Bloodshot eyes:

Rigel sat in his cottage and took out Maze's bag of holding. His face was anxious as he erased the spirit signature of Maze with his own and opened it. Soon a smile bloomed on his face as he scanned the contents of the bag.

Maze had more than two thousand spirit crystals in his bag. Besides the spirit stones, there were some gold coins, a few ounces of Immortal silver and some books. However, Rigel's face became serious as he found another bag of holding in the bag.

Rigel took out that bag and scanned it. His face immediately changed as he found out that the bag had multiple bags within it. Rigel examined every single bag but found nothing. They were all empty.

One didn't need to think too much regarding how Maze obtained so many bags. All those bags were obtained from various disciples. Regarding who these disciples were and what happened to them, none knew.

Rigel sighed as he stored the bags inside his bag of holding and took out all the spirit crystals. In total, he had a little more than two thousand and three hundred spirit stones. It was a fortune many would kill for.

Spirit crystals were naturally formed after absorbing the elemental energy present in nature. They had a high density of natural energy within them and thus were very helpful for cultivation. By absorbing the energy stored within these spirit crystals, one can save a lot of time.

Rigel sighed as he put away all the spirit crystals except for a few dozen inside his bag of holding and closed his eyes. His spiritual energy moved according to his order and examined his dantian.

His dantian originally had a dense Qi within it. However, after using the black fog for only a little while, it was almost emptied. Rigel sighed as he saw that.

The black fog was obviously different from Qi, but it needed Qi to control it and the expenditure of Qi to control the black fog was huge. If Rigel had continued to fight Maze with his current cultivation, he would have soon run out of Qi to control the black fog.

Rigel sighed as he saw the faint Qi vortex within his dantian. Even though the vortex appeared huge, the amount of Qi within it was nowhere near enough to let him breakthrough to the first level.

Rigel opened his eyes and rose to his feet. He closed the doors properly so that no one would disturb him and sat down with determination in his eyes. He held a few spirit crystals in his hands and closed his eyes.

The spirit crystals, with the probing of Rigel's spiritual energy, began to release a large amount of natural energy. Rigel slowly absorbed the energy and guided it along his Qi paths. The process of cultivation is always slow. Even if one had a million spirit crystals, they can not directly breakthrough to the Spark formation stage.

One has to accumulate the Qi slowly and then let the Qi paths get accustomed to that amount of Qi. Over absorption of energy through spirit crystals or by any other external source will do more harm than good because that way, one's foundation will be unstable.

The foundation is everything within the world of cultivation. The core disciples from influential sects will naturally win over the disciples from average sects mainly because of their strong foundation.

These large sects possess many Immortal techniques, and they also support their disciples so that they can establish a perfect foundation before they enter the Spark formation stage.

Rigel slowly absorbed the energy stored within the spirit stones. Soon he absorbed energy from more than a hundred spirit crystals. Then he slowly opened his eyes and breathed out in relief.

Even though absorbing from spirit crystals didn't take too much toll on his mind, it was still exhausting because he still had to guide the Qi through all his Qi paths.

Rigel, however, had a smile as he examined his dantian. It only took him three hours to slowly absorb the hundred spirit crystals, but the amount if Qi he gained were more than what he had accumulated over the seventeen days he had been cultivating.

Rigel smiled lightly and muttered to himself, "I should definitely be able to enter the third level with all these spirit crystals. Ideally, I should be able to get into the peak stage of the third level."

Rigel then sat down and meditated while circulating his Qi through all his Qi channels. In this way, the Qi paths within his body were slowly getting accustomed to the Qi. The vortex in his dantian was also becoming chaotic with every cycle of meditation.

No matter how excited he was in, Rigel couldn't just continuously absorb the energy within the spirit crystals. In the extreme situations, it was known that unstable foundation could harm the Qi paths permanently. Rigel wasn't going to take a chance.

Thus, Rigel began to spend his days. Every day, he would absorb the energy within spirit crystals for a few hours, then he would solidify his foundation by meditating. In his free time, Rigel studied the books he acquired from Kane and Maze carefully.

Being an alchemist, Rigel naturally was accustomed to studying for hours together. Reading books were his escape from stress, and it was also something he liked to do in his free time. Rigel always believed that being blind is better than lacking the knowledge of being blind.

A person can lack knowledge, but he can never be so blind that he doesn't know that he lacks it. Rigel was new to the world of cultivation. He never learned anything regarding cultivation. Much of his knowledge came from the information he learned from Frank.

Thus, Rigel was careful when learning anything new. A novice can never differentiate between medicine and poison. Likewise, he had to be careful to understand the hidden meanings and the unstated sentences present within the books.

Rigel carefully studied the books left behind by Pi. The unabridged versions of Qi condensation stage intricacies and the other book explain in detail regarding the stages of Qi condensation stage.

The Qi condensation is the first stage of cultivation. As the name suggests, the primary goal of Qi condensation stage is to condense the Qi. The stage above the Qi condensation, namely, the Spark formation stage would greatly rely upon the foundation laid during the Qi condensation.

When the Qi is condensed to the most extreme levels, the faint gaseous Qi within the vortex will give rise to a Spark. This Spark is essentially formed when one achieves a breakthrough and enter the Spark formation stage.

With each level of Qi condensation, the body will undergo massive changes and with each change, the body becomes stronger in both mind and body. The fifth level of Qi condensation is the stage when the body and the mind finally surpass the limits of humanity and enters the realm of Immortals.

It is also at the fifth level that a cultivator's spiritual energy evolves into the divine sense. Though spiritual energy and divine sense are essentially same, the latter, however, is much more powerful and has usefulness which far surpass the spiritual energy.

A fifth level Qi condensation stage expert has extraordinary strength and can control the flying swords with his divine sense. It is also at this stage that the sect would grant him with an Immortal technique.

Rigel read the book with intense concentration and sighed lightly. The fifth level of Qi condensation was the true start of the journey of a cultivator. The Spark formation stage experts were the true elites. Rigel couldn't help but think of the powerful aura emanated by the Patriarch SilverLeaf. That was a realm beyond the Spark formation, the realm of legends, Soul Ignition stage.

Seven days passed away in a blink of an eye. In his cottage, Rigel was sitting with bloodshot eyes. According to his investigations and calculations, about five hundred spirit stones were more than enough to enter the first level of Qi condensation.

However, in the past one week, Rigel used more than six hundred spirit crystals. As he got accustomed to the amount of Qi, he increased the number of spirit crystals every day until he could effortless absorb more than a hundred spirit crystals within hours. But no matter how much he absorbed, he couldn't achieve a breakthrough.

Forget about the breakthrough; Rigel didn't even feel that he was on the verge of a breakthrough. His dantian was still crazily absorbing the natural energy with no sign of stopping. Rigel watched his dantian with bitter eyes. No matter how he thought, he could only think of one reason for this abnormality.

Rigel's dantian was once shattered and was fixed by the owner of the mysterious voice. Rigel now felt cheated because he couldn't think of any other reason except for the abnormality of his dantian as to why he couldn't achieve a breakthrough.

Rigel glanced at the remaining number of spirit stones in his bag of holding and clenched his teeth. His eyes were determined as he said through his clenched teeth, "Today, I will achieve a breakthrough even if I have to use all my spirit crystals."

Rigel slowly began to absorb the energy within the spirit crystals.

700

800

900

1000

1100

Rigel's eyes were turning red as his spirit crystals were being used up like water, yet there wasn't a change in his dantian.

1200

1300

1400

Finally, as he used up more than fourteen hundred spirit crystals, Rigel's dantian began to shake. The Qi vortex within his dantian began to revolve at high speed, and the dantian itself began to tremble until his entire navel area began to feel hot.

A pop sound rang out as Rigel watched with anxious eyes. The violent Qi vortex within his dantian began to slow down as the dantian expanded greatly providing more space for the turbulent Qi.

Rigel finally achieved a breakthrough and entered the first level of Qi condensation stage.

A smile bloomed on Rigel's face as he finally made a breakthrough. Even though he had to use almost fifteen hundred spirit crystals, it was worth it. What Rigel feared most was that he wouldn't be able to cultivate at all. Now that he has successfully broken through into the first level of Qi condensation, his anxious heart calmed down.

What Rigel didn't notice at the time was the dim light deep inside his Qi ocean. The black pearl which was lying static suddenly started to tremble and began to revolve slowly around itself. On its surface, among the many strange markings, a single mark began to glow brightly like a lonely star in the dark skies.

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