Breakthrough to Qi Condensation realm

With the runes activated and everything ready, Fu Lin started playing her 'Blossom and the Mount Tai' song on her Zither. As her fingers started flowing on the zither, the surrounding sounds of the forest, the birds, the insects all stopped and all that could be heard was the tune that emanated from her zither.

Her eyes were semi closed and as she started to play, through the zither, her soul force was unleashed in waves akin to the depth of the music she was playing. In some parts of the music, light and airy, Luo and the others felt a smooth pressure on their souls which coaxed and shaped their soul force slowly.

She was in a trance and in this song of soul, she lost herself completely. When there were parts that made one feel as if an invisible heaviness was infringing on you, Luo and the others felt an almost unbearable pressure and all of them had to activate the 36 walls of soul technique.

This was completely opposite to the soft parts where they would not bother using the technique. Here they felt as if they would be crushed if they didn't use that technique.

As the song progressed and her fingers flew across the zither, sometimes in a frenzy and sometimes with the soft touch of a flower petal, all of them went through different depths and heaviness of soul force. It helped everyone improve their comprehension of using the 36 walls of soul technique.

Especially Luo, Hua and Hao Qi were gaining insights required for understanding the last layer of the technique where they were stuck. In trying to match their defense to the rhythms of the song they were grasping what was lacking in their comprehension, through practical use of the technique.

Fu Lin, in her trance at time, would lose all the dignity of a teacher and start banging her head and twirling her hair as she played those heavily frenzied notes. But then soon she would settle down and play with utmost grace. It was as if she was the music herself and her feelings and expression of emotions, a parallel to the notes of the zither.

Soon Luo, Hua and Hao Qi understood the secrets of the last layer. Hao Qi was the first one to completely erect the 36 walls of the soul, followed by Luo and then Hua.

After practicing the technique for a while Hua and Hao Qi consolidated their complete technique. Luo reached the understanding but as he consolidated his technique, he felt that the bottleneck to the Qi Condensation realm was loose and he could breach it if he wanted to.

"Luo….brat…. You are ready to breakthrough. A breakthrough in world energy always comes with an explosion of world energy around you. Then you can temper your body with that energy or increase the size of your Dantian and then condense your Qi into a denser form, basically increasing the quantity of Qi you have as well. Choose to increase the size of your Dantian. I have already made your Dantian's size about 50 times that of a normal cultivator in Gathering Qi. Imagine if you increased it further and you made it brim with Primordial Chaos Qi...although it is very very slow to do that. Anyway, you get it. Increase the size of your Dantian with the excess energy from the breakthrough"

Luo now opened his eyes and it was as if his eyes were jaded. With the special ink used for runes he painted a new rune HUNLUN on his left palm with the brush in his right hand. He immediately closed his eyes again.

It was done by him in a trance state where Yin had infused a strong suggestion in him to write a new rune based on his memory of comprehending it. It worked because Luo was so deeply meditating that he did not even know that Yin had done all of this.

The HUNLUN rune had rapidly begun to attract the Heaven and Earth Qi in the environment towards his palm. As if responding to a shift in this new energy that was entering his body, he changed his stance and brought his left palm in a half namaste near his chest.

The HUNLUN rune was absorbing the Heaven and Earth Qi and then converting it into a much denser Qi that was easier for him to transform into an even denser Chaos Qi.

Hua and the others could feel the shift in the Qi in the air and felt its flow towards Luo. "He's going to breakthrough. Although it's weird because when I had broken through, it did not really take that long and I focused on increasing the size of my Dantian and was done with it in a few incense sticks time. Its...Its a little different for him." The others noted that as well.

Only Fu Lin was still absorbed completely in playing her Zither and Luo was attempting his breakthrough.

As the Chaos Qi slowly filled his Dantian and over the last couple of months, with the help of all the pills that Xun had bought for him, there was a lot of Primordial Chaos Qi in his Dantian. As the limits were approached, he circulated his dense Qi through all his meridians.

After a while he could feel the barriers of his Dantian cracking. He absorbed even more Qi from the surroundings and then in a final push that he was waiting for, expanded his Dantian to almost double the size of earlier and it had consumed almost 60% of the Qi he had collected till then. But since his Dantian was much much bigger than the others, this meant that he could fight multiple cultivators at the same level as his strength.

In expanding his Dantian he had broken through to the Qi condensation realm. He then began to circulate his Qi through the body to consolidate this new realm. He meditated for a while longer and just as the music seemed to be dying out, Luo opened his eyes to see the others waiting at a side, a bit of worry, a bit of curiosity on their faces.

Fu Lin had also reached an end to the song and she immediately checked the time to see how long she was in a trance.

Luo then got up and thanked Master Fu Lin for all that she had done for him and the others. "Master Fu Lin, I have broken through the Qi Condensation realm. We can now go to the Royal Library to choose the skills once we are all packed.

Tired as she was, Fu Lin said to Luo "Well Luo, congratulations. You and Hua should plan for what you are going to get from the Royal hall library. You should train your soul techniques a lot because it becomes easier to navigate the library where there is a pressure emitted constantly in the library. "