Reaching The Third Stage

"Brother," my sister greeted me. I was 45 years old now and still looking like a child. While it was aggravating, I had come to terms with it.

My cultivation in the third stage was just about complete. I had been spending quite a bit of time over the last couple of years focused on my cultivation. I was glad the number of motes I had to align with the mind path of cultivation were not that great.

While I had been hard at work, I could only do four at once. Any more than that, and I risked screwing up. As I got closer and closer to completing the second stage of cultivation, my entire body felt like it was a condensed ball of energy and very solid.

It was hard to put into words, but I felt like every part of me was becoming more muscular, even though I wasn't getting more muscles.

"Sister," I greeted her back with a smile. She was clearly middle aged. There were slight creases around her eyes. I felt a sense of heaviness in my heart at this. Her daughter Yao Lan was sitting off to the side. I had just come back from seeing our mother. She was doing well, living out her best life in retirement. With me being her son, and the allowance I gave her, she was living in luxury.

"I will be taking my leave. Please take of my child, brother," my sister asked me. I nodded at this.

"I have made arrangements within the sect," I replied. Elder Li Fu would take her on as a core disciple, after paying him a fee.

"Thank you brother, she has been working hard. Will you be staying the night?" she asked me and I shook my head.

"My affairs within the Half Moon City are done, we leave immediately," I replied. My sister turned to her daughter and beckoned with her hands. Yao Lan, really was quite beautiful and appeared to be quite young, appearing to be around the age of 14 or 15. She should have appeared to be 18 instead of so young. I could imagine it would be both a blessing and a curse to appear as she was.

She gave her mother a hug. There were some whispered words from mother to daughter. "Take care my child. I love you. Never forget that. And if there are issues, speak to your uncle. While he can be difficult, he does care," she said.

"Thanks mom. I would have never gotten this chance if it wasn't for you," my niece said. I carefully pretended I wasn't listening in.

"Also don't compare yourself to your uncle. He gets troublesome ideas occasionally," my sister whispered back.

"Like your legendary painting?" my niece asked.

"Hush, you. Now make sure to come back and visit occasionally," my sister said.

"I will mother, I love you."

"I love you too my little flower."

They broke their hug and my niece looked at me with a hungry yet determined expression on her face. "I am ready Senior Yuan Zhou," she said to me.

"Then let us be off," I replied. We immediately left the estate got into a carriage and set off for a short distance. I took the time to talk with her while we traveled. I was glad we were able to leave without too much fanfare. That would have been annoying.

"Uncle, um, what arrangements have you made?" Yao Lan asked me with a bit of hesitation in her voice.

"You will be taken as a disciple by Elder Li Fu. He has a steady temperament and often handles the day to day operations of the sect. Present this case to him," I told her and pulled out a wooden case from my spatial ring and handed it to her.

"Can I open it?" she asked me, and I nodded. Her eyes went wide at what was inside. She quickly closed it. "That's a rank 4 spirit stone, right?" she asked hesitantly.

"Indeed, it is. I have already paid him quite a bit to take you on as a disciple. But this will show your personal sincerity. Taking on a disciple is a serious matter," I told my niece and she quickly nodded at this.

"Thank you, uncle," she said with a bowed head.

"It is no issue. Your mother's smile has been a bright spot in my life. I am not the best with family." She hadn't followed me on the path of cultivation. It was disappointing, but I had pressed for it. I could have done so decades ago. But there was no medicine for regrets.

Instead, I passed on the goodwill to her daughter. This would be the second rank 4 spirit stone Elder Li Fu was getting. We had only agreed to one, but I wanted my niece well taken care of and for him to invest into her. That much wealth being handed over, would ensure a lot would trickle down to my Yao Lan.

It helped that I could afford this, since my business had just paid out its first dividend to all shareholders by making rank 6 spirit steel. I only got 250 rank 3 spirit coins from the first sale of spirit steel. That was my fifty percent of the business.

My initial guess had been around 1,800 rank 3 spirit coins of profit, or 180,000 rank 1 spirit coins. I had been basing the sale price off finished products, thinking the raw material would be most of the cost. It was a large portion, but not 300,000 rank 1 spirit coins of revenue.

I would have gotten double, but Zhang Ting and I had agreed beforehand to have half the dividends go back into the business in order to expand. It was to expand until it could expand no more. I would have preferred to reinvest it all to get larger returns later, but the shareholders needed to paid and the business needed cashflow to keep operating. There just wasn't a huge market for spirit steel. It was there, but it wasn't large enough, I could push up the price based on demand.

It still galled me I had lost fifty percent of my business to others, but there was no choice. I had to give up portions of the business in order to do business. It helped insulate me from the powers that be, trying to take advantage of things.

Elder Xu Xiaoli got twenty five percent to represent the Imperial Sect and give them face. The Han family represented by the crazy Han Xingjuan got fifteen percent to use their compression array at cost. The Cloudy Moon Sect got ten percent to make sure cultivators didn't try anything.

Elder Sun Ru along with four members had been dispatched to Imperial City to provide cultivator support to Zheng Ting and learn the management of the business. She was getting on in years. While she would remain in charge until she decided to retire, having cultivators work for my business was a massive step up in terms of prestige and power.

It also ensured my interests in the business not being stolen or taken away, since we were in the same sect and I was the disciple of the Sect Leader. Stealing from me would be like stealing from him. No one inside the sect would risk such a thing.

I had spent 25 rank 3 spirit coins to get those two spirit cores I was bribing the elder with. The further one went up the power scale, the more flexible exchanges based on need. Luckily, I wasn't in a rush with my niece. So, I managed a fairly decent exchange rate.

Still, the entire operation had brought in 2,000 rank 3 spirit coins for the first batch of spirit steel in terms of revenue. But 100 of those rank 3 spirit coins went into a reserve to pay people going forward and ensure cash flow. Another 500 went to expanding operations into other cities. The remaining 500 rank 3 spirit coins were split up between the investors.

"This is it," I said and let her off outside the city.

"I wouldn't have believed you that this is standard unless I heard about it from other people," Yao Lan said. I smiled at this. Walking to the sect and climbing up the staircase was tradition. To show that one was determined.

My sister was fussing and wanted me to take her the entire way by carriage, but that wasn't going to happen. It was important for me to adhere to tradition, especially with how much I was already supporting her.

Giving such a large donation to Elder Li Fu to take her on as a disciple was kind of pushing things, but still acceptable. I was in the rare position of having a tremendous amount of wealth, but not being a member or an elder of the sect. It was a bit of a gray area. The Sect Leader had no problem with it, since it just tied me more deeply to the Cloudy Moon Sect.

There was also no reason to create pointless drama about the situation either. While she was my niece, she didn't share the same last name as me, due to my sister marrying into the Yao family. That should help things as well if she wanted to keep her head down.

At least she wasn't a brat like that granny disguised as a girl from the Imperial Sect. If my niece acted that entitled, I would have refused to support her. I had talked with the servants and other people of the estate, while she was a bit entitled, she wasn't rude or cruel, if anything she was focused. I could live with her being focused and associated with me.

If she had screamed at me, and told people to spit out food, I would have just told my sister no. It was not worth the headache and the anger of Elder Li Fu by giving him someone who caused trouble. I let her know that once she turned 20, she would have to work to earn sect points to stick around, which she was okay with.

Yao Lan was already to go and shouldered a large pack and set off. I left ahead of her by carriage since everything was already arranged for this year's intake. She didn't need to be embarrassed by holding her hand into the sect.

The learning experience I had with Gen was important, as well as the connections I made during the intake. Gen was a reminder that people were jealous of me, and Wen Xue was always fun to talk about cultivation. He was the reason I had hope for the third stage. While my research and time spent speaking with the Sect Leader played a huge role, our conversations helped me put things into perspective.

She needed to build up those connections herself. Being a cultivator meant charting your own path. While there were cultivators that just followed the path set by others, you would never reach immortality that way.

Most cultivators only wanted to get past the first bottleneck, not thinking further ahead. Immortality was millennia away, while getting to the next stage was much more pressing. I had inverted all of that with my path of defiance, front loading all the challenges, clearing my future path.

Just the resources and headaches were immense though. I had thought my third stage would be more relaxed, but now I needed a vast number of resources. I had sent word for the information brokers to ask about and had Zheng Ting use 50 rank 3 spirit coins to pay for information.

It had taken a lot of time to send word back, but I was focused on cultivating and would only leave the sect once I reached the third stage, which would be just before my niece joined the sect. Returning to the sect. I cultivated on the carriage ride back, used to such things after all the traveling I had done.

My last three motes formed my core or Dantian. Sitting in my room, the motes snapped into place, and I made sure their connections to the other nearby motes were correct as they settled. I mentally focused and sensed my cultivation.

I had finally done it. Aligning all 1,788,606 motes across three paths of cultivation by the time I was 45 years old. The internal structure was a thing of beauty. At the center was the pyramidal structure of five cores. The central core being for body cultivation and designed as an icosahedron. The outer four cores were also icosahedrons, but with three layers.

The inner layer being part of the soul path, while the outer two were part of the mind path. The motes even connected to each other, forming the various support planes and beams between them. The inner part of the cores would hold drops for my soul cultivation while the outer layer between the two mind core shells would hold drops from mind cultivation.

Something like that had never been done before, full triple cultivation like this, from what I knew and what Elder Liu Chen came to talk to me. Thankfully he didn't have any more suggestions about my cultivation, but wanted to know how I was progressing. If he had a Dao, it would be the Dao of cultivation itself.

There were 1,304 channels, of all three types, mind, body, and soul. Soul was the largest with 720 channels evenly distributed across all four cores. The connections for the channels went through the faces of the icosahedrons with nine channels per face of each icosahedron. This was a slight change from my initial design, but it was necessary to ensure that there were no issues with the mind and soul cores.

The mind channels numbered 432 channels, coming in on the vertices of the icosahedrons. Again, nine channels converging on the vertices into a much narrower channel into the mind core portion of my cultivation. The body channels went all the way through individually.

This was because my body cores required much more even pressure. Thankfully I had avoided any mistakes. That left the remaining 152 channels for the Body core. There were five channels each, converging on each face, and another four channels per vertex. That left four extra channels, which connected to the Body core, in the direction of the of the other four cores surrounding it.

There had been changes along the way, and I had gotten worried I had made a mistake. But it all came togeather over time, even with the changes I made. Without elder Liu Chen, it wouldn't have been possible to work everything out and the tweaks that needed to be done to ensure it all went smoothly.

I had asked about the ratio of the channels to drops. Since it was 180 channels per soul core, 108 channels per mind core, and 152 channels for the body core. The optimal drops that had been suggested were 120,000 for each soul core, 20,000 for each mind core, and 50,000 for the body core.

The ratio for the core drops was 12 to 2 to 5. While the ratio of channels was approximately 4.1 to 2.5 to 3.5. It was wildly off. Elder Liu Chen had agreed with me and said it was a shame, but there was no good way to correct it while keeping the pressure on the cores balanced otherwise.

The four extra channels converging on the body core was already a slight risk, but they should hold based on the rest of my cultivation, or at least that was what he thought. As for the unbalance in channels, he complained about that greatly, but the Sect leader told me not to worry about it too much. I needed as many drops as possible.

Even if I did get somehow so far ahead, I could shut off the cultivation for a specific core type, at least that was the hope. So once my mind cores were filled, I could stop them from drawing in more energy. It was a waste, since I would only have 32,800 drops in my soul cores once the mind cores were filled up. The Sect Leader had explained that would be a good problem to have, if I got that far.

So even after everything I had done, my cultivation was imperfect in a way. But if I had taken the time to work out these details, then I would have spent another two decades trying to adjust things, or going slowly. Even then, how would I know? I only had so many motes to work with, and that was why cultivators were told to keep cultivating at the early stages before the first bottleneck.

If you stopped and took to long, you wouldn't get anywhere. There would always be more optimal ways of doing things. But the real issue was time. Time to get enough drops to fill up one's cultivation. While two decades might not seem like a lot, all cultivation was a race against time. Even for the Sect Leader who was nearing the end of his life.

My channels were impressive, each a similar length to within fifty percent of each other. That was a major accomplishment. The ones closer to the edge of my body, took longer routes to get there, while the ones farthest away in my hands, feet, and head took more direct routes. That was a huge accomplishment with how many channels I had.

It was immensely complex, making sure they didn't intersect or have issues around my cores, where every possible space was used up. The channels themselves also had valves. Three six fold valves at the start and then Liu Chen's valve design closer to the cores. It was a masterpiece of design, even if it created a massive headache in needing to create a Displacement Channel Carver.

Then there were the wave cone meridians, which used up too many motes. Far too many in my mind, but they had unprecedented energy draw. There was no innovation there. The meridian designs had been researched extensively over the millennia. All of this was supported by my internal triangular framework and external hexagonal structure tied to soul cultivation.

Liu Chen had lamented that I would be able to make a support structure consisting of all three types of cultivation. The Sect Leader looked like he wanted to strangle the elder when he suggested I should have gathered up another million more motes just for this purpose. Thankfully the Pill of Peace, the Refined Beast Essence, and the Astral Soul stabilizer all came togeather to make sure my mind, body, and soul didn't rip themselves apart.

The sheer scale of my cultivation was both breath taking and immense. Where before, it was like a sea of stars at the end of the first stage, now it felt like I had a stellar map inside of me. Each mote was linked by beams and planes to the surrounding motes. A latticework of immense complexity. It was a masterpiece of cultivation.

With all of that came issues. I needed to kill the rank 6 beast, whose blood had been used. Water Running Over The Rocks, child of Whirling Flames From The Heavens. I had not forgotten their immense name and title. I needed to go out there and kill them. Even now I could feel rage threatening to burst forth from inside of me, contained by the Pill of Peace. Rage that wasn't entirely under my control.

For the channels and meridians I now had to carve out, a Displacement Channel Carver needed to be made for my use. There was no possibility of renting one. I had inquired from the information brokers and even reached out to Elder Xu Xiaoli of the Imperial Sect. It was considered at the level of a sect treasure for a reason. Its value was immense, in speeding up progression through the third stage.

Only the most favored of individuals in the Imperial Sect who also made large contributions would be allowed on the waiting list to use one of the two they had. Even the Imperial Sect only had two of them. The null metal was the real sticking point. A focusing gem was doable, but insanely expensive.

I also needed 6 rank 6 treasures that were opposite of Aoyin's shard before the end of the third stage, so I could attempt cultivating using polarity to draw in more energy and negate the shard's influence. It wasn't absolutely necessary at the moment, but this was another one of those problems that I could put off for when Aoyin came to harvest me or try and solve now.

At least this could be held off until the end of the third stage, which was preferable in case Aoyin decided to pay me a visit or could keep an eye on me. The real time limit was the Sect Leader's age. If he perished, then I would have to find someone else skilled in astral souls to make the changes necessary. The list was incredibly small, and he had no suggestions that wouldn't come with conditions, or a huge price tag attached.

Then there was the immense number of resources I needed to perfectly attune my channels and meridians to force. I needed around 5,216 level 4 spirit stones or 57,376 level 3 spirit stones. That was four level 4 spirit stones per channel and meridian pair. Already one cultivator had gotten some support to use the constructed chamber inside the sect and it worked.

The issue with my cultivation, was that I needed perfect attunement on top of the amount. That meant I needed level 4 spirit stones and couldn't substitute lesser ones. That meant I needed over 5,000 sentient beasts to be killed for my cultivation to progress. What was even worse, the Sect Leader had given me the optimal exchange rate.

Realistically, I needed closer to 65,200 level 3 spirit stones and maybe even more than that as my activities put pressure on the market. My business would return about 10 level 4 spirit stones per year, and that would go up to around 30 level 4 spirit stones per year. Without any issues, which meant I could reach the fourth stage in about 174 to 200 years.

I was already 45 years old, despite how I looked. A cultivator in the third stage could live until they were 180 to 300 years old. I would be on the upper range of that or a bit beyond. It wasn't a precise science since everyone's cultivation and physical body were different.

Still, it was a reasonable time frame. The biggest bottleneck was getting the null metal and the focusing gem. I needed those to start cultivating. All remaining portions of my wealth would be kept in Imperial City with their Coinage Guild.

I had enough spending money after the first payment. And shipping large amounts of wealth was a huge risk. I had no doubt that word would get out and people would be tempted to rob a caravan, or even a cultivator traveling. Aoyin had learned quite a bit about me, and I didn't want to take any more unnecessary risks.

While Imperial City was stupidly expensive for everything, even breathing, it was the best place for high level exchanges to occur. I had already passed instructions to Zheng Ting to have all future payouts be used to purchase level 4 spirit stones and save them in the Coinage Guild.

Once I had the needed materials, I would head back to Imperial City to collect the spirit stones. The biggest issue was that I couldn't travel and cultivate any more. Well, I could, but it was risky. Once I started carving out a channel and meridian, I couldn't stop. Once I stopped, the portions exposed to the hole I had dug through my soul would harden immensely, and it would be far more difficult to restart.

Carving out a channel and meridian, would take a month or so, only if I had a Displacement Channel Carver. Heck, I could even sell it at the end for the rank 6 materials, since any sect would be more than happy to buy such a thing, even the Imperial Sect.

Looking at the information I had received about null metal, I wanted to sigh. This was the good information as well, with how much I had paid. There was no higher level of information I could purchase, this was the end all be all of finding null metal.

The answer was luck. Null metal by its very nature hid from the energy of the heavens and the earth. While people thought they could work out a way to find it, by sensing for repulsion, it wasn't so simple. Null metal let energy pass right through it, like it wasn't even there.

A cultivator could look at it, but not tell it was null metal. In addition, its formation was incredibly rare. So, you needed a cultivator who could recognize it, and one lucky enough to come across some. That was a rare combination.

Finding it was the hardest part. The known locations only had a miniscule amount, which had quickly been extracted, and other locations were unknown. However, there were two clues pointing to the same location. Two people had returned from a special location. The Floating Island of Death. It was a pleasant name to be sure, but it was a massive floating island that floated around the edge of the continent.

It had the death moniker, because cultivators died in droves going to this place. Even rank 8 cultivators had died. Everyone wanted to claim the island for their sect. However, only 4 known cultivators had come back in the Third Age, the last 200,000 years.

The place had dangerous plants, mechanical traps, and high-level zombies. Some people said it was a tomb. Others claimed that a high level demonic cultivator had cursed the place. Others say it was a remnant of a past civilization from an earlier age. Finally, there was the rumor, it was the burial ground of an immortal who perished in battle and his will carried on, battling all those who challenged it.

I wasn't sure what one was correct, but I knew it was my destination. I started the second stage of cultivation to the Astral Plane. Now I was going to start my third stage by journeying to the Floating Island of Death.

One of the reasons it was named that, was for the simple reason cultivators would ignore warnings otherwise. When people got desperate, they went into these special locations, almost all never to return. Their soul lanterns, not showing anything useful. That was one of the requirements for a place to be labeled special by cultivators. If you went in, you were taking your life into your hands. No one would be coming to avenge you.

It was my only chance to get through the third stage, or I wouldn't have even considered it.