Chapter 127: The Endless Road of Cultivation (1/2)

Black Cloud City, the Nie clan.

After asking the An clan, Pan Tao, Jiang Lingzhu, and the others to spread the news that one of the Heaven Gates was about to appear in the Hell sect, Nie Tian went back to his room and started cultivating whole-heartedly.

He had been making preparations for stepping into the Heaven Gate.

Ever since he learned from Hua Mu that one of the Heaven Gates would open up somewhere near the Hell sect, and that Qi warriors of the Lesser Heaven, Heaven, and Greater Heaven stages from many sects would be able to enter it together, he had been secretly readying himself psychologically.

Cultivators of the Realm of Flame Heaven weren’t the only ones that would step into that miraculous heaven and earth; powerful competitors from other realms would go through the other two Heaven Gates and also participate in the trial.

However, he was only in the early Lesser Heaven stage, the weakest among the three Heaven stages. If he entered the unknown dimension with his current cultivation base, he would be like a lamb in the middle of a pack of wolves.

Therefore, he needed to improve his strength as much and as fast as possible.

Sitting cross-legged in the middle of his stone room, he used the Qi Refining Incantation and a spirit stone to take in the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth, trying to sense even the most trivial changes to his spiritual sea.

Inside his misty spiritual sea, the vortex of spiritual power was turning slowly, unceasingly attracting and refining the misty spiritual energy scattered within his spiritual sea.

He gathered his attention and examined the vortex with his soul. He found that after a round of refinement, the spiritual energy that had been pulled into the vortex of spiritual power seemed to have become even purer and richer.

The newly refined spiritual energy flowed to the edge of the spiritual sea and formed a circular ribbon of thick, white mist.

With a closer examination, he discovered that the spiritual energy was exceptionally condensed and vigorous, and the power it contained was rather formidable.

On the other hand, the spiritual energy that hadn’t been refined was also scattered around in the spiritual sea, but it was much thinner and carried much less power.

Having learned the movements within his spiritual sea and the process of how the vortex of spiritual power refined the spiritual energy, he gained a better understanding of cultivation at the Lesser Heaven stage.

After stepping into the Lesser Heaven stage, due to the formation of the vortex of spiritual power, the speed of gathering the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth had become many times faster than in the Qi Refining stage.

The gathered spiritual energy would initially be attracted into the vortex of spiritual power. Then, the vortex of spiritual power would refine the energy, making it purer.

After refinement, the pure spiritual energy would disperse to the edge of the spiritual sea, forming ring of dense mist.

In the Lesser Heaven stage, a cultivator’s spiritual sea wouldn’t expand at all, but instead, the spiritual energy within his or her spiritual sea would undergo round after round of refinement.

The refined spiritual energy would flow to the furthest edge of the spiritual sea, forming circle after circle of condensed mist, gradually surging and pressing toward the center.

Throughout the refining process, the vortex of spiritual power would also continuously attract spiritual energy from the outside world, and merge it with the spiritual energy scattered within the spiritual sea.

He found that the unceasingly rotating vortex of spiritual power seemed like a well within his spiritual sea, which constantly gathered faint spiritual energy from the surroundings and purified it time after time.

After multiple rounds of refining, the exceptionally rich and condensed spiritual energy would sink to the bottom of the “well”, before soon showing up on the edge of the spiritual sea again.

By condensing at the edge of the spiritual sea, the circular ribbon of refined spiritual energy would press the relatively sparse spiritual energy toward the “mouth of the well”, so that it would undergo a new round of refinement.

It was a unceasing cycle.

Having recently entered the Lesser Heaven stage, Nie Tian hadn’t finished his first cycle yet.

After a period of concentrated practice, he had only managed to form one ring of pure spiritual energy at the farthest edge of his spiritual sea.

He still had a long road ahead before he could complete the first refining cycle of his spiritual sea.

According to his calculations, if he continued to cultivate with spirit stones, he would probably still need half a year to finish his first refining cycle.

And that was the speed he could only reach with the help from spirit stones.

In case there weren’t a steady supply of spirit stones, and he merely relied on the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth, he would very likely need to spend three to five years to complete the first refining cycle of all the faint spiritual energy scattered in his spiritual sea.

Moreover, in order to step from the early-stage into the middle-stage of Lesser Heaven, he might need to go through more than one complete cycle of refinement.

His eyes snapped open. Staring off into the pitch-black night sky, he couldn’t help but let out a sigh. “This is such a consuming process.”

He had long since heard that the Qi Refining stage was merely the foundation, and only by entering the Lesser Heaven stage, one would be considered as a beginner Qi warrior.

The difficulty of every breakthrough of the cultivation base after stepping into the Lesser Heaven stage would far exceed that of the breakthroughs within the Qi Refining stage.

Before, he didn’t have a deep understanding of it. Now that he had advanced to the Lesser Heaven stage, and understood the miraculous refining process within his spiritual sea, he finally truly realized the hardships lying in front of him.

“Even if I take advantage of the spirit stones that my master has given me, and practice day and night, I’ll still need at least half a year to finish one cycle of refining the spiritual energy in my spiritual sea.

“Furthermore, one cycle is probably far from enough. I’ll have to keep practicing and practicing.

“It might take years to finish several cycles, and by that time… I would only be able to reach the threshold of the next breakthrough…

“In order to make the breakthrough, I’ll need to be in the right mental state, and come across proper enlightenment.

“From the look of it, I’ve only made the first step in my endless cultivation path.”

Numerous, mixed emotions rose in Nie Tian’s heart.

Aside from practicing cultivation, a Qi warrior also needed to learn and practice spiritual incantations, try to comprehend the profundity of the incantations, pick the right spiritual tool, and try to resonate with it.

Due to their unique talents or interest, some Qi warriors chose to spend a large amount of time studying equipment forging methods, or trying to fathom profound magical symbols and spell formations.

Each and every one of the ways to improve a Qi warrior’s strength was time consuming, and required intense study.

On the other hand, the lifespan of a Qi warrior wasn’t limitless, and would only increase as his or her cultivation base rose.

Many Qi warriors failed to break through into the next cultivation level before their lifespan ran out, and therefore passed away.

He had the feeling that his master Wu Ji was currently facing such a thorny problem.