The Qi Condensing Pill entered his mouth and was swallowed down, immediately dissolving within the body, transforming into a rather thick medicinal power that surged towards Qi Chuan's extremities.
Seeing this scene, Qi Chuan immediately operated the Evergreen Technique.
With the circulation of mana within his body, an attraction force emanated from the meridians.
This attracting force not only caused the surrounding void to have specks of Spiritual Qi appear, which surged into Qi Chuan's body from his breath and apertures.
Even the thick medicinal power within his body was drawn along, strands entering the meridians.
As for Qi Chuan's original mana, it wrapped around this Spiritual Qi and medicinal power, flowing along a specific route within the meridians.
Through this operation, the Spiritual Qi and medicinal power gradually transformed and assimilated into Qi Chuan's mana.
When that mana finally returned to the Dantian, it had already been greatly enhanced.
[You operated the Evergreen Technique, absorbed Spiritual Qi, refined medicinal power, converting it into your own mana, triggered a ninefold critical strike, achieving ninefold gains, your total mana quantity received a slight enhancement.]
Opening his eyes, characters floated before Qi Chuan.
Qi Chuan then sensed internally, noticing that indeed, the mana within him had become a bit more robust.
This time's enhancement, compared to his previous cultivation achievements during the Qi Refining First Layer, was vastly superior.
This was due to the effects of the Qi Condensing Pill and the ninefold critical strike.
Under normal circumstances, with his Lower Eighth Grade Spirit Root, acquiring this seemingly small enhancement would require countless days of effort.
"In this way, my cultivation speed should be fairly rapid, right?"
Qi Chuan pondered this in his heart.
Then he closed his eyes again, immersing himself in cultivation, without paying further attention to the hundredfold critical strike characters.
Regardless of his focus, they would automatically trigger, bringing gains.
When a day of cultivation ended, only then did Qi Chuan complete his practice.
[You operated the Evergreen Technique, absorbed Spiritual Qi, refined medicinal power, converting it into your own mana, triggered a tenfold critical strike, achieving tenfold gains, your total mana quantity received a slight enhancement.]
He checked the characters floating in front.
This was the outcome of the last Grand Circulation he performed while running the Evergreen Technique, which didn't surprise him.
Then, he sensed his internal mana.
After a day's cultivation, his mana had considerably increased.
However, the distance to break through to the Qi Refining Third Layer was still far.
But the key was not here, rather it was with the medicinal power within.
According to Qi Chuan's feelings and estimation, there should be over eighty percent of medicinal power still remaining within his body.
Calculating briefly, refining all this medicinal power would probably take seven to eight days.
However, these cultivation-enhancing elixirs cannot be taken too frequently.
At most one per month.
Otherwise, elixir toxicity and bodily tolerance will increase sharply, posing great harm.
"Does this mean the eight Qi Condensing Pills will be depleted within less than a year?"
Qi Chuan muttered to himself, but didn't care too much.
Being able to sustain training for this long was already quite good.
Then, Qi Chuan started practicing magic.
[You successfully cast Fireball Technique once and maintained it for some time, triggered a twenty-fivefold critical strike, achieving twenty-fivefold gains, your proficiency in Fireball Technique received a slight enhancement.]
[You successfully cast Water Arrow Technique once and maintained it for some time, triggered a nineteenfold critical strike, achieving nineteenfold gains, your proficiency in Water Arrow Technique received a slight enhancement.]
[You successfully cast Golden Skin Technique once and maintained it for some time, triggered a fifteenfold critical strike, achieving fifteenfold gains, your proficiency in Golden Skin Technique received a slight enhancement.]
Through such diligent cultivation, whether it was cultivation or magic, Qi Chuan's progression was astonishingly rapid.
...
Another year passed.
During this year, matters about the secret realm had entirely settled down, along with the fifty-li restricted area, completely opened up.
Many receding forces and families that had restricted their members from going out started to operate again.
Even quite a few families went to the site where the secret realm once was to investigate.
Only, what made people secretly curse was that the place where the secret realm should have presented opportunities now was utterly barren, just bare mountains.
Within these bald mountains, not to mention the secret realm, not even a trace remained.
Because of this, many families were resentful inside, wishing something had been left behind.
However, they were also helpless, since after all, it's the Wind Moon Sect, what could they do?
They can only inspect the bald mountains inch by inch, and even surrounding areas were looked over and swept by groups of people over and over.
Yet, nothing was found.
Furthermore, frequent appearances of cultivators around the mountains led to numerous bloody conflicts and tribulation cultivator incidents.
Nevertheless, the secret realm matter had completely ended.
Yet the external situation did not calm down as expected, because at this time, another major event spread, shocking many families and loose cultivators.
The Wind Moon Sect will open its doors widely, recruiting new disciples!
In an instant, stirred countless discussions.
Regarding these external disturbances, Qi Chuan observed and listened.
Yet his cultivation never halted, instead becoming more diligent.
That day.
[You diligently cultivated, performed a Grand Circulation of the Evergreen Technique, triggered a hundredfold critical strike, achieved hundredfold gains, your mana received a substantial increase, successfully advancing to the Qi Refining Third Layer.]
When Qi Chuan finished cultivating, a line of characters emerged before him.
The next instant, within the tranquil room, it seemed a gentle breeze swept through, lifting Qi Chuan's magic robe.
Light faded from his eyes.
He perceived within himself, the mana now vastly different, indeed reaching what only a pinnacle Qi Refining Third Layer cultivator could achieve!
"Finally broke through to the Qi Refining Third Layer, not easy."
Feeling the strength brought by this breakthrough, Qi Chuan softly murmured.
Months ago, his eight Qi Condensing Pills had already been consumed.
Since then, he could only steadfastly rely on his own efforts in cultivation to enhance his cultivation.
Finally, after these months of diligence and previous accumulation, it culminated in a decisive breakthrough, advancing to the Qi Refining Third Layer.
This realm is the last realm before the Qi Refining Middle Stage.
The mana is at least several times stronger than the Qi Refining First Layer.
The strength is obviously beyond question.
One must know, within the Qi Family, out of over a hundred cultivators, excluding the Foundation Establishment Clan Leader, a handful of Qi Refining Late Stage Elders, and twenty to thirty Qi Refining Middle Stage cultivators, the highest cultivation among the remaining family cultivators is within this realm.
Moreover, having reached Minor Success in all basic Five Elements Magic, Qi Chuan's strength is notably strong. Adding one or two decent magical artifacts, he becomes a leading presence among the Qi Refining Early Stage cultivators.
"However..."
Qi Chuan formed a seal, followed by an appearance of a crimson fireball in his palm, precisely constructed by the Fireball Technique.
Now this fireball had faintly exceeded half a fist in size, and throughout the process, Qi Chuan's casting speed was noticeably faster compared to when first achieving Minor Success.
Though this progression was considerable, it hasn't yet allowed Qi Chuan's fireball technique to reach the Great Success realm, still having quite a distance to cover.
"It seems the gap between Minor Success magic and Great Success magic is larger than I anticipated, making the breakthrough even harder to achieve."
After all, throughout this past year, Qi Chuan consumed Qi Condensing Pills to boost his cultivation, focusing every month during those seven to eight days.
The rest of the time and during the latter months of the year, he had more time to practice magic.
Plus, considering the critical strike multiplier triggered while practicing magic, Qi Chuan always thought it was slightly higher than that for cultivation improvements.
Yet, even under such conditions, he still hasn't broken through to Great Success, which speaks volumes.
Still, this is normal.
It's known that ordinary lower tier Early and Middle Stage cultivators might not achieve even a single magic at Great Success realm throughout their lives.
Minor Success realms are also not often seen.
A Great Success realm Fireball Technique, even among Qi Refining Late Stage, holds considerable power.
If it's at perfection level paired with Qi Refining Late Stage cultivation, it becomes extremely formidable.