At that exact moment outside a wooden cabin of the C-3 Herb Field, several daotong could be seen kneeling on the floor. None of them dared to take a single deep breath.

“Alright. We’re all brothers here, you don’t have to be so afraid of me. To tell you the truth, I have a date with a female daotong here today, so you bastards better watch your mouths and get the hell out of our way. If anyone dares to let out a single word.. heh heh, I won’t receive any punishment even if I kill any one of you, now.” Fang Xing spoke half-threatening words with an eerie smile and sat on the same chair he had favored back in his daotong days.

“No, no, please rest assured, Laoda. We won’t say a word...” Wang and the rest of the crew were all shivering in fear. Never in their wildest dreams had they expected the little monster to return to their herb fields so soon; it hadn’t even been a year yet!

“All of you, go! Take these twenty taels of gold and spend it on whatever you like. Don’t come back until you’ve spent it all!” As Fang Xing threw out the golden taels, Wang and the crew excitedly thanked and bowed to him before heading off.

‘Heh, looks like they were born to be daotong for the rest of their lives after all. Even after I told them about the Hwa’jin, there’s still not a single one that has managed to cultivate a trace of Qi.’ Fang Xing shook his head and sighed to himself.

Fang Xing sat on the chair outside the cabin for an entire day, and it wasn’t until night had fallen and nobody had come that Fang Xing walked inside. He sat cross-legged on the bed before taking the Poji Pellet into his palm, his face filled with excitement.

“Here I come, tier four...” With a few deep breaths, Fang Xing calmed his excitement and threw the Poji Pellet into his mouth.

—

At first, all was well, and Fang Xing could feel something start to burn inside him some ten breaths later. With another deep exhale, he noticed that—instead of air—his breath had become a light blue-colored flame. He then tried to refocus himself while circulating Qi around his entire body in order to dissolve the pellet, choosing not to use the aid of the [Scripture of the Revered Spirit] and instead allowing it to dissolve at its natural pace.

A few breaths later, the flame within him seemed to suddenly erupt, becoming many times more powerful; in mere moments, Fang Xing could only feel as though he had swallowed a fireball that could not stop erupting and reforming. It was releasing an uncontrollable amount of violent energy as it rampaged in and out of his meridians, leaving each shattered into dust and following it up with a wild, snake-like force of Qi that swam into every inch of his body.

The devastating energy of that fire combined with the strange yet powerful medicinal force; all of his meridians were being destroyed into bits one moment, only to reform again in the next. Through this continuous cycle, the entirety of Fang Xing’s insides were repeatedly destroyed and reborn anew.

To be born again!

Fang Xing knew that this was normal, and all he could do was to endure it all. The path of cultivation was a path of forever breaking through one’s maximum limit, to rebuild and refine oneself repeatedly.

For the first three tiers of the Spirit Stage, it was viewed as a process of drawing and maintaining Qi within one’s own body and meridians, then using it to clean oneself and rinse out impurities to access the body’s maximum potential. After Fang Xing reached the peak of tier three, that maximum physical potential had already been reached; his strength, speed, senses, endurance, and spirit power had all already hit the absolute maximum limit possible for his current state, and there was no more room for improvement. Unless he was able to go through further breakthroughs, no matter how many resources he had available to him, he could only maintain his current state and work to keep it from regressing.

This was when the Poji Pellet came into play, to break and then reform. It used its powerful medicinal powers to break past Fang Xing’s limit and rebuild his physique in order to increase his limit of potential higher. The dissolving Poji Pellet used the exact same principle of building muscle mass by repeatedly regenerating his insides each time they were burned to ash.

It was the process of being bathed in fire in order to be reborn!

It was akin to the phoenix, to be given new life from the ashes and reach closer towards the state of nirvana. It was because of this that the Poji Pellet was also referred to by another name: Pellet of Nirvana.

Some ten breaths later, Fang Xing could feel that he was like a large piece of steel being refined from within a raging inferno, where ruthless and violent flames burned his body little by little before he was restored again; it felt as though his body was being changed completely. During the process, he clenched his teeth and gripped at the tranquility within his heart so as to not interfere with the slow yet customary process. This was all due to him studying the methods of how to correctly consume the Poji Pellet, for he knew that if he was unable to withstand the heat and had to run away from the flame, it could genuinely burn him to death.

An hour eventually passed. Fang Xing suddenly opened both of his eyes, and within his irises was a tint of radiance, as though a hungry beast was now inside his body howling out towards the emptiness. As Fang Xing opened his mouth and took a deep inhale, he could feel a small amount of something spiritual flowing into his bloodstream.

It was Qi!

Being a D-Ranked disciple meant that his body was not born suitable for cultivation, and he could neither feel nor draw Qi from the surrounding environment... yet now, this had all changed. Although each breath did not bring in a large amount, there was still a world of difference between now and before.

‘Inhale.’

Fang Xing picked up the wine gourd beside him before taking a large sip of its spirit wine and activating the [Scripture of the Revered Spirit], and streams of Jing soon began to spread out into Qi and dissolve into his meridians. Fang Xing wasted no time in hesitation and gulped down all of the spirit wine within the gourd. It was only then that he began to feel an abundance of Qi within; it was a feeling he had never experienced before.

It was the feeling of power, different from that of tier three. It was the power to elevate him above the mundane.

Fang Xing lowered his head to glance at his palm, then suddenly looked upwards before snatching out into the air with the same hand. Abruptly, an invisible force came into being, and a jar of wine beneath Wang’s bed flew out before pausing in mid-air after in front of him. Fang Xing released his thumb and the seal of the jar was opened up, followed by the wine pouring out of the jar into Fang Xing’s gourd, all through controlling the invisible force to an excessively detailed level.

Even up to the point the gourd had been filled, not a single drop was spilled. The entire process flowed on smoothly.

“Hah hah...” Fang Xing couldn’t help but let out a heartfelt laugh. After his tier of cultivation increased, his control over [Dragon Catching] had only grown stronger. It was now even more fluid than when Hou Qing had used it on him.

Fang Xing could even feel that after he mastered this skill, no ordinary weapon would ever be able to hurt him. Spirit Stage tier four was when a cultivator could truly be differentiated from a mortal; it was the first true step towards cultivation and immortality.

Fang Xing slowly rose to his feet. With a mental trigger, an invisible force caused him to fly out of the wooden cabin. It was at the first crack of dawn, and a purple ray of light illuminated him as his spirit grew stronger.

SWOOSH

Fang Xing stretched as he stood in front of the cabin. Suddenly, he could be seen shooting ten yards forward—like an arrow—simply through activating a small amount of Qi beneath his feet. He could feel that there was a steady flow of power within him, and his body was so agile; it was as though he could travel at the speed of light, lift stones of a million pounds...

He could feel that it was possible for him to fly!

In fact, Fang Xing actually could fly. After he dashed a couple hundred yards away, he came across a ravine and lifted his foot for a leap. It didn’t take much effort for him to cross, and once he saw he was about to land, he grabbed ahold of his storage ring from his ponytail and released the [Nine Snakes’ Sword]. He immediately stepped onto the sword, using it as a foothold to take another leap forward into the air. The sword lowered only slightly from being stepped on, and it followed behind under his control.

An endless expanse of herb fields stretched out beneath him, with most of them covered in blooms of light yellow. Viewed from afar, such a scene appeared as an ocean of yellow flowers, and Fang Xing was hovering over this ocean like a bird as he swiftly and lightly jumped from one spot to another. Beside him—like a loyal servant—was the [Nine Snakes’ Sword], and it would position itself at just the right location to offer another push into the air at the precise moment he needed it. All nine of the golden snakes surrounded, danced, and circled around Fang Xing, just like nine guardians looking after their young master.

“Haha...” Fang Xing’s blood boiled as he laughed with the gentle wind blowing in his direction. “Is this what it feels like for real cultivators to fly across the lands?” He looked up towards the heavens in anticipation. “Maybe one day I’ll be able to break away from the restrictions of the earth, reaching the nine heavens[1] and into the realm of the stars...”

At his current level, Fang Xing was only barely able to stay airborne by utilizing outside aid such as his Flying Sword and Qi. It was not truly flying, per se.

“Looks like I will still have to learn a few more skills and techniques from the sect, or else it would be hopeless even with higher tiers of cultivation.” Fang Xing finally reached a halt as he stepped on a tree branch, all nine of the golden snakes returning to the sword before it flew back into the storage ring.

‘It’s time for the inner court.’ Fang Xing thought to himself as he looked towards the direction of the sect, his mind recalling what his second uncle had cautioned him about once before: “When a person newly arrives at a place, there will always be trouble of some sort, like being bullied. That is, unless that person is more ruthless than they are so that the others actually have some sort of apprehensions...”

Fang Xing narrowed his eyes and smiled coldly to himself. “Since someone is after me, I’ll just use them to set an example for anyone else who might have the same idea...”

—

NOTES

[1]nine heavens: 九重天 (jiu3 chong2 tian1), the Chinese believe that there are nine layers of heaven, as the number nine (9), is the largest single digit number and akin to the upper limit of things.