Chapter 18: Chapter 18 Refining Realm

An awkward mood descended on the room after Tai left. Though it wasn’t explicitly stated, Raul was feeling self-conscious since his dad was brought up. Though he’d grown used to Marina’s company, he didn’t feel comfortable talking about all that with her.

“Come. I made a small qi gathering formation in the room.” Marina didn’t care about the awkward mood and bluntly moved to the next task.

Raul smiled, appreciative that she didn’t ask for more information, and followed her like an excited puppy.

“Is there anything I should do?” He asked after taking off his shirt and sitting in the circle on the ground.

“Just do what you did last time.” Marina took off her own shirt and sat behind him.

“And your injury is okay now?” He didn’t forget to ask.

“Yes, it won’t be an issue.” Marina reassured, but Raul frowned.

“That sounds like it’s still around.” Raul noted her choice of words.

“… Abandoning one’s cultivation is not a light punishment, I’ll still have some sequela throughout the qi refining realm, but I’ve already taken the necessary measures to recover. Rest assured though, this breakthrough will only help to hasten my recovery.”

“I see.” Raul believed her. Marina never lied to him. Well, it’d be more accurate to say she was so blatantly obvious about it when she lied that she might as well never lie.

He was worried about her, but questioning her on it more would only be condescending, especially when he couldn’t do anything to improve her situation.

Marina wrapped her arms around him and pasted herself to his back, causing him to shiver at the overwhelming sensation of two peaks pressing into him. It was the second time they’d done this, as far as he was aware, and he knew it was just a requirement for the technique, but it still somehow felt more intimate than the first time.

It wasn’t just the feel of her body he noticed anymore. The nice herbal and spice smell that always surrounded her, the faint ink stains on her hands, and her rhythmic breathing right by his ear, it all set him ablaze. This wasn’t just a stranger hugging him anymore, this was someone he knew now. It was his wife.

He tried to shake the dumb thoughts from his head when he suddenly felt that sublime feeling of being whole again. He released a pleasured groan as his awareness expanded to include her as part of himself.

“… Sense the primordial qi and prepare yourself.” Marina instructed after suppressing her own reaction.

Raul almost immediately perceived the primordial qi upon closing his eyes, and was shocked to find his perception was much larger than before. He could only sense primordial qi two meters around him before, but now it felt like it was five times that. It was only natural, his experiences over the last few months had greatly increased his mental strength.

The formation activated and primordial qi swarmed them like locust. Marina quickly absorbed it to make essence qi. There was no coughing of blood or sharp pain coming from her this time, much to Raul’s relief. The essence qi started coming in, and Marina was not holding back this time.

Raul gasped as the sheer amount of essence qi coming in overwhelmed him. He hastily started his previous circulation method, but it was desperately straining under the essence qi coming in. The onslaught didn’t end, and Raul’s poor circulation method was soon filled to bursting.    

He couldn’t keep up like this, at this rate the whole system would collapse! Though he couldn’t handle all of it, his circulation system could manage at least seventy percent of the qi he was getting, the smart thing to do was to just let the rest go and focus on what he could manage.

Raul’s eyes immediately turned red as he gritted his teeth at that thought. Yes, it was the smart thing to do, but he was unwilling!

To this day Raul had never managed to create a single strand of essence qi on his own, no matter how hard he tried. Compared to most cultivators, essence qi was an incomparably precious thing to him.

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His improved mental strength gave him a better understanding of the essence qi’s path, and the various ways he could influence it. As he observed their behavior, a rough plan came to mind.

He hesitated for a moment, but then clenched his teeth and broke the circulation himself! He gave up on his bigger circulation method and instead created several smaller ones throughout his body, like several interconnecting air currents.

The paths worked in tandem to offload one another whenever the essence qi became too much for one, and they also guided any stray qi that left one of the paths into another. It took several minutes, but he soon had a running version of this multi-flow system up and the amount of qi escaping dropped to below five percent.

This didn’t stop Raul from trying to make improvements and retain even more qi. He wasn’t satisfied with most, he wanted it all!

They cultivated for hours, late into the night. Raul didn’t care how long it took, or, more accurately, he wasn’t aware of the time passing at all as he continued to tweak his homebrew method to perfection.

The essence qi spreading through him gave the feeling of his body having limitless energy. But he wasn’t simply becoming stronger like in his smelting period, instead his body was going through a magical transformation.

Twelve illusory organs were solidifying inside him. His twelve meridians were taking form. They were organs that existed only through cultivation and for cultivation, they were what separated immortals from mortals.

The twelve meridians reached a point where they were flickering between solid and illusory when they suddenly stopped absorbing qi.

The meridians each pulsed twelve times before releasing all the qi they’d absorbed, becoming more and more illusory again.

“Fuck!” Raul couldn’t resist cursing as pain shot through his whole body. He felt like his core was being bored out as the shining qi ejected by the meridians gathered there.

He continued to swear and curse while tears leaked out of his eyes as a brand-new organ began to take form under the layer of bright qi. The thirteenth organ unique to cultivators, and arguably the most vital, the dantian.

Raul’s dantian quickly absorbed the shining qi and broke the boundary between real and unreal, just as the meridians became a faint shadow on the verge of nonexistence. The moment the dantian fully materialized, Raul’s circulation system completely shattered.

A huge suction force spread throughout his body, and the essence qi immediately broke away from his system and swarmed his dantian like lost kids who’d finally found home.

The strands dissolved into fine mist as they touched the edge of his dantian and settled down calmly inside.

After all the essence qi in his body turned to mist it circulated through his meridians that were now so faint as to be almost non-existent. Raul felt a sensation akin to a lock breaking and he let out a yell as he lost control of his qi, releasing a shockwave from his body unbiddenly, smashing the formation array and damaging the bed.

Marina broke through at the same time, but her experience allowed her to control her qi perfectly. The shockwave of Raul’s qi passed over her harmlessly, as if treating her as part of his body.

Neither of them noticed how the Oni Ring on his finger absorbed part of his qi and glowed an ominous purple color before dying down.

Even though the formation broke, Marina didn’t stop absorbing primordial qi. They both focused purely on cultivating for the rest of the night. Marina only stopped at the crack of dawn, after both their dantians were filled to the brim with qi.

Raul looked down at his own hands in awe, feeling the power inside them.

“Congratulations.” Marina said while buttoning up her shirt. “You’re now officially a cultivator.”

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