The Energy Refinement Stage

When she awoke, it was a bit later in the morning than usual. Her clear memory of those passionate hours, combined with the fact that she was still lying cradled in his arms, entirely naked, quickly reminded Xie Mei of what had happened.

'Why did everyone tell me that it would hurt at first? Did they mean that slight prickling feeling?'

Remembering what her mother and other elders had taught her, a bit of confusion clouded her eyes, only to be replaced with realization soon after.

'Is it because I've started cultivating and have far surpassed a normal human's physical limits? That would explain why tiny amounts of pain barely even register anymore...'

Having figured out the mystery, relief washed over her heart, then she looked up and into the eyes of her 'husband', who had already awoken as well.

"Good morning, my love."

Sharing an affectionate kiss, the two of them slowly got ready to start the day. As they were on the way to take another bath, she spied the mess that their sheets had become and blushed in shame.

'I feel bad for Ying'er. But even if I tried to stop her, she'd definitely insist on cleaning it up!'

With the long-overdue arousal mostly out of the two's system for now, the two of them didn't mess around in the bathroom too much and instead properly began their day's work.

Now much stronger than yesterday, Theodore chose to increase his pace a little, considering that merely arriving at the Energy Veins was far from all that he had to do–once he was there, he would still be plenty busy. Therefore, he didn't want to cut it too close.

As he was patiently digging and returning once to eat a filling lunch, both Xie Mei and Li Shuying spent all their remaining effort on cultivating. For the servant of average aptitude, however, progress was very slow. She had only managed to make a tiny bit of improvement in the Skin Refinement Realm, despite the extraordinary support from her Cultivation Technique. Still, if she continued in this manner, then it likely would not take her much longer than a month to break through to the Muscle Refinement Realm. That could be considered a breakneck pace for an average person!

Meanwhile, Xie Mei felt herself increasingly slow down with every single advancement in realm. Although she spent almost nine hours cultivating, by the time evening rolled around, she had only made it to the 139th realm. But knowing that she could still continue, she soldiered on. An 'agonizingly slow' half an hour later, she broke through once more. But at that point, she instinctively knew that she would hurt herself if she tried to progress further–it was exactly as her 'husband' had said!

'So the 140th realm is my limit, huh? Still, that should put me at around the level of a slightly weaker Pillar descendant. So, I'm better than someone from a Named Family! Heh, good!'

Feeling smug, she turned to look at her lover, who had already been waiting for her.

"I've reached my limit. What realm do you think I'm at now?"

Amused, yet simultaneously feeling a bit helpless, he shook his head.

"The 140th. You know, you should really stop murmuring to yourself while cultivating if you want me to have a hard time."

Freezing awkwardly once more, Xie Mei looked away for a bit, then shamelessly cleared her throat, choosing to forget about the matter. She had bigger fish to fry now!

"Ahem! So, how do I break through to the Energy Refinement Stage? And what realms does it have? Is there also a talent-dependent amount of them?"

Playing along, he ignored her blunder and entered teaching mode.

"First, let me give you an introduction to the Energy Refinement Stage. Contrary to the Body Refinement Stage, it has a fixed number of realms that every single cultivator will be going through in the same exact order. Where one's aptitude makes the experience differ is the extent to which one can progress in each particular realm and how quickly one will be done with it."

Pointing at a spot right in the centre of his chest, he made her focus some of her attention on it.

"The body has three very interesting spots within, which the past Heavenly Emperor christened the Upper, Middle and Lower Dantian. Alternative names for them would be 'Elixir Field', 'Qi Sea', or simply 'Energy Centre'. While their physical size is incredibly small, so much so that they can barely be perceived, these three spots each lead to an alternate space which differs in measurements and hardiness from person to person. Where I'm pointing right now is the location of my Middle Dantian. Those about to enter the Energy Refinement Stage begin their breakthrough and path of cultivation here."

Successively indicating a point above his eyebrows and just under his bellybutton, he continued.

"These are the Upper and Lower Dantians respectively. They'll be important later, so keep them in mind. For now, let me introduce to you the six realms of the Energy Refinement Stage. While their names might differ in some worlds, these here are the ones officially recognized by the Heavenly Dao: Gathering, Accumulation, Condensation, Dantian Transformation, Foundation Establishment and Tri-Culmination."

Pausing to give her some time to remember them, he had an encouraging smile on his lips.

"Considering our aptitude, I won't have to go into a lot of detail, so I'll give you a rough overview. During the Gathering Realm, one absorbs as much Energy as possible in the Middle Dantian. After the limit is reached, the breakthrough into the Accumulation Realm will be an automatic one. Rather than continuing to fill the Dantian, one will increase the concentration of the Energy within until it starts to liquefy. Then, the Condensation Realm will be reached. At that point, how to continue is still straightforward: Pump even more Energy into the Dantian until it's about to burst!"

Grabbing a handful of dirt, he suddenly clenched his fingers together as hard as he could. When he opened them once more, he revealed what seemed to be an incredibly tiny, dense pebble.

"Now comes the only hard part, the Dantian Transformation Realm, which usually stumps regular cultivators. One has to, in one go, compress the Energy within one's Dantian another time, temporarily turning it into as much of a solid state as possible. This will allow the Dantian to relax momentarily. At that instant, one has to release any and all restraints over the Energy, allowing it to expand, rebounding in response to the pressure it was under. The Dantian's walls will not get obliterated, but rather extend alongside the Energy until the force pushing it outwards dwindles to a halt. This can only be done once–afterwards, using this method will result in the destruction in the Dantian. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to try the best you can here!"

Only after she had resolutely nodded did he carry on with his explanation.

"Once more, the Dantian will have to be filled to the point that the Energy will turn into a liquid. Then, within its centre, depending on one's Cultivation Technique, the cultivator will establish their 'Foundation'–this is a symbolic representation of their technique itself, and will be formed from solidified Energy. The pinnacle of the Foundation Establishment Realm will be reached once it is impossible to further consolidate the Energy. As for the Tri-Culmination Realm... that one is a little special. It just requires you to do the same thing you've done in the Middle Dantian in the other two as well. Yeah, it really is that straightforward. Merely repetition, nothing more. But once one reaches its apex, a resonance between the Dantians will be formed, allowing one to sense that it's time to attempt advancing into the Core Formation Stage. But that's a bit too early for me to talk about now. Let's get back to it in a couple of days, alright? I think you have far more than enough to work with for some time."

Deep in thought, she carefully internalized all of his words, then she nodded and sat down on her usual spot once more. She had long since reached the point where she could attempt to go a step further–so now was the time!

'Dantian, oh Dantian... where are you?'

With her improved senses, she didn't find it difficult to perceive the inside of her body, although she was quite unaccustomed to it. As a result, it took her a few minutes to find that extremely minuscule spot close to her heart.

'Okay... very carefully now...!'

Seeing that it was right next to the closed meridian loop, she chose a previously unused meridian based on her intuition and led a tiny amount of Energy through it, right into the Dantian–where it completely disappeared from her senses! And yet, she knew that it wasn't gone, only in a different, yet still connected place.

Focusing on the Dantian, an image of an empty void appeared in her mind, which had that very Energy from before stored within. But compared to all of that yet to be filled space... there was practically nothing!

'Let me increase the speed of absorption one step at a time, to be safe.'

Even though she tried to carefully progress, before she knew it, ridiculous quantities of Energy were rushing into her Dantian, slowly spreading out within. Outside of her body and all around her, the Energy had formed into small vortexes, which could not be perceived by the naked eye due to their less than nanoscopic size.

'The Energy Gathering Array is still holding up for now. But her progress will start to drag on in a few realms. Rather than wasting weeks or even months here at that point, we should just relocate somewhere else. Which I already planned to do anyway.'

Relieved that everything was going exactly as expected, Theodore patiently waited for Xie Mei to end her cultivation session. It was very late in the evening–or rather, early in the night–when she finally did.

"I think I'm almost finished with the Gathering Realm! There isn't much space left to fill."

Beaming brightly, she wiped the sweat off of her forehead, happily sharing the results of her arduous efforts.

"Oh? Not bad! Your Dantian is quite large, then. You can check its size on your Status Panel, by the way. I can tell you how you compare to our competitors, if you'd like."

Intrigued, she took a look at the Cultivation category.

[ Cultivation ]

[ Stage: Energy Refinement ]

[ Realm: Gathering, 89% ]

[ Technique: Xie Mei's Unique Technique (Unnamed) ]

[ Dantian Size: • Middle: 3,800 km³ ]

[ Attributes ]

[ Strength: 8 → 1,268 → 2,536 ]

[ Dexterity: 13 → 1,273 → 2,546 ]

[ Vitality: 12 → 1,272 → 2,544 ]

[ Endurance: 14 → 1,274 → 2,548 ]

[ Agility: 9 → 1,269 → 2,538 ]

[ Energy: 3,382 ]

[ Intelligence: 11 ]

[ Wisdom: 7 → 15 ]

[ Mind: 10 → 19 ]

[ Luck: 42 ]

Because she wanted to avoid any confusion and get a clear picture, she had activated a toggle option that would hide the bonus Attribute Points which she always received from her beloved.

During the Body Refinement Stage, each realm had provided her with nine points to all of her Standard Attributes, and the breakthrough to the Energy Refinement Stage's Gathering Realm had doubled all of them on top of that!

Her Wisdom and Mind had been growing steadily due to the knowledge and experiences that she had obtained over this time, as well as the mental anguish which she had been enduring.

'But why is my Energy Attribute 3,382? Hmm... 3,800... 89 percent. Oh, I get it now! So each cubic kilometre is equal to one point!'

Beaming happily, she refocused her attention on Theodore, then shared what she had learned.

"It's 3,800 cubic kilometres! Is that good?"

Raising an eyebrow, then smiling approvingly, he nodded.

"It is! Considering that each realm of the Body Refinement Stage adds 10 cubic kilometres and a Mythical-grade Cultivation-related Talent gives you another 1,000 cubic kilometres, that still leaves 1,400 more which should have been the initial size of your Dantian."

He sighed a bit at this point, as he knew that what he was about to say would dampen her spirit. Still, he kept going nonetheless.

"A regular Named Family member will have a Dantian the size of around 2,000 cubic kilometres. A normal Pillar descendant will have one of 12,500, and a typical Supreme Pillar offspring... well, their Dantian will at least be at 115,000 cubic kilometres!"

Patting her shoulder in an effort to console her, as he had noticed that she had–as expected–turned a little downtrodden, he tried to cheer her up.

"Don't fret about it too much. A regular person's Dantian is usually only about 60 cubic kilometres big! So you're pretty damn awesome!"

Already feeling better, she nonetheless impishly played up her discontent. Yet at the same time, her cheeks began to turn slightly rosy.

"... if you say so. Maybe I'll believe you... if you pamper me a whole lot tonight."

Alas, Li Shuying would yet again find it challenging to get some sleep in. It was too bad that she couldn't file a noise complaint.