Stepping out of my “laboratory” I immediately brought joy to my companions by announcing that they could now practice meditation in the First Chamber. I handed out the pills and made sure each person swallowed their dose right before my eyes. Then, as a group, we all descended into the water-filled tunnels, where these “wild” cultivators got to experience firsthand what underwater breathing felt like. Indeed, they were actually filling their lungs with water, and the “special Qi” broke it down into oxygen and hydrogen, exhaling the extra gas. The technique was a bit risky after all, if anyone tried to spark a flame in their lungs, things could end badly but I hope one would be foolish enough to attempt that.
All together, we swam to the center of the First Chamber and “sat” on the bottom to meditate. With more than a hundred meters of water above us and considering these cultivators’ fear of water we had little reason to worry about being attacked.
When I had absorbed the Qi from the dragon’s bones, most of it went into my body directly, so the capacity of my Qi Thread had barely changed. Now, though, I started drawing Qi from the water, quickly approaching my saturation point.
Another benefit of choosing underwater meditation was that my companions were breathing in water, which had a much higher Qi content, so their cultivation speed spiked as well. I carefully observed the changes in their bodies as well as keeping an eye on my own progress. In just an hour, I’d gathered enough Qi to reach the peak of the sixth level of Qi Condensation. At that point, I retrieved the pill I had prepared with the water dragon’s Qi and swallowed it.
I was expecting to absorb this Qi fairly easily it was around the same density as the first level of Foundation Establishment. But as soon as it entered my body, I sensed that it “conflicted” with the fire dragon Qi I’d previously absorbed from the skeleton. The underwater-breathing pill I’d consumed earlier hadn’t caused any conflict, so I concluded the source of the problem was the star Qi I’d mixed in.
There was no option to undo swallowed pill, so I had to devote all my attention to “integrating” these different types of Qi into my Qi Strand. It wasn’t easy, but I managed. Two hours later, I broke through to the seventh level of Qi Condensation and breathed a sigh of relief.
After that, my cultivation proceeded smoothly. I absorbed the Qi in the water, leveling up about once per hour. The amount of energy in our surroundings was so enormous that I couldn’t even refine all of it on the spot I ended up sending about half of it into the seal for later.
Finally, I arrived at the peak of the tenth level of Qi Condensation. Beyond that, my Qi Strand refused to absorb even a drop more. Technically, I should have started forming a Qi structure in the “center of the Phoenix Tail” by now, but I hesitated. I still didn’t fully understand this process. I had studied a hundred cultivators and noticed that fewer than half of them used the “standard” structure. The rest had unique family or secret cultivation techniques and generally, those were even stronger.
So, I continued watching the cultivators, funneling all the Qi I absorbed into the seal. I even began experimenting with ways to speed up absorption, “forcibly” drawing Qi from my surroundings. I got that idea from the same Spiritual Alchemy technique, which showed you could remotely manipulate external Qi. Overall, the experiment was a success, and I started draining Qi from the environment so fast that the water around me grew visibly dimmer.
My companions continued breaking through the levels one after another. Some even managed to advance to the Core Formation Stage, pleasing me with their “secret” techniques. Using my psionics, I could clearly see what was happening inside their bodies, so I now understood how the “foundation” structure in one’s energy center influenced the structure of the “core.” Essentially, I’d gathered plenty of data for further analysis. I just needed to go through it and draw some conclusions.
About six hours after we began meditating, scouts from the Black Lotus Sect discovered us. None of them could dive deeper than about ten meters, which left them grinding their teeth in frustration, helplessly watching our progress from above.
Eventually, the group also reached the limits of their development, and further cultivation served only to stabilize their level without any additional breakthroughs. With nothing else to do, I decided to see what would happen if I tried to condense my Qi beyond the tenth level. To my surprise, there was no problem at all I made it to the eleventh level of Qi Condensation and started scratching my head, wondering if that was good or bad. I didn’t notice any anomalies, so an hour later I pushed on to the twelfth level. With each step, though, I could tell that condensing my Qi further demanded increasing mental effort.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Wanting to test my limits, I managed to push through to the fifteenth level. After that, my Qi just sort of “sprang back” like rubber and refused to condense any more. Closer examination of my Qi Thread revealed that it was now much denser than the Qi in the rest of my body whereas before we started meditating, it had been the other way around due to the dragon Qi I had absorbed. So, I began condensing the Qi in my body itself, infusing it into my muscles, bones, skin, and internal organs. I didn’t know any formal technique that worked this way, so I went purely by my own intuition and by a newly awakened “dragon instinct.”
Eventually, that process also reached its peak, and I pondered what to do next. There were still four hours until the next eruption, and I really didn’t feel like sitting around “staring at Qi.” Cultivation can be such a boring pastime.
That’s when I noticed Seventh. She was sitting underwater, her semi-translucent robes now almost fully transparent, tracing out the curves of her body. She was no longer the dainty nymph she once seemed, but a truly mature young woman of about twenty, with all the right shapes in all the right places. For the past several hours, she’d been unsuccessfully trying to break through to the Core Formation Stage, but each time she formed her “structure” it collapsed under the weight of internal instability.
“Don’t push yourself so hard, beautiful” - I said, slipping behind her unnoticed and wrapping my arms around her.
“What? Tan Ji Tao? What are you …” - At that moment, my hand settled on her chest, leaving no doubt about what I was up to.
“You need some rest” - I murmured. - “Repeatedly trying the same thing won’t change the outcome. You have to change your entire cultivation approach.”
“Yeah? What approach would that be?” - she asked, making no attempt to stop my caresses. In fact, she arched her chest forward. Apparently, she too had had more than enough of the endless grind.
“When I was in the camp, I discovered that having sex with me helps break through to the next level” - I whispered in her ear. At the moment, my lungs were full of water, so I used concentrated Qi in my throat to produce the sounds.
“Really?” - she asked, turning to face me.
“Of course. I want to help you break through.”
“Liar. All you really want is sex” - Seventh “protested” sliding her hand down my pants.
I put a simple shield around us so no one could see what was happening, and then we took our clothes off and had sex. The “underwater” experience was unusual, so our excitement ran extremely high. Around our eighth mutual orgasm, I felt the Qi inside my partner begin to move on its own. After that, a Qi Core formed in her ninth energy center. Its projection in the physical body was roughly in the area of the womb, so it wasn’t entirely inexplicable though definitely unexpected.
“Ah! So, you weren’t lying? I really broke through to the Core Formation Stage!” - Seventh exclaimed, feverishly absorbing Qi to stabilize her new realm.
“How could I possibly deceive you?” - I grinned. - “Now your cultivation base has gained special properties, which means your future progress will face fewer obstacles.”
What interested me most about this impromptu experiment was that in the newly formed core, I could sense the dragon Qi. It felt like mine, but more “diluted” carrying elements of her own personality.
We spent another hour “reinforcing the result” until it was time for the next geyser eruption. Our whole group rose up from the “depths of the sea” coughed up the “holy water” and headed off to the geyser’s formation site, getting used to breathing air once more. Upon reaching the right cave, we found ourselves confronted by well-organized enemy ranks again. The moment we emerged from the narrow corridors, the enemy’s elite squad charged us. They were moving in a spiral formation relative to their vanguard apparently hoping to drill through our ability to resist.
Watching this circus act, I decided to begin by launching my fireballs to disrupt their formation. I formed a basic fireball, only to suddenly realize that now I knew how to make the technique more powerful and destructive. Instantly shifting my senses into high gear, I began to analyze the source of this unexpected knowledge. Before long, it became clear that the “source” was… the Qi itself.
In other words, as soon as I formed the spell’s structure, the “infosphere” of this world sent me information on how to enhance it. Obviously, the reason for this surprise was my fifteenth level of Qi Condensation. I even managed to detect five tiers of access, each adding new layers of information in turn. Of course, just like all local techniques, this “divine revelation” offered no explanation of the underlying “how”s or “why”s. It was simply a list of instructions on what to do with Qi, and where, to improve the end result.