Chapter 6
Chapter 6: Qi Induction Realm Entry
Shao Heng understood at once why the air around them felt different.
It was cleaner. Lighter. Every breath slid into her lungs like water poured into a clear cup. The concentration of spiritual qi was rising.
She narrowed her eyes. At least for now, her ability to sense it didn’t seem low at all.
Her gaze swept the deck.
In Jiang Yun Jiang’s hand, the jade slip was visibly thicker than the other eight—including Shao Heng’s.
[High-Grade aptitude perks?]
For a brief, reckless moment, Shao Heng wanted to walk straight to the elders and tell them the test was wrong—that her aptitude couldn’t be so simple.
But she knew too little.
She had no proof, no understanding of what she’d seen on the Source-Appraisal Jade Disc, and no guarantee that testing again would produce a different result. If nothing changed, she would only look like a resentful girl throwing a tantrum. That would poison her path before she’d even stepped onto it.
So she held her tongue.
After Elder Zhao offered one or two more reminders, she fell silent. The three elders turned and left, disappearing into the ship’s inner corridors as though they’d never been there.
A yellow-robed male disciple approached. “The cabins on the second level below the deck are for you,” he said. “Choose one yourselves. Fasting Pills are prepared inside as well. Take one, and you won’t need to eat for three days.”
Jiang Yun Jiang and the others thanked him and headed below.
Night had already fallen. The red sun was gone, and even the thin crescent moon hid behind clouds, leaving the world dim and muffled.
They hadn’t cultivated yet. Their bodies still demanded the old routines—sleep, rest, meals.
As they moved toward the stairs, Lu Shao Jing drifted close to Shao Heng. His mouth twisted. He quickened his pace, then pretended he couldn’t stop himself as he slammed his shoulder toward her.
He was young but already huge—nearly seven chi tall, built like a boulder. If he hit her, she’d crash hard.
Shao Heng reacted without thinking. Her footwork was lighter than his, and she “accidentally” hooked her foot just so.
Lu Shao Jing tripped and went sprawling, landing with a thud that made nearby lanterns sway.
Only after he hit the floor did Shao Heng speak, slow and mild. “I only feel like cursing today, so I won’t curse you.”
Lu Shao Jing hissed, spewing filth through clenched teeth.
A few sect disciples remained on the deck, their eyes sharp even in the dark. None of them intervened. They had seen who provoked first, and in their eyes this was nothing but a boy earning his own pain.
Shao Heng didn’t spare him another glance. She strode down the stairs, chose a room, and shut the door.
The cabin was small—just a narrow bed, a plain table, and two chairs. But a square window was set into the wall. It didn’t open, and it didn’t look like wood. It was hard, seamless, almost like flawless glass. Through it, she could watch the clouds peel away behind them.
Shao Heng sat at the table and found a white porcelain bottle waiting there. She shook it and listened. Three pills.
She poured one into her palm. It was no bigger than a soybean, brown and dull.
“One tiny pill, and I can go three days without eating or drinking,” she murmured. “So this is what a cultivator uses.”
She swallowed the Fasting Pill. Then she pressed the jade slip to her forehead again.
This time, she didn’t skim. She read carefully, sorting the flood of knowledge with the same ruthless clarity she’d used on everything her whole life.
“The east, south, west, north, and center—the Five Great Domains…”
Her breath caught, excitement lighting her from the inside.
She had thought the Great Yan Dynasty was vast. But the jade slip treated it as a remote corner, a thin-qi borderland of the Eastern Domain. In the eyes of the Human Clan’s immortal sects, it was barely worth naming—just a small place called the Kun Fan Domain.
The slip held more than geography. It laid out the cultivation path in clean, merciless steps.
“Different races have different systems, but all fall under the Nine Realms of cultivation.”
“The first three major realms are the Qi Induction Realm, the Mystic Passage Realm, and the Purple Palace…”
For humans, it meant opening the three dantians—the qi sea, the Crimson Palace, and the Mud Pellet—until they circulated without end. Only then did the body remake itself and forge an immortal foundation, advancing to the Fourth Realm: Rebirth.
“The First Realm, the Qi Induction Realm, requires drawing in heaven and earth qi to open the qi sea, plant the Yellow Sprout, and condense the first furnace of spiritual power.”
Shao Heng set the slip down and tapped her index finger against the tabletop as she thought.
She remembered an old volume from the marquis’s library, Azure Jade Dao Methods Miscellany. It recorded: “Cultivation gathers qi into the body. The body becomes the furnace, and creation is tempered and forged.”
A marginal note in another hand added: “Once spiritual qi is refined and condensed by a practitioner, it becomes spiritual power, measured in ‘furnaces.’”
The jade slip went further.
One furnace, three hundred furnaces, six hundred furnaces, and nine hundred furnaces were the thresholds for early, middle, late, and complete stages of the Qi Induction Realm.
Once a cultivator reached nine hundred furnaces, they had the foundation to challenge the next major realm, the Mystic Passage Realm. A thousand furnaces was considered the upper limit—rare, hard, and valuable. The more furnaces a cultivator accumulated before breaking through, the stronger their foundation afterward.
This wasn’t rumor. It was a summary compiled by a great sect over thousands of years, drawn from the experiences of countless disciples.
Then came the brutal math.
With the sect’s yearly stipend, a disciple with Lower Grade aptitude would need around sixty years just to have a chance at reaching late Qi Induction Realm. Mid Grade might cut it to thirty. High-Grade aptitude could do it in about three years.
“Sixty to three,” Shao Heng murmured, brows knitting. “A twentyfold difference.”
And that didn’t even account for the fact that Mid Grade and High-Grade disciples entered the inner sect directly, gaining far better resources, opportunities, and backing.
The slip mentioned other factors too—wider meridians, stronger aptitude requiring more qi in the same realm, superior techniques demanding greater accumulation. Did those things balance out? Or did the gap only widen?
She turned the questions over again and again, finding no answer. She was standing at the edge of a world she didn’t understand.
So she stopped thinking and began.
Shao Heng rose and moved to the bed. She sat cross-legged, formed the Five Hearts Facing Heaven posture, and let her breathing slow.
Recalling the key points from the jade slip, she emptied her mind and silently recited the formula.
“In still emptiness, sense the subtle spirit; heaven and earth are the source of all laws…”
She had always been able to grasp obscure scriptures without a teacher. This was no different. Her recitation wasn’t empty repetition—she tasted the meaning, and the meaning responded.
Her eyes were closed.
And yet, she saw.
Countless colored points of light drifted around her, gathering into shimmering ribbons and clusters like flowing silk in water. They were beautiful—so beautiful it almost hurt.
White, green, black, red, and yellow.
Metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.
Except in rare extreme lands, heaven and earth qi contained all five elements. It could be absorbed and refined by any cultivator. But most chose what to draw in based on their innate roots and the needs of their techniques.
A water-leaning cultivator practicing a gentle art would waste time cultivating in a volcano where fire qi overwhelmed the other elements. They’d have to rely on full circulation and the mutual generation of the five elements to convert that fire qi into water-aspected spiritual power. It could be done—but it was slow.
Shao Heng’s tested aptitude hadn’t shown any elemental limitation. For now, she didn’t need to worry. Later, she could choose based on whatever technique she cultivated.
A single thought rose—
And the clusters of qi shot toward her like birds returning to the forest.