"Alright, everyone. The competition is over. These 15 disciples of our Blue Dragon sect and Red Tiger sect are going to take part in the Triennial Tournament," the host spoke out loud.
"Umm, Host! Why is there an elder in the midst of the disciples?"
"Yeah, wasn't the final participant going to be someone from the losing group? Why is there an elder amongst them?"
Numerous complaints appeared from the group.
"Doctor Ning is our physician. However, he is also very young and talented. He has a high cultivation base and is very strong. As such, under the dual decision of both the sect leaders, we have taken Doctor Ning as a disciple. If you have any complaints, go talk to the sect leaders," the host said.
No one was stupid enough to question the decision of the two sect leaders, so as such, the competition ended.
The next two months passed just like that.
While Ning was a disciple in name, he was still the physician of the sect. The only difference was that after learning that Ning would soon leave, they had hired another doctor in the last few weeks.
So, Ning was finally starting to have some free time.
He used this free time to do exactly 2 things. The first thing he did was use the spirit stones he had to cultivate.
A normal spirit stone gave a lot of Qi directly to the person and that was helping Ning immensely in speeding up his cultivation.
He still needed to keep the Qi on his body somehow, but thanks to his Earth Shattering - Heaven Tempering art, his meridians had gotten very robust. So they could now hold more Qi than a normal cultivator.
So, after starting using the spirit stones for just a few days, he was starting to feel bloated. However, this was where he suffered his first, real bottleneck.
Since he was closing in on the first major realm change in his cultivation, he needed something more than just everyday cultivation.
He needed to do something else to advance in his cultivation.
Thankfully, there was the library and he had managed to read up on advancing to the Foundation Establishment realm all he could.
'I need to condense the Qi in my naval area huh?' he wondered as he read the information in the book. He read more and came to a general understanding of what he was supposed to do.
First of all, he had to condense the Qi he already had. Throughout the Qi Condensation realm, he had gathered and condensed them, but now it was time to take it one step further.
Since he couldn't collect any more Qi, he could only use the Qi that was in his body. He closed his eyes and started meditating to slowly jam his Qi into his naval area, a place the cultivators liked to call the Sea of Qi.
It was a place that could hold a certain amount of Qi, and thus, the more condensed the Qi was, the more it could hold.
It took some time to condense even the most little amount of Qi into the sea of Qi. As its name, the Qi inside the Sea of Qi was so thick, that it was basically a liquid that floated around.
Which was why it was called a Sea in the first place. The condensation couldn't be completed in a single day and took a lot of time. So, he had to stop for the day since his work was going to start again.
Over the next few days, he took his spare time and used it to condense his Qi. Thanks to his robust meridians that held more Qi than normal, it took him a little more than normal cultivators to complete the process.
However, he was happy knowing that once he was done, he was probably going to be stronger than normal cultivators once the process was over.
Finally, after a week, he witnessed a change in him. The Sea of Qi that he had to force his Qi into was starting to suddenly work on its own and started collecting the Qi in his body to condense it.
He no longer had to force the Qi into the sea as it was now automatic. He still couldn't collect any more Qi, so he waited for the Qi inside of him to empty into his Sea of Qi.
He just had to use his cultivation technique and the Qi would automatically turn into the liquid in his Sea of Qi. After a few more days of this, he finally managed to completely convert all of his Qi.
Suddenly, a change occurred. The pores in his body slowly opened up and waste products in his body started getting pushed out.
He was experiencing the same thing he did when he first entered the Qi Condensation realm. And now he was experiencing it again when he was entering the Foundation Establishment Realm.
Just as this was happening, another change, much higher in importance was taking place at the same time. Even with his eyes closed, Ning was starting to see everything that was going on in his body.
His body, the pores, the waste, the Sea of Qi, and the Qi inside of it; he could see everything. He had finally unlocked Divine Sense.
He wanted to see more with his divine sense but now was not the time, so he focused on the Sea of Qi. The sea was really tumultuous as new areas were being built around the sea.
Slowly, the amount of space for the Qi that could be gathered was starting to expand. It expanded such that the amount of Qi that could be stored was doubled.
It continued to increase and soon it was tripled. After that, it became so large that he could fit 4 of the current sea in the new space. Then 5, then 6.
It kept on going more and more. Finally, when it was 10 times as large as it originally was, it stopped and stabilized.
Ning had officially entered the Foundation Establishment Realm.