Chapter 51: Foundation Establishment 1
With a total of 501 Slaughter Points, Li Ling was able to spend a little lavishly, especially with what he had in mind. However, there was a sequence to things and Li Ling would not rashly invest foolishly just for the feeling of seeing the numbers jump up on the screen.
First things first, Li Ling perfected his body cultivation. A cumulative amount of 170 Slaughter Points were spent to bring the Blood Asura Descent to the peak of Mortal Flesh, in which it could no longer upgrade further until Li Ling got subsequent Chapters from the Six Paths Demon Sect.
Breathing out, he clenched his fist and released his bloody aura that now reached 10 meters away from his skin, forming a minor domain of its own. Just like the pillar men, if Li Ling were to brush his bloody aura against any living being without body refinement below the Core Formation realm, he would likely absorb them without even noticing.
The combat efficiency of demonic techniques was truly frightening. Without the debuff of demonization and deviation to hold it back, it was likely that the entire world would become the playground of demonic cultivators till the end of time.
Next, Li Ling brought up the Expanding Mind Sequence. Part of the information Cai Dong gave him during those ten minutes included a tidbit of knowledge, that Qi cultivators who practiced the Sage Race methods before Foundation Establishment would have slightly stronger spirit senses than average, as well as a higher chance of success.
With the Foundation Establishment technique itself in hand, Li Ling believed this.
He placed 2 Slaughter Points into the technique to raise it to the first level of the Acolyte Realm. Immediately, Li Ling felt the spiritual energy from the Slaughter System circulate through his body and converge in his cranium, specifically in the area between his brows.
Li Ling felt like his brain had previously been akin to a broken-down and dilapidated server room, but the moment he opened his Sea of Consciousness with the Expanding Mind Sequence, it was as if the place had been significantly renovated and the electricity powered on.
It was truly magical. Imagine a powerful computer that was operating at 1% of its max specifications, while also on low-power mode, suddenly pushed to 100% with full power supplied, even with a little bit of overclocking.
Li Ling could remember everything. His memories from his previous life and this life became clear and easily referable, like they were within a neatly organized database. He could even recall sensations, emotions and thoughts during those memories, which was an incredible feat.
Things he had forgotten and details he had ignored came to mind. But it was not just his recollection that had been upgraded, but his thinking and calculative abilities as well. Theories, concepts and mathematical equations that puzzled him previously or required a bit of thinking were now akin to passing thoughts in his mind, easily solved and archived.
All of this, and he was just at the first level of the Acolyte Realm.
Now, actually, that was wrong. This current increase in mental capacity was not due to the cultivation of the Sage Race’s special Mind Power. As Cai Dong said, it was akin to spiritual qi, being an energy type that allowed them to manifest special abilities.
The real reason for the severe cognitive upgrade was that he had opened his Sea of Consciousness. Li Ling now understood why his clan members had firmly believed his Sea of Consciousness had been opened early, because his adult earth-level intelligence would definitely seem like this.
But he soon calmed down. After all, every Foundation Establishment cultivator opened their Sea of Consciousness anyway, so this level of intelligence was a base reward for everyone at this level and above, not exclusive to him.
Li Ling used his small Mind Power, which formed a tiny puddle in his mind, to imbue his brain in the same way he did for his qi as a cultivator. His eyes glowed a deep blue, which extended to cover his entire body in a thin outline.
With a thought, Li Ling used telekinesis to lift various items in the room, even accessing his void ring with it. He then pushed outward with a palm and pulled backward, judging various things using a mental scale unique to earthlings.
The scale?
"Hmm, so at level 1, telekinesis is about half as strong as Anakin’s padawan-level force power. Interesting."
Done testing, he upgraded the technique sequentially, testing the power at each realm.
At Perfection, while Li Ling could not pull down starships from orbit yet, he felt that the higher levels of the Sage Race techniques could allow for it. However, after spending a cumulative amount of 92 Slaughter Points, he had reached the limit of what the technique could offer.
And now, it was time for the main course.
With 239 Slaughter Points left to his name, it was time to upgrade to the Foundation Establishment level.
Li Ling invested 15 Slaughter Points, the cost to go from Qi Refinement Perfection to level one Foundation Establishment, and felt a huge change occur in his body.
Now, let’s talk about Foundation Establishment and what it entailed for a cultivator. In Qi Refinement, one absorbed the ambient spiritual energy from heaven and earth to refine into spiritual qi through the use of the spirit root, a metaphysical organ in one’s body that could not be seen, only felt.
Using these strands of spiritual qi, one would expand their meridians through various cycles while also passively strengthening the body. As Qi Cultivation focused more on comprehension and esotericism, the spiritual qi would remain in the dantian, primarily used to cast daoist arts among other magical means.
But this was not enough. In Li Ling’s past life, there were even talks and theories about endless Qi Refinement, where one could climb higher and higher levels of Qi Refinement until they reached the limit of their dantian’s capacity, but even if so, what next?
Meridians were expanded to their limit, the dantian could not contain any more energy, was this the end for cultivators?
No, for where there was a will, there was a way.
Li Ling did not know the direct history of it, but he knew the outcome. Whoever pioneered the Foundation Establishment realm realized that in order to ascend further, one could not just mindlessly transform the absorbed spiritual energy into spiritual qi anymore.
They needed something better, something stronger. They had to transform their abundant spiritual qi into a higher form of energy... but how?
The answer came rather simply, through distillation.
By distilling the spiritual qi in the dantian, which was in a sort of gaseous state, they could refine it further and extract a purer version of qi that bore traits unique to the cultivator.
The key to this lay in one’s spirit root. By using the spirit root as an apparatus for distillation, one would send refined spiritual qi through it, using the spirit root’s special properties to double refine the spiritual qi until it adopted special properties, becoming magic power.
Now this sounded easy to say, but it was far from it. There were so many challenges with regard to the second realm of mortal cultivation that even now, countless millennia later, it was still among the hardest realms for one to breakthrough among all cultivators worldwide.
The first challenge was the location and control of the spirit root. In Qi Refinement, one used special techniques to absorb spiritual energy, which was collected by the spirit root and then refined within it before being deposited in the dantian.
But the truth was, the cultivator in question had little control over the process involving refinement. Apart from the ambient absorption and channeling through meridians post-refinement, the entire middle process involving the spirit root was handled autonomously by this amazing spiritual organ.
Many cultivators had thought of the idea of double refinement, even in Qi Refinement. If the spirit root could turn the uncontrollable but absorbable energy between heaven and earth into spiritual qi once, then what if I did it twice?
However, putting aside locating the organ, even if one managed to achieve this through a fluke, you were more likely to cripple your entire cultivation, because coming in reverse would make your autonomous spirit root then turn your spiritual qi back into spiritual energy and expel it.
You did not just need to find it, you needed to actually obtain full control to make the process have the outcome you desired rather than relying on some form of preset, instinctual program.
The answer came in the form of the Sea of Consciousness. When one opened their Sea of Consciousness and channeled refined spiritual qi into it, this gave birth to the fabled spirit sense, a metaphysical sixth sense that was fully controllable.
With the spirit sense, one could perform introspection and see within the body, locating all meridians, organs, dantian and especially, the illusory spirit root.
So the first aspect of entering Foundation Establishment was to open the Sea of Consciousness and awaken the spirit sense. However, while this sounded simple, one should understand that there was a severe danger here, especially with the unique system that qi cultivation utilized.
To use the Sage Race as an example, they used ambient spiritual energy to directly chisel at the lock that blocked the Sea of Consciousness, opening it in due time and then giving rise to Mind Power by mixing the core of one’s Sea of Consciousness with ambient spiritual energy.
Cultivators on the other hand, did not have this advantage, so they used their refined spiritual qi to ram against the lock of the Sea of Consciousness during the breakthrough process, which, if not handled well, would lead to a plethora of problems.
Once opened and assuming nothing went wrong, they would then mix their refined spiritual qi with their core of the Sea of Consciousness, giving birth to spirit sense.
Now we come to Li Ling and those like him who had already opened their Sea of Consciousness using external methods, in this case, the Sage Race method. Li Ling’s spiritual qi entered his Sea of Consciousness without any obstruction and mixed with the core of his Sea of Consciousness, forming spirit sense.
If Mind Power could be said to be blue in terms of color and liquid in terms of nature, then spirit sense was silvery-white and silky in nature, like a sneaky thread of spiderweb.
Even more interesting, a unique phenomenon occurred that Li Ling expected due to Cai Dong’s information. Li Ling only had one Sea of Consciousness, and it wasn’t big enough for the essence of two different power systems to coexist within, not at this stage at least.
Luckily, spirit sense, being somewhat superior to Mind Power, could devour the former in order to increase its quality and quantity, which was why those affluent and talented disciples would cultivate both Qi Refinement and Mind Power before breaking through to Foundation Establishment and have stronger spirit senses compared to their peers who did not.
Li Ling got to enjoy this boon as his fully cultivated Mind Power was soon swallowed up by his spirit sense, causing his newly born spirit sense, which could only scan 10 meters outside his body, to suddenly expand greatly, reaching a full 100 meters.
Breathing out, Li Ling felt like his Sea of Consciousness had been cleaned once more, and with the release of his spirit sense, everything around him became clear as if he was directly inspecting it. Everything in the courtyard was visible to him, and this was only just the beginning.