Qi Palace Realm

A storm of slaughter aura surged into Yaan's body.

He was prepared to endure the slaughterous emotions brought on by the absorption of this aura yet again, but to his slight surprise, Yaan found that his ability to resist the slaughter aura's temptation had improved substantially.

He was only somewhat surprised by this. Firstly, his Qi refining cultivation was now at the Peak True Yuan Qi realm, meaning that his cultivation was closer to this Origin Soul realm powerhouse compared to before, lessening the strenuous strain on his mind. Secondly, there was of course his Slaughter Qi!

Possessing Slaughter Qi made it such that Yaan's killing intent had grown deeper and more overbearing. The Slaughter Qi itself was saturated with killing intent, both towards Yaan himself, and towards the world.

But Yaan found that harnessing control over his Qi allowed him to gain a deeper understanding of slaughter itself, whilst the Slaughter Qi could be used as a subduing power over the slaughter aura and the murderous desires it brought on!

It wasn't that the slaughterous feelings brought on by the slaughter aura were less intense, but that he had developed a better ability to deal with and to resist such feelings. As such, he was able to remain completely calm in this situation, so much so that he did something rather shocking.

Chi!

He killed a second Qi master at the Origin Soul realm before properly refining the slaughter aura produced from the first! As the ordinary looking sword became soaked in blood, the black runes appeared once again. The corpse shrivelled up due to the unknown power of the sword, then after a short period of time, the sword returned to normal. After this, the black runes faded and the sword once again looked mundane.

Yaan stared at the sword until it returned to its baseline state, seemingly unfazed by the ferocious dark power flowing into his body.

He was not yet done.

Chi!

He killed another Origin Soul realm powerhouse. He paid close attention to the black runes on the sword, only returning his focus to his present condition after the sword once again returned to normal.

Yaan was very interested in this sword. This sword, even when used normally, had the ability to kill an Origin Soul realm Qi master's origin soul! This was a truly shocking power. If this sword made its way into the world of Foundation Step cultivators, it would certainly create a huge storm.

A blade that could be wielded by those at Rank 4 to massacre the souls of those at Rank 5, this was too incredible!

Of course, that relied on the prerequisite that the wielder was able to maim a Rank 5 powerhouse in the first place, almost nobody could achieve such a thing. Still, it was no doubt an incredible sword.

Typically, only soul cultivators possessed methods to deal with the soul prior to Rank 5, but such cultivators were extremely uncommon on the Qi Plane. Sometimes it might be possible for a Qi master to use a soul treasure, but such a thing would not allow them to harm an origin soul with only Rank 4 cultivation.

Once the blade returned to normal, Yaan shut his eyes and focussed on his internal condition. After killing three Origin Soul realm Qi masters in a row, the slaughter aura pouring into his body was like a violent tsunami, attempting to throw his mind and heart into chaotic disarray.

More pressingly though, was the accumulation of the slaughterous energy that gathered around his dantian, attempting to break in after his body naturally refined the slaughter aura.

In the past, Yaan had no control over the refinement of the slaughter aura. Even just now, before he gained Slaughter Qi, he could at most exhibit some minor control, accelerating the refinement by a small margin.

Now though, things were different. Yaan could feel the gathering of the slaughterous energy within his body, forcing its way into his dantian and causing his ocean of liquid Slaughter Qi to grow further. Compared to refining Yuan Qi, refining Slaughter Qi from slaughter aura was multiple times more efficient, because Slaughter Qi was very similar in nature to the slaughter aura!

If there was one difference between the aura and Qi, it was that Yaan had control over his own Slaughter Qi. So, he used this control to indirectly control the slaughter aura, using his Slaughter Qi to drag the aura directly towards his dantian at the fastest possible speed!

Whoosh!

The black aura surrounding Yaan seemed to vanish, as in an instant, it was pulled into his body. Even Yaan himself felt stumped by the shocking speed at which he was able to suck in the slaughter aura, almost catching him off guard when it rapidly shot into his dantian…

BANG!

A shockwave exploded out from Yaan's body, he trembled violently, but grit his teeth and persevered.

The slaughter aura, upon being dragged through the dantian walls, was instantly refined into slaughterous energy, then into Slaughter Qi! The quantity of Slaughter Qi in his dantian rose dramatically in a short period of time. After all, he had refined this slaughter aura from three Origin Soul realm Qi masters almost instantaneously!

The ocean swelled up, doubling, tripling…reaching ten times its original size!

The original quantity of liquid Slaughter Qi should have already been the peak which was attainable for the True Yuan Qi realm. So, when Yaan's dantian found itself filled with ten times the amount of Qi that it could hold, one of two things could happen…either the dantian would collapse, or the dantian would ascend!

The shockwave released from Yaan's body signified his ascension to the Qi Palace realm!

This ascension was anything but ordinary, it was forceful and uncontrolled. Yaan fought to maintain control over the rapidly evolving situation, grasping the storm of Slaughter Qi in his dantian and forcing it to condense down into a solid form…

Strangely, under his control, Yaan began to understand something. There was a certain shape that this solidifying Qi needed to take, if it was to settle down into a stable foundation.

This shape was that of a palace; the Qi Palace!

Orthodox Qi refiners formed the Qi Temple, demonic race Qi refiners formed the Qi Palace, this was an innate fact of Qi refining cultivation. The reason for this was supposedly that these forms, the temple and the palace, were respectively the most stable solid states for a Qi refiner's Qi to take on after reaching Rank 3.

At this realm, the solid Qi could not be utilised directly, unlike at the Spirit Core and Demon Core realms where the Qi master could draw Qi from their core. However, the solid foundation of Qi provided structural support to the dantian, allowing it to grow larger and stronger, whilst permitting the development of superior liquid and gaseous Yuan Qi.

Of course, Yaan developed Slaughter Qi, not Yuan Qi.

As the faint outline of a single-floor tall palace took shape, an ocean, thick with Slaughter Qi, formed below. A gaseous form of this Qi rose up from the ocean, filling the dantian's atmosphere, entering the sky high up above, then condensing back down again into the ocean. This was the natural Qi cycle of a Qi Palace realm dantian!

As time passed by, Yaan managed to subdued the unruly Slaughter Qi that had been rampaging throughout his dantian and Qi channels. Once again, there was some damage, whilst this sort of ferocious breakthrough was not good for forming a solid foundation.

However…

The Qi palace that Yaan formed was built from an enormous amount of Slaughter Qi. Even though he only formed a single layer of the Qi Palace, this single layer was built up by piling on wave after wave of Slaughter Qi. Even though his foundation had sustained some damage, this damage could be healed over. The key point was that the basis of his foundation was not weak at all!

This sort of method was contrary to all common understanding of Qi refining. Then again, the demonic race style of Qi refining was unconventional to begin with, it could not be considered with the same standards used for orthodox Qi refining.

After one day and one night, Yaan exhaled deeply.

His condition had finally settled. Within his dantian, a completely solid Qi Palace stood stall, without any cracks, damage or insecurities. The damage Yaan sustained was endured by his Qi channels and the inside of his dantian itself, but this level of damage was not a big deal, he would be able to recover relatively quickly.

Whilst he only spent one month to fully recover this time, during which period he was able to confirm that his Slaughter Qi had already reached the peak of the 1st layer, Yaan felt a rising sense of pressure forming in his heart.

One month was not a long period of time when considering the speed of his cultivation. Under normal circumstances, he would be thrilled with this rate of progress…but his circumstances were anything but normal.

After spending a full month to recover his Qi channels and meridians, Yaan had only three months remaining until the Immortal Ancestor's three year deadline! If he required this sort of recovery period following each and every breakthrough, he would not succeed in reaching this essential target!

It might seem that Yaan was being rushed, killing those three Qi masters in order to breakthrough, but this was not the case. The realm breakthrough required a burst of force in order to succeed, especially when he needed to succeed in such a short period of time. It was necessary to use as much slaughter aura as he could handle to tackle each breakthrough, otherwise the breakthrough was likely to simply fail.

Yaan did not have the luxury to spend months or even years comprehending the boundary between each realm calmly, he was forced to cultivate like a lunatic, forcing his way through despite not having fully comprehended the boundary between realms! This was unnecessarily dangerous and could easily result in a severely damaged foundation, but what other choice did he have?

There was no other choice.

Yaan proceeded to assault the next boundary, charging ahead towards the 2nd Layer Qi Palace realm!