"Impressive performance," I said as I looked at two women who had just finished their duel, one pressing against the throat of the other with a broken spear.
It was not an exaggeration. Their essence was not as strong enough as other martial artists, but their talent meant that watching them fight was watching a show that was a mixture of the best points of ballet and boxing, mixed with superhuman acrobatic performance.
"Thank you, sir," the winner said with a smile, while the loser frowned, disappointed. Understandable, as she had climbed all the way up to the last fight before she lost, meaning she had missed the reward.
The reward being the 'honor' of breaking through first.
From any rational perspective, it was not a reward but a punishment, as they would be an experimental target. But, even as I had warned them, they seemed to be dismissive of that fact. Whether they trusted me that much, or their pride as a martial artist demanded that, I wasn't entirely sure.
Ultimately, it didn't matter.
"Are you ready?" I asked.
"Yes, sir," she declared respectfully as she went in front of the spiritual pillar, and took the fighting pose with a pill in hand, ready to fight. It was the biggest difference between martial arts and Qi cultivation.
Qi required the cultivator to sit down and turn inward in a silent, calm location as they slowly explored their internal feelings and inner conceptions while transforming their bodies deliberately. Martial arts was different. It required understanding and technique, true, but ultimately, they were just intermediate steps, generating essence.
The real transformation started once the martial artist reached Connate Realm, the essence slowly transforming their bodies to better adapt to the essence, a process that went much faster while fighting, the body binding with essence faster as it was pushed above the absolute limit.
According to the records — both Everdawn and Burning Blizzard — the breakthrough to the Blood Essence realm was ultimately a straightforward affair. Purify the essence as much as possible, and constantly fight to force it to transform the body.
Until, at one point, the body of the martial artists started to get aligned with the essence, removing the need to actively control the essence. Instead, the body started to absorb it completely and make it a part of it, while the blood carried it just like any other nutrient.
Hence the Blood Essence realm.
Unfortunately, for my new recruits, it was impossible to break that way unassisted for one very simple reason. Their essence might be pure, but it was still weak due to the meager support of the spiritual pillar. Even with all the benefits I provided, they could never break through the natural way.
Luckily, alchemy allowed me to pull various tricks, including the delayed-release essence pill I had created, which didn't provide natural essence. Instead, it contained a burst of essence that was dangerously similar to the Burning Blizzard essence.
For all intents of purposes, it was a horrible mixture of pure poison, and performance-enhancing drugs that would have killed a savage beast elephant.
"Ready?" I asked even as I flicked my fingers, and every single acupuncture point had been penetrated by a tiny needle. She nodded. "Take the pill and attack. Don't forget. No matter how much it hurts, you can't stop, or you'll fail, ruining your cultivation permanently."
The last part was probably not true, but another white lie wouldn't hurt.
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The moment she swallowed the pill, her skin turned blood red, a side effect of every single organ of hers working past its limits. The boundless essence filled her body as she attacked at her full might. I merely deflected every single attack with a palm attack of my own.
I wasn't as good as Aisnam and her palm intent, but what I lacked in purity of intent, I easily compensated with the limitless Qi I had, supplying it directly through the formation and channeling to my palm attacks.
Without an outward ranged attack, it looked like martial arts, but it was not.
However, the part of defending was easy. Making sure she didn't die was much harder. I constantly activated the needles across her body, using Qi to fix the worst of the damage while letting the rest be transformed by her essence.
It was a challenging process. Surprisingly, the Umnim Alchemy technique helped more than Kartpa. Since it had long passed Perfection and reached Integration Realm, it allowed me to use the technique in an adaptive manner that wasn't constrained by techniques.
Without that, even if she broke through, the internal injuries would have killed her in a few weeks.
But, with that assistance, we fought for a full hour, a show the rest watched with rapt attention, their talent allowing them to learn a lot from the fight. When she finally collapsed, she had a smile despite the pain and exhaustion she was feeling.
She had successfully broken through.
"Welcome to the Blood Essence Realm," I said to her even as I sent another pill to her mouth, triggering it to hasten her recovery.
"I feel … amazing,," she gasped even as she threw a simple punch. Her essence raged, while an illusion of a flaming fist appeared around her. A follow-up punch invoked the concept of a blizzard.
"Very good. Now, go and reinforce the spiritual pillar," I said. She once again bled over the spiritual pillar, which consumed the essence in the blood greedily. I observed as it started recovering at a rapid speed, that drop of blood alone helping it recover more than everything else we had done all week.
With that drop, it finally reached the initial strength of the Everdawn Essence.
She made a move to cut her arm even deeper, but I stopped her. "I can handle it, sir," she said.
"Patience," I advised. "Repairing a spiritual pillar is a slow, delicate work," I said as I put my hand on its surface, finally feeling confident enough to probe the edges of the drawing.
The structure was fascinating. In a way, it was similar to my calligraphy, carrying the hint of conception. In most ways, it was a more rough, primitive version of the Qi calligraphy. But, it was superior in one critical way. When I created calligraphy, the intent I put behind it was a still concept, unable to grow and change.
Meanwhile, the drawing here could absorb the essence of the others and grow with it, almost like a living thing. I didn't have an exact idea of how it worked, and I couldn't simply break the only clue I had to learn how it worked.
However, passive observation was different.
"Bleed once again," I asked. She did, and I noticed that the recovery wasn't as much as the first time. It took a while for me to understand the reason. The breakthrough allowed her to develop a lot of new insights about the essence, which helped the drawing to recover far more. Repeating wasn't as useful.
However, considering one session was still more effective than a hundred Connate Realm martial artists constantly interacting with for a full day.
"Next," I called even as I runner up to breakthrough, but not before she visited the spiritual pillar. The recovered pillar had transformed her essence with a speed that surprised me, empowering her significantly. Though, I had a feeling that, if I hadn't been working hard to keep the concept of Burning Blizzard so tightly aligned, it would have taken weeks, and not seconds.
The increased strength of essence made the process easier. I used the exact same method, but this time, it barely lasted forty minutes to induce the breakthrough. The next time, it lasted twenty. Then, I stopped giving them the dangerous medicine, and replaced it with essence pills, letting them spar against the ones that broke through, increasing the speed even more.
It merely took half a day for all hundred of them to reach the Blood Essence realm. Their strength wasn't enough to match the Foundation Establishment realm yet, but I had a feeling that any Ninth Stage Qi Gathering Realm cultivator would have hated to fight them.
And, as their concept essence got stronger, they would get stronger and stronger.
As an added benefit, I had a much better understanding of how the symbol worked. Not enough to fully understand it, especially since I didn't dare to use any invasive method that might damage it, but I learned enough to create an inferior copy.
To understand, I needed to experiment. At the same time, I needed to explore the misty mountains more to discover other martial arts sects.
Luckily, those two objectives were not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they could actually support each other.
I just needed to revise one of my old martial arts for the new purpose.
It was time to revisit the Forest Dance.