Will sat there and continued to cultivate, while the soldiers continued to eat their food. They were told to ignore and accept anything that Will did by their leaders, so they couldn't disobey, but it didn't prevent any of them from being absolutely astonished by what the qi Will summoned was.
Despite them being curious, and even the leaders too, Will continued to ignore them and cultivate silently. Now that he finally had the ability to continuously cultivate, he could finally make some improvement in his cultivation level.
He was still stuck at the first stage of the foundational realm, but that was only because he hadn't had any time to cultivate yet. The foundational realm was split into 9 stages, so he had to start from the very beginning. Despite only being at the first stage, he was still stronger than even Old Man Dai, who was at the 8th stage of the foundational realm. This was mainly because of his wings though. His wings were simply too fast and too powerful to dodge or block.
Now that he finally had a chance to sit down and cultivate, he could finally make the improvement that he had been longing for his whole life.
Within a few minutes, he could feel himself getting ready to make a breakthrough, which was absolutely insane. He assumed that he would be fairly fast, but he never imagined that his first breakthrough would only take a couple minutes.
As he approached the barrier for the second stage of the foundational realm, he quickened the speed at which he absorbed the qi, in turn making the clouds of qi bigger and bigger.
However, this detail went unnoticed by the soldiers nearby, and one, who was bringing fresh meat over to the leaders, suddenly felt that something was wrong.
His body quickly started heating up, leaving him feeling like he was burning. He then started yelled in pain before he finally noticed the cloud of red qi surrounding him. He quickly tried to get out of this cloud.
He managed to get out of the cloud, but his body was severely burned and mangled, leaving him charred.
"GET BACK!!!" he yelled to the others as he saw that the clouds of qi were still quickly expanding towards the group.
All the people in the group of soldiers quickly backed away from the carriage where Will sat, with his heart now beating a bit stronger. He had no idea what was happening around him, so he just continued to sit there absorbing qi.
When everyone had gotten to a safe distance, the qi had finally stopped expanding. Some of the fires had been put out while the others had grown to unimaginable sizes. This scene seemed fake, as some fires had been brought down to not even a spark,while others had been brought to be twenty feet tall from barely a foot.
The only consistency was that the fires that had been put out were simply annihilated by the red mist so they couldn't continue to burn, and the fires that had grown were surrounded by the pearl white mist and it seemed to feed them infinitely.
Then, without warning, all of the mist simply faded, all forming into the drops, then streams, then threads, then helixes, then finally entering into Will's arms. At this moment, he had reached the second stage of the foundational realm.
He stood up slowly as he felt the new strength flowing through his body.
When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was every soldier in the camp standing far away from him while looking at him in fear. Even Old Man Dai and the other two were looking shaken at this moment.
The next thing he noticed was that half of the fires had simply disappeared while the other half were burning stronger than ever.
Despite the fact that he had completed his breakthrough, his heart was beating, so there was still the underlying deep pounding that seemed to be the only sound in the world right now as all the soldiers looked at him in silence and fear.
The first one to come forward was Old Man Dai, who said, "Please don't do that again," with a very concerned voice. Despite the fact that someone got hurt, he could tell that Will had no idea that this would happen since this was likely his first time cultivating.
Despite how calm he looked, he was deeply scared by the fact that Will had been cultivating in the carriage with him earlier and that red qi could probably kill him easily. If he was trapped in the carriage with that qi, there would be no way for him to survive.
"Did anyone get hurt?" Will asked. He knew that something bad must have happened for everyone to be looking at him in such fear.
At this moment, the man who got burned by the qi stepped forward. He was burned all over his body indiscriminately, as if a fire had enveloped his entire body at once
He was still scared of Will, but he knew that he really meant no harm and that if he intended harm to them, they would likely already be dead long ago.
"I am going to do what I just did, but a bit smaller. When I do, go into the pearl mist," Will said without explaining anything.
After he said those words, he sat down and quickly formed the four clouds of mist again, but this time they were about half the size of what they just were.
However, the man did not go into the mist. He simply stood there in terror.
"He means no harm, and if he did, we would already be dead. Just trust him. I've seen what the pearl mist does. Go in and enjoy this rare chance!!" yelled Old Man Dai when he saw that the man covered in burns was hesitating.
He had clearly seen the effects that the pearl qi had on everything it touched. Everything it touched was filled with a vigorous vitality which would heal things and enhance them. This was why the fires in the white mist had grown so much when Will was breaking through.
With this encouragement, the man stepped forward, although he was still scared to do it. While doing this, he thought only one thing, 'This boy is dangerous.'