What do you mean I'm a cultivator?-Chapter 52

The seasons turned.

Weeks flowed into months, like water down a quiet stream, and before Cheng really noticed, the light green of spring had become the golden hush of early autumn. Once, then twice.

Throughout this time, Yiren kept showing up. Thankfully, the boy seemed to realise that Cheng wanted his alone time, and he passed by his cabin once or twice a week.

Sometimes, the boy came back with bruised knuckles, torn sleeves, and yet another ridiculous idea for a new sword technique. Usually based on animals. “Look, look! This one’s called Leaping Tiger Shadow Claw or destruction! Cool, right?”

Cheng had stopped replying to the names. It only encouraged Yiren.

In return, Cheng taught.

He taught him how to read the language that the books contained, which Yiren groaned about for weeks.

He drilled basic stances into his head, making sure the boy had a stable foundation. While Cheng had not gone on any other missions that resulted in proper combat, his knowledge of martial arts had grown.

He lacked experience. Not knowledge.

He taught the small tricks of array forming that came from his obsession with the art. However, Cheng was unsure if the boy picked up anything from it. Yiren had a disdain for anything precise involving hours of sitting still, after all.

And in teaching him, Cheng learned too.

One morning, deep in the blue pre-dawn hush, Cheng opened his eyes.

Something was different.

In. Out. Cheng took deep breath after deep breath, his eyes closed, and the wooden fragment he had obtained that fateful day resting deep within his robes, a constant, yet soft humming sound within his mind.

He felt the Qi stir within his Dantian, cycling as he willed it so.

No longer was it a drifting cloud. It was more of a bottle full of smoke. Unmoving. Even as it cycled, there was almost no room for more to fit inside.

Cheng pressed a hand lightly to his stomach.

Fifteenth Stage of Qi Condensation.

It had taken him years. Close to two decades. Practically his whole life spent pushing for it. But he was here.

It was not the fastest time that any human had reached this point.

Not by a long shot. One book stated that the ten supremes had been born into Foundation establishment. And even then, various important historical figures had stepped into the foundation establishment in their teen years.

And yet, despite Cheng not possessing such grand talent, nor huge amounts of precious resources, he had come here.

The final threshold.

The silence rang loud in his ears. His heart pounded once, deep and echoing. Not from nerves. But anticipation.

Foundation Establishment. Finally. He could start his plans.

He sat there for a long while, breathing through the storm.

Slowly, he reached for the small table near him and grabbed the worn book he had lying there.

It was ancient, brittle at the edges, and full of information.

He had read this book a dozen times already.

But Cheng had never cared much for overdoing things.

He flipped through the familiar pages, his eyes scanning the contents of the book, the messy handwriting, the careful notes in the margins.

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Sixteenth stage. Seventeenth stage.

The two stages that separate common cultivators from geniuses.

Before reading this book and reaching the fifteenth stage, Cheng thought it was mostly a matter of talent. Geniuses would go beyond, and the common folk like himself could only follow.

But in truth, the two next stages, the so called peak Qi condensation, was different than the stages before.

Just as the book explained, one had to learn how to truly compress their Qi, and make room for more. But there was a danger to this practice.

The more you packed into a dantian, going beyond its capabilities, the more pressure would build up.

Common symptoms of not being able to hold that pressure properly include frequent nosebleeds, throwing up blood, tremors, cold sweats, and more.

In essence, this was courting one's death. And yet, in a way, it mirrored the path to breaking into Foundation Establishment.

Both practices needed near perfect control, willpower, and both had a limited time.

Of course, if you were a genius, things would be much simpler. eat a few pills given to you, temporarily strengthen your dantian, pack it with Qi, and break through.

Cheng didn't have that luxury. Despite his master bending the rules, being found in favor of an outer disciple, he would be penalised.

Because to favor a disciple, they'd have to belong to the inner sect. Another advantage of the inner sect. But it made sense. Talentless losers like him shouldn't be given help. That help would be wasted.

However. Cheng thought differently. Like all matters human, time brought new things. Inventions. Breakthroughs in technology or methods.

Who was to say that if his plans were correct, he wouldn't usher an age where everyone, regardless of talent, could break through?

And so he followed the instructions. He circulated his Qi precisely as the pages described, letting his Qi compress, fold, and condense again. Until he felt his Dantian squeeze in protest.

Pain bloomed in it. It almost felt like the dantian was fighting against him, trying to push the extra Qi back out.

He gritted his teeth, sweat beading on his forehead.

Without any help, it seemed like it wouldn't really be possible to reach the next two stages.

And so, he reached into his robe, pulling out a pill. The ever familiar Qi gathering pill.

Once a month, given to all outer sect members.

The result was immediate. The pill started drawing in Qi from around him, letting him focus more on compressing his Qi.

The pill gave him room to breathe.

Strangely, it didn’t feel like the pill had pushed him past the fifteenth stage.

Though to his surprise, he felt like the pressure he was feeling was what described the sixteenth stage.

Maybe the sixteenth and seventeenth stages weren’t as vast as the earlier ones. Not in volume. But in impact? In weight?

It likely made a huge difference.

"If the fifteenth stage produces one drop of Qi, then the sixteenth must produce close to two. And so must the seventeenth." Cheng mumbled.

The pressure made things clear. You just couldn't go higher than the seventeenth stage. You'd literally blow yourself up.

He exhaled slowly, letting the Qi trickle away and dissipate from his body. Of course, he didn't let it go to waste, as he directed it from his dantian to the wooden fragment, which took it in with no issue.

“Too early.” he muttered under his breath.

He'd need to rework his arrays. Perhaps double the walls.

"No. Fivefold. I'm not making a stupid mistake like that." He mumbled, noting it down in a small book he hid under the floorboards.

And so, having gotten a taste of the difficulty spike with the last two stages, Cheng would make sure his plans fit perfectly.

For a perfect foundation, one needed a perfect plan. And Cheng was nothing but patient.

Excerpt from A practical guide on the peak of Qi Condensation and how to reach it.

-Unnamed author.

Though the fifteenth stage is widely accepted as the final barrier before Foundation Establishment, it is, in truth, a plateau.

Not a peak.

Among the older sects, and in handwritten manuscripts long buried beneath dust and rot, there are practitioners who pressed further.

These somewhat rare few uncovered two elusive stages: the Sixteenth and Seventeenth, referred to by ancient cultivators as the great true tempering.

As time passed and cultivation progressed, however, their grand reverence has fallen into the more appropriate:

Sixteenth Stage. The Point of Compression.

Here, the cultivator must force their Qi into an even denser form, one not typically found even at the point where the dantian is saturated with the so called late stage Qi.

This is an unnatural act.

The Dantian rebels against it, walls straining with every breath.

Headaches, tremors, nosebleeds, and internal bleeding are common symptoms of failure.

But success brings with it twice the potency, depending on the handle a cultivator has on their energy.

Qi, once vaporous, becomes even closer to the Liquid Qi that Spiritual sea cultivators use, and foundation establishment ones need.

Seventeenth Stage. The Point of True Saturation.

This is the final, arguably most dangerous step before Foundation Establishment.

At this point, Qi must not only be dense but stable.

The cultivator’s Dantian teeters on collapse, held together only by force of will and precise control.

A single misalignment of internal flow can cause rupture. A single bad movement, and the practitioner’s cultivation may implode from within, causing a cataclysmic explosion.

It is rumored that its force can even outright kill an unprepared Foundation Establishment cultivator.

For more information on how one could improve their chances, refer to pages forty six and onward.

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This is mere speculation, but I believe that...