91: Chapter 91 Late Stage of Qi Refining

In the cultivation room, the pale white light of the Spirit Gathering Array cast blurred shadows on the stone walls.

Jiang Yan sat cross-legged in the center of the array, the black jade bottle containing the peiyuan pill resting on his knees.

The bottle was ice-cold, and when his fingertips touched the surface, he could feel the faint vibration of the pills rolling inside.

He pushed open the bottle stopper with his thumb and poured out three purple-black pills.

As the pills rolled in his palm, the pill patterns on their surfaces flowed ceaselessly, and a crisp medicinal fragrance drifted into his nostrils in wisps.

He swallowed the first one.

The moment the pill dissolved on his tongue, a warm torrent poured from his throat into his Meridians.

The medicinal power circulated through his body and converged into his Dantian.

The dark purple vortex accelerated its rotation, peeling away and devouring the medicinal power layer by layer.

With every increase in the vortex's rotation speed, his Dantian trembled slightly, like a stone mill grinding coarse salt, creaking with the effort.

Half a cup of tea later, the medicinal power was fully refined, and the color of the vortex deepened from dark purple toward purple-black.

He swallowed the second one.

The two medicinal forces overlapped within his Meridians.

A needle-like, distending pain came from the inner walls of his Meridians.

It wasn't just one spot hurting; his entire network of Meridians, from his shoulders to his lower abdomen, ached as if someone were slowly scraping the inner walls of his blood vessels with bamboo skewers.

The vortex in his Dantian was stretched and expanded by the medicinal power, its edges no longer rounded but bulging outward like an inflated balloon.

The color of the vortex fluctuated violently between dark purple and purple-black, like a piece of red-hot iron struggling on the edge of a quenching pool.

Dipped in, it turned black; lifted out, it turned purple; dipped in again, it turned black once more.

Sweat seeped from his temples, trickling down his temples into his collar, leaving a ring of dark, damp stains on the neckline of his robe.

He swallowed the third one.

The three medicinal forces converged into a mighty tide.

Under the impact of this tide, the vortex suddenly collapsed.

It was not expanding, but compressing inward; the entire vortex shrank to the size of a fist in the center of his Dantian.

Its color was compressed from purple-black to pitch-black, a darkness as rich as a starless, moonless night sky.

At the center of the vortex, a deeper black core faintly emerged, like a black hole devouring all surrounding light.

The collapse lasted only for three breaths.

Immediately afterward, the vortex expanded again.

The newborn pitch-black vortex was a full circle larger than before, rotating steadily and powerfully, each turn driving his spiritual power to surge through his body like a tide.

He could feel that the speed at which his spiritual power flowed through his Meridians was at least 30% faster than before; it was no longer a trickling stream, but a rushing river.

Qi Refining Stage 7.

He opened his eyes.

The light from the night-luminescent pearl in the cultivation room fell into his pupils.

Deep within his pupils, a faint, pitch-black luster emerged—not a color, but the luster itself, like the eerie gleam flowing across the surface of a black gemstone.

He slowly exhaled a breath of stale air, which condensed into a straight white line in the air, extending three feet before slowly dissipating.

Feeling the spiritual power surging through his Meridians to be at least twice as thick as it was at the sixth stage, he subconsciously spread out his Divine Sense—ten zhang.

Within ten zhang, the patterns of the spiritual veins inside the night-luminescent pearl on the stone wall were clearly discernible, the veins of a withered leaf floating on the water surface at the bottom of the stone well in the courtyard were distinct, and the heartbeat of a sparrow on the crooked locust tree outside the courtyard wall thumped like a small drum.

He withdrew his Divine Sense and tapped his fingers lightly on his knees.

Another day.

Jiang Yan took out the Heavenly Silkworm Silk.

A bundle of silver-white silk threads, as thick as a thumb, glowed with a soft pearlescent light in the dim room, feeling cool and smooth to the touch.

When his fingers brushed over it, he couldn't feel a hint of resistance, as if touching flowing mercury.

The silk threads slipped through his fingers, leaving no trace of tactile sensation.

Spiritual fire surged from his palm, enveloping the entire bundle of silk threads.

The silver-white silk threads gradually semi-melted in the flames, turning from a solid state into a gelatinous state without flowing.

Guided by his Divine Sense, the threads wove together in a warp and weft pattern.

There were nine hundred warp threads and three thousand six hundred weft threads, and the spacing between every single thread was precise to the smallest fraction.

In his previous life, he was a quasi-fourth-rank Artifact Refiner; he could do this level of warp and weft weaving with his eyes closed, but the Heavenly Silkworm Silk was delicate.

If the temperature of the spiritual fire was half a percent too high, the silk threads would turn from silver-white to scorched yellow; if it was half a percent too low, the threads wouldn't semi-melt, and the resulting robe would be as loose as cotton wool.

He maintained the temperature of the spiritual fire within an extremely narrow range, his Divine Sense simultaneously monitoring the tension of the nine hundred warp threads and the direction of the three thousand six hundred weft threads.

The woven fabric slowly rolled in the spiritual fire like flowing water, its silver-white luster flowing ceaselessly, like a piece of living moonlight solidified above the Artifact Refining furnace.

Inscribing the Restriction was a more demanding task.

The defensive Restriction followed the nodes where the warp and weft threads intersected.

There were 1,200 nodes on the robe, with a circuit carved into each node, and the 1,200 circuits strung together to form a complete spiritual power defensive network.

His Divine Sense simultaneously controlled 1,200 extremely fine spiritual power carving knives, inscribing within the nodes all at once.

If an ordinary first-rank Artifact Refiner were to attempt this technique, carving one hundred nodes would be their limit, but his quasi-fourth-rank Artifact Refining experience from his previous life allowed him to handle 1,200 nodes simultaneously without changing his expression.

The Dust-Repelling Restriction was carved into the gaps between the surface silk threads.

The patterns of the Restriction were only one-third the thickness of a hair; if the carving knife pressed even slightly too heavily during the process, it would cut the silk threads.

After carving this Restriction, a faint layer of clear breeze air current automatically generated on the surface of the robe, silently blowing away any dust that landed on the robe's surface.

The Wind Control Technique Restriction was carved with thirty-six wind channels on the hem of the robe.

Each wind channel extended from the hem of the robe up to the knee, arranged in an arc shape, reducing the consumption of the Wind Control Technique by 30% when activated.

The three Restrictions of Fire Resistance, Water Resistance, and Poison Resistance intersected with each other, forming an extremely thin attribute isolation membrane between the warp and weft threads.

The pattern of the Fire Resistance Restriction was flame-shaped, the Water Resistance Restriction was water-wave-shaped, and the Poison Resistance Restriction was vine-shaped.

The three patterns intertwined in the gaps between the warp and weft threads, separated from each other by only the distance of a single silk thread, yet they did not interfere with one another.

The Breath-Concealing Restriction was hidden on the inside of the collar.

The pattern of this Restriction was extremely concealed, all hidden within the double-layered fabric of the collar, with no traces visible from the outside.

Used in conjunction with the Thousand Illusion Demon Mask, it could further compress the leakage of spiritual power fluctuations.

The Durability Restriction was stretched and reinforced between the nodes of the warp and weft threads, pulling out a reinforcing net with hexagonal meshes between the 1,200 nodes.

The Lightness Inscription reduced the overall weight of the robe to less than one liang.

All nine Restrictions were completely inscribed, and the spiritual fire was withdrawn.

The robe hovered in mid-air, emitting a soft, silver-white glow like moonlight.

The sleeves moved without wind, like a piece of living moonlight solidified in mid-air.

The nine Restrictions resonated simultaneously, the silver-white light surging from the collar to the hem and back to the collar, flowing back and forth on the surface of the robe three times before slowly subsiding.

He stroked the surface of the robe, feeling the flow of spiritual power through the Restriction circuits.

The nine Restrictions operated steadily, the spiritual power flowing smoothly like water between them without the slightest stagnation.

His Divine Sense probed deep into the Restriction nodes, where he could feel the membrane—if there were one more Restriction, or one more node circuit, the robe would break through the upper limit of the First Rank High Grade and step into the threshold of the First Rank Peak Grade.

But the carrying capacity of the Heavenly Silkworm Silk had reached its limit; if even one more node were added to the 1,200 nodes, the entire spiritual power defensive network would begin to collapse from some node.

He put on the robe.

The silver-white surface clung to his skin, feeling cool and smooth, as if he were wearing a layer of flowing water.

The hem of the robe brushed gently against his ankles; it wasn't the wind blowing, but the clear breeze air current generated by the Dust-Repelling Restriction circulating at the hem of the robe.