216 Opening The Upper Dantian

"Oi Sun," Elizabeth called. When she successfully gathered his attention, she smirked knowingly before saying, "No matter who finishes their breakthrough first, after we both enter the Spirit Realm, let's have a 'friendly' spar, ok?" From her tone and charm, it was hard for anyone looking in to think of her words as anything but endearing. But to Sun, he couldn't help but feel cold sweat start trickling down his back in apprehension. Beneath the appearance of a young and beautiful goddess, was the spirit of a demonic god of slaughter; one Sun had seen dispatch hundreds of thousands of lives in the form of Opal Vymlings.

However, this terrifying girl was one that he entrusted his absolute loyalty towards; the one he couldn't help but love with all his heart. Knowing full well that they would at most rough each other up, not devolve into a life or death battle, he didn't let his apprehension get the better of him and instead nodded. He didn't have high hopes for winning after they reached the same cultivation level as she thoroughly outclassed him while he was a full Stage ahead of her. But as a Pure Yang Cultivator, he would be one of the best partners she had by her side to compete with.

Upon getting Sun's acknowledgement, Elizabeth nodded herself before returning to the core of the Formations in the room. Sun similarly took the preparations required for his cognition to be at its best possible state. Then as if they had coordinated this beforehand, both Elizabeth and Sun started their breakthrough events at the same time. Elizabeth had what was left of her spiritual pillar of grandmist and Sun had the Mid Tier Spirit Grade Pure Yang pill he had concocted.

Sun's pill had even been consummated with Yrre's mystical methods to reach a 99% refined state, thus the moment the pill settled in his stomach, it erupted with dazzlingly pure rays of Pure Yang. The consummated pill could help even those in the Core Formation Stage make a breakthrough, nevermind help Sun move from the Saint Stage of the Mortal Realm to the Transcendent Foundation Stage of the Spirit Realm. Thus, with just as much momentum as Elizabeth, Sun willed for his Pure Yang Qi to tackle opening his Upper Dantian; his Spiritual Sea!

The human body had three Dantians. Those in the Mortal Realm could only cultivate their Lower Dantian, which was situated right under their navel. This Lower Dantian was often referred to as the "True Elixir Field;" it was where every cultivator from the lowliest of Mortals to the highest of gods stored their energy. However, the Spirit Realm wasn't as simple as the Mortal Realm which only saw practitioners increase the amount of energy in their body. In the Spirit Realm, the aspect of the Soul started to take precedent. If the Mortal Realm was a preparation for mortals to develop bodies suitable for immortal cultivation, then the Spirit Realm was the road to immortality.

The breakthrough to the Transcendent Foundation Stage would thus begin with Mortal Realm practitioners opening their Upper Dantian and allowing the spiritual sea to join the body in cultivation and growth. However, even amongst two cultivators with similar conditions, no two spiritual seas would be the same at the moment of awakening.

Elizabeth and Sun were already aberrant entities as Extreme Path cultivators, so this venture in unlocking their spiritual seas didn't even appear to be similar. Sun used his cultivated power over Pure Yang and the medicinal essence of his pill to pierce through his Upper Dantian and galvanize a spiritual sea of flames. But Elizabeth used the remnant energy of grandmist from the spiritual pillar she had chosen along with the ever-present Yin energies that came from the formations beneath her to manifest her already partially-cultivated Soul Land.

Sun, like the overwhelming majority of cultivators, naturally didn't have a Soul Land that was cultivated in the Mortal Realm. Only after his Spiritual Sea formed would a space at the core of it house what would develop into a Soul Land. On the other hand, Elizabeth, who had unlocked her Soul Land and had nurtured it perpetually with her Chaos Requiem technique, already had the foundation for her Spiritual Sea created before hand. After manifesting the Soul Land, all the energy and effort would go into purely increasing the depth and width of her Spiritual Sea. In this fashion, even amongst Transcendent Foundation Cultivators, she would already have a massive head start.

Lisa, being an incarnation that lived in Elizabeth's Soul Land watched the whole process from a marvelous perspective. Without doing anything, she saw the starry skies and desolate earth of Elizabeth's Soul Land fade and become incorporeal. The void slowly faded as well, becoming less and less like static noise and instead turning completely black. This was representative of Elizabeth Soul Land being manifested in her Upper Dantian.

In the very next moment, the incorporeal Soul Land once more became life-like, the only difference being it was now an island in the literal sea of soul energy that was Elizabeth's Spiritual Sea. Of course, upon manifesting, this "sea" was nothing more than a ring of puddle water, not even deep enough to reach one's ankles. But as time passed and the breakthrough progressed, more and more of Elizabeth's latent soul force was excavated; increasing the depth and width of the Spiritual Sea as a direct consequence.

At that point, Elizabeth no longer bothered to continue with her Upper Dantian; its size would naturally develop based on the efforts she put in before breaking through. Now, the second part of the breakthrough was imminent. She would have to turn her Inner Strength into solid pillars of True Qi.

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This part of the breakthrough was actually the least decisive moment and in fact, most ordinary cultivators would usually fail the first part in unlocking their Upper Dantian. However, should there be any cultivators who unlocked their Upper Dantian but fail in this part, it would only be a matter of time for them to become fully fledged Transcendent Foundation cultivators. It was the lack of a Spiritual Sea that blocked practitioners from truly connecting to their environment with their soul and telekinetically controlling their Qi or Magic outside the bounds of their body.

Still, Elizabeth and Sun weren't lacking in either foundation or talent and merely awakening their Upper Dantains wasn't nearly enough to warrant a rest in the middle of their breakthroughs. Each Spiritual Pillar had the potency of 100 million units of Inner Strength and through such densely compacted strands of energy, a solid mass could form. This solid mass acting in conjunction with a cultivator's spiritual sea guiding its strength was what made the qualitative difference from Mortal to Spirit.

One only needed a single pillar to form the foundation of their cultivation base in the Transcendent Foundation Stage, but neither Sun nor Elizabeth settled for the minimum. Sun had it in him the potential to form seven spiritual pillars, but aimed for eight as he was only a couple million units of energy shy of reaching 800 million units of Inner Strength. Though the majority of the essence of the pill he took was expended to perfectly open his Upper Dantian, he had more than enough energy and will to power through forming seven spiritual pillars and cultivating a final eighth.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, wasn't even close to being able to form as many as Sun. However, she had several resources that were yet to be consumed fully. The spiritual pillar of grandmist had yet to be fully integrated, still passing several million units worth of inner strength for her to expand her reserves. She had yet to use the dozens of pill bottles that Ygdris had prepared for her, and most importantly, the spiritual Yin energies within the formation she lay in were nowhere near fully absorbed.

Before reaching the Saint Stage, Elizabeth had yet to develop a Divine Spirit Body and had to rely entirely on her Seamless Connection to absorb energy from the environment. While it was in truth dozens of times quicker than average cultivators, it wasn't comparable to the speed of absorption she could display now that 108 acupoints were opened and 20 meridians had been perfectly connected.

Disregarding Transcendent Foundation Stage cultivators, even the grand majority of Foundation Collapse Stage cultivators couldn't hold a candle to the frenzied absorption speed she was currently displaying. She devoured the yin energies that had been collecting in the formation for days like a parched traveller who discovered an oasis in the middle of the desert and the energy was sucked into her body so intensely it was visible to the naked eye.

Like clockwork, the Mortal Core Elizabeth had been developing as a Mage in the Mortal Realm within her Lower Dantian started shrinking. Splitting with exactly 100 units worth of Inner Strength, the Peak Tier Magic Core continued integrating the energy Elizabeth devoured while the other mass slowly morphed into a spiritual pillar; no different from the one made of grandmist which she received as a reward.

Upon completion, within the still-developing Spiritual Sea in her Upper Dantian, a titanic spiritual pillar came into existence. This was a shadow of Elizabeth's cultivation base which would stabilize both her Soul Land and Spiritual Sea. Though the spiritual pillar within a cultivator's Lower Dantian would be condensed to no bigger than a chocolate bar, in their Spiritual Seas, each spiritual pillar would be like a tower that held up the heavens; fully displaying their prestige. All cultivators would see similar phenomenon as the history of their cultivation would be left in their Soul Land.

This continued on for several hours, though by the fourth hour Sun had finished completely forming both his Spiritual Sea and his eight spiritual pillars. He even managed to keep an additional dozen or so millions worth of energy as a pseudo pillar that could later be cultivated into his ninth spiritual pillar.

Yet, Elizabeth was nowhere near finished. Her body perpetually at war with the raging energies she forced into it, churning out spiritual pillar after spiritual pillar at a rate that would frighten the common cultivator. Seeing her go above and beyond in her breakthrough efforts once more, Sun sighed helplessly, deciding it was a better use of his time to consolidate his cultivation as best he could before Elizabeth finished. There was still that spar he had agreed to before they both began their breakthroughs after all, and the better prepared he was, the better he would struggle against Elizabeth.