They chose not the meet at Huilong Bend this time. Instead, they decided to meet inside a Water Manor nestled deep beneath the surface of the Qinhua River. A long, winding corridor stretched before them, shrouded in dim light and quiet mystery. It twisted into the unknown, the end hidden by bends and shadows. Two figures walked silently down that passage, one leading, the other following at a respectful distance. Luo Chen trailed behind, his gaze falling on the man ahead with curiosity and interest. Li Yingzhang was the most promising candidate of the Li family’s current generation to achieve Foundation Establishment. With dual spirit roots and still young, he had not joined any major sect but had instead been personally trained by Li Jinhuang since childhood. This situation did happen sometimes. When a family faced a shortage of talent and a genius emerged, the best approach was not to send them to a major sect but to keep them within the family. Otherwise, once they joined a sect, it was like letting a fish out into the ocean. There was no telling whether they'd ever come back or even rememeber their roots. By raising them at home, the family could foster their dependence and strengthen bonds beyond blood ties. In essence, this strategy used the family’s vast and intricate relationships to secure the genius’s loyalty. Whether it was good or bad practice in general was another discussion altogether; in any case, the genius would enjoy the family’s full support. What caught Luo Chen’s attention was that this young man’s cultivation realm appeared to be slowly declining. Despite being at the Perfected Mastery of the Qi Refinement Realm, he made no effort to advance and instead allowed his cultivation to slip. That struck Luo Chen as very odd. Sensing Luo Chen’s confusion, Li Yingzhang spoke calmly without turning around. "Senior, are you wondering about the decline in my cultivation realm?" "Mhm," Luo Chen grunted in acknowledgment. Li Yingzhang offered a straightforward explanation. "I have a special physique known as the Ninefold Winding Body. My patriarch found a Foundation Establishment secret technique called the Ninefold Origin Cycle[2]. By cultivating it, I build one Yuan cycle each year within my dantian. After nine years, it will be complete, boosting my success rate in breaking through to Foundation Establishment by twenty percent." His light explanation stirred waves in Luo Chen’s heart. A secret technique to assist in breaking through the Foundation Establishment Realm? There's such a thing? Forming nine origin cycles in the dantian was practically a simulation of the nine layers of the sea of qi formed after Foundation Establishment. With that, when the time came to break through, there would be no need for the arduous process of transforming the dantian into a sea of qi. The four key steps of Foundation Establishment included shattering the dantian, transforming it into a sea, absorbing spirit energy, and liquefying that energy. Each of these steps corresponded to checkpoints of spirit energy, divine soul, and overall physical endurance. With this secret technique, the sea-formation step would happen naturally. Moreover, from the way Li Yingzhang described it, cultivating the Ninefold Origin Cycle would also deepen his mastery and purification of spirit energy, which would give him a head start on the subsequent steps. It was no wonder that it could increase his success rate by twenty percent. Li Yingzhang had revealed this secret technique so openly, without any hesitation. He did not seem to fear that Luo Chen might covet it at all. And rightly so, the technique had been designed for his unique physique and would be useless to others. Luo Chen had seen the Ninefold Winding Body mentioned in a book on prodigious physiques. Actually, it was considered a congenital defect rather than an innate talent. Those with this physique had naturally wider meridians, allowing them to contain more spirit energy than others of the same tier. However, those larger meridians were also convoluted and tangled, like the winding channels of a great river. Naturally, such a complicated meridian system made cultivating several times more difficult than normal. Most people with this physique would need a hundred years to reach Perfected Mastery in the Qi Refinement Realm, and even then would have no hope of achieving Foundation Establishment. The fact that Li Yingzhang had reached Perfected Mastery in his forties showed just how much effort Li Jinhuang had invested in him. Luo Chen wondered how many Yuan cycles Li Yingzhang had already completed in his dantian and how many more years it would take him to reach Foundation Establishment. While Luo Chen pondered this, Li Yingzhang suddenly stopped before a waterfall curtain. "Senior, the patriarch is inside waiting for you," he said, gesturing politely. Luo Chen gave him a thoughtful look before stepping into the waterfall. As soon as he entered, a dense wave of spirit energy greeted him like a hidden paradise. It was clearly a first-tier top-grade cave residence. Before he could marvel at this, his gaze fell on Li Jinhuang, and his brow furrowed. "Fellow Daoist, are you injured?" Luo Chen asked. Beside an underground spirit spring, Li Jinhuang sat cross-legged on a meditation mat, and his energy flow was obviously unstable. A faint scent of blood still clung to him. Seeing Luo Chen, Li Jinhuang let out a bitter smile. "I didn’t expect the Quicksand Wasteland to be so chaotic. The raiding cultivators there are simply too rampant!" he said. Luo Chen was astonished."The Quicksand Wasteland? So you went to the Jilei Nine Mountains[2]?" Li Jinhuang sighed. "That's the only place chaotic enough that no one would question the source, and all transactions are based strictly on the quality of the goods." Luo Chen pressed his lips together, momentarily unsure what to say. He certainly knew that the Jilei Nine Mountains were a good place to sell things. At the moment, the war between the Nascent Soul sects was still somewhat restrained. After the initial clashes, the fighting had shifted to their allies and vassals. The Jilei Nine Mountains were at the center of that struggle, and the vast Quicksand Wasteland that stretched from there had become the largest battlefield. That place was a true melting pot, filled with countless rogue cultivators from the Jade Cauldron Domain who hoped to profit from the conflict. Li Jinhuang's really quite bold! Li Jinhuang went on, "I changed the name of your Spirit Passage pills to Dream Illusion pills and sold them in bulk on the black market. At first, it was a bit rough, but later the demand exceeded the supply. It only took me three months to sell out completely. I didn’t expect trouble to come so soon. Someone targeted me. I barely escaped after a fierce battle." As he spoke, Li Jinhuang took out a storage pouch stained with dark blood. "This contains all the proceeds. Please check it." Luo Chen took the storage pouch. A sweep of his spirit consciousness made his eyebrows rise. Damn, that's quite a lot! He carefully stowed it away, then asked curiously, "With your cultivation at the fifth stage, who could force you into such a state without a grand cultivator getting involved?" Li Jinhuang said with a wry smile, "I don’t know. Whoever did it hid their identity well. All I know is that they used a bowl-type enchanted treasure and almost trapped me." A bowl? Luo Chen froze for a moment. That wasn’t a type of treasure commonly seen among ordinary cultivators. In fact, only Buddhist Sect experts from the Central Continent and Southern Frontier beyond the Eastern Wilderness regularly used treasures like that. It was surprising that even the Jade Cauldron Domain had cultivators of this kind. Li Jinhuang noticed the change in Luo Chen’s expression but didn’t dwell on it. Instead, he redirected the conversation. "You’ve met Yingzhang, haven’t you?" Luo Chen nodded. It was indeed Li Yingzhang who had led him into the Water Manor, and the young man had seemed calm and composed. Li Jinhuang continued, "My grandson is talented in many ways, but once he starts cultivating, he forgets about everything else. I can’t quite trust him to run the Li family. So please, look after the younger generation of the Li family." Seeing his interlocutor's increasingly weak energy flow, Luo Chen nodded seriously. "Of course." It was clearly a final request. Li Jinhuang had taken great risks to sell the Spirit Passage pills on his behalf, and Luo Chen wouldn’t let him down. However, Luo Chen did have another purpose for coming. "I wonder, Fellow Daoist Li, do you know of any channels for acquiring mid-grade or top-grade second-tier cultivation pills?" At this, Li Jinhuang stared at him in disbelief. "If I had access to that kind of supply, would I still be stuck at the mid stage of Foundation Establishment all my life?" Luo Chen blinked, caught off guard by the blunt reply. Right. I basically asked a blind man for directions. Still, Li Jinhuang did give Luo Chen a few pointers on where top-grade pills might appear. First were the regular large-scale auctions, the obvious route. Second, the various black markets. The items sold on the black market often came from rather... unsavory sources; some raiding cultivators might have killed a major sect disciple and taken top-grade pills from their storage pouches. However, the chances of finding top-grade pills there weren’t very high. After all, any cultivator would keep top-grade pills for their own use. Luo Chen’s situation was a prime example. He had entrusted Li Jinhuang with a batch of over nine hundred mid- and top-grade Spirit Passage pills. Even though they were only first-tier pills, they had drawn a lot of attention to Li Jinhuang, which ultimately led to him being targeted and nearly killed. Finally, Li Jinhuang suggested one more path. "Since top-grade pills usually circulate only within major sects, why not buy them directly from their disciples?" Latest content published on novel•fire.net 1. Yuan (元) here refers to qi returning to its origin, the fundamental essence in cultivation. A single Yuan cycle represents a complete cycle of existence. 2. 积雷 (ji lei) literally means "accumulated thunder". It refers to a place where thunder and lightning frequently gather or build up over time, often implying a naturally dangerous, high-energy environment. In cultivation settings, such areas are typically rich in lightning-attributed spirit energy, making them ideal for cultivating thunder-element techniques or for producing rare minerals and materials tempered by lightning. 2. In 九重回元 (jiu chong yuan hui), “回元/yuan hui” means “returning to the origin,” which in this case could be the flowing of qi back to its primordial source. A single yuan hui signifies one complete round of practice. By implication, the Ninefold Origin Cycle represents nine levels of cultivation, with each level marking a distinct stage of transformation. ☜