With his hands against the cauldron’s cold metal, sitting in lotus position and his eyes closed, Xing Yi opened his mind’s eye. Instantly, without needing to adjust or prepare, he became intimately close to the inner qi circulating throughout his one and only meridian.

His mind’s eye allowed him to sense qi—his sixth sense. It wasn’t an actual third eye in his forehead, but a metaphorical term describing what cultivators used to see beyond reality.

It was a warm, thick energy whose true shape and consistency eluded him every time he attempted to grasp. It was like trying to look at something out of the corner of one’s eye while still looking somewhere else. It was just a vague silhouette.

He could feel the heat of the cauldron even through the coat of qi he had surrounded his hands with. It was smouldering hot. Even a single drop of water could peel skin off flesh.

Inhaling, he prepared himself. Then, he exhaled. Using the momentum of the breath, he expelled his inner qi up to chest, towards his shoulders, then down the length of his arms, to his fingertips, and into the cauldron.

One of the most difficult things about pill refinement was maintaining a clear image one’s qi within the cauldron. Whilst Xing Yi didn’t have spiritual sense, even heavenly cultivators had to restrict it lest they lose their focus jumbling two things at once.

One could only navigate the plane of convergence by feel.

But with thousands of attempts, Xing Yi knew that inside of the black cauldron like the back of his hand. He knew the slope of every surface, all its curves, and had an exact feeling for its height, width and length through his mind’s eyes.

And beforehand, when placing the spiritual herbs inside the cauldron, he did so in a methodical manner that made sure the same result occurred each time. This reduced the error margin to almost nothing. He knew where almost every energy was before he even entered.

Xing Yi penetrated the plane of convergence with an immediate objective. Travelling upwards near the surface, his qi penetrated the Red-Eyed Storm Flower’s energy bubble without resistance. Pushing forward to the other side, he penetrated the Ironwood’s bubble with even more ferocity than last time.

Narrowing his focus, Xing Yi pulled the energies together with a swift pull on his qi.

A small shockwave erupted throughout the cauldron, but Xing Yi continued.

To the remnants of a Three-Horned Bird’s fire, a Grey Brussel, and a Neutralising Spiritual Cham.

In a tight chain reaction, the ingredients were combined only several seconds apart.

And this time, Xing Yi was feeling great. Not just great. But dominant. He conquered the plane of convergence. The energies yielded to his will like sheep.

Whilst heavenly pill refined was that of harmony and an attempt to coax the spiritual herbs into combining, his earthly refining technique was a bloody massacre. They would combine, whether they wanted to or not.

And eventually, Xing Yi came to the final ingredient.

For an instant, doubt entered his mind. And the fear of failure.

But he crushed it.

Combining the twelfth and last energy into the collective that he had gathered so far, Xing Yi gasped.

Quickly, he manifested a tight grasp around the contained energies. He poked around it, shaped it. It could not be disfigured or oval-shaped. It had to be a perfect circle.

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It was his first time doing so but, in this moment, he had clarity and found it simple.

Over the next few minutes, Xing Yi brought it into a tight ball. Slowly lowering it, he brought it to the bottom of the cauldron. He waited for a moment and when he saw no movement, he exited the plane of convergence.

Picking up a shovel next to him, he shovelled out the burning fire underneath the cauldron and patted it down until it was just embers. Sitting back down and placing his hands back on the cauldron, he entered the plane of convergence once again and wrapped a tight constraint around the combined energies.

At this point in time, the combined energies was a hard piece of sludge. But that would change.

Creating a vacuum with his qi, the boiling water was pulled inside the piece of sludge. It seemed like a black hole with how greedily it sucked in the water, despite remaining the same size. Within minutes, the water inside the cauldron was sucked in by the pill.

Still, Xing Yi had to remain vigilant and keep the pill together, lest it fall apart along the way.

But soon, all the water was gone and after a moment, Xing Yi left the plane of convergence and stood up. Laying at the bottom of the black cauldron was a tiny, thumb-sized pill. It was plain white, with a few black spots dotting its surface.

Xing Yi didn’t have time to think about the pill’s quality because he had just refined one.

And for the first time, it didn’t end in a loud boom.

Xing Yi celebrated, bouncing around the entirety of his courtyard, cheering and shouting.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes!” Xing Yi repeated over and over with the pill in hand.

It was a mere grade-one, basic Qi Gathering Pill, but it was a pill, nonetheless.

Pills were divided into grades from one to five, correlating to each cultivation level. A grade three pill was suitable for a core formation cultivator, whilst a grade one pill was made for vessel cleansing cultivators.

And for a good reason. Consuming a pill of a higher grade could result in one exploding due to not being able to fully consume and control its energy. Meanwhile, consuming pills at lower grades than one’s cultivation would have little of its intended effects.

He eyed it in the light of the sun and inspected its surface. Not only were there black specks throughout it, there was a very small but visible protruding bump on it. Lastly, it was a dull white, not the flawless shiny white that was desired.

Using layman terms, this pill was third-rate, nothing compared to those refined by true masters.

That was when something came to thought. Walking inside his bedroom, he pulled open a small drawer. Inside it was a white pill bottle. Tipping it down, several circulate white pills came out. They were half the size of his pill but were a pristine, unblemished, white, smooth and shiny.

He had received these from Mo Zhi just as he had entered the sect.

Placing the pills side by side, he saw the stark difference between them. Although they were grade-zero satiety pills, they were perfect. They had no impurities within them. If someone were to consume the satiety pill, they would reap its benefits without any side effects.

However, if someone were to consume his shoddy, third-rate qi gathering pill, although they would be able to consume the energy within to advance their cultivation, they would sooner or later be forced to expel the impurities. Otherwise, these impurities would hinder their cultivation or cause meridians to be blocked.

And it took time.

Depending on how much impurities there were, it could potentially take months to cleanse it all.

And these impurities were caused by small mistakes he had made throughout the refinement process.

There were countless things that Xing Yi could improve on but for now, he was satisfied.

It had been just over a month since challenging Wu Jia, and he had finally made the breakthrough he was looking for. And this wouldn’t be the end either.

He eyed the large drawer at one side of his room with a smile.

He had successfully refined one grade-one qi gathering pill, but he still had four more pills worth of ingredients. Not just that, but he also had enough ingredients for five lotus-explosion pills.

Before that, Xing Yi wanted to consume the pill.

Not waiting any further, he sat down in a seated-lotus position on a red mat. Completing three cycles of his cultivation technique for a totalling hour, he adjusted himself to the best state he could possibly be in for consuming the initial energies of the qi gathering pill.

Bringing the pill from his lap and to his mouth, he swallowed it one big gulp.

Instantly, like an explosion had been set off, rogue qi exploded in his lower dantian.

Neither aspected to heaven or earth, it ran through his body, waiting to be converted. Shockingly, with this amount of qi, he felt confident enough to tackle his second meridian.

And that is just what he did.