As soon as the idea to absorb the entire ocean passed into his head, Hui’s eyes widened. He smiled. I have to. I must! To do any less would be to turn down this heavenly opportunity. If I turn it down, when will I come across an opportunity like this again?

I’m not even in danger! I can sit here and quietly absorb this entire ocean, gain an ocean of qi into the red gem! No one can attack me. No one can stop me. I’m locked away in a realm of my own! I couldn’t be safer!

Almost at the same time that the thought occurred to him, the absorption power of the red gem fell. The hollow space around the gem grew smaller, and the seal even showed signs of closing itself in again.

Hui furrowed his brows and sent his qi into the red gem.

The red gem burned with power, full to the brim with blood qi. The red soul stared at the blood qi, openly panting, but could do nothing but watch as the golden life-qi songbird continued to back it into a corner. Hui frowned and retracted his qi from the gem. “There’s too much blood qi. The gem is almost full.”

He bit his lip, thinking. I can use the blood qi to strengthen the pink duck, but that’s about it. I can’t use the qi myself. I can probably use it to power the snake to escape from here, but then I’m turning my back on a heavenly opportunity. When will I have the power to store this much blood qi again? Even if I store it in the gem and never use it, having a gem full of this much blood qi is equivalent to having… at least a thousand spirit stones!

Or… I could use it to escape this trial. This almost certainly represents enough power to pass through at least this realm of the trial with ease. After all, I can only absorb the death aura from this pile of bones, not any qi. I’m cut off from using my own qi directly, or absorbing qi directly due to the trial. If I want to use qi, I have to process it through the snake…

Another pause. He looked down at the shadow snake in his hand. A second wild thought bloomed in his mind. As if sensing his thought, the snake squirmed, but Hui clenched his hand around it, pinning it in his palm, tightening it against the red gem. I can only use qi through this snake. The snake fundamentally alters my qi to allow me to use it in this realm. Then, is it also possible… that I can fundamentally alter the blood qi to strip out the blood part of it, and simply absorb the qi?

Hui’s eyes glittered. Only one way to find out!

Using the snake, he drew on the blood qi in the gem. The blood qi spooled into the snake and circulated there. He sensed its power, thrumming away in the snake, but something prohibited it from passing into him.

Ah, I guess that’s no good… is that what you thought I’d say, trial realm? But this small disciple has the authority of the Sect Master right now! Hui activated the reversal spell again, turning it on both the snake and the sea at the same time.

The snake trembled, then went limp. Qi streamed through it into Hui. A strong scent of blood swirled around. Red strands danced in the qi where bits of blood qi stuck to it as it passed through the snake. Corresponding red streaks appeared on Hui’s arm, marking the qi as it passed through his passages.

Before it could get any further, a fierce quack! sounded out from his dantian. The pink duck leaped up and opened its mouth, swallowing down the red streaks as they passed through. With that, the red marks on Hui’s skin began to pale. The blood qi, now passing through two filters, roared into his dantian as ordinary qi and fed his cultivation base.

Hui grinned and settled into the lotus pose to meditate. The power in his dantian grew stronger with every passing breath. Qi flowed wildly into the red gem once more, as Hui drew it out equally rapidly. As he sat there, his cultivation base hurtled upward. From the peak of the early third stage to the middle of the third stage, from the middle of the third stage to the upper third stage! The void space inside his dantian became even more empty and clear, hollowing out. As it hollowed, Hui circulated it, guiding it like a potter guiding a vase on the wheel. He shaped the qi, gently filling in any holes in the void’s walls and flattening any bumps. The void space grew larger and larger, and as it grew, it drew more and more qi from the red gem. Soon, the gem sat nearly empty as Hui drew every scrap of qi it sucked in directly through the snake and the pink duck and into himself.

The pink duck let out a battle cry. Its color changed from pink to crimson to scarlet, deepening with every passing moment. What had been blurry and illusory began to become real. Its feathers appeared, each one outlined in perfect shape and realistic length on its body. Its proportions grew lifelike, every blurry part of it becoming true and real. Its eyes blinked, and a faint gleam of intelligence appeared in their depths. As Hui charged toward the fourth realm, so, too, did the duck grow in strength.

At the same time, his second dantian rotated, as if caught in lock-step with the first. Instinctively, Hui drew harder at the death aura emanating from the pile of bones. As if it had been waiting for him, it surged in response. Black energy poured into his second dantian. A void began to open up in its heart as well. As Hui shaped the first, so too did the second take form.

Hui didn’t notice it, with his eyes closed, but as he mediated, he slid slowly down the pile of bones toward the blood qi sea, drawn by the incredible attraction power of the red gem. The sea, meanwhile, dropped. Not a few centimeters, or a mere handspan, but by meters. One meter, two meters, three, ten, it continued to drop!

Ordinarily, breaking through to fourth realm would not require such an incredible amount of qi. However, this was qi that had to be filtered not once, but twice, and in the filtering, a massive amount of qi was removed. Fifty percent was lost between the gem and the snake, and an additive twenty-five percent vanished into the blood-qi duck, leaving Hui with only twenty-five percent of the qi that entered the gem. Some of that qi vanished as it slammed into the death aura simultaneously entering his body, the two negating one another. In the end, only ten percent of what Hui absorbed from the sea reached his dantian. And yet, it remained a staggering amount of qi!

Sweat broke out on Hui’s forehead. His body trembled. The hand that held the red gem and the snake grew hot, burning from the force of the qi passing through it. Black and blue light scintillated off of him in alternating waves, one second the blue of qi, the next the black of death qi. As he sat there, he emitted two auras simultaneously, not unlike the amber he’d refined to create Jin Xian. One aura was a putrid, stagnant aura, a horrid, frozen aura of death. The other was a brilliant, pure aura, full of boundless life and possibility. The two fought one another, one struggling to outshine the other.

Hui’s brows furrowed. He sensed the war in his auras, and understood instantly. This is a bottleneck. I’ve reached a block in the road. If I can’t separate my auras entirely, I won’t be able to progress to the fourth stage, not now, nor ever!

He hesitated a moment, but only a moment. Determined, he drew even more strongly on the gem, sucking up more of the ocean. I won’t stop here. I won’t see such heavenly luck again in a long time. If I don’t reach fourth stage here and now, I deserve to be thrown out of the cultivation world for throwing away good fortune.

I’ll act the way Master does! If I can’t comprehend this bottleneck now, then I don’t deserve to be his disciple!