Second Step

After stabilizing her mental state, Yuyue instantly went to work crushing the mid-grade spirit stones in front of her.

Although the formation of the lower Dantian seems more intuitive, the formation of the bottom Dantian is far better as a foundation. The pelvis controls the movement of the lower and upper body as well as serves as the major balancing point.

In addition, the digestive system is key to supporting the rest of the body. Therefore the lower Dantian is the most important cultivation milestone for a cultivator.

As she crushed the stones she felt the Qi that had accumulated in the stones begin to enter her body.

Since Yuyue was inside the immortal den, the Qi in the area was much denser, and thus less Qi from the spirits stones leaked out from her body.

When she was in the dorms she had around 40% efficiency on each spirit stone, now that she was in the den she had double that at 80% efficiency.

The warm feeling of her body being nourished by Qi began to fill her. Spirit stones were a very mild cultivation resource far unlike pills which were super condensed forms of Qi.

Pills also had remnant will imbued in them from the ingredients involved in making them, which made digesting them more difficult.

This was also another reason why cultivators could not eat pills before the lower Dantian was formed. They would not have the requisite ability to fight back against the pill.

Taking her time Yuyue began to slowly fill the Dantian in her lower abdomen, the sensation of her hips strengthening and reforming was odd indeed.

Her muscles densened and the ligaments connecting them, from her groin down to her feet all became revitalized, the cartilage renewing and becoming even more supple. Yuyue was young, still and her body was in a growing phase and still soft which meant that she was in a prime time for her body to reform herself

Ka Ka Ka!

The sounds of crackling could be heard and Yuyue felt an unpleasant feeling crawl down her neck.

This was the purification phase, now that her lower Dantian had been mostly filled it will begin to expel the impurities within.

The lower core Qi sea which was formed inside her began to bubble and boil as the Qi inside condensed down.

As this process was going on, Yuyue continued to break spirit stones and absorb Qi. Although she could stabilize her Dantian in the future, she would need to create the most perfect Dantian she could at the moment to reduce the amount of time she had to spend stabilizing.

Since Yuyue was planning on moving to the third step of Qi development during this period of seclusion she naturally had to create as solid a foundation as she could.

At the moment, Yuyue had used around 24 mid-grade spirit stones during this process. It was far more than a normal person would be able to use, but since Yuyue had a larger than average Dantian space from her previous cultivation efforts and the talisman she naturally had to use more stones to move from step to step.

While the costs right now were still within range for her, she shuddered to think about what she would have to do to move forward in the future.

Yuyue was still only an outer sect disciple in a small sect. To move deeper into stages like body purification she would need a staggering number of materials to cultivate further.

Thinking on this Yuyue was reminded of the girl who had given her the jade tortoise pill in the first place, she had obviously come from a large sect and Yuyue was reminded of how the girl had invited her to come to visit the sect.

"I will have to have take her up on that offer one day" Yuyue thought.

As she was thinking about this a large cracking sound emitted from her body. This was signaling the end of the purification process.

Yuyue steeled herself as a dull pain began to emerge in her nether regions, it soon spread from that region to her extremities.

While the pain was not "sharp" it did hurt quite a bit and Yuyue gritted her teeth as the feeling spread throughout her body.

This pain was the sensation of unclean impurities in her body being expelled. She kept enduring the pain until it began to subside starting from her core to the rest of her body.

Soon she felt a light and airy sensation in her body signaling that the process was done.

Yuyue opened her eyes and stood up from her meditative stance. As usual, she was covered with the same oily black substance that comes from purifying the body with Qi.

As she was standing she felt a surprising power coming from her calf and quad muscles, they had become as springy as snow hare.

Bouncing on her toes, Yuyue also realized that much of the flabbiness in her muscles had been removed and replaced with firmed toned muscles in their place.

Taking her mirror she observed herself and realized that not only had her legs slimmed, but they had also become more shapely.

Giving a satisfied nod, Yuyue felt a sensation of happiness well up in her heart.

She had broken through to the second step of Qi development.