Cultivation Starts with Rejuvenation

Confirming that he had reached his peak state, Li Ji’an sent a message to Zhao Shuyao.

”Xiaofan is finally going to establish his foundation!” Zhao Shuyao, upon receiving the message, felt a rare trace of excitement on her usually serene face.

Sixty-seven years ago, the five of them came to this world from the Immortal Dynasty.

In the end, out of the five, only Zhang Tiezhu got the furthest, stopping at Qi Cultivation 6th Layer.

And now, among the second generation, Zhang Tiezhu’s child was in the Yan Family, likely to be stuck at the late period of Qi Cultivation for life. Dong Jiangling’s daughter was raising children, almost cutting off her immortal path, leaving only Li Ji’an’s son to finally have the chance to see the scenery of the Foundation Establishment Stage for their generation.

Besides this significance,

Zhao Shuyao and the other two had pinned their hopes on Li Ji’an establishing his foundation to help them seek revenge, to avenge the hundreds of talented predecessors of the Immortal Dynasty deceived into this world over the past century.

However, as they aged and learned more about the Cultivation Realm,

particularly after almost confirming that one of the Five Great Clans was responsible, they became increasingly hopeless.

Zhang Tiezhu and Dong Jiangling had completely given up.

She was even more unwilling to let the next generation live with the burden of their revenge, finding it too exhausting.

The key point is that even if Li Ji’an successfully established his foundation, he would have no chance against the Fake Pill Ancestor of that clan.

Unless Li Ji’an could reach Core Formation, but they all understood this was almost impossible!

Perhaps after establishing his foundation, finding a Dao companion of equal talent, the next generation might have hope.

”Yaoyao, let’s accompany Aunt Yao once more.” Gathering her emotions, the 95-year-old Zhao Shuyao’s blood and energy gradually rose again, exhibiting the momentum of a perfected first-tier Body Cultivator.

Tong Yaoyao circled around Zhao Shuyao, clicking her tongue in wonder as if she recalled the scene from when she was ambushed mid-air as a child, where Zhao Shuyao, with her body cultivation strength, saved her from a Demon Cultivator at the age of thirty.

”Aunt Yao, relax. I’m here now.” Going forward to hold Zhao Shuyao’s arm, Tong Yaoyao comforted her.

”I sometimes really envy that kid, feeling that your affection towards me isn’t as much as for him, just because of his irresponsible father!”

”Nonsense again.”

In no time, the two arrived at the Inner City’s rental cave mansion area.

”Hmm? So many people are paying attention to this kid.” Just as they reached the entrance of Li Ji’an’s rented cave mansion, Tong Yaoyao paused slightly.

Then, releasing her divine sense suddenly, she dispersed several divine senses shrouding the area.

”Xiaofan’s alchemy skill is profound, and once he succeeds in establishing his foundation, he will certainly advance to a second-tier Pill Master. It’s normal for people to take notice.” Zhao Shuyao patted Tong Yaoyao’s hand, indicating she didn’t need to think too much about it.

Separated by the divine sense of Tong Yaoyao in the middle stage of Foundation Establishment, several people in the Inner City residential area were instantly taken aback and decisively ended their attention on Li Ji’an.

Some even hurriedly sent a message to Tong Yaoyao: ”Forgive me, Elder. This old one was merely confirming whether Alchemist Li could successfully establish his foundation, with intentions to ask for his help in the future, nothing more.”

Li Ji’an sensed the arrival of the two and took a trip outside the cave mansion to thank them specially.

Since he entered the cave mansion three days ago, various Foundation Establishment wanderers had been paying attention to him nearby, which he disregarded, as it had no effect whatsoever.

The Foundation Establishment Cave Mansion had an array that could even isolate the divine sense of a Core Formation True Man. They naturally couldn’t penetrate it, only sensing the fluctuations of spiritual energy outside the cave mansion to make judgments.

Once Zhao Shuyao and Tong Yaoyao took their seats outside the cave mansion, Li Ji’an, without any further hesitation, entered the cave mansion.

Four times Rejuvenation, touching the foundation of the Immortal Path for the first time.

With all the arrays in the cave mansion activated, Li Ji’an began operating the Foundation Establishment Technique.

Through years of research on Foundation Establishment, whether from ancient records or the experiences and insights of Yan Qingwan and Xiao Changfeng, one point was made clear.

Foundation Establishment is about establishing the foundation of the Great Dao, and only with a successful Foundation Establishment does one truly qualify to seek immortality and question the Dao.

The theoretical knowledge of the Foundation Establishment hurdle that Li Ji’an had long mastered, essentially is to transform the gaseous magical power refined in the Dantian during Qi Cultivation Stage, condense it into liquid magical power, further nourishing the Dantian, triggering a metamorphosis, thus laying the foundation for future Core Formation, Nascent Soul, and even Divinity Transformation.

The principle involves channeling vast spiritual energy into the body and using powerful spiritual pressure to compress the gaseous magical power in the Dantian, ultimately condensing qi into liquid.

The first step is the spiritual energy infusion.

And this step is crucial for testing the strength of the physical body and physique.

If the flesh body is flawed or lacks strength, it cannot withstand the instantaneous vast spiritual pressure.

The stronger the body and physique, the more spiritual pressure it can withstand, and the more spiritual energy can be infused into the body; conversely, less and weaker.

”Boom~”

In this hurdle, Li Ji’an had a perfected first-tier Body Cultivation, with no injuries from battles, confident his physical body and physique reached the peak of Qi Cultivators in this world, considering those legendary special physical constitutions, he deemed himself no weaker than anyone.

As the gate of the body opened, the abundant spiritual energy within the cave mansion frenziedly surged in instantly.

”Hiss~” Despite being mentally prepared, he still couldn’t help but tremble as his body endured the surge, even with his physique.

At the moment spiritual energy entered the body, he felt every cell was under immense pressure and tearing.

Yet, he had no intention of stopping the absorption of spiritual energy, continuing to let it pour in, pushing his physical limits.

Because the more spiritual energy absorbed, the stronger the ultimate spiritual pressure, making it easier to compress the magical power into liquid state.

While spiritual energy was entering the body, his divine sense was not idle, fully expanded, carefully observing every change throughout his body, analyzing every detail.

Besides accumulating experience for the next life, he also sought to understand the essence, identifying areas for optimizing and improving.

After a full three days,

Li Ji’an took a deep breath and controlled his blood and energy to slowly close the body gate, halting the absorption of spiritual energy.

He finally reached his physical limit, utterly unable to accommodate more spiritual energy.

At this moment, his entire being seemed filled with spiritual energy.

Simultaneously, he sensed the abundant spiritual energy still within the cave mansion.

”This stage is two tenths stronger than Xiao Changfeng!” During Xiao Changfeng’s experience sharing, he absorbed spiritual energy for two full days before stopping at the flesh body barrier, but he borrowed a near third-tier Dao field from a Sect Elder at that time, with denser and more abundant spiritual energy, plus his upper-grade spirit root, absorbing spiritual energy faster, overall, the total amount of first step spiritual energy infusion was only two-tenths less than Li Ji’an.

With the spiritual energy infusion complete, Li Ji’an immediately started condensing the Dantian magical power.

The cultivation technique in this world is the Yan Family’s ”Flame Dragon Technique”, reputed to potentially reach the Core Formation and on par with the sect’s upper-grade techniques. However, compared to Xiao Changfeng, its magical prowess is still somewhat lacking. Nevertheless, due to the refinement of the Fire Spirit, it is pure and abundant.

At this moment, at the second stage, the Magic Power Barrier, theoretically, the stronger and purer the magical power, the more smoothly and abundantly it will transform into liquid upon spiritual pressure, filling the entire dantian.

He cannot pursue the quantity of liquid transformation, as the magical power is scarcely strong, and can only pursue magical power refinement.

Several days later, having refined his magical power to the utmost extent with no further progress, Li Ji’an resolutely swallowed that supreme Green Condensation Pill to further refine his magical power.

Half a month later, once the magical power was refined to its limit, the third stage, divine sense intervention, began.

The process of spiritual qi compressing the dantian’s magical power must be controlled by divine sense.

If minutely less, the liquid will be incomplete, more and the dantian might rupture.

Therefore, the divine sense is the most critical stage.

Moreover, this step takes a long time, requiring sustained divine sense action.

However, for Li Ji’an, this stage demands the least worry, having a divine sense comparable to the middle Foundation Establishment stage and a strong divine soul. At this moment, sensing the dantian and manipulating the spiritual pressure is as easy as pie. Whether in detail or duration, it’s virtually perfect.

In this way, two months swiftly passed by.

On this day, viewing his dantian, the first step of absorbing the magnificent spiritual qi had been guided into the dantian by divine sense.

And within the dantian itself, the refined magical power was amidst a massive spiritual pressure.

The final step, also the decisive one, requires sustained spiritual pressure to thoroughly transform the magical power into liquid and condense it into a mass.

”Phew~” Successfully passing through the first three stages, Li Ji’an still dared not relax.

According to Yan Qingwan’s experience, now it requires consuming a Foundation Establishment Pill.

The Foundation Establishment Pill not only can temporarily strengthen the dantian, preventing a sudden massive spiritual pressure from bursting the dantian but also provides instantaneous magical power and controllable powerful spiritual pressure within the dantian.

Relying on the momentary spiritual pressure provided by the Foundation Establishment Pill in the dantian to compress the magical power mist into liquid.

It can be said that the Foundation Establishment Pill not only compensates for the physical body’s lack of absorbing adequate spiritual qi into the body, thus causing insufficient final step spiritual pressure.

It also benefits those lacking magical power.

It even compensates for the inadequacy of divine sense unable to finely and continuously divert spiritual qi into the dantian.

It’s practically the lifeline for cultivators lacking talent.

Li Ji’an took out the premium Foundation Establishment Pill but did not consume it immediately; instead, he first took a premium Protective Vein Pill.

”Boom~” At the moment the Protective Vein Pill liquid merged into the dantian, Li Ji’an began manipulating the spiritual qi to compress the magical power mist within the dantian.

This was also Xiao Changfeng’s method back then.

At the moment the spiritual pressure burst, Li Ji’an distinctly sensed the formerly gaseous magical power starting to moisten and liquefy.

Simultaneously, the entire inner wall of the dantian bore a pressure even greater than that of the physique.

Without the Protective Vein Pill, Li Ji’an couldn’t guarantee whether the dantian could withstand it.

As time ticked by, the magical power gradually transformed into liquid.

Simultaneously, there was a faint connection between a wisp of spiritual mechanism and divine sense, yet it was vague and untouchable.

Another half-month later, Li Ji’an could clearly sense that all the mist of magical power within the dantian had transformed into liquid magical power, but the liquid magical power remained independent and did not coalesce into a mass.

Moreover, that faint sensing in the ethereal remained elusive.

”In the end, still lacking something!” After cautiously observing for a long time, Li Ji’an sighed slightly, understanding the reasons.

The most crucial point is the insufficient magical power itself.

This relates to the cultivation technique practiced in this life and also to the absorption and refining efficiency of one’s spirit root.

Without further contemplation, he swallowed the premium Foundation Establishment Pill in one gulp.

”Boom~”

At the instant the premium Foundation Establishment Pill was ingested, the dantian was enveloped in a layer of golden radiance, then a powerful spiritual pressure arose out of nowhere, along with pure magical power pouring into the dantian.

The next moment, without requiring Li Ji’an to do anything, the spiritual pressure unleashed by the premium Foundation Establishment Pill began compressing the magical power within the dantian.

”Bang!” In an instant, whether the freshly spawned magical power or the that had previously liquefied but not coalesced, all were compressed into liquid, quickly merging into one, transforming into a fiery liquid law sphere.

The liquid law sphere spun rapidly, ultimately filling the entire dantian, turning it into a sphere seemingly brimming with lava.

”Boom!” Then, like the beating of a drum, the excess spiritual qi within the dantian and the spiritual qi within the body all gushed out at once.

As the magnificent spiritual qi erupted out of the body, it caused a surge in spiritual qi within the cave mansion, even causing a sharp increase in the spiritual pressure above the cave mansion.

”It succeeded!” Outside the cave mansion, Tong Yaoyao instantly opened her eyes.

”Xiaofan successfully established the foundation?” Zhao Shuyao remarked, her face full of comfort, eyes glistening with hidden tears.

”Hahaha, congratulations to Alchemist Li on the successful foundation establishment.” As the spiritual pressure vibrated above the cave mansion, the surrounding people finally could rightfully offer their congratulations.

”Such a significant release of spiritual pressure, Alchemist Li’s foundation establishment is indeed smooth!”

”Another second-tier alchemist in our Immortal City, truly a cause for celebration!”

...

Amid the growing congratulatory voices from the outside, Li Ji’an sat quietly in the cave mansion, yet his brows were furrowed.

While summarizing the experience of this foundation establishment, he recalled that faint sensing in the ethereal.

Clearly, he was very close, yet it ultimately vanished suddenly.

”Looks like it disappeared when the Foundation Establishment Pill took effect!”

After prolonged contemplation with no clues, he could only keep it in mind for now.

”This is the Foundation Establishment!” Carefully examining his current dantian and feeling the scorching vast magical power, Li Ji’an finally smiled.