Chapter 21: Drawing Qi into the Body

That night, following the instructions of the Fetal Breathing Qi-Induction Formula, Lin Donglai began refining his essence-blood to condense his fetal breathing.

It required nine drops of essence-blood to refine essence into qi and condense a single strand of fetal breathing. With this fetal breathing, one could guide external spiritual qi into the body and into the Middle Dantian.

The preceding stages of Muscle Tendon Transformation and Marrow Cleansing were all preparations for this step, ensuring the body was compatible with spiritual qi and preventing the fetal breathing from being contaminated by postnatal turbid qi.

The site for transforming the fetal breathing was the Middle Dantian.

The essence-blood first needed to be lowered into the Lower Dantian before ascending to the Middle Dantian.

Using the Chong and Ren meridians as bridges and the True Fire of the Mingmen as the driving force, the postnatal essence-blood stored in the Lower Dantian would be transformed into prenatal fetal breathing.

This process was also known as the "Three Passes Transport": the essence-blood would travel from the Huiyin to the Mingmen; there, using the Yang Fire of the Mingmen, the postnatal essence-blood would be ignited like oil and transformed into prenatal essence-qi; then, passing through the Jiaji, it would transform into prenatal fetal breathing and enter the Shanzhong. By visualizing the fetal breathing as a qi vortex, one could continuously draw and absorb external spiritual qi into the body.

The process of spiritual qi entering the body was similar: it first reached the Qi Sea of the Lower Dantian, was refined through the Three Passes, and then entered the qi vortex of the Middle Dantian to merge with the fetal breathing.

Even if a commoner achieved success in martial arts and reached the Innate Realm—which was equivalent to the Fetal Breathing Realm—they were merely transforming postnatal True Qi into prenatal True Qi within the Lower Dantian. They did not involve the cultivation of the Middle Dantian.

After all, cultivating the Middle Dantian was extremely dangerous. Without having undergone the transformation of the Muscle Tendon and Marrow Cleansing methods, and lacking a spiritual root to soothe the volatile spiritual qi, one could easily suffer qi deviation.

However, for a true cultivator, it was not solely about cultivating the Middle Dantian.

The Middle Dantian, containing the qi vortex, was the Dantian for refining spiritual qi, while the Lower Dantian was the Dantian for storing spiritual power.

For the time being, under the Fetal Breathing Qi-Induction Formula, one complete cycle through the meridians—including the Three Passes between these two Dantians—was called a "Circulation" (Zhou Tian).

Completing one full circulation allowed one to become a Level 1 Qi Refiner.

This method was the most suitable for building a foundation.

Later, one could select different cultivation techniques and alter the circulation routes.

Lin Donglai was cautious at first, but as the refinement of the essence-blood proceeded exceptionally smoothly, aided by his internal vision, he could clearly see the circulation route.

He sought only stability; even if the transport was slow, as long as he could steadily pass through the Three Passes and enter the Shanzhong, it would suffice.

The only difficult part, the visualization of the qi vortex, took Lin Donglai only half an hour to complete.

As soon as the vortex formed, Lin Donglai felt a gentle breeze. Without needing to draw qi from the external environment, a warm, steady, and extremely pure pale-green spiritual qi transported itself from the Spiritual Root Seed.

Not only that!

The seed had already taken on Lin Donglai's form. After he successfully formed the qi vortex, a third root, as thin as a mosquito's leg, quickly sprouted from the seed and actively burrowed into it.

Subsequently, much like Lin Donglai's active practice of the Qi-Induction Technique, this root produced a continuous pulling force, absorbing and refining spiritual qi from the void.

Through his internal vision, Lin Donglai saw multicolored specks of spiritual qi being drawn toward this root. After being filtered, only the pale-green Wood Spiritual Qi remained, which was then fed back to Lin Donglai.

This spiritual qi was then absorbed by the qi vortex and, through the cycle of the Three Passes, transformed into a strand of extremely pure Wood-attribute spiritual power.

After running eight continuous circulations, Lin Donglai felt exceptionally exhausted. Maintaining internal vision was quite taxing on his mental energy, so he proactively ceased his cultivation.

"No wonder the instructors at the academy said that in the early stages of Qi Refinement, one can only cultivate for a maximum of one hour a day; in the middle stage, two hours; and only in the late stage, once one possesses spiritual sense, can one cultivate for four consecutive hours."

After stopping his active cultivation, Lin Donglai sensed that the root of the seed embedded in the qi vortex was still actively practicing the induction of qi into the body. It was somewhat slow, equivalent to one-third the speed of his normal cultivation combined with the assistance of his spiritual root.

However, while Lin Donglai's active cultivation consumed mental energy, this automatic cultivation occurred constantly without draining his spirit.

The other two roots continued to breathe according to the rhythm of the Primordial Nurturing Breathing Technique, operating independently of this third root.

Lin Donglai thought to himself, "Can these two roots also be converted to the circulation method of the Qi-Induction Technique?"

The seed trembled slightly, transmitting a thought: *Longing for the qi vortex!*

*Alright, does the Qi-Induction root require its own qi vortex to operate?*

However, Lin Donglai needed more essence-blood to refine into more prenatal fetal breathing.

To open the "Blessed Field," one needed to use prenatal fetal breathing to refine the essence-qi of the Five Elements, making the Primordial Nurturing Breathing Technique very useful.

He abandoned the idea of converting the other roots for the moment.

He then checked for any significant changes in the surrounding spiritual qi; if the changes were too obvious, he would need to disable the automatic cultivation.

Fortunately, this Jianmu Seed naturally created its own void. Although its roots had burrowed into the Shanzhong qi vortex to draw spiritual energy, they were not using Lin Donglai's own spiritual root talent to suck qi from the surroundings. Instead, they drew scattered spiritual qi from the void. This involved spatial shifts, meaning that to an outside observer, it would not appear that Lin Donglai was continuously cultivating.

In essence, it wasn't Lin Donglai operating the technique, but the Jianmu Seed.

However, the Jianmu roots only transformed Wood Spiritual Qi and stored it in the Middle Dantian.

To circulate the spiritual qi through a full cycle and transform it into spiritual power for storage in the Lower Dantian's Qi Sea, Lin Donglai still had to perform the transport manually.

Unless he created another qi vortex in the Lower Dantian, allowing the two vortices to drive each other through the meridians and the Three Passes in a cycle.

But that wasn't something that could be achieved through imagination alone. It was better to let the Jianmu roots accumulate the energy. That way, when he cultivated, he wouldn't need to focus on the step of inducing qi; he would only need to find a way to transport the qi through the Three Passes to transform it into spiritual power, which would actually be more efficient.

As soon as dawn broke, Lin Donglai went to Elder Qin to register. Having successfully induced qi and reached Level 1 Qi Refinement, he was finally an outer disciple. He no longer had to worry about being demoted to a handyman during the second Hundred-Day Assessment.

Elder Qin showed little warmth. After all, at this time, Lin Donglai was not considered a genius. However, Lin Donglai was a familiar face; his previous antics of practicing the桩法 (posture training) barefoot and naked in the sun, claiming to "comprehend nature," had earned him some notoriety on Immortal Sprout Peak.

He instructed Lin Donglai to perform a spell taught at the academy in front of him—the Cleansing Spell. This was a very simple spell, representing the most basic application of spiritual power.

Seeing that Lin Donglai performed it successfully, the elder nodded slightly and left a Level 1 Qi Refinement mark on Lin Donglai's outer disciple token.

He then cautioned, "With your low-grade Five-Element Spiritual Root, cultivation will not be easy. Although you possess a Low-grade Wood Body that provides a slight boost to your Wood root, it has not reached the mid-grade level."

"Once you reach Lingxi Peak, learn a craft well; it will make your future much easier. As for choosing a cultivation technique, I suggest you learn the Lesser Five Elements Qi-Gathering Formula. Focus on the Wood-element portion first. Once you reach Level 4 Qi Refinement, you can study the other four elements, circulating your qi collection according to the cycle of the Five Elements generating Wood."

"One more thing. Immortal Sprout Peak is full of male disciples, but Lingxi Peak has many female disciples as well. However, when female disciples enter the sect, they cultivate on Maiden Peak. You must absolutely never strip naked and lie on a large rock to sunbathe again. Such indecency brings shame upon me."