Chapter 97 — His Own Foundation
CHAPTER 97
His Own Foundation
“No more waiting,” Shi Feng said.
He sat inside the stone hut with the door barred. The ordinary sword lay beside him, and the last of his prepared food was covered near the water jar. His completed golden bones remained steady after a full night's adjustment.
The First Extreme was finished. He could feel it in every movement.
Now came Foundation Establishment.
He slowed his breathing and gathered his qi inward. All three hundred and sixty-five meridians answered. The force moving through them was vast, but he didn't let it rush ahead without direction.
This wasn't a battle where overwhelming an opponent solved the problem. He was building the next step inside his own body. Every part needed to join properly.
Mo Tianheng's remembered knowledge included the ordinary process. Shi Feng studied it before coming here. He knew the known foundation grades, from Mortal to Divine, and how earlier cultivation affected the result.
He didn't select a grade by wishing for its name. His meridians, condensed qi, and completed golden bones were already there. Whatever they could build, he'd build completely.
The first change came quietly. Qi that once spread easily through his body gathered into a denser flow. His meridians carried it without strain, and the golden skeleton supported the growing pressure.
Shi Feng guided it through one complete circuit, then another. The force returned cleaner each time. He didn't lose the capacity he built during Qi Condensation. He was changing the way that strength held together.
The hut remained still. There was no lightning above the roof and no sky-shaking beam announcing his secrets. A lightning tribulation waited at the step toward Golden Core, not here.
Shi Feng's attention stayed inside. One uneven current tried to move ahead of the others. He slowed it and matched the whole flow before continuing.
His five Epoch Meridians answered with tremendous force. For a moment he understood why attempting this without complete preparation would've been foolish. An ordinary body might not sustain what those meridians carried.
His golden bones did.
He thought, This is why I didn't leave them unfinished. The thought brought satisfaction, but he didn't linger over it. The process wasn't done.
He drew in the surrounding spiritual qi and refined it steadily. The hut's thin walls offered little shelter from noise, but the ridge kept passing travelers away. Nobody came to ask what he was doing.
For once, quiet stayed quiet.
The gathered force settled deeper. His body no longer treated the stronger qi as a temporary surge. It moved with his intention, stable and clear.
Shi Feng felt a firm support beneath every circuit. It wasn't an object he could pull out and display. It was the result of every completed stage joining into the beginning of a new realm.
His foundation took shape.
He checked the descriptions he knew. A Mortal foundation couldn't explain the force he felt. Neither could the better grades in the remembered accounts. Even the descriptions of Divine foundations failed to match the depth before him.
Shi Feng didn't invent a grand title to cover what he couldn't measure.
“My foundation,” Shi Feng said quietly.
That was enough for now.
He guided another circuit through it and waited for any unsteady place to appear. None did. His meridians carried the transformed qi smoothly, and his skeleton held its complete strength beneath the flow.
Early Foundation Establishment.
The words came with a surge of delight. He opened his eyes and grinned at the empty hut.
For months, the world called him a cripple. Now he stood in the realm required to compete beside the kingdom's proudest young cultivators.
They didn't need to know it today.
He stood and took the plain sword. This time he guided a thin stream of the new qi toward it, then stopped before the steel began to complain.
The difference was clear immediately. Even a small amount carried more force and finer control than his previous qi. The ordinary weapon could still cut, but it couldn't let him use the full change safely.
A refined artifact would.
He set the sword down and tested the flow through his fingers instead. A loose pebble rose from his palm, wavered, and dropped. Shi Feng caught it before it struck the floor.
“Again,” Shi Feng murmured.
He tried with less force. This time the pebble stayed steady for several breaths before he released it deliberately.
Stronger qi didn't remove the need to learn his own control. However, the response was far clearer now. Adjustments that previously fought the limits of Bone Refinement became possible without forcing them.
He spent the next hours practising simple movements and steady circulation. No new grand technique, no leap to the next stage. He wanted early Foundation Establishment to remain solid before using it in a real fight.
He tested the new flow through another slow circuit. It remained steady. The breakthrough hadn't removed the need for practice, but tomorrow he would wake with this strength still his own.
At sunset, he went behind the ridge and tested one short palm strike against the broken stone left from yesterday. The remaining stone split cleanly. He used far less effort than before.
Shi Feng looked at his hand with quiet satisfaction. Ordinary Foundation Establishment opponents weren't going to trouble him. Even an early Golden Core cultivator would face a very different battle from Cao Wenshu's.
He didn't need to seek one out merely to prove it.
Old Man Luo returned the next morning and stopped beside the hut's open door.
“Done?” Old Man Luo asked.
“For now,” Shi Feng replied.
The hood covered his face again. His qi remained withdrawn, giving the old man no open display to recognize.
Old Man Luo inspected the stove, water jar, and tools. He counted the rake twice.
“Nothing broken,” Old Man Luo said, sounding almost disappointed.
“You charged for a hut, not rubble,” Shi Feng replied.
“Some tenants don't know the difference,” Old Man Luo said.
He accepted the key and waved Shi Feng toward the road. Neither man offered to become the other's lifelong acquaintance.
Shi Feng returned to the capital before noon. The familiar streets looked the same. A noodle seller shouted, two guards argued over a cart, and someone outside a wine shop claimed his brother could defeat the kingdom's tenth-ranked young genius.
The world hadn't changed because Shi Feng entered a new realm.
He had changed enough.
Ling Qingzhu opened the courtyard gate before he knocked twice.
“Three days,” Ling Qingzhu said.
“I returned in three,” Shi Feng replied.
“I was counting,” Ling Qingzhu said.
“So was Old Man Luo,” Shi Feng replied. “He cares deeply about his rake.”
Ling Qingzhu stared at him.
His face had changed. The last faint unevenness left by his old illness was gone, and his features seemed clearer beneath the road dust. When he smiled, she forgot the complaint she'd prepared about how long he'd been away.
Then she turned toward the kitchen too quickly.
Shi Feng looked past her at the covered rice.
“Is it burning?” Shi Feng asked.
“No,” Ling Qingzhu replied. “You can stop looking at the doorway.”
“I was looking at supper,” Shi Feng said.
That made it worse. She stepped aside, annoyed with herself. He had come home without a new wound, and she'd noticed his face before checking his sleeves.
“Was the practice useful?” Ling Qingzhu asked.
“Very,” Shi Feng replied.
She studied his face. He looked happier, and his voice held an ease she hadn't heard before. Still, he didn't release qi or claim restored meridians. She took it as satisfaction from stubborn effort.
“Then wash before eating,” Ling Qingzhu said.
She'd left rice covered in the kitchen. Shi Feng set his bag down and smiled. In the bottom of that bag, the black ring waited.
For the first time, he had the realm needed to open it. He could finally learn what storage remained behind that stubborn seal.
He would examine it properly when the kitchen was quiet.