Chen Ping sat cross-legged at the heart of the Qi Gathering Formation, his eyes closed, his vision turned inward.

Deep within his Dantian, in the churning Sea of Qi, strands of spiritual power drifted like fine hairs.

He gripped a Low-grade Spirit Stone in his palm. He pulled at the energy within, drawing it out thread by thread. It flowed up his arm, coursing through his Meridians, and emptied into his Dantian to mingle with his own power.

The stone turned grey, then crumbled into useless dust.

Chen Ping tossed the powder aside and grabbed another.

It took two full stones just to top off his reserves.

For a cultivator, Spirit Stones were blunt instruments. They were inefficient for direct absorption, eventually replaced by pills, but their value was absolute. They were the blood of the economy, the gold standard of the Immortal Path.

Chen Ping opened his eyes. His gaze locked onto the emerald-green Qi Gathering Pill sitting on the jade tray.

It was translucent, glowing faintly. The herbal aroma alone was potent enough to make the Qi inside his body restless. It smelled of raw power, far superior to the mild Spirit Nourishing Pills.

He didn’t hesitate. He popped the pill into his mouth.

It melted instantly. A wave of medicinal energy, gentle at first but rapidly expanding into a roaring flood, washed through his limbs before crashing into his Dantian.

This wasn’t just nourishment; it was force.

The medicinal energy acted like a crushing Millstone, grinding down on the loose, gaseous Qi in his Dantian. It compressed everything, squeezing inward with relentless pressure.

Impurities—tiny, imperceptible specks of waste—were stripped away and expelled.

It was a violent purification. The Spirit Nourishing Pills had been a gentle rain; this was a vice. The loose threads of his power were hammered into dense, resilient wires.

This was why he had waited. Without this purity, without this compressed density, he would never have the leverage to drill through the barriers.

The “Spirit Nodes.”

There were three of them—stubborn, calcified obstructions on the left side of his Dantian, blocking the path to the next level.

Chen Ping focused. He gathered the newly compressed Qi, shaping it into a spinning drill bit, fueled by the pill’s power.

Go.

He slammed the energy against the first node.

BOOM!

A dull thunderclap echoed in the depths of his soul.

The barrier shook violently, but it held.

Chen Ping didn’t panic. He regrouped, pulling the scattered energy back into a tighter, sharper point. There was no hesitation, only cold determination.

He struck again.

Pfft.

A sound like tearing silk rang out inside him. The first Spirit Node shattered.

Pure Qi flooded through the breach, rushing into the newly opened meridian pathway. A sense of relief, of sudden vastness, washed over him. The circulation speed of his Qi spiked.

He didn’t stop to celebrate. He rode the momentum.

He guided the torrent, still thick with the pill’s medicinal potency, and smashed it against the second node.

This time, the resistance was futile. Under the hammering of the refined Qi, the second barrier crumbled in moments.

The river of power surged forward, carving out new territory.

But as it approached the third and final node, the momentum began to fade. The Qi Gathering Pill was spent.

Not yet.

With a thought, Chen Ping snatched a second Qi Gathering Pill and swallowed it.

Fresh power exploded in his stomach. He funneled it instantly into the mainstream, merging it with his own Qi to form an unstoppable lance.

“Break!”

He roared the command in his mind, pouring every ounce of his will into the strike.

CRACK!

The sound was crisp, decisive.

The final barrier disintegrated.

The three Spirit Nodes were gone, replaced by a seamless, interconnected loop. A new, more efficient network of circulation hummed to life.

His Sea of Qi convulsed and expanded, the capacity nearly doubling in a heartbeat.

The core of his power, a spinning vortex of liquid light, didn’t grow larger—it remained the thickness of a toothpick—but it grew heavy. Dense. The quality of the energy was leagues beyond the 2nd Level.

The 3rd Level of Qi Condensation.

It had happened as naturally as water flowing downhill.

Chen Ping exhaled a long, grey plume of turbid air. His breathing settled into a deep, rhythmic cycle.

He opened his eyes. A sharp, predatory light flashed in his pupils before vanishing behind a veil of calm.

Chen Ping didn’t rush.

For the next few days, he ignored the temptation to swallow more pills. Instead, he sat in meditation, stabilizing his new foundation.

Cultivation was architecture. If the concrete wasn’t set, the tower would fall.

A week later, his realm was solid.

Only then did he step out to test the changes.

First, Divine Sense.

At the 2nd Level, his mind could barely scrape the edges of a 100-foot radius, and the image was blurry, like looking through frosted glass.

Now, he pushed his senses out. Invisible ripples expanded from his body, effortless and silent.

They stretched to 200 feet.

The resolution was terrifying. He could feel the dust settling on the floorboards. He could count the legs of a beetle crawling in the wall cracks. He could trace the microscopic veins on the leaves of the Spirit Herbs in the garden outside.

It was a qualitative leap. He wasn’t just seeing more; he was seeing everything.

Next, the Object Control Art.

Clang.

With a thought, the Tier 1 Low-grade Black Iron Sword leaped from its scabbard. It transformed into a streak of black light, tearing through the air within the kill zone of his Divine Sense.

It wove, stabbed, and circled, moving with the fluidity of his own arm.

Previously, maintaining this level of control would drain him in half a Cup of Tea’s Time, leaving his mind throbbing with pain.

Now? He ran the sword through complex attack patterns for a full Cup of Tea’s Time.

When he finally recalled the blade, he felt only a mild fatigue. His Dantian was half-empty, but he wasn’t helpless.

He sat, recovered his Qi to its peak, and stood up for the final test.

He flicked his finger.

Whoosh.

A fireball the size of a fist materialized instantly. But this wasn’t the orange, flickering flame of before. This was condensed, blazing white-hot.

With a flick of his wrist, he sent it screaming across the yard.

BOOM!

It struck the testing bluestone. Rock shards sprayed like shrapnel. A charred, smoking crater marred the surface of the stone.

The power had tripled. The casting speed was nearly instantaneous.

Chen Ping looked at his hand, a cold satisfaction settling in his gut.

The Fireball Art had been a parlor trick before. Now? It was a weapon. He finally had a way to kill from a distance without relying solely on the sword.

He looked inward, at the toothpick-thick core rotating in his Sea of Qi.

It was denser. Heavier. Every cycle of energy made his body feel lighter, stronger, more alive.

He finally understood the madness of Mortals. He understood why they would kill, steal, and betray for a chance at this. The feeling of evolution, of shedding the weakness of the flesh, was intoxicating.

But Chen Ping crushed the feeling down.

He let the excitement fade, replacing it with the icy pragmatism that had kept him alive this long.

This is just the start.

The 3rd Level of Qi Condensation. In the grand scheme of the Cultivation world, he was still an ant.

He needed to stay hidden. He needed to prepare.

The predator does not roar until the prey is already dead.