After a long and mentally exhausting climb, I was resting in an eagle-shaped position on top of the mountain. I decided that I needed a much-welcomed rest before I attempted to break through to the foundation establishment realm.
‘Now that I think about it, I haven't rested since the opening of the secret realm two days ago.’
A few hours later I felt ready: I picked out the yin tulips and the body of the monkey boss and adjusted my state of mind to one of pure focus.
I ate the monkey boss first and used my qi to quickly digest it. Immediately a surge of yang qi started traveling along my body, and I directed it through my meridians. The qi I had was enough for my breakthrough but I felt that for the formation of the foundation I wanted, I needed more.
So I ate the yin tulips and immediately had to use my entire concentration to avoid the collision of the two opposing energies obliterating me. I had to balance them but not merge them, as I already knew how dangerous that would have been.
After a while traveling my meridians the two qis had become more tame and resembled two snakes intertwining each other. At this point, I directed the flow to my dantian where they joined my existing qi creating a maelstrom.
Despite my preparations, I coughed some blood at this point. Nonetheless, I continued as this was the critical juncture.
After the maelstrom in my dantian subsided I finally had a view of the situation.
My dantian had been separated into two parts. The lower part took three-quarters of my dantian and was filled with dense gaslike neutral qi. On top of that slowly rotated the tai chi’s symbol of yin and yang, but without the dots.
Taijitu without dots [https://a0.anyrgb.com/pngimg/942/798/tao-te-ching-taijitu-sharealike-yin-and-yang-creative-commons-license-license-crescent-wikimedia-commons-oval-wikipedia.png]
Matching the rhythm of the symbol rotated two balls of qi, one of yin and one of yang.
It meant that now I didn’t need to convert the qi into yin or yang qi because they were already directly stored in my dantian.
As I was going to look at the tai chi symbol a surge of mental energy was suddenly liberated inside my mind. Realizing promptly what it was I started using it to condense a pillar inside my crystal mind lake.
It was like molding clay with your hands trying to create a tower no matter how you try it always seems uneven or tilted on one side.
‘Yes, clay!’
Following the comparison I started rotating the base of the tower at high speed and the molding became much more simple. I finished just as the surge of mental energy started to wane and used the leftovers to solidify the foundation of the tower. When it was finished the lake started glowing softly and a myriad of little sparks started appearing inside the lake.
I had broken through.
At this point, two pieces of information were unlocked in my mind.
Each came from respectively the qi and mental cultivation manuals that started showing the path to take to achieve the next realm.
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In the Bear Sutra manual, I have to create nine pillars below the tai chi symbol to form the foundation of my future cultivation.
In the Crystal Mind Palace manual, I can choose and build a foundation on which I will construct my palace.
Before doing that I decided to check my status.
Name:
Kuma Zhao
Race:
YinYang Bear
CULTIVATION
Qi
1st layer foundation establishment realm
Mental
1st layer palace foundation realm
Physical
1st layer bones refinement realm
SKILLS
Spirit Sense (Lv 10) - Crystal mind palace foundation (Lv 1) - Bear combat style (Lv 9) - Elemental Qi infusion (Lv 9) - Stealth II (Lv 7) - Regeneration II (Lv 2) - YinYang tai chi symbol (Lv -)
‘Hmm, let's see this YinYang tai chi symbol.’
As I concentrated on it, it disappeared from the screen and a stream of information entered my head. This symbol has three functions. The first is to convert my neutral qi into yin and yang qi, constantly replenishing the two qi balls. The second is to maintain the balance of the two elements at least internally. So I don’t need to manually keep the balance between the two qis, because the symbol will do it. Lastly, the symbol will be a fundamental piece in the creation of my golden core.
Now let’s look at foundation options:
Type
Description
Unlocking
Water
The pillar becomes a lotus stem and the palace will be constructed inside a lotus flower. Greatly increases defense and memory retention and has the possibility of creating a facility.
Reach the palace foundation with the crystal palace technique with a shoddy pillar
Gem
The pillar is split into branches that emerge from the water and form many little gem-like platforms where the palace will be constructed. Great resistance and the possibility to create 2 facilities.
Reach the palace foundation with the crystal palace technique with a good pillar
Cloud
The pillar will emerge from the water and form a big solid cloud upon which to construct the palace. Increase the thinking speed and possibility to create 4 facilities.
Reach the palace foundation with the crystal palace technique with a perfect pillar
YinYang
The pillar will emerge from the water and form a big tai chi symbol upon which to construct the palace. It creates a formation that gives a nigh impenetrable defense and the possibility to construct three facilities.
Reach the palace foundation with the crystal palace technique, obtain the Yin Yang koi fishes
I considered my options: the first two were out since their benefits were subpar compared to the latter two.
‘So the decision is between more facilities and better defense. Hmm, a good-defended mind sounds useful..’
I picked the Cloud Foundation.
From the progress between the first and the third option, the defense started decreasing in favor of more facilities. From that, I can deduce that the facilities are more important than defense.
“I hope I am not making a mistake.”