22 Assailing the Fourth Layer of Qi Condensation

The rest of the month passed relatively uneventfully. Yan worked on controlling her flying sword while Hong Wu continued to charge towards the fourth layer of the Coldmist Breathing Technique.

Six months had passed since Hong Wu had arrived at the Black Mountain Sect. When she arrived, she was a timid servant girl. Now, Hong Wu carried an air of confidence whenever venturing out into the wild alone. After her battle with Cang Rong, she felt she had every right to feel this way. She had proven to herself, and to others, that she could hold her own.

On top of that, she was getting even stronger every day. Her lower dantian now held fifteen strands of white spiritual qi. Hong Wu struggled to obtain any more strands at the moment, but rather than continue to smash her head against the wall, she decided to focus on purifying her spiritual qi.

Purifying spiritual qi was often mentioned in the Coldmist Breathing Technique Booklet as crucial for establishing a strong foundation to build upon. It cautioned against the pitfalls many cultivators fell into trying to charge ahead as quickly as possible. Some of the more affluent cultivators who lacked proper guidance would rely heavily on pills to increase their cultivation base finding it harder and harder to progress. The reason for this had to do with impurities.

Qi Condensation focused on using spiritual qi to remove the impurities mortal bodies were laden with. This goal could only be achieved through a certain level of purity of the spiritual qi collected. Because of this, excessive use of pills had a fatal flaw; pills were an amalgamation of various plants, fungi, and animal byproducts. All of these ingredients contained components that were extraneous or downright harmful to cultivators.

The process of alchemy was combining complementary ingredients that built upon each other to create new, more effective ways of utilizing the spiritual qi held in these items. Synthesizing the different ingredients into on pill was a process of melding the together useful aspects and burning away the useless. Still, alchemy was an act of man, and was imperfect as a result. Contaminates would always be a part of the process. In fact, the amount of impurities in pills were a mark of the alchemists' skill.

Alchemists' ability was judged by the difficulty of the concoctions they were capable of making first, but, to separate the average alchemist from the true masters, one needed to look at the purity of the pills they created. According to the jade slip Yan found titled 'Initiate Apothecary,' any pill above a seventy percent toxicity was considered a failed attempt. The seventy to fifty range was considered average, fifty to thirty was considered exceptional, and thirty to ten was the markings of a master alchemist.

Anything with less than a ten percent toxicity was seen as legendary. Pills such as this were few and far between. Any time one appeared on the market, it would almost always be auctioned off and an exorbitant price. The number of people who could reliably make such pills in Dali Country could be counted on one hand.

Hong Wu almost felt lucky that she did not need to worry about such things. While not being able to use pills hampered her progress, it also assured that what spiritual qi she did acquire was naturally forming from heaven and earth, and thus, quite pure. The amount of time she spent consolidating this spiritual qi into an even higher purity was not wasted. Hong Wu found that when attempting to use the Frozen Blade Technique that the density of her ice was now superior to what Cang Rong boasted in their fight and almost caught up to the quality of Yan's.

Even with the progress she made Hong Wu was not satisfied. Determined to break through to the fourth layer, Hong Wu hurried back from checking the new section of the forest with Yan, held a spirit stone in each hand, lit a stick of incense, and plopped down on the black stone.

Hong Wu deeply inhaled the rising smoke from the joss stick as she circulated her spiritual qi. She furiously sucked in all the spiritual qi she could from the spirit stones and her surroundings. A light mist began to collect in the area, slowly rolling towards the camp centering on Hong Wu. The temperature dropped sharply as the mist got thicker. When the spirit stones crumbled to dust in her hands, Hong Wu did not even miss a beat and pulled out new ones. She only ever stopped every few hours to quickly replace the incense when the effects wore off.

Yan returned to find Hong Wu in deep meditation. Seeing Hong Wu attempting to break through, Yan went about her own business and did not disturb Hong Wu.

Hong Wu's cultivation session continued well into the night. She had only one joss stick left and was almost out of spirit stones as well, but she had yet to breakthrough. Her eyes were bloodshot with frustration. 'Screw it!'

Hong Wu lit the last bit of incense she had and pulled out all her remaining spirit stones clutching three in each hand and began frantically pumping spiritual qi into her lower dantian. Using her divine sense, Hong Wu saw the sixteenth strand of spiritual qi beginning to coalesce then collapse multiple times. Hong Wu began feeling a sharp pain running up her body and piercing her mind. Gritting her teeth, Hong Wu powered through the pain. 'Form!'

Suddenly the mist that had begun collecting around Hong Wu began furiously spinning with Hong Wu as the eye of the hurricane. The spiraling mist poured into Hong Wu as she breathed in deeply. Black filth oozed out of her pores. Her sixteenth strand of spiritual qi had formed. 'The fourth layer!'

Not wanting to lose the opportunity created from the mass of mist that had formed around her, Hong Wu continued absorbing spiritual qi like a desert sucking up rain. Quickly solidifying her sixteenth strand, Hong Wu formed a seventeenth, then an eighteenth, and a nineteenth. By the time the sun rose, Hong Wu had already begun forming her twentieth strand.

Releasing her state of meditation, Hong Wu walked to a nearby stream and washed herself clean of the foul smelling discharge from her body. Testing her new power, Hong Wu cast Frozen Blade. A solid, opaque white blade three quarters of a meter long deposed from the leftover moisture. The blade had a sharp, cold edge that seemed to slice the very air in two. Hong Wu pointed the blade to a nearby tree and gave the command for it to fly towards the trunk. The blade shot at the tree like a hawk, burying itself deep into the wood almost shooting out from the other side. The bark of the tree quickly frosted over. Snapping noises could be heard as the pale, icy color spread on the surface of the tree. With a loud crack, the tree started to lean forward before snapping in two at the point of impact and falling to the forest floor.

Pushing things further, Hong Wu tried to summon multiple blades and realized she could summon three blades of the same quality at the same time, albeit with less control over each blade's individual movement. Beside herself with joy, Hong Wu laughed out loud, "Haha! This is fantastic. I don't think even Yan can use the Frozen Blade to this level. The fourth layer of Qi Condensation! With this, all kinds of doors will open up for me."