Third realm: Qi condensation period.

He held his palms, as it was drawn on his handbook; both horizontal, each palm facing each other, and left hand above, right hand below. Then he tried to condense qi just like his shizun taught them two days ago. But, no qi gathered between his palms.

Xie Ra screamed in frustration. He cultivated qi so many times in his past life. Now he couldn't gather a single spark of qi between his palms. He tried to remember how he used to cultivate back then. Sadly, nothing came to his mind.

He changed his meditating posture into a more comfortable one. He took the book to his hands and started to study the technique again. The title of the book was written on its faded cover page using black ink. "Guide to the sword cultivation- volume 1- Qi manipulation," it said.

"The most essential step to empower your inner qi is relaxing your body. There shouldn't be any strained muscle, rapid heartbeat, increased ventilation, or busy mind.

Therefore, beginner students should remember to stop trying to condensate qi when they feel irritated from their previous failures. Take a walk, breathe fresh air, meditate and relax completely before starting your next attempt."

Ouch. He was too dumb. He was stuck inside an eternal loop of trying, failing and getting irritated. His muscles were a bit sore, quietly saying how much he strained them unintentionally.

Xie Ra stood up to follow the instruction given in the book. To walk around and relax. He stepped out from the small hut where he was living now and walked towards the bamboo forest to be alone for a bit.

He knew nobody goes there at this time. However, Xie Ra had many experiences of walking in forests at night. He stepped inside the bamboo grove and directly walked towards the small lake inside it.

The silver moonlight glimmered on the surface of 'Bamboo lake,' reminding him of a glittering silver plate. The stillness of the lake was only broken by the slight breeze, once or twice.

By looking at the reflection on this silent lake, Xie Ra saw the crescent moon smiling amidst the dark blue sky. The tips of the bamboo trees marked a circular territory around this beautiful scenery. It looked like a wall built there to prevent this lovely moon from escaping. The gap between the bamboo wall and the crescent moon was sprinkled with small glittery stars.

The boy closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The cool night wind entered from his nostrils, flown along his windpipe, and spread through his lungs while dissipating the remaining flames of frustration inside him. He felt calm.

He sat on a nearby rock and started to cultivate qi. His mind was clear. Unlike before, there was no stress on his mind to be successful from this attempt. He just followed the guide as he remembered. The two palms faced each other again as he calmly tried to condense his inner qi between the palms.

It didn't take a long time to appear a radiant azure-blue beam between his palms. The cultivator seemed unaware of what was just happening. His consciousness was already asleep while his spirit cultivated the qi, slowly opening the *meridians in his spiritual body.

However, his achievement didn't go unnoticed. Shi wang clearly saw what happened, even he was standing some distance away. How did he appear here in a short amount of time?

Actually, he followed his disciple, as soon as Xie Ra stepped into the bamboo forest. He heard when the other one walked into the grove so, he wanted to see what that kid was intended to do.

As a deity-transformation realm cultivator, Shi wang's five senses were extremely sharp. Xie Ra hadn't any idea about how capable his shizun was. Well, he only reached the peak-nascent realm even in his past life.

However, he would be delighted if he witnessed the silent nod of approval given by his shizun, Shi Wang.

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"Everyone, give me your attention. So, this will be your first time refining a breakthrough pill. However, don't think that you are refining an extremely worthy pill. These qi-condensation realm pills are very cheap. You can find them easily from any alchemy shop.

I bet all of you heard that the breakthrough pills are usually so expensive. So, why this one is different?

First of all, this has cheap ingredients. Second, it only increases the breakthrough success rate from 5%. And the success rate between qi-condensation sub-realms is already 95%. In other words, one pill is enough to make the success rate 100%.

However, 95% percent success means a high chance to achieve the upper realm. If you fail, that's a terrible unluck of you. However, we always advise you to take the pill before a breakthrough. Make the success rate 100% so, you won't lose anything."

Xie Ra perfectly understood what his shizun just said. However, some had confused looks on their faces. Xiao Lan started to ask questions in no time.

"Shizun, what do you mean by sub-realms? And if we fail a breakthrough do we lose anything?"

"Good question. Each main cultivation realm, except the first two, has been divided into 5 sub realms; Early, mid, late, peak, and perfect. All of you are currently in the early qi condensation realm.

I'll explain the answer to your other question using an example. Imagine that you finally reached the perk of the early-qi condensation period. Now, you have to break through into the next sub realm, mid-qi condensation. However, as I said before, there are 5/100 chances for you to fail this breakthrough."

"Why is that?" Xiao Lan whispered to Xie Ra.

"Because the breakthrough success rate in this realm is 95%" He replied.

"Ohh." She mumbled and focused back on their shizun.

Shi Wang was still explaining. "If you fail the breakthrough, you will lose 1/4 of your cultivation progress in that instant. In this realms, it will be a small amount of cultivation. However, this loss will be greater as you reach higher realms.

If You *fail a deity breakthrough, maybe you have to compensate for the loss for years. I mean, if you live after that much big breakthrough failure. In most instances, high realm cultivators die."

Poor Xie Ra remembered the day he failed a breakthrough from early to mid nascent. He just forgot to take one nascent pill. Even with a 95% success rate, he failed. Luckily he didn't die but, he had to cultivate another 5 years to compensate for the loss. That was a nightmare.

Even the other students seemed to be affected by the explanation their shizun gave them. At this moment, another student asked a question.

"Shizun, if failing is that bad, why don't they take pills before the breakthrough? I mean if it reaches 100% there won't be any risk."

"Well, the main reason is that these pills are so expensive. After leaving the sect, it won't be easy for you to find an alchemy-refining room to refine your pills. Even you have one, the ingredients are so rare.

That's why there are a few cultivators who passed the nascent realm. So, kids your happy days will be over as soon as you break through to the perfect-nascent realm.

Hmm, I hope it's clear for you all. Then, let's focus on refining the pills."

With that note, Shi Wang took the *coal stove and other ingredients to show his students, how to refine the qi-condensation realm pill.

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(*Meridiants- Spiritual checkpoints. The more you unlock the more powerful your spiritual body. And as your spiritual body strengthens, you will be more close to the next realm.

*Coal stove- Lowest quality refining stove. can refine pills until foundation-establishment realm pills.)

I think I explained the necessary detail before reaching the magical half. I hope I didn't make any of my dear readers confuse. If you have any doubts please ask me.