When Xiao Ling had quickly finished the rest of her food, she had to watch in dissatisfaction Tie Zhu and Bing Meifeng were eating the rest of their meal. She somewhat regretted not taking more time to savor it properly, however that thought was quickly discarded as she quickly ran her breathing exercises to cultivate the abundant pure spiritual essence within her body.
"Fwsshh"
It had only been around 15 minutes, however in that span of time she had unexpectedly broken through to the 9th step of Qi Condensation. That alone was enough to shock her deeply as she had previously been stuck in the 8th step for over almost decade, however she could still sense that there was still excess spiritual essence within her body. Setting her shock aside, she once again continued cultivating at a speed that had been unimaginable to her.
By the time she had reached the 9th step of Qi condensation, Tie Zhu and Bing Meifeng had also finished their meals. Similar to Xiao Ling, they had also felt the abundance of spiritual essence within their body. While Bing Meifeng immediately began running her breathing exercises, Tie Zhu took his time as he tried to comprehend the Primordial Heavenly Devouring technique.
Because the Spiritual Essence was already flowing through his body, there was no need for him to absorb it from his skin. However, despite this it was still many times more difficult than the previous technique he had used. A large part of this was due to the fact that instead of diverting spiritual essence to his Dantian, he had to instead direct it towards his Primordial dragon beast core instead.
This was one of the biggest reasons why other races could not practice such a technique no matter how they studied the technique. Although Tie Zhu did not completely understand the complexity of the technique, he had felt that he had somehow managed to grasp a greater insight into it when compared to yesterday due to his transformation.
As he recalled the excruciatingly painful transformation process in his mind, with particular emphasis on when the boundless spiritual essence was making its way to his beast core he suddenly felt as if he gained a crucial insight into understanding an important part of the technique. After spending another 20 minutes on comprehending some of the basic principles he finally attempted to cultivate the rich spiritual essence within his body.
One of the foremost complexities of the technique was the need to perform an elemental transformation on the spiritual essence, rather than absorbing it directly in its pure form. The memory of yesterday's rainbow-hued glow, which had emanated from his skin due to the richness of the spiritual essence within his body, was still fresh in Tie Zhu's mind. It was largely because of this unique phenomenon that his beast core had been able to absorb the Qi at an accelerated rate.
Though he could not recall the exact elements that were present in the Qi, Tie Zhu knew that he must possess an affinity for multiple elements. However, as the process had happened instinctively, he was unable to recollect the exact mechanism behind it.
The technique manual had provided guidance on creating elemental threads, and Tie Zhu had a general idea of what to do. Following the instructions in the manual, he carefully slowed down the flow of spiritual essence within his body before attempting to transform it into strands of elemental threads, akin to the ones he had witnessed the previous day.
As a novice to the technique, Tie Zhu concentrated on focusing his mind on a single, small strand of spiritual essence to simplify the control process. As he attempted to replicate the vibrant hues of yesterday's Qi, he endeavored to form elemental threads from all the basic elements outlined in the manual, before absorbing them into his beast core. However, despite his best efforts, he was unable to create a stable elemental thread akin to the ones he had witnessed before.
As Tie Zhu delved deeper into the intricacies of elemental transformation, he found himself able to create a robust fire elemental thread with relative ease. But when he turned his attention to the other elements, his efforts were met with lackluster results, the water thread barely manifesting at all. Because of this imbalance, when he had attempted to combine them, the thread quickly became unstable, dissipating into nothingness. The root cause of this predicament, however, was not his lack of affinity for the other elements, but rather a more obscure factor. It turned out that the meat he had consumed belonged to a creature that specialized in fire, a fact that had eluded him.
Despite this setback, Tie Zhu remained undaunted, his unwavering determination driving him to make the most of the situation. As the technique did not stipulate the use of multiple elements, he resolved to absorb the spiritual essence as a pure fire thread. With a laser-like focus, he began to shape the thread, until it was a small, concentrated burst of flame. With a sense of accomplishment, he directed the thread towards his beast core, feeling a slight burning sensation as it coursed through his body.
Tie Zhu gritted his teeth as he endured the burning pain of transforming the Spiritual Essence once again. Although it was not as excruciating as the previous day, it still made him feel as if his meridians were being singed by flames. Nevertheless, he persevered, feeling a sense of vitality coursing through his veins as the threads of fire were greedily absorbed by his Beast core in an instant.
Despite this, Tie Zhu was left feeling underwhelmed. He had expected some kind of dramatic change, but he felt no different than before. Perhaps the amount of Spiritual Essence he had absorbed was too small to make a difference, he reasoned.
Determined not to give up, Tie Zhu created thick threads of fire within his body, causing his skin to glow with a faint red hue. He directed this abundance of Spiritual Essence into his Beast core, which once again consumed everything in its path like a black hole. However, Tie Zhu was taken aback when he realized that he had just directed more than half of the Spiritual Essence in his body into the core.
"How can this be?" Tie Zhu exclaimed in disbelief. The Spiritual Essence from the meat was comparable to the essence within the spirit bottle that had allowed him to advance in his cultivation, yet his Beast core had absorbed everything without any progress. It was a mystery that left Tie Zhu feeling frustrated and confused.
Tie Zhu felt a wave of disappointment wash over him as he resigned himself to the lack of progress he had made with his beast core. The scorching pain that he had endured had been for nothing, and he felt a sense of hopelessness settle over him. He couldn't understand why his beast core wasn't advancing despite his efforts.
Unbeknownst to him, the issue wasn't with his ability to cultivate, but with his understanding of the nature of his beast core. While his Dantian was already at the 3rd step of Qi condensation, his beast core remained stuck at the 1st step, barely making any progress. It wasn't a matter of facing bottlenecks or barriers, but rather the need for copious resources to fuel its growth.
When Tie Zhu opened his eyes he saw that Bing Meifeng and her mother were actually still cultivating. 'They still aren't done?' he thought to himself as he remembered that he had even spent 20 minutes before he had even started absorbing the Spiritual Essence. In fact the time it had taken to absorb the last 99% of the essence had taken him less than 30 seconds. If anyone knew that he was such a monster their Jaws would have dropped to the floor.
As Tie Zhu looked around the room he saw that the time was already 7:40 am. 'Ah! I lost track of time, I'm already late for school, I haven't even got changed yet!' he thought as he once again looked towards Bing Meifeng who was immersed in cultivation.