Ch146 6th Level Qi Refiner

Lan Xin stays a bit longer to give me some details on the new minor clans she’s done business with outside of Lingshi City, but none of them interest me much. Eventually, she heads off to try out the Tier 2 Vein above the WangMu Peak.

I have over a dozen upgrade cards left over from this week. Not all of them were used up on healing elixirs.

I use a few to create perfected enchanted one-time-use defensive items and stone bullet talismans just like the first one I upgraded. These are the most common two Meng Ruo provided in this batch.

The explosion of this enchanted stone bullet colliding with a ball of Lan Xin's flames is still fresh in my mind.

The weight of the attack is very similar to the low-grade tier 2 azure lightning bolt.

Excitement stays in my eyes as I stow these new weapons away. I’ll be far more equipped to challenge a foundation establishment cultivator now, and won’t necessarily have to use my trump card.

I pull out my new jar of honey to upgrade next.

A bright flash of light surrounds the liquid, and the glass becomes thicker and dense with qi.

Inside, the honey shrinks down just like the first vial; however, the whole bottom of the jar is left with a thick amber-brown liquid.

The qi rich base honey may have been far lower quality than the first one, but there are far more enchanted nectar particles in total infused throughout this batch.

The upgrade card registers this as a much larger amount, leading to almost ten times the volume of enchanted heavenly-grade rock bee honey.

–

I do not hold back on my honey usage at all this week.

Instead of giving myself a full two days to rest in between like before, I start by taking 1 drop of honey a day.

Then, I up the dose to 2, one in the morning and night, using the momentum to push toward this final bottleneck faster.

It feels like hundreds of invisible heavy flat iron weights are crowded together in a perfect sphere around my dantian, and I have to send pulses of qi over and over to find gaps in this wall to push them apart.

My spirit roots swell as they’re saturated with honey each time. At their peaks, wisps of qi slip through the bottleneck’s cracks, and sometimes the circular wall of invisible heavy weights shudders. It shows no signs of budging, but I do feel some movement.

My meridians become far more used to their inflamed state, and there is always a steady amount of heavenly-grade medicinal qi flushing through my system.

The Fire and Water qi produced from practicing my element control have become closer in their speed and flow patterns. I become capable of forming wisps of blue qi in my left hand in a matter of seconds, just like I could before practicing the minor fireball technique with red qi.

The Earth qi is still stagnant, but I manage to get small particles to leave the meridians in my feet multiple times without any major problems. It takes me over a full minute to fully force the brown qi through these longer meridians.

The metal and wood roots are being saturated at their source in my chest, but I’m having a much harder time controlling them. It feels impossible to get them to leave my body yet. They are far more intricate elements, ones that I do not have enough root maturity to handle right now.

After each drop of honey wears off, and my spirit roots become less inflamed, the cracks in my bottleneck tighten up again.

–

5 full days have passed since Lan Xin's drop-off.

This rock bee honey may be losing its efficacy as I use it more, but I want to take advantage of this momentum while I still have it.

I slip away from floating in the lake as the morning sun rises, and into my hidden realm ready to seriously challenge this bottleneck of heavy iron weights.

Meimei instantly runs over to me when I call.

She has spent the last 5 days deep in her silver section of the array, snacking on the pile of soul metal fragments, bringing herself up to an identical perfected stage of level 5.

The tiny fox has barely been alive for more than 2 weeks, and she’s caught up to me in her qi cultivation.

When I pour my spiritual senses into her, there is only a single silver and white spirit root tethered to her dantian. It is plump and saturated, pulling in energy and popping through bottlenecks like they’re inconsequential.

She’s in an optimal cultivation environment, and has almost unlimited pseudo tier 2 resources at her disposal. Her 4th-grade root potential gives me a perspective of how easy it must be for talented children of rich clans to make their way through the initial and mid stages of qi refinement.

Little Red, on the other hand, has been getting darker and darker red.

His natural flame physique hit the perfected stage already, but it keeps getting heavier and stronger.

Meimei occasionally walks over to his portion of the array, and tries to annoy the toad and get its attention.

She has even figured out the fact that her qi cultivation is higher than his, and tries to flaunt it, letting out thick white pulses of qi from swinging her tail, but Little Red’s natural veil of flames block it from disturbing him.

“Alright you two… I’m going to attempt a major breakthrough. Take as much as you know you can handle, and aid me in any way you can.”

I set the open jar of enchanted heavenly-grade honey in the center of the array, and sit down in front of it to begin cycling my Jade Purity Soul Scripture, and prepare my spirit roots for a battle.

Meimei instantly stops harassing Little Red, and runs over to stick her head into the jar.

She takes a few hungry licks, then yips and backs up into her metal section to process it.

Little Red opens a single eye my way, but closes it and gives a low croak. It translates through our soul contract as a dismissive shrug, saying he doesn’t want any more honey, and that the first drop was too qi dense for his liking.

I pour a few drops of honey into my own mouth, then stow it away to focus.

All five of my spirit roots light up and start burning through qi to process the honey.

Every particle of enchanted nectar inside it makes my Martial Grand Master Physique heavier, and my soul grows silkier and denser for a limited time.

I focus all of my energy on pushing at the heavy wall of weights, no longer trying to mature my roots.

Bursts of qi instantly start breaking through the cracks, and the invisible wall rattles.

I can feel the other side of this bottleneck, and see the size of a 6th-level dantian on the other side, yet there is a heavy force of gravity holding it together.

Every bit of rock bee honey dissolves, and the energy is cycled through me a few times. It takes about a minute to reach its peak intensity.

There is a satisfying pop that sounds in my soul, but it is Meimei breaking through into the 6th level of qi refinement first.

This allows me to see further into my own bottleneck, but the volume of qi flowing through my roots is not enough to break through yet.

I contemplate drinking even more honey to make this attempt even stronger, but this is already more than double the amount I’ve ever tried before at one time. It may be too much for my body to handle.

I consider the red milk fruit still lying untouched in my storage, but I shake my head thinking about this too. It is an unknown, one I’d like to test when there are fewer variables at play.

The worst case here is that I take a day or two off and try again.

Even though the stakes aren’t high, I still grit my teeth and keep trying to break through.

I’m so close. The invisible weights are spreading apart, and some even appear to be cracking open to reveal a pure white sea behind them.

As this progress begins to show, I feel the peak begin to wane. The stimulation of this rock bee honey is wearing off, and the enchanted properties strengthening my physique are beginning to settle down back to normal.

Some of the cracks in the bottleneck heal up on their own, and the gaps between them start to close.

I stay completely focused, and don’t give up.

This is because of the confident emotions pouring out of Little Red from the side of the array.

A wave of dry heat pulses through the air.

It is followed by the sound of an acquired physique cracking, and being sacrificed just like I witnessed him do once before.

A presence creeps into this hidden realm. It is the familiar aura from within Little Red, that I believe is linked to his dormant innate physique in some way.

The pair of dark invisible eyes manifests and peers into me from all directions; above, below, left, right, even from within me.

Unlike before in Black Iron Mountain, the little toad does not appear to be in any pain.

His perfected stage mortal grade natural flame physique ticks down to the late stage, but no flame fragment leaves him.

Instead, his body glows hotter internally.

Little Red’s Qi Refining Cultivation Level ticks upward instead. His natural flame physique falls to the mid stage, then finally the initial stage.

It stops cracking apart, and the ominous invisible eyes dissipate from my senses.

A loud croak echoes through this hidden realm as Little Red breaks into the 4th level of qi refinement in a matter of seconds.

Every single one of the heavy invisible weights in my sea of consciousness shatters.

All of the qi pressing up against it floods through without any resistance.

I seamlessly break through into the 6th level of qi refining.