Before I went up to the upper sectors, I needed more personal power. I needed to at least make it to the foundation building stage before I headed there. No one below core formation would be able to tell how powerful I was thanks to the ring of deception, and I haven’t heard of anyone that powerful on Setria 9. I should be able to keep a low profile.

I woke up each day and began diligently cultivating. I had enough money to not have to worry about food while I was training for a few months. Each day I used the water and wind absorption rings and those elements were always the first to reach a bottleneck in my dantian. I continued absorbing the elements from around me, metal, and fire qi most present. Wood and earth qi were going to be a problem. Not being on a planet left the amount of those two elements around me lacking so they hampered my growth.

It took me about half a month to reach the high stage of qi condensation and another month to reach the highest stage. After half a year of diligently cultivating every day, only going out when I needed to buy food, I finally reached the peak of qi condensation and cultivated enough of the elements to reach a bottleneck in my cultivation. Though, no matter how much I cultivated I couldn’t break through to the foundation-building stage.

"Text, what am I doing wrong? I can’t break through to the foundation-building stage."

"ANSWER: For the user to break through to the foundation-building stage, the qi in the user’s core must be condensed down into a liquid form. The immortal who left the inheritance provided a method they developed in their youth for condensing the qi in their core into the liquid that provides the basis for the foundation of their cultivation."

"Oh cool!" I said.

"What’s the method for condensation?"

"ANSWER: The immortal would take the qi in their dantian, and begin rotating it slowly at first but then faster in a spiral. As the Qi flowed down into the spiral, it would naturally become condensed into a liquid form."

I decided to give the method a try. I took all of the qi in my dantian and began spinning it into a spiral, slowly at first. As the spiral began condensing the qi, it rebelled against my control and the qi backlashed through my body, injuring my internal organs. I immediately let go of the qi and worked on repairing my injuries. When the injuries were under control, I asked Text what happened.

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"ANSWER: The user attempted to condense each element of qi within their dantian all at once. This caused a backlash due to the clashing of the elements within the user's dantian. The following elemental pairs are incompatible to be combined below the core formation stage; water and fire, earth and wind, metal and wood."

I thought I understood what Text was saying. I couldn’t combine the elements that were opposites. I took my wind qi in my dantian first, began spiraling it down onto itself slowly and after some time of controlling the spiral a tiny drop of condensed qi formed within my dantian. I then moved to my water qi and did the same thing, but as I began spiraling my water qi, the wind qi spiral petered out and stopped condensing any qi in my dantian. The qi droplet I made in my dantian evaporated and returned to its natural state.

"Text, do I need to condense all my qi all at the same time AND keep the spirals going forever? That’s going to be hard."

"ANSWER: This, among other causes, is the main reason the myriad branch spirit root is considered to be one of the weakest spirit roots. Not only is cultivation speed hampered due to the necessity of having to cultivate all six elements of qi, but it takes much more effort and concentration to break through to the next stage in cultivation."

I frowned at the Text’s words, and first focused on spiraling both wind and water qi separately in my dantian. It was challenging to focus on both of the spirals at once, but after hours of practice, I was able to have them both creating drops in my dantian. When I tried to add a third spiral after qi drops had been created, I again lost control of the spirals and the drops evaporated.

"Do I have to do all of the spirals at once??" I asked out into the air, flopping back onto my bed in frustration.

"ANSWER: Yes."

I rolled my eyes at Text’s interjection but sat up again and returned to my meditating pose. This time I slowly took all of the qi in my dantian and first focused on separating them into their respective groups.

Once they were all gathered together and segregated based on qi type, I began slowly turning them each into spirals. After failing time after time, I eventually succeeded in making each spiral. Spreading my focus between all six spirals I condensed their requisite qi into drops that all joined together into a single pool at the bottom of my dantian. I was now sweating profusely as I focused on keeping all of the spirals going. I thought I was going to fail, and the spirals would dissipate when I felt something click. The spirals felt more solidified now and when I tentatively let go of my control over them, they stayed stable and didn’t dissipate. I immediately felt the change in my power as the qi droplets suffused throughout my qi pathways before returning to the dantian and being converted back into qi drops.

I finally laid back in my bed, breathing heavily at my exertion. I looked at my holo-clock and realized it had been multiple days since I began condensing my qi into spirals, but I had finally managed to do it and broke through to the foundation-building stage.