Li Nanzhu's Foundation Establishment bottleneck suddenly loosened at this moment.
The alchemy seals that were always half a step behind, the talismans that always lacked just a bit of heat—it turned out all the gaps had long been filled by this clumsy tenderness.
As she gazed at the spirit plants Suisui had carefully brought over, the alchemy seals that were always half a step away suddenly became clear.
The moon-essence grass on the desk still carried the morning dew from Hundred Herbs Heaven, reflecting tiny golden glints in the sunlight. The moment her fingertips touched the leaves, she suddenly understood what she lacked—it wasn't skill, but that pure connection of the heart with the spirit plants.
"Let's try one more time," she whispered, turning toward the third bronze alchemy furnace.
Li Nanzhu arranged the spirit plants Suisui had brought one by one. This time, she didn't deliberately chase a high grade for the pill; she simply followed the most natural proportions.
As the furnace fire rose, jumping flames cast swaying shadows on the wall. Suisui squatted by the furnace, its soul fire flickering in sync with the light.
Outside the alchemy room, Feng Qingping leaned against an ancient pine, resting with her eyes closed. The night dew dampened the hem of her robes, but she didn't mind.
In the stone pavilion not far away, Feng Weilan was wiping a short dagger, its blade reflecting a cold, chilling light under the moon. Both maintained a tacit silence, with only the occasional insect chirp breaking the stillness of the night.
When the medicinal liquid in the furnace began to churn, Li Nanzhu felt a difference. She recalled the line from Xiao Yan's inheritance: "The Dao of alchemy is like a person; too rigid, and it breaks." She suddenly relaxed her tense nerves, and at the moment when the thirty-six medicinal ingredients merged perfectly, she formed the final alchemy seal by intuition—
Buzz!
The alchemy furnace let out a clear, melodious chime, ringing out distinctly in the silent night.
Three rounded pills floated inside, their surfaces manifesting star-vortex patterns identical to those in Xiao Yan's inheritance. She had seen these lines once when the furnace exploded, but she had never reproduced them in a stable state.
"Top-grade..." Her hand trembled slightly as she pinched a pill. The sensation of her spiritual energy circulating on its own just now was exactly the same as the loss of control she felt when a talisman drawing failed.
Realizing something, Li Nanzhu suddenly grabbed the failed talismans from the desk for comparison—the lines remaining in the charred talisman ash were ninety percent similar to the star-vortex on the pills.
"So that's how it is..." She stroked the cloud patterns at the end of the Wanxiang Brush. "The dao of talismans and the dao of alchemy come from the same origin."
Li Nanzhu put down the foundation establishment pill and took a deep breath, feeling her internal spiritual energy becoming more active than ever. It was a premonition of natural progression; the moment for breakthrough had arrived.
She gently brushed away the medicinal ash by the furnace and sat cross-legged on the bluestone floor. Suisui immediately understood and scurried out of the alchemy room to deliver the news.
Because this breakthrough came so unexpectedly, she didn't even have time to return to the small courtyard to activate the defense array. Even if there were no disturbances within the Five Elements Dao Sect, at the critical moment of Foundation Establishment, she still hoped someone would protect her.
On the first day at the hour of Yin, her breathing gradually synced with the fragrance of medicine in the room. Tiny beads of spiritual dew seeped from her skin, shimmering in the morning light. Feng Qingping stood guard outside, occasionally leaning in to listen; Feng Weilan sat beneath the ancient pine in the courtyard, his long sword resting across his knees.
At noon on the second day, a faint golden glow began to circulate around Li Nanzhu. Suisui peeked through the crack in the door, its soul fire flickering with her aura. Whenever a spiritual breeze brushed through the medicine garden, Feng Qingping would look up at the sky to ensure it wasn't an anomaly triggered by the breakthrough.
At daybreak on the third day, Li Nanzhu suddenly fell into a strange state of stillness. In this absolute silence, she clearly heard a soft click from her dantian—the sea of qi had finally transformed into a spiritual lake. A perfect Foundation Establishment had come about naturally.
When Li Nanzhu opened her eyes again, the world was entirely different.
She "saw" Feng Qingping pacing in the courtyard, her hem stained with morning dew; she felt Feng Weilan's long sword trembling slightly in its sheath; she noticed Suisui squatting in the medicine garden with fresh mud on its bone claws. These weren't sights seen with her eyes, but images naturally perceived through her divine sense.
What was most startling was what she saw through inner vision—her sea of consciousness was comparable to the Golden Core stage, and the surface of the water reflected the phantoms of seven alchemy furnaces. The cloud patterns on one of the furnace walls were identical to the tripod Xiao Yan frequently used, and the shape of the flames jumping inside resembled the curve of her master's sleeves during his final alchemy session.
When ordinary cultivators achieved Foundation Establishment, even if they formed a pseudo-sea of consciousness, it was only a tiny space. A scale like this was clearly the result of merging with the entirety of Xiao Yan's divine sense essence. The inheritance she thought she had already understood was only now truly revealing its full scope to her.
"Master..." she whispered in her heart, tears rolling down uncontrollably.
Li Nanzhu finally understood that what Xiao Yan left her was not just the alchemy inheritance, but his entire life's cultivation, transformed into a part of her Dao foundation. This gift was so heavy it made her shoulders sink slightly, yet so warm it felt as if someone were gently embracing her from behind.
The moment she pushed open the alchemy room door, morning dew happened to drip from the eaves.
"Little Junior Sister!" Feng Qingping rushed forward in three steps, forgetting even to put away her array disk, letting it roll into the grass. She grabbed Li Nanzhu's wrist, and as soon as her spiritual energy entered, she cried out in shock, "This spiritual energy purity—"
Feng Weilan appeared behind them at some unknown point, his usually cold features softening slightly. "To have such solid spiritual energy at the early stage of Foundation Establishment... impressive."
Li Nanzhu was about to speak when an intuition hit her. Her lips didn't move, yet two clear voices rang out simultaneously in the minds of her senior sister and brother: "Fifth Senior Sister's sleeve is stained with night dew, and Sixth Senior Brother's dagger has a silver mark."
Feng Qingping's hand jerked. "Divine sense transmission?!" Her eyes widened, reflecting the morning light. "You can project your divine sense already at the Foundation Establishment stage?"
"More than that." Feng Weilan's fingertip brushed the edge of the dagger. "To be able to perceive such details..." He suddenly looked up, his usually calm voice carrying a rare ripple of emotion. "Your sea of consciousness..." The words felt inappropriate as soon as they left his mouth, but Li Nanzhu smiled.
She deliberately used her divine sense to swirl three fallen leaves on the ground, arranging them into the shape of a lake before them.
"Oh my god!" Feng Qingping pulled her into a hug, the scent of medicine mixed with the smell of night dew washing over her. "I only recently managed to project my divine sense with difficulty, and you..." She suddenly choked up, her eyes turning red.
Li Nanzhu let her senior sister hold her, suddenly noticing that this sister who was always obsessed with arrays smelled of faint pine ink in addition to medicine—likely from drawing array diagrams in the pavilion last night. She subconsciously used her divine sense to pick a small withered leaf from her sister's hair, only realizing after she had done it just how close she had become to these people.
Feng Weilan suddenly handed his dagger over. "Try it."
Li Nanzhu understood. Her divine sense flowed over the blade's edge like water, and a faint golden light shimmered at the worn spot. It was made of a special material that required divine sense to activate.
Feng Qingping pulled out an array disk with a freshly polished spirit-testing crystal in the center. "It can withstand the divine sense of a late-stage Foundation Establishment at most." Her ears were slightly red; she had clearly stayed up late modifying it.
Li Nanzhu suddenly realized that these two gifts hid the painstaking care of her senior siblings: one to help her control her skyrocketing divine sense, and another to prevent others from prying into her because of her spiritual energy purity.
There was no world-shaking commotion like a Golden Core breakthrough, only the thoughtfulness a Foundation Establishment cultivator should have, hidden beneath the surface.
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