33: Chapter 33 Desperate Measures: Su Yuan Establishes Foundation Without Pills!

The funeral of Su Cheng was handled with the utmost sorrow and honor.

But after the funeral, life at Hidden Dragon Manor had to continue.

The secular industries transitioned smoothly under the management of Third Son Su Lin.

And inside the villa, having experienced that reprimand at the memorial hall, the younger generation of cultivators no longer dared to be even slightly arrogant.

A very tight balance and order were maintained between the Mortal and the cultivators.

Autumn passed and winter arrived.

Late at night, in the deepest secret room beneath Hidden Dragon Manor.

Su Yu sat on a meditation cushion, holding an ancient Daoist scripture in his hands, reading quietly by the dim light of an eternal lamp.

Outside the heavy dragon-severing stone door, footsteps approached, light yet steady.

"Come in."

The stone door opened slowly to both sides.

Fifty-nine-year-old Su Yuan, dressed in a green shirt, walked slowly into the secret room.

Time had left clear marks on his face; his temples were frosted, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes had deepened somewhat.

When Mortal cultivate immortality, if they cannot achieve Foundation Establishment, their peak period of vitality is extremely short.

Once they pass the red line of sixty years old, their physical functions begin to decline irreversibly.

By then, let alone attempting Foundation Establishment.

Even maintaining the current Ninth Layer of Qi Refining realm would require immense effort.

Su Yuan walked to the front of Su Yu, knelt on both knees, his expression extremely solemn.

"Father, this son is ready."

Su Yu put down the Daoist scripture in his hand and cast his gaze upon his second son.

He did not speak immediately, but instead probed the condition inside Su Yuan's body with his divine sense.

His true essence was full, his vitality was still at the tail end of its peak, and his spiritual power had been polished to be smooth and flawless.

In terms of preparation alone, Su Yuan had done the absolute best he could.

It was just that there was no foundation establishment pill.

"Attempting Foundation Establishment without a pill is a life-or-death gamble."

Su Yu's tone was calm, as if he were stating something extremely ordinary.

"Once your meridians cannot withstand the scouring of the liquid true essence, not only will your cultivation be destroyed, but the probability of you exploding and dying on the spot exceeds ninety percent."

"If you remain content with your lot, with your current cultivation, living another hundred years peacefully is no problem. With both of us holding down the villa, it can continue to remain peaceful."

Su Yuan straightened his back.

He looked at his father's full head of white hair, and the withered, gaunt face of his eldest brother, Su Cheng, before his death, appeared in his mind.

"Su Cheng had no spirit root, but he used his life's blood and half his life to carve out a living path for the villa in the secular world."

Su Yuan's voice was not loud, but it carried an unquestionable determination.

"As the second son with a spirit root, this son has been supported by the family for decades."

"Now that Su Cheng is gone, and you are no longer at your peak, Father. If this son shrinks back because of fear of death at this time, then the decades of hibernation of Hidden Dragon Manor would become a joke."

"Hidden Dragon Manor needs a true foundation establishment cultivator to serve as its foundation."

Hearing these words, a deep, faint glimmer flashed in the depths of Su Yu's eyes.

He stood up and walked to the eye of the Second-Rank Spirit Gathering Array in the center of the secret room.

"Go ahead."

Su Yu did not say any more useless words of persuasion or encouragement.

The struggle for the Great Dao in the cultivation world is essentially licking blood on the edge of a knife; there is no retreat.

Su Yuan took a deep breath, walked to the center of the array, and sat down cross-legged.

He took out the insights on breaking through that Su Yu had given him years ago, and deeply reviewed every word and every meridian route in his mind once more.

Then, he closed his eyes.

"Start."

Su Yu stood outside the array, forming seals with one hand.

The Second-Rank Spirit Gathering Array operated at full power.

The spiritual energy in the secret room quickly became viscous, even condensing into wisps of white mist, wrapping around Su Yuan's figure.

Su Yuan began to guide the Ninth Layer of Qi Refining true essence within his body, compressing it toward the center of his Qi sea.

Condensing Qi into liquid.

This first step was not difficult for Su Yuan, who had already polished his true essence to the extreme.

Half an hour later.

A drop of extremely heavy liquid true essence, containing immense power, slowly formed deep in his Dantian.

The real life-or-death test had arrived.

That drop of liquid true essence followed the cultivation technique route, left the Dantian, and squeezed into the meridians extremely slowly.

"Crack, crack..."

A faint, yet hair-raising tearing sound rang out inside Su Yuan's body.

Su Yuan's face turned deathly pale instantly.

Beads of sweat as large as beans rolled down from his forehead, and his body began to tremble violently uncontrollably.

Without the nourishment and expansion of a foundation establishment pill.

The weight of the liquid true essence was like a heavy mountain, forcibly crushing its way through a narrow mud road.

Fine beads of blood began to seep from his pores.

His green shirt was soon stained with a striking dark red.

Outside the array, Su Yu stood with his hands behind his back.

His expression remained normal, but his divine sense was locking onto the path of every inch of Su Yuan's meridians with extreme precision.

He himself had fallen at this very step back then.

As long as there were signs of large-scale rupture in Su Yuan's meridians, he would immediately take action to forcibly cut off the influx of spiritual energy, even if it meant sacrificing his own cultivation, to save his second son's life.

The liquid true essence pushed forward with extreme difficulty inside Su Yuan's body.

One-third.

Halfway.

When the true essence reached a vital acupuncture point on the left side of his chest, the resistance reached its peak.

This was the most fragile life-or-death node in the Green Wood Longevity Art, and the one where meridian rupture was most likely to occur.

Back then, Su Yu had forcibly rammed through this point, leading to failure.

"Pfft."

A muffled groan came from Su Yuan's throat, and black blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.

The feeling of his meridians tearing had reached the limit of what his will could endure.

Just at the critical moment when he was about to lose control of the rampaging true essence, a note from the breakthrough insights suddenly appeared in his mind.

'The Shaohai Point on the left chest must not be forcibly rammed. You need to divide the true essence into threads, bypass the edge of the acupuncture point, avoid its sharpness, and slowly plan with the momentum of water dripping through stone.'

This was the only path to survival that Su Yu had tested with his own body back then.

Su Yuan gritted his teeth, enduring the excruciating pain of his meridians being torn apart, and managed with great difficulty to divide that heavy drop of liquid true essence into three thin threads.

He bypassed the core of the fragile node, stuck to the inner wall of the meridians, and permeated through bit by bit.

One inch, two inches.

A very long and agonizing incense stick of time passed.

"Hum."

The true essence finally crossed that life-or-death chasm.

Although the meridians were severely damaged, they had managed to hold onto that immense power.

With Su Yu's insights as a guiding light.

Su Yuan used the same method at the subsequent fatal nodes, extremely thrillingly avoiding the fate of meridian rupture.

The foundation of his Seventh-grade Spirit Root played a decisive role at this moment.

Although his meridians were not as wide as those of the top geniuses, they were much tougher than Su Yu's Ninth-Grade Poor Talent back then.

When that drop of liquid true essence completed a full Great Circulation and fell back into the Dantian.

"Boom!"

The white mist of spiritual energy that had filled the quiet room instantly surged into Su Yuan's body like a hundred rivers returning to the sea, frantically.

Su Yuan's aura climbed step by step, easily breaking through the barrier of the Qi Refining Stage.

A spiritual power pressure belonging to a great cultivator in the early stage of Foundation Establishment rippled slowly outward from him as the center.

Human Dao Foundation Establishment.

Although there were no heaven and earth visions, nor any shocking Dao foundation manifestations.

But that endless, highly condensed liquid true essence was the genuine sign of Foundation Establishment.

With the feedback from the Foundation Establishment, the damaged meridians in Su Yuan's body began to repair and widen rapidly.

The frost at his temples faded visibly, turning black again.

The wrinkles on his face were smoothed out by the abundant vitality.

In just half an hour, he recovered to the appearance of a young man in his twenties with peak vitality.

The spiritual energy gradually calmed down.

Su Yuan slowly opened his eyes.

The sharp light in his eyes was restrained; feeling the vast true essence in his body that seemed as if it would never run dry, his body trembled slightly.

He stood up, walked to Su Yu, and knelt heavily on the stone floor on both knees.

"Father... this son, has succeeded."

Su Yuan's voice was a bit hoarse from extreme excitement.

He knew very well.

If it weren't for the insights his father had tested with his own life back then, he would have already been a corpse at the very first step of the breakthrough.

Su Yu looked quietly at his second son kneeling before him.

He reached out, helped Su Yuan up from the ground, and patted his shoulder.

"Well done."

Su Yu looked at Su Yuan and praised him very frankly.

"To be able to keep your mind steady amidst the excruciating pain of meridians tearing, this resilience and decisiveness are much stronger than what I had back then; you deserve this fortune."

"Without Father's guiding light, this son would have died ten thousand times before succeeding."

Su Yuan was somewhat fearful and trembling.

Su Yu shook his head, turned around, and cast his gaze on the Spirit Gathering Array in the secret room that had exhausted its spiritual energy.

"The path of cultivating immortality is essentially competing with heaven for life."

There was no resentment or unwillingness in his tone, only a kind of transparency and relief of having seen everything.

"I tried my best to test it back then, and even though I failed, I had at least seen the scenery of that threshold. Having tried, I have no regrets; I have no regrets in this life."

"Now that you can cross this chasm, I am happy for you."

Hearing these words from his father, which contained no jealousy but only open-mindedness and lack of regret.

The awe in Su Yuan's heart deepened by another layer.

He calmed his surging vitality, his expression became solemn, and he asked for instructions.

"Father, this son is now in the Foundation Establishment stage."

"Although the Zhao and Lin families each had two cultivators at the Ninth Layer of Qi Refining back then, as long as they do not have a Foundation Establishment cultivator, this son has the confidence to annihilate them."

"Should Hidden Dragon Manor move out of Black Wind Valley and take back the industries in the cultivation market?"