After finishing his talk with Feng Chen, Xuan Hao quietly closed his eyes and resumed cultivating. Recently his cultivation had improved quite a bit and he felt that he was about to breakthrough into the third stage of the Nascent Soul Realm. Already being at the peak of the second stage after quietly cultivating for the last 5 months' time.
After all, if Qing Yi were the only one who had improved over the last few months, Xuan Hao would have nowhere to put his face as her master… There was nothing worse than being surpassed by your own disciple in the cultivation world, as it mostly meant you had stopped improving and might even be close to the end of your lifespan.
Cultivation was about striving for constant improvement, being surpassed by your own disciple in most cases was not that great of a thing. Though there were still a few heavens blessed genius whom this did not apply to, where the disciple would help the master after growing up.
Xuan Hao considered himself quite talented and had no plans of letting his disciple or future disciples surpass him.
With newfound determination, Xuan Hao spent the night quietly cultivating and manged to break through the bottleneck between the second and third stage of the Nascent Soul Realm. Reaching the third stage of the Nascent Soul Realm by the morning.
Qing Yi did not find out that her master had managed to reach the third stage of the nascent soul realm and was only told by Xuan Hao to train by herself for the next few days. This was just so that Xuan Hao could stabilise his realm and familiarise himself with his newfound strength.
The final month before the Bright Sun City's annual youth competition quietly passed with nothing out of the ordinary happening.
The only thing worth mentioning was the Azure Sky Kingdom's increasingly large number of troops gathering at the border.
The Heavenly Sky Kingdom did not take nicely to this and also started gathering their own troops at the border. The Flying Sword Sect had also gotten increasingly tense as the tension between the Heavenly Sky Kingdom and the Azure Sky Kingdom increased more and more.
…
"To breakthrough and reach the Foundation Establishment Realm, you will have to use the qi you have gathered inside your dantian to form a pillar made of condensed qi inside your dantian. This pillar will act as a support for you dantian and will also be the first step into the Foundation Establishment Realm." Free of the tension that plagued the rest of the sect, Xuan Hao was calmly guiding Qing Yi into reaching the foundation establishment realm.
It was the last day before they were going to leave for Bright Sun City and Qing Yi had come to him early in the morning saying that she wanted to breakthrough into the foundation establishment realm before they left for Bright Sun City.
Xuan Hao saw no reason to refuse this and decided to assist her in breaking through to the foundation establishment realm.
"As you condense the pillar inside of your dantian, try to imagine the pillar as form of support for your dantian. Holding it together and allowing it to freely expand. The foundational pillar is the foundation of your future progress. The stronger the pillars are, the stronger your core will be when reaching the core formation realm!" Looking down at Qing Yi as she was sweating bullets, trying her best to condense the first foundational pillar inside of her dantian.
After gathering a sufficient amount of qi in the shape of an illusory pillar inside of her dantian, Qing Yi slowly condensed the qi in the shape of a pillar as the illusory pillar slowly became smaller and smaller, but at the same time grew more solid.
As the pillar inside of her dantian slowly went from illusory to real, Qing Yi's aura started slowly changing along with it.
The aura of a Qi Condensation Realm slowly became dimmer and dimmer as the aura of a Foundation Establishment cultivator started to spread out from her body.
The stronger the pillar one created, the better effect it would bring for the cultivator when they finally managed to construct it. This process of condensing her qi into the shape of a pillar took another 4 hours before a wave of qi suddenly washed over her body.
The qi came from the pillar inside of her dantian and as it passed through her body, it cleaned it of impurities and refined it so that it becomes more suited for cultivation. This is what is called forming a foundation, as the first foundational pillar helped clean a cultivator's body from impurities, refined it and granted the cultivator greater control over their qi.
This would happen each time one constructed an additional pillar in the Foundation Establishment Realm and would help the cultivator set up a strong foundation for the future cultivation realms.
Xuan Hao looked happily down at Qing Yi as she successfully broke through to the Foundation Establishment Realm.
Placing his hand on top her head, Xuan Hao instantly sent his divine sense inside her body to see if everything went well and was not disappointed as he saw Qing Yi's first foundational pillar inside of her dantian.
The Pillar was solely made from fire qi and therefor took on a red colour scheme as qi in the form of flames slowly danced around the pillar located in the centre of her dantian.
Where there formerly was just qi spread out everywhere in her dantian, it was now centred around the pillar in the middle of it.
This is the true first step on the path of cultivation, with the Qi Condensation realm being nothing more than the preliminary step towards it.
Upon entering the Foundation Establishment Realm, a cultivator went through a qualitative change in strength.
While a normal Qi Condensation Realm cultivator had a relatively normal mortal body like someone who did not cultivate, just with qi inside of it, a Foundation Establishment cultivator's body was on a whole other level after being cleansed and strengthen by the qi of the first foundational pillar.
Qing Yi also opened her eyes and looked around the room happily as she felt her newfound strength flowing through her.
"Master, master! Look!" Saying so, Qing Yi demonstrated her newfound control over fire qi by manifesting a small fire in the centre of her palm with a wide smile on her face.
"Yes, yes… It is all fine, but can you go take a bath before showing off…?" Holding his nose with a wry smile on his lips, Xuan Hao looked at the gooey black impurities all over Qing Yi's body. Staining her clothes and bringing an unbearable smell along with it.
"Hm? AH! I will go take a bath immediately!" Seeing her own situation, Qing Yi ran off before Xuan Hao managed to remind her about stabilising her cultivation afterwards.
"Well, she should be able to do it afterwards…" Shaking his head slightly Xuan Hao opened a nearby window and called for Zhi Ruo to clean up as a large amount of the impurities had fallen off when Qing Yi ran off.
Zhi Ruo let out a sigh as she looked at the trail of impurities Qing Yi left behind when she ran through the pavilion. Looking in the direction of Xuan Hao, she discovered he had run away after calling for her.
"…"
Well, she was a servant, but next time something like a cleansing of impurities happened… Could they not just do the breakthrough close to the bath instead of having it on the other side of the pavilion…
"Sigh…" She felt like the chances of that happening was small, even if she manged to convince Qing Yi to do it… How would she convince Xuan Hao's other disciples when he took in more in the future?
The image of a few dozen people covered in impurities running around the pavilion made its way inside Zhi Ruo's head as she swore to make sure whatever disciples Xuan Hao took in would remain clean.
She could not let them dirty up the pavilion!
With a weird thought forming inside her head, Zhi Ruo began cleaning up the mess Qing Yi left behind.