299: Chapter 300 Foundation Building (Part 1)

The next day.

8:00 PM.

At the dedicated cultivation room of the Forward Base in the Yaowu World.

After being reinforced, the walls of the cultivation room became nearly twice as thick.

The skyfall steel weld seams on the inner walls reflected a cold and hard metallic luster under the lights.

A thirty-centimeter-thick buffer layer was newly buried beneath the floor—consisting of skyfall steel plates and rubber pads—designed to absorb the Spiritual Qi shockwaves during a Breakthrough.

The indoor lighting was dimmed significantly.

Only a white ceiling light in the center was on, casting a soft glow that illuminated the entire room in a grayish tone between light and dark.

Chen Rong sat on the left side.

Lin Wan sat on the right side.

The two sat face-to-face, five meters apart.

The positions were identical to their closed-door cultivation sessions over the previous six weeks.

Su Mingyuan stood behind the explosion-proof glass window of the monitoring room.

Tao Zhe sat next to him, with four monitors in front of him, each running a different data stream—Spiritual Qi fluctuations, meridian status, Dantian pressure, and environmental Spiritual Qi concentration.

Tianheng's remote connection had also been established, transmitting data in real-time back to the Deep Blue Group in the Main World.

Zhou Peide monitored synchronously from the Main World side.

Outside the cultivation room, Zhang Dabiao led sixteen Second-Order Martial Artists scattered in four directions, each about fifty meters away from the cultivation room.

Sun Liang crouched in the corner of the monitoring room, clutching a medical box containing all the emergency Medicinal Pills and medicinal powders he could prepare.

Although he knew in his heart that if something went wrong with the foundation establishment pill, those things of his would probably be useless—holding them still felt more reassuring than not holding them.

After everything was ready.

Su Mingyuan glanced at Tao Zhe.

"Begin."

Tao Zhe pressed the communication button.

"You may ingest it."

Inside the cultivation room, Chen Rong and Lin Wan reached out at the same time.

A foundation establishment pill was placed on the insulation mat in front of each of them.

The appearance of the Medicinal Pill was very ordinary—round, the size of a thumb pad, with a layer of pale golden luster on the surface, resembling a solidified golden pearl.

Yet even from two meters away, one could feel the Spiritual Qi oppressive force it emitted.

The two picked up the Medicinal Pills simultaneously.

And put them into their mouths at the same time.

The moment the Medicinal Pill entered their mouths—

A massive surge of Spiritual Qi exploded in their mouths, pouring down their throats into their chests, into their Meridians, and into their Dantians.

Chen Rong's body shook violently.

Since he began to Cultivate, he had eaten quite a few Medicinal Pills—realm breaking pills, and various Spirit Medicines that assisted cultivation, he had eaten them all.

But no Medicinal Pill had ever given him this kind of feeling.

If the realm breaking pill was a stream, then the foundation establishment pill was a great river.

Spiritual Qi poured into his Meridians like a flood, scouring every vessel, every acupoint, and every inch of the meridian walls.

But this was not a destructive scour.

It was a transformation.

Under the scouring of Spiritual Qi, the meridian walls were undergoing changes—becoming tougher, wider, and more transparent.

Those tiny flaws, blockages, and uneven places originally on the meridian walls were repaired, polished, and widened one by one under the medicinal power of the foundation establishment pill.

Just like a bumpy dirt road being bulldozed, compacted, and paved into an asphalt road.

At the same time, even more intense changes were taking place in the Dantian.

The gaseous Spiritual Qi originally in the Dantian began to condense under the catalysis of the foundation establishment pill's medicinal power.

Gaseous turning into liquid.

This process was extremely painful.

Every wisp of gaseous Spiritual Qi was compressed into liquid, and Chen Rong could feel his Divine Sense being "compressed" synchronously—as if a giant hand was pinching his brain, squeezing and solidifying the loose things inside.

He clenched his teeth tightly.

Veins bulged on his forehead.

His facial complexion went from normal to flushed red, and then from flushed red to ashen blue.

Sweat oozed out from every pore, soaking his clothes.

On the other side, Lin Wan's reaction looked much calmer.

Her expression barely changed, her brows slightly furrowed, and her lips tightly pursed.

But Tao Zhe's instruments showed that the pain she endured was not a bit less than Chen Rong's—her heart rate soared from the usual forty beats per minute to one hundred and twenty beats.

She just didn't show it.

In the monitoring room, Tao Zhe stared at the data on the Dantian Spiritual Qi liquefaction rate.

"Spiritual Qi liquefaction rate—Chen Rong eight percent, Lin Wan eleven percent."

It had just begun.

The release of the foundation establishment pill's medicinal power was gradual, not poured out all at once.

This was the ingenuity of the Medicinal Pill's design—if the energy of a High-Grade Spirit Stone were instantly poured into a human body, the Meridians would collapse on the spot.

The foundation establishment pill divided this energy into hundreds of tiny "pulses", releasing them wave by wave, allowing the body time to adapt and absorb.

Fifteen minutes.

"Twenty-two percent. Twenty-seven percent."

Thirty minutes.

"Thirty-five percent. Thirty-nine percent."

Lin Wan had always been slightly faster than Chen Rong.

Ice-type Spiritual Qi naturally had an affinity for the attribute of "condensation"—gaseous turning into liquid was itself a condensation process, and her attribute was helping her.

One hour.

"Fifty-one percent. Fifty-six percent."

Past the halfway mark.

Chen Rong's state began to become somewhat unstable.

His breathing grew rapid, and his chest heaved heavily, as if he were doing strenuous exercise.

Sweat had pooled into a small puddle on the ground where he sat cross-legged.

One and a half hours.

"Fifty-nine percent. Sixty-three percent."

Tao Zhe's brow furrowed slightly.

The speed was slowing down.

"The medicinal power is decaying," he said. "Most of the foundation establishment pill's Spiritual Qi has already been released, and the remaining medicinal power is not enough to maintain the liquefaction speed."

Su Mingyuan looked at the curves on the screen.

Both curves were slowing down, and the slowing trend was becoming more and more obvious.

If this trend continued—

"It won't reach one hundred percent," Tao Zhe made his judgment. "The medicinal power of one Medicinal Pill can probably only push the liquefaction rate to between seventy and seventy-five percent."

Su Mingyuan did not hesitate.

"The second one. Send it in."

Tao Zhe had prepared it long ago.

He pressed a mechanism inside the cultivation room—a small delivery tray popped out from the wall, on which sat two foundation establishment pills.

The tray slid silently in front of the two of them.

Chen Rong opened his eyes, picked up the second foundation establishment pill, and without hesitation, put it directly into his mouth.

Lin Wan also ingested the second one simultaneously.

The second wave of medicinal power surged in.

This time it was more violent than the first.

Because the Meridians had already been widened and transformed by the first Medicinal Pill—wider Meridians meant faster Spiritual Qi circulation speed, and the release of medicinal power also accelerated accordingly.

The liquefaction rate began to soar again.

"Seventy-one percent—seventy-five percent—seventy-eight percent—"

Tao Zhe's speech speed accelerated accordingly.

"Eighty-two percent—eighty-five percent—eighty-eight percent—"

Inside the cultivation room, anomalies began to appear on the surface of the two people's bodies.

A layer of blue-white electric light floated on the surface of Chen Rong's skin—not the tiny electric arcs from the previous Fifth-Order Breakthrough, but a complete film of light covering his entire body.

Lightning-attribute Spiritual Qi oozed out from his pores, forming a thin layer of lightning body-protection on the surface of his body.

Lin Wan's side was even more exaggerated.

The air within a three-meter radius around her directly solidified—it was not freezing into ice, but the air itself turned into a translucent solid state.

Ice-blue light emanated from her body, illuminating her entire person like an ice sculpture.

"Ninety percent—ninety-two percent—ninety-four percent—"

Tao Zhe's voice began to tighten.

"Ninety-five percent—ninety-six percent—"

It was slowing down.

It was slowing down again.

The last few percent of liquefaction was the hardest—just like a cup of water freezing into ice, those last few drops of water were always the hardest to freeze.

"Ninety-seven percent—"

The curve was moving almost bit by bit.

"Ninety-eight percent—"

Tao Zhe's palms were full of sweat.

Su Mingyuan stood behind the glass window, motionless.

"Ninety-nine percent—"

Then it stopped.

The two curves stopped at the ninety-nine percent position almost simultaneously.

Only the final one percent short of one hundred percent.

But it just wouldn't go up.

Inside the cultivation room, the bodies of Chen Rong and Lin Wan were both trembling—not because Spiritual Qi was out of control, but because the last wisp of gaseous Spiritual Qi in their bodies was stubbornly resisting condensation.

Just a breath away.

The distance of a single breath.

But the medicinal power of the foundation establishment pill had already been exhausted.

The energy of both Medicinal Pills had been completely released, and there was no extra external force in the Meridians to push the final one percent liquefaction.

The rest—could only rely on themselves.

Chen Rong's teeth clicked loudly as he clenched them.

He thought of many things.

He thought of his dad.

He thought of his brother.

One sacrificed his life on a mission to defend the borders, and the other fell in the Zombie World.

He, Chen Rong, was the last man in this family.

His mom was still waiting for him to return in Chenjia Village.

He had promised his mom that he would not disgrace his brother and father.

A force that did not belong to Spiritual Qi surged up from his chest—it was anger, unwillingness, and all the obsession and longing of a twenty-year-old young man.

That wisp of gaseous Spiritual Qi was suppressed by this force.

Afterward, in the Dantian, the last trace of bubbles disappeared.

Replaced by a pool of clear, pale golden liquid—Spiritual Liquid.

A full Dantian of Spiritual Liquid.

The density was ten times that of the previous gaseous Spiritual Qi.

The purity was a hundred times that of before.

Qualitative change.

This was a true qualitative change.

At the same moment—Lin Wan's side was also completed.

Her method was much quieter.

No struggling, no teeth clenching, no reminiscing about the past.

She simply—froze that wisp of gaseous Spiritual Qi.

The essence of ice-type Spiritual Qi was condensation.

With her own attribute, she directly froze the final one percent of gaseous Spiritual Qi into a liquid state.

The method was simple and crude, but very effective.

The Dantians of the two completed one hundred percent liquefaction within the exact same second.

And then—

The Breakthrough came.