The caravan departed at the noon as the last rays of light from the sun faded away. The chariot of second prince and the carragies for the luggage were in the middle. There were soldiers walking on both sides and behind the Carriage carrying the goods, all the monks were walking in a group.
Majority of the monks were those with high attainment in body refining and wanted to help the common masses, so around 40 other monks joined. There was no lack of mortal helpers with the kingdom but prince decided to allow them to come as was the request of monk chen.
General shi was riding his horse near the chariot of second prince, looking out for any danger. he was a strong qi gathering cultivator and besides, the prince himself was strong enough that no demonic beasts or monsters dared to approach the caravan.
The female general was at the back, following behind the monks. Her mission was to protect Tian and chen who were also walking in the middle of the formation of the soldiers with other monks.
Although general shi offered them to sit in the carriage carrying the goods, they declined politely and choose to walk with their fellow monks instead.
Tian was walking besides his brother chen while Chen held his hand. Chen was carrying a wooden pole for any potential danger while Tian was wearing thick wooden gloves. He had only learned one technique, the wood breaking fist art so he chose this weapon.
Although he didn't require to use the weapon along the way as most of the journey was peaceful. the soldiers were elites of organ refining level and most of them were best of the best available in the service of the second prince.
There were a few demonic beasts that got too close and were killed by the soldiers even before Tian can take a look what they looked like. He saw one that looked like a Muscular Deer and another one that was a strong ape.
The monsters were weaker than the soldiers and only th the two monster's dead body was bought in the caravan. Deer was source of food while the dead body of the ape had some valuable parts.
Soon it was night time and the caravan reached near a beautiful lake. The soldiers roasted the deer meat and ate while gathering around the small fires that they lit up.
The royals were resting and cultivating inside the special tents and some of the soldiers and General Shi were on the guard duty.
Monks cooked the rations that they took from the temple to eat as they gathered around the fire. All the monks congratulated Tian and Chen as they ate heartily. It was a peaceful atmosphere.
Tian thanked everyone for congratulations and finished his food swiftly as he wasn't used to such gatherings. he was an introvert and preferred to be alone by himself. Chen knew this as he shifted the conversation from the topic.
Tian stood up and left after he finished eating as he returned to the tent designated for the monks, there were soldiers standing guard outside his tent and the female general was sitting on a log not far away from the tent.
Tian sat down on the floor of the tent as he took out a scroll from his robe. this was the scroll containing the cultivation technique of purification sutra. Tian opened the scroll as he started reading.
The scroll gave a detailed introduction about basics of the qi cultivation and solved many questions that would plague the minds of someone just begining to cultivate. The questions were answred with details in the scroll.
There were three levels to cultivating the qi. The first level was qi gathring, in this level, there were certain moves that the user would need to perform to simulate the spritual root to absorb the spritual force ever present in the nature.
The moves were strikingly similar to yoga and martial arts moves performed on earth. There was a mention that at this time, having a sprite stone would be beneficial as simulating and activating the spritual roots required a huge amount of energy. Although most of it was provided by nature, the lack of spritual energy in surrounding would be Suplimented by food or spirit stones.
Tian continued reading as he reached the explanation about foundation building level. The foundation building level was also called meridian opening. In this level, the cultivator would use his gathred qi and one by one open the meridians to let the qi flow all around the body. Various meridians supplying qi to different limbs would help the cultivator when making qi infused attacks.
The next level was qi furnace level but there was just one line, it was the realm where the qi flows like dragon and is gathred into the dantian. The pressure of the tremendous amount of qi gathred in the body would ignite the qi in dantian, forming a qi furnace.
After the explanation, there was the actual technique mentioned on the further part. There were moves, explanation of the moves and how it affected the spritual force.
As he unfurled the scroll further, he saw that the scroll was finished at the qi gathring. There was no technique given for foundation building.
Tian didn't find it odd as the explanation for foundation building clearly mentioned that before qi gathring, there were three stages of body refining which were, muscle refining, bone refining and organ refining.
Without a spritual root, it was impossible to gather spritual force and turn it into internal qi. Everyone can progress in body refining with a body strengthening cultivation technique. Those having spritual roots were able to progress in body strengthening and qi gathring. Because of this, the disciples of the immortal sects were way stronger than any normal mortal even if the mortal had refined his body to a higher degree.
The realm of qi gathring was easy as long as a cultivator had spritual root. some progreesed slow while some progressed fast in qi gathring stage, but the foundation bulding stage was different.
The realm of foundation building was a wall that stopped most of the cultivators because to open up meridians, body needed to withstand the impacts of a torrent of internal qi. Thus, before a cultivator can start foundation building, he would need to complete body refining realm.
Only a peak body refining realm cultivator can withstand foundation building. without a strong body, it would be akin to being suicidal to even attempt to force open the meridians.
Tian finished reading as he decided to start cultivation right away, at least he wanted to know what his system can do with the cultivation technique once he completed one cycle of meditation.
He stood up and peformed various moves as shown in the scroll. Slowly he felt his body heating up and different energies passing through his muscles and internal organs as he moved. He would feel sudden cold sometimes in certain limbs and then sometimes he would feel heat rising from his chest. His muscles would sometimes loosen up and then contact as mentioned in the scroll.
Chen entred the tent as he saw tian practicing, he didn't disturb him and lay down in his own bed made of grass.
Tian barely finished the moves as he could feel various energies running rampant inside his body. As he performed the last move, the energies slowly gathred around his dantian and he could feel a new dimension open up inside his body as the energies opened up a flood gate.
Chen was startled awake as he saw Tian sitting down on the ground in lotus position as suddenly the spritual energy in the surrounding was sucked dry. This gave chen an awkward feeling of emptiness that he couldn't describe.
The female general who was much more sensitive to change in spritual energy rushed into the tent as she saw tian practicing the technique. " Your brother has good comprehension " She said the atmosphere soon returned to normal and she left.
Tian slowly opened his eyes. He noticed that there was only his brother chen in the tent so he opened his fists gently, there was white powder there from the spirit stone.
spritual force of the stone was completely absorbed and he could feel a small amount of gaseous energy gathring in his dantian.
Tian then noticed the golden screen floating in front of him as he let out a faint smile.
[Successfully completed the first cycle of the Purification sutra - Qi gathring realm]
[Unlocked Qi cultivation]
[Unlocked relevant upgrades in upgrade tree]
[Unlocked relevant items in shop]
[Received achievement - Path to Immortality]
[Received Achievement - Weakest Cultivator]