Some time passed before the system replied.

[The Qi Sea Realm isn't like the Qi Gathering or the Qi Foundation realm, in the fact that there are no hard barriers between levels. Levels are at best representations of the size of a person's Qi Sea. As such, it is also possible to go beyond the 9th level. However, the bigger a person's Qi Sea grows, the harder it will be to condense into a foundation. Your Qi Sea is at least ten times as big as a 9th level Qi Sea cultivator. Normally, a breakthrough would be impossible for you, but luckily, the control room has a special function which can help you with the breakthrough.]

As he read the system, Meng Li was scared, but then became relieved. Despite only having a short time with his cultivation, it still managed to create a sense of longing for power, and he didn't think he would be satisfied with his life on earth anymore. That was one of the reasons Meng Li went to sleep before breaking through to the Qi Sea Realm - he had heard that going to sleep in a dream was a sure way to wake himself up - it was his last test to check whether it all wasn't just a very elaborate dream. Otherwise, he would be incredibly disappointed. Anyways, since he had a way to break through, he would go for it. After all, without any people around, how could he enjoy the wonders of civilisation?

'So, how should I go about breaking through?' he asked excitedly.

[First, you need to understand the Qi Foundation Realm. Upon breaking through from the Qi Sea Realm, the spiritual Sea is condensed into solid state, but still remains in the Dantian in whatever shape it was condensed, usually a ball. That's the first stage of the Qi Foundation Realm, the Reinforcement Realm. In this realm, a cultivator uses the pressure the foundation can emit to temper his own body, in preparation to establish the foundation's pillars. Although normally people reinforce specific parts of their body, you, as the chosen of master, need to reinforce your whole body. Then comes the pillar building stage. In this stage, cultivators use the unshapen foundation inside their Dantian to create pillars, which rest on the previously reinforced body parts. Those pillars, once shaped, connect a cultivator's body to their Dantian, and allow the cultivator to use much more Qi than before, much quicker than before, and increase their Qi absorption speed. This effect increases with each pillar built. The last stage is the pillar fusing stage - during this stage, a cultivator fuses all of their pillars into one. This one pillar is connected to the entire body, and since all of the pillars are joined into one, the power is much more than simply adding the power of the pillars together. After all, this one pillar is the basis of the Origin Core. If the pillars' purity or the amount of Qi within is not up to par, how could someone advance to the Origin Core Realm? That's why, in the Qi Foundation Realm, you cannot breeze through it as you did with the Qi Gathering and Qi Sea Realms. It's simply impossible to do.]

Meng Li was not surprised. The speed of his cultivation was a strange matter to him - after all, in all the novels he had read, advancements never came to anyone as easy as they did to him. It seemed that the first two major realms were simply a matter of accumulating enough Qi, but the Qi Foundation Realm was much more complicated than that... But Meng Li was not scared. He would break through eventually. After all, with the heaven defying nameless technique, even if his talent was trash, with enough hard work, he'd eventually succeed!

Speaking of the nameless technique, Meng Li realised that he didn't yet practice it after he broke through to the Qi Sea Realm. He'd have to do it at least once before attempting to break through to the Qi Foundation Realm. Despite nothing in the manual mentioning passing through a major realm without practicing it, he felt that what had happened with him was simply a freak accident, and had such a low possibility of happening that the creator simply didn't think of saying anything about it.

[The method to break through is simple - you have to endure an enormous pressure and use it to force your Qi Sea together. Normally a cultivator uses his own control over the Qi to do so, but with such a huge Sea, you simply have no chance, no matter how strong your control might be. Fortunately, the control room can be used to create pressure and you have control over it's intensity.]

'Oh, so that's how it is...' Meng Li had read about 'using external pressure to break through' quite a lot of times in the novel he'd read, but it didn't occur to him before that his condition might actually require something like it.

'Okay, I'll do it soon.' he replied to the system. After all, he first had to practice the nameless technique. Fortunately, this time the circulation of the nameless technique didn't come with any surprises, and he managed to complete it much more smoothly than the first time, with much less injury and practically no pain this time. In a few hours, he was confident of being able to break through.

'I'm ready. But first, I want to try and condense my Qi Sea by myself.' despite the system's insistence, he wanted to try it for himself. The system also didn't stop him, since it knew that Meng Li wouldn't even be able to advance to a point where failure would harm him. And soon, as the system predicted, Meng Li opened his eyes in despair. Despite being able to use all the Qi within his Dantian fluently and without problem, once he tried to compress it, he couldn't do anything. Although the Qi Sea churned and gigantic waves were made, the Sea didn't shrink at all. Or, it might've shrunk by 0.01%... But the change was simply too small to be of any importance. After all, he had to condense the entire sea to the point where it turned solid!

'Sigh... So how can I control the pressure in the white room?' Meng Li asked the system. He once again felt thankful that his system wasn't a cocky one like the ones he'd read about in the novels and wouldn't mock him for not following it's instructions. He was grateful to have such a nice system... Despite the fact that it's machine-like answers made him feel quite lonely.

[Simply issue the command. The control room is practically my core, you're able to control every aspect of it. The size, colour, objects, pressure - everything.]

The answer left him dumbfounded. He'd endured the white walls of this room for nothing?! But Meng Li quickly calmed down. This was not the time to be angry about the colour of the walls. After restoring his mental state, Meng Li issued the command to increase the Qi pressure in the white room. Or rather, the control room.

He immediately felt the effect. He felt a pressure start compressing his body, and although it wasn't nearly enough to injure him, he could feel it, like someone feels clothes that are just a bit too tight. It was uncomfortable, but when Meng Li started to compress his Qi Sea once again, he was astonished to see a huge change. Despite still not being enough, the Sea shrunk, and quite significantly at that. In terms of percentages, it was only about 1%, but with the size of his Qi Sea, it was much more than the Sea he had when he first broke through from the Qi Gathering Realm.

Excited, Meng Li increased the pressure once again. This time, he felt it more clearly and it was even more uncomfortable than before. Honestly, being uncomfortable was much worse to Meng Li than pain, so he quickly increased the pressure to a level where he felt his bones starting to crack. It was painful - but when Meng Li noticed the decreasing size of his Qi Sea, he managed to ignore the pain in order to break through.

When the Qi Sea was compressed to a size half of the original one, he realised that he needed to increase the pressure once again. Without hesitation, Meng Li issued the command once again. The twofold pressure made his bones creak, like they were going to break, but Meng Li still felt that he could endure more. What's important, however, was that the Sea in his Dantian shrunk to merely 30% of the former size! However, once it reached this size, Meng Li once again felt that with the current pressure that was the limit.

So, he increased the pressure once again. He now felt as thought he was a hundred meters underwater, with the only difference being that he could actually breathe. Luckily, the increased pressure also meant that his Sea once again shrunk. This time, to merely 20% of it's former size. But Meng Li had no other way but to increase the pressure once again.

With each increase in pressure, the Qi Sea in his Dantian shrunk, and his bones creaked as if to signify that they would soon break, but they never did. Constantly at the limit, with sheer force of will alone, Meng Li kept them from breaking. The white room also supplied more extremely pure Qi to heal his muscles, bones and tendons and with each compression, they came out stronger. That was the reason that with the increases in pressure, even though it always seemed like they were going to break just if someone poked him with a finger, they never did.

In merely half an hour, Meng Li managed to shrink his Qi Sea to merely one percent it's former size. His body was also strengthened to the limit by the constant pressure. But at this point, he had no time to take a look at his gains. The sea in his Dantian now shrunk to merely 1% of what it was before, but it was still much larger than what he started out with in the Qi Sea Realm. By his estimations, he had to compress it to merely 0.001% of what it originally was - an incredibly small size. The pressure required was also incredible, and Meng Li actually worried whether his body would be able to withstand it, but he clenched his teeth and persevered, increasing the pressure once again.

This time, his bones actually succumbed to the pressure. One of his ribs had snapped, with the loose fragment of the rib stabbing into his lung. Now, Meng Li had to split his attention between compressing his Qi Sea, and preventing the healing force of the control room from healing the fracture in the position it was on - he didn't want to heal the fractured bone only to break it once again later!

However, Meng Li still managed to do so. With the situation he was in demanding extreme control over his Qi, his control increased by leaps and bounds! It was true that extreme pressure often made people grow at an astonishing rate... However, now was not the time to marvel at his strength. Meng Li had to break through first!

After increasing the pressure several time, Meng Li managed to shrink the sea to merely 0.01% of it's former size. It was now over ten thousand times smaller than previously! And fortunately, at this point, the sea started to look more and more like a solid substance, although it was still a liquid in essence.

'Just a bit more...!' Meng Li bit his lip in order to focus. He increased the pressure once again. The fractured rib once again burrowed itself into his lung. Meng Li felt a need to cough, but he knew that if he did his efforts would be for naught, because he'd lose control of the Qi Sea. It was condensed to such a small state that if he were to decrease his control by one bit, the ensuing explosion would most likely cripple him.

The Qi Sea was now extremely close to being solid, and Meng Li felt that he had to simply increase the pressure one last time to finish his breakthrough. So, while clenching his teeth, he issued the command.

'Increase the pressure once again!' he practically shouted in his consciousness.

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The pressure increased, and Meng Li felt his left arm snap under it. The bone was broken and he felt his arm twist strangely under the immense pressure. However, he ignored it, and focused on compressing the Qi Sea for the last time.

After a few seconds, a shockwave was emitted from Meng Li's body. He quickly reduced the pressure in the control room to the minimum and couldn't help but fall to his back, but on his face, there was still a victorious smile.

"I did it..." Meng Li couldn't help but say it out loud.