Chapter 20
Li Ming suddenly realized that listening to others’ teachings was also a kind of learning.
In the past, he had always pondered on his own without any help, so he had not thought of this.
But today, he had accidentally found another way to fill up the progress bars for the entries.
“Senior brother, is there a problem with my answer?” Chen Qingke noticed Li Ming suddenly turn silent and thought that she had made a mistake in her answer.
Li Ming still looked calm and said, “Nope, I’ll continue asking you questions.”
“Okay.”
Chen Qingke readily agreed.
For one, Senior Brother Li had always had the image of an honest senior brother in her mind. She did not even entertain the possibility that this senior brother of hers was taking advantage of her and using the pretense of testing her to hide his talent in qi cultivation.
Secondly, the questions that Li Ming asked her were all very important concepts and questions in cultivation. When she answered them, she could also review her thoughts on qi cultivation, which was beneficial to her hundred days foundation establishment.
Li Ming’s questions became more and more in-depth as he continued.
“What are the applications of qi refinement on the dantian?”
“How does one release true qi from their acupoints?”
“How does one use their divine sense to check the properties of a magical artifact?”
Chen Qingke did not notice any abnormality about Li Ming and answered everything honestly.
Li Ming seized the opportunity to ask all his questions and talked until night.
Suddenly, he heard a prompt and realized that he had finally obtained a green entry.
His efforts in studying hard and asking questions all night were not in vain.
The effect of this entry was exactly what Li Ming urgently needed at the moment.
[Beginnings of Immortal Cultivation (Green): Slightly increases sensitivity to the spiritual qi of heaven and earth and increases the efficiency of qi cultivation.]
With this, his aptitude for immortal cultivation could no longer be described as very poor.
Increasing one’s sensitivity to the spiritual qi of heaven and earth was equivalent to increasing the connection between heaven and man.
Li Ming was overjoyed. This was the privilege provided to qi refinement geniuses.
In addition, after increasing the efficiency of his qi cultivation, his future qi refinement would be carried out with much faster progress.
For the same cycle of spiritual qi, he could complete the cycle in half the time that it would take others.
As time went on, that would add up to an immense amount of time.
No wonder it was said that immortal cultivation depended on one’s aptitude.
If one’s aptitude was not good enough, even if they practiced diligently, they would not make much progress in decades and would quickly grow old.
With the [Beginnings of Immortal Cultivation], Li Ming was now more confident in being able to get somewhere on his immortal cultivation path.
“Junior Sister Chen, great answers!”
Li Ming was very grateful to Chen Qingke.
To be able to have obtained an entry from her answers, it meant this little junior sister had been answering his questions correctly and sincerely.
Additionally, her words were very clear and effective, making Li Ming feel as if the clouds in his mind had been cleared and the sky was now clear.
He did not expect that after searching for so long, the doubts he had about his qi cultivation would be resolved just like that.
Although he was grateful to his little junior sister from the bottom of his heart, he could not thank her directly.
Otherwise, would he not expose himself if he suddenly thanked her while asking her questions?
“Alright, today’s test ends here.”
“You have a good and solid foundation,” Li Ming praised her in a roundabout way. “It seems that you have been working hard. Well done!
“Of course,” Chen Qingke waved her hand.
She had actually also benefited significantly from this test.
Some of Li Ming’s questions were things that she had ignored before. Now that she had given them some more thought, she had a lot more insight on those topics.
The two of them quietly reflected on the insights they had gained.
Chen Qingke suddenly raised her head and said, “Thank you, senior brother! I feel like I’ve learned a lot from this test!”
Li Ming’s mouth twitched, and he displayed an awkward smile.
In fact, the reason why he asked all sorts of questions was because he barely knew anything. How could he have thought that he would be able to allow Junior Sister Chen to gain some new insights?
He could only pretend to be humble and say, “Uh… It’s nothing.”
Chen Qingke nodded. With her now rather tired, Li Ming saw her off.
After seeing off his junior sister, he impatiently returned to his cave abode and continued his closed-door cultivation.
He was in a hurry to turn his theories into actual cultivation.
He sat down and began to digest his understanding.
From drawing qi into the body, to refining essence into qi, then refining qi into spirit… He had to start all over again and consolidate every level of qi refinement.
He corrected the mistakes he had made in the past one by one.
Gradually, he entered a smooth and natural flow state.
The true qi in his body slowly circulated according to the qi cultivation technique.
Time quickly passed by as he sat there.
The night passed.
Li Ming opened his eyes again. Outside the window, the light of dawn was already peeking over the horizon.
There was a hint of enlightenment in his eyes.
Over the past night, he had thoroughly reinforced the foundation of his qi cultivation.
In the past, due to his lack of immortal cultivation talent, he was unable to sense the location of spiritual qi in some parts of his body.
Now, with the help of [Beginnings of Immortal Cultivation], his entire body was perfect and flawless. His dantian was even rounder, and the rotating vortex spontaneously absorbed the spiritual qi of heaven and earth.
Most importantly, ever since he had gained enlightenment, his mind had become even clearer.
With a clear mind, he could feel the flow of every drop of blood in his body and the changes in every meridian without even having to use his inner vision.
In terms of his stage, making use of the enlightenment that he had overnight, he quickly found that he was now facing another opportunity to break through.
Even he himself was a little surprised. After all, he had just broken through to the seventh level of the qi refinement stage yesterday.
But on second thought, this was not that unreasonable.
Chen Qingke had stated that the later levels of qi refinement paid more attention to the quality of the true qi inside one’s body.
His true qi was very refined, and his meridians were smooth. All he needed to do was to accumulate spiritual qi.
Moreover, [Beginnings of Immortal Cultivation] also gave him a continuous increase in the efficiency of absorbing spiritual qi.
With such efficiency, a night of enlightenment naturally ushered in the opportunity for a breakthrough.
Li Ming did not hesitate at all in the face of such an opportunity.
He immediately took qi sea pills and began to break through to eighth level of qi refinement!
As the qi sea pills went into his stomach, Li Ming did not rush to refine them.
Instead, he calmed down and slowly absorbed the spiritual qi, wrapping it with his true qi.
Following the circulation of qi refinement, it shuttled through every part of his body, from his flesh and blood to his bones and tendons. He immersed himself in the comfort of the transformation.
“Phew… Fuu…”
As he breathed, his surroundings became more peaceful. In this small world, his aura approached that of a ruler, making it seem as if others were obliged to answer his beck and call.
With the transformation of his spiritual qi, purer true qi flowed into his flesh and blood.
The waves of trembling caused his body, which had been tempered over a long time, to feel numb.
Compared to the brutal and violent process of body refinement, which required repeated cycles of destruction and reconstruction, the true qi of qi refinement was much gentler and nourished one’s body silently.
Li Ming tried to relax his body, knowing that the time had come.
He immediately refined all the qi sea pills he had swallowed.
“Peng!”
A wave of vigorous energy quickly spread out, and rich spiritual qi ran around in his body. These were then absorbed and purified in all his acupoints.
It would then follow the circulation and flow of the tide of true qi, eventually being brought to the dantian right below his heart.
The spiritual Qi cyclone that was quietly rotating there was still very calm, but in the next moment, it was drowned by the spiritual Qi tide that Li Ming guided.
“Qi into the dantian, refining qi into a lake!”
The spiritual qi vortex that was suspended in Li Ming’s dantian was completely disintegrated!
What replaced it was a core lake that was filled to the brim with what appeared to be liquid spiritual qi.
This was the spiritual qi core lake that Chen Qingke had mentioned.
Only with a certain amount of spiritual qi could a stable core lake be constructed. From then on, it would no longer rotate, but rise and fall with each breath, like the tides that rose and fell with the sun and moon.
At this moment, Li Ming’s breathing was linked to his dantian. He felt as if he had endless spiritual qi and as if true qi would follow his will.
“Is this the eighth level of the qi refinement stage? It is indeed quite wonderful.”
Li Ming felt that his strength had increased by a large margin.