20 Rushing into Qi Refining Stage

Ling Hong felt a desire for power to protect people around him. But since Earth was different from his previous world, he could not just use raw power to suppress others unless he had money and status. The only way he could do that was through his alchemical knowledge. He realized that the so-called modern medicine had weak effects when compared to traditional medicine.

He guessed that Earth's spiritual qi had withered and hence spirit herbs were lacking as time passed by. Hence the traditional alchemical knowledge was lost and they accepted the modern medicinal practices.

However, Ling Hong could create effective pills from even common herbs with his extensive knowledge about medicinal ingredients. The problem was that he would need to fully manifest qi to ignite alchemical flames if he wanted to produce pills for a long time. After all, using his divine sense to forcefully create pills would drain his energy. Hence he decided to solve the problem by achieving a breakthrough into the Qi Refining Realm.

As he had already stored up spiritual qi inside him that was used to cleanse his body from the inside, his cultivation through the Body Tempering Realm was destined to be lightning quick. He flipped his palms and the jade bottle containing the rest of the Body Tempering Pills appeared in his hand. Instead of directly consuming them, he began to place them on the floor seemingly in a pattern.

If any high level alchemist could have seen this, they would've been shocked! What Ling Hong was carrying out was something that was only mentioned in legends - a Pill Array. Usually people directly ingested the pills to cultivate but countless years ago, there had been Pill Kings and Pill Gods who had knowledge about creating arrays using pills. A Pill Array was termed legendary because of the effects it could bring about, the most famous one was extracting essences from the pills to create a thick concentration of qi.

After he finished laying out the pills, Ling Hong stepped back to check his newly created array. The arrangement resembled a Taichi diagram. Satisfied, Ling Hong released his divine sense to envelope the array and chanted the incantation for activating the array.

"Yin and Yang clash together, the paths converge and spread. Qi Condensing Array, activate!" he shouted.

The pills making up the formation began to tremble and glowed slightly. Strands of qi extended from each pill as they stretched towards the nearby pill. Soon, all the pills were joined by strands of qi and the Taichi diagram began to rotate. A dense spiritual qi began to form at the central area were the movement was most chaotic.

After a while, the movements inside the array cam to a halt. The are inside the array was now brimming with a dense spiritual qi. Not wasting any time, Ling Hong sat down at the center area of the array and began to crazily absorb the qi gathered.

Under such dense qi, the cultivation speed increased multiple times as Ling Hong's skin turned better and better. He started to direct the absorbed qi throughout his body, enriching his muscles and internal organs and his cultivation stage increased.

It shot through Sixth, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Layer of Body Tempering before finally settling at Peak Body Tempering after a few hours. If he wanted to breakthrough to Qi Refining Realm, he could immediately do so by absorbing more qi and store it, then pushing his body to the limits to become a true storage vessel for qi..

However, Ling Hong had other ideas. He continued absorbing qi from the array till it suddenly died out. Gazing at the abundant qi inside his body, Ling Hong smiled. He then carefully extended his divine sense and spread out and circulated the qi to every nook and corner of his body so that the qi distribution in his body was completely even.

After he perfected the qi distribution, he opened his eyes and gazed at the sky. He calmed himself and began operating the <Heaven-Earth Yin Yang Formula>. An illusory whirlpool appeared above his head and the qi from the surroundings got sucked into it and was absorbed by Ling Hong.

The qi inside him started to flow vigorously as it permeated into his organs, bones and muscles. All impurities accumulated in his body over the years were squeezed out as his body was cleansed. The impurities were collected at the skin and they oozed out from the pores on his skin with a putrid smell, but he seemed to not care about it.

Ling Hong was completely focused on controlling qi and condensing it inside his body. All of a sudden, the gateway to his dantian broke open and it sucked in all of the qi like a black hole. As the qi entered his dantian, it began to form droplets as it entered, making it as if a rain of qi descended in the dantian.

As time passed, the rate of condensing qi turned slower and his dantian was now a huge sea of qi. Realizing that he the pill array had lost its effect, Ling Hong stopped his cultivation. As he opened his eyes, the pills that made up the array crumbled to dust. He looked into his dantian and observed the sea of qi within. He had broken through the Qi Refining Realm and even brought himself up to the Third Stage. He could even compare to a Fifth Stage Qi Refining Realm expert given the purity of his qi.

Ling Hong was excited - It seemed that he would take less time than expected earlier to reach the Foundation Building Realm. He calmed his excited mind and began to cultivate his alchemical flames according to <Blazing Sun Scriptures>. It was a fire cultivation method found in an ancient ruin in his previous world which focused on cultivating flames - which upon reaching the peak of cultivation could compare the heat to that of the sun.

After few hours, he could feel that dawn had broke out and hence removed himself from cultivation. As the morning sun bloomed, Ling Hong stood from his position and basked himself in it as he observed the changes. His body seemed to have grown a bit taller after completing the Body Tempering and his skin was smooth and supple. He could feel that his six senses had extended their detection range.

His deep silver eyes swept over the surroundings as he checked out the neighborhood that was not completely visible at night. There seemed to be only 10-15 villas in the lakeside area and he could sense that only a handful were occupied. It seemed he need not find another place for cultivation as there would not be any disturbances here.

Ling Hong then turned to observe his progress with his flame. As he spread out his hands, a scarlet flame ignited in his palm. From the heat, one could tell that it was a low-tier flame in the middle stage. It could be used to produce even high grade pills. Satisfied with the results of his training, he smiled to himself.

As he caught sight of the puddle of impurities and the remnants of the Pill Array, Ling Hong waved his hands as the scarlet flame spread across the balcony, cleansing the floor by burning everything up. He walked back into the villa, closing the door behind him. He went downstairs and walked into the courtyard at the backside of the villa to carry out his exercises.

Even though he had completed Body Tempering, he knew the importance of regular exercise - it ensured that his body would stay fit and hence cause less impurities to accumulate. With less impurities in one's body, their cultivation speed would also increase. This was why many self-proclaimed geniuses stagnated after entering higher realms of cultivation - they payed no attention to their body which hindered their breakthrough.

After an hour of exercise, he returned to take a shower. As a Qi Refining Realm cultivator, he would naturally have more stamina hence there were only a few beads of sweat on him. Nevertheless, he went to his room and entered the shower. As he was showering, he felt someone peek into his room.

He was stunned at first, but soon broke into a laugh and said "No need to worry Xinxin, I'm still here."

Indeed, it was the girl Li Xin who had peeked into Ling Hong's room as soon as she woke up. She just peeked into his room to make sure he was still there before anything else. Hearing his words, her face flushed red and she ran away and started doing her own things. He shook his head in amusement and continued his bath.

After Ling Hong dressed and was about to go down the stairs, he noticed a delicious smell from the kitchen that made his stomach grumble. Licking his lips, he went down for breakfast.