roots had grown through the Five Elements circulation and my dantian wasn't ordinary, even a minor boundary felt like a major one.
‘This won't be easy.’ I steeled my resolve and started moving. To refresh my spirit, I headed to the back mountain. The mountain rising behind the Yeonha Baek family estate was called Baekryeon-san. I had just called it the “back mountain” since I was young, but I remembered the name while explaining it to some peers at a banquet. The entire mountain was the family's training ground, surrounded by a massive formation. When I informed Elder Jin that I would be using a training chamber, his white eyebrows rose.
“Ho-ho, raising your realm? How admirable.” Elder Jin laughed heartily and opened the barrier to a grade-Bing cultivation chamber. I passed through the labyrinthine cave path and stood before the stone door of the chamber. I used my jade token to open the door and stepped inside. A jade bed, a Spirit-gathering formation carved into the floor, and a thick layer of spiritual energy. It was the same cultivation chamber as before.
“Hoo...” I climbed onto the jade bed and took my position. I closed my eyes and looked into my dantian. A thick barrier of the 7th star stood firm. I had expected it, but seeing it up close made me dizzy. At a rough guess, I felt it was on par with the major boundary of other Qi Refining cultivators. ‘Still, the breakthrough method is the same.’ It was the method of imbuing the Semi-Union with the sword intent of Meteor Strike and driving it into a single point of the barrier. But there was one thing different from before. My dantian had widened. The amount of spiritual energy I had filled my 6th-star dantian with was incomparable to when I was at the 5th star. Naturally, the duration of the Semi-Union had to be longer.
‘Here I go.’ I gathered all the Five Elements energy within my dantian. The five attributes converged toward the center of my dantian and began to coalesce into a single form. Semi-Union. An unstable state just before the Five Elements energy completely merged. As the five attributes condensed into one, they held explosive power. Once the Semi-Union formed, I imbued it with the sword intent of Meteor Strike. The destructive power of the Semi-Union focused into a single point and charged toward the barrier. A heavy impact resonated within my dantian. But only a hairline crack appeared on the surface of the barrier. If I had been at the 5th star, the barrier would have collapsed in one blow.
‘Not yet.’ The form of the Semi-Union did not dissipate. Because I had so much spiritual energy stored in my dantian, I was maintaining the form of the Semi-Union. I imbued it with the deepened sword intent of Meteor Strike even more clearly and pressed against the barrier. The barrier resisted, but I did not back down. I maintained the Semi-Union while adding the spiritual energy supplied through the Spirit-gathering formation.
‘I have to hold on!’ My energy channels screamed as if they were being tightened, but I gritted my teeth and pushed forward. Just as hairline cracks had spread across nearly half the barrier, the form of the Semi-Union began to blur. The Spirit-gathering formation alone wasn't enough, and my spiritual energy was hitting rock bottom. I had intended to take a Danmun Spirit-gathering Pill or a Danmun Breakthrough Pill if necessary, but I tried to hold on with my own strength.
‘Just a little more...!’ But there was nothing left in my dantian. The form of the Semi-Union was about to unravel. Just as I thought I would fail the natural breakthrough, an unknown energy surged from deep within my dantian.
‘...What is this?’ It was an energy that surged without warning or signal. It was a property different from the Five Elements energy or the lightning qi. As if something that had been asleep had opened its eyes, it boiled and surged from the bottom of my dantian. When the unknown energy joined the Semi-Union, its form became distinct. Cracks erupted from the hairline fractures, spreading in all directions. And before long, the barrier collapsed.
As if a dam had burst, spiritual energy poured into my widened dantian. My dantian expanded, becoming twice as wide as before. My divine sense also grew rapidly, extending to 27 jang.
“I did it...” I had finally succeeded in the breakthrough and become a 7th-star Qi Refining cultivator. But before I could enjoy the relief, a pungent stench filled the training chamber. When I opened my eyes, my entire body was covered in filth.
‘Again?’ Just like when I broke through my realm after taking Danmun Bone-Tempering Pills and Blood-Vigor Pills a while ago, impurities were flowing out. I thought the impurities in my bones and muscles had been washed away once, but as I raised my realm, impurities flowed out again.
‘Just how much filth is left in my body?’ I had been expelling impurities every day, yet every time I raised my realm, impurities flowed out without fail. Even if I ate, I only ate high-quality spiritual food, so there was no way impurities could be accumulating. If so, the cause wasn't external, but internal.
‘Could it be because of my spiritual roots?’ It was highly likely that this was a side effect occurring as my spiritual roots grew through the Five Elements circulation. Above all, unlike those with single spiritual roots, the quality of spiritual roots for those with Five Elements roots tended to be lower. Naturally, it was inevitable that I would have a lot of impurities.
‘But my Five Elements roots are...’ Looking back, there was something else important right now. The unknown energy that surged from deep within my dantian just before the breakthrough. It had surged and helped me break the barrier. ‘I have a vague guess, but...’ It could only be the Integrative Sleeping Root. But I had no way of knowing why the energy had surged.
“Ugh.” The smell was so foul that I took a Purification Talisman out of my storage pouch. When I used the talisman by imbuing it with spiritual energy, the impurities clinging to my body and the jade bed were cleanly wiped away. I swept the floor once, and the stench vanished along with the filth. I took my position again on the now-clean jade bed.
“Hoo...” Soon, I calmed my breathing and closed my eyes.