Forging Ahead

Self-preservation was an instinct that was hard wired in every life form.

No matter if was an animal, human, demon, abomination or a immortal, once they felt they were cornered, they would fight back no matter how much stronger the opponent was.

Guihu Luixing felt that he himself was in a situation not too different from that.

If both options lead to certain death, he would pick the one where a miracle would be most likely to occur.

Reaching a decision, he gritted his teeth and powered through.

He did his best to divide his attention between controlling the rampaging Qi inside his body and continuing chanting the Primordial Soul Mantra.

Like in the previous session, the more time passed, the greater the pain Guihu Luixing felt in his soul. The greater the pain he felt, the harder it became to restrain the Qi inside him.

The saving grace was that even though the pain made it difficult for him to control the Qi, his soul was constantly getting stronger, making it simpler for him to control it.

This fragile balance continued for some time.

Suddenly, the situation changed. Guihu Luixing felt as if he reached a boundary. As if an invisible wall was stopping him from advancing, stopping his soul from evolving.

'I must have reached the point to breakthrough the next soul level!'

In a normal situation, Guihu Luixing would be elated to have reached this point, however, right now he needed to keep increasing his control. He didn't believe his soul evolved enough to control the energy of around ten Qi Stones unconsciously.

The proof was that he was having a hard time controlling the energy of single Qi Stone, even though he was under a stressful situation.

There was no way back to Guihu Luixing, he could only forge ahead.

Completely relinquishing control if the Qi inside himself, Guihu Luixing focused completely in the Primordial Soul Mantra, it's meaning and his own soul.

Slowly, Guihu Luixing could feel the barrier that was limiting his soul start to crack.

What he didn't feel was the blood dripping from his nose nor the red patches appearing on his skin.

The feeling of impending doom he felt on his breakthrough to the Qi Interaction Realm slowly, but surely reappeared on his mind, but he simply ignored it.

He couldn't afford to be distracted anymore.

His persistence was rewarded, as after some time, his soul could hear and frel the barrier that was trapping it to be completely broken.

At that moment, Guihu Luixing felt like he never felt before.

He could clearly feel every single Qi particle present in his immediate surroundings. His five senses have also been greatly enhanced, allowing him to completely map what was around him, just with his hearing, olfact and Qi sensitivity.

He could 'see' Dark Moon curled in his bed, even though his eyes were closed.

He could 'feel' a soul in his ceiling, even though he clearly wasn't touching her.

He could smell his mother preparing dinner, even though the wind should be carrying the smell to another direction.

Obviously, he could also tell how his body condition was. Some blood vessels were damaged by the Qi he internalised, leading to some internal bleeding.

Although it was quite scary, this level of damage wasn't very dangerous to a cultivator of his level. He still needed rest to recover though.

Thinking to that point, Guihu Luixing realised he wasn't controlling the Qi inside him. Panicking a bit he immediately started locating the internalised energy.

Much to his surprise, the Qi inside his body was calmly circulating inside his body, as if it was behaving like an obedient child.

Guihu Luixing finally understood. This was the realm he needed in order to completely control the Qi inside of him. It was as if he wasn't even controlling the Qi, as if the Qi was controlling itself to calmly stay inside his body.

Guihu Luixing was glad. He shouldn't have too much trouble internalising the Qi of the remaining stones, if he could do it as naturally as blinking or breathing.

He took another Qi Stone and started absorbing it's energy.

The process this time was much easier. Although it was still a bit troublesome to extract the Qi from the stone, the internalisation process was easy and natural.

It wouldn't take too long for him to completely internalise all the energy from the remaining stones.

Meanwhile, as Guihu Luixing stopped chanting the mantra, the fox and the soul present in his room woke up from their trance.

Dark Moon felt as everything was clearer. The doubts she had after the latest study section seemed like silly problems now, easily solved.

She also felt much more rested and that she was much stronger. She could probably go for another study session without problems.

Serana, also felt different after waking up.

She was previously having trouble absorbing the Qi from the Qi Stones Guihu Luixing gave her. Although, like he said, she could feel se instinct of wanting to absorb them, it was faint and unclear to her what exactly she should do.

Now however, although she hadn't arrived at a definitive answer, everything was much clearer. She quickly sent the Qi Stones down her throat, 'sat' in the same position Guihu Luixing was seating for quite some time and started trying yo absorb them.

She didn't knew exactly how but she knew she had to 'concentrate' on the Qi Stones inside her.

What her instincts clearly told her, however, was that she should listen more to that mantra Guihu Luixing was chanting earlier.

She wanted to try chanting it, however was impossible for two reasons.

First, in this soul form, even though she had some very limited Interaction with the world, talking was clearly out of her possible actions, of course, chanting was also not possible.

Second, even though she remembered Guihu Luixing chanting it, when she tried recalling the mantra itself, her mind came to a blank. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't recall the words.

She could only 'sigh' and keep trying to absorb the Qi Stones.

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It was already nighttime when Guihu Luixing finished absorbing all Qi Stones.

"Dark Moon! I succeeded!" he informed the fox who was still standing guard for him.

"Kon, kon!" she barked happily before jumping into his arms and licking his face.

"Let's go to the dining room. I'm starving." he said, carrying the pup with him outside the room.

While he was walking, he started to observe everything with his enhanced senses. He felt that for the second time, the world changed greatly.

The first was when he broke through to the Qi Interaction Realm. He could see the world very differently from before, see and feel things he couldn't before.

Now however he felt as if his senses were previously covered by fog, or as if he felt everything through thick cotton clothes. He could see, hear and feel things much mire clearly.

His observations didn't last long though, as he quickly reached the dining room, where his parents were about to start eating.

Noticing him, his father spoke up.

"Ah, Luixing. You finally came out. You... What?! You broke through?"