Chapter 46: Golden Sand Realm

After Su Yuan finished preparing,  he began circulating his cultivation technique, ready to break through the Foundation Establishment stage.  As his thoughts shifted, the Mystic Truth Qi inside his body rapidly completed a full cycle!  By the time Su Yuan reacted,  the Mystic Truth Qi in his dantian had triggered a chain reaction, transforming breath by breath into true essence. The gaseous spiritual energy changed into liquid spiritual energy—that is, true essence.  This is the advantage of breaking through; it’s as if Heaven and Earth are assisting, converting all the spiritual energy inside the body into true essence simultaneously. From now on, he would circulate meridians slowly to continue transforming.  Just as Su Yuan’s body surface began to generate a faint suction, the surface of the Yuan Pool trembled slightly, and then his aura rose subtly, reaching the Foundation Establishment stage.  Su Yuan blinked in confusion and met the innocent gaze of Little Cai.  Little Cai flicked her tail in puzzlement: “I’m your guardian spirit, you can start now.”  “I’m ready,” Su Yuan said.  Little Cai: “??”  Su Yuan’s expression was strange. Among the many texts in the Scripture Pavilion, cultivators described how difficult the Foundation Establishment stage was. They needed Foundation Establishment pills worth tens of thousands of spirit stones, Foundation Establishment spiritual materials, and other means to increase the success rate and quality.  But for him, the breakthrough happened as soon as he willed it!  The Wood-Fueled Metal Forging Cauldron in his dantian condensed slightly, and then... nothing more happened.  Even the expected absorption of large amounts of Yuan Pool spiritual liquid didn’t occur; it was less intense than during the Qi Refining stage.  After a moment of thought, Su Yuan understood.  Ordinary people spend about 100,000 spirit stones from Qi Refining to Foundation Establishment—equivalent to using 100,000 spirit stones to build a bicycle.  But he, to construct a natural formation barrier, probably spent over 100 million spirit stones—equivalent to building a Xiaomi Su Seven Ultra, which naturally outperforms a bicycle by a thousand times.  Covering the same thousand-meter distance, a bicycle takes a long time to ride, but the Su Seven Ultra zooms right away!  This is the difference in foundation!  People like Zhuge Jian and Nangong Huoyu could have broken through Foundation Establishment many years ago, but why haven’t they? Because they wanted to build a stronger foundation!  The foundation isn’t built at the Foundation Establishment stage; it’s formed during Qi Refining. Once at Foundation Establishment, the foundation is already set.  Zhuge Jian and the others wanted to find rare treasures and Foundation Establishment spiritual materials in the secret realms to build a super foundation. Otherwise, with their talent, they could easily reach the Golden Core stage through home seclusion, even compressing the cultivation time to just a few years.  But would they be content to stagnate at the Golden Core or Nascent Soul stages? People like Zhuge Jian, geniuses among top spirit roots, aim straight for the Nascent Spirit stage!  Only Su Yuan could, without leaving home, use a natural formation barrier to establish his channels and break through with a perfect Dao foundation. There’s a difference between genius and outright cheating.  But now Su Yuan faced a dilemma: because his foundation was so overwhelmingly strong, he couldn’t fully exert himself in cultivation. If he circulated the meridians at full power, his meridians might break!  It was like driving a Su Seven Ultra on a regular road—you might only be able to go 25 miles per hour; otherwise, hitting obstacles would cause serious damage.  But the “work-rest balance” buff time was too precious to waste.  Su Yuan’s eyes shifted, and an idea struck him. If he couldn’t run on regular roads, why not run on a racetrack?  His 118 spirit apertures inside were an unlimited acceleration racetrack. External spiritual energy could enter these apertures directly and then be transmitted through them straight into his dantian.  The Wood-Fueled Metal Forging Cauldron in the dantian used this spiritual energy as fuel to forge golden sand!  Since taking the regular road (increasing true essence) was difficult and he still needed to build the road (temper his body and meridians) before he could sprint freely, he would focus all his effort on running the racetrack (using the spirit apertures and refining golden sand). That was no problem!  With this thought, Su Yuan no longer hesitated.  The 118 natural formation barriers all burst forth with astonishing suction, immediately sweeping up vast amounts of spiritual energy from the Yuan Pool.  The spiritual liquid entered the spirit apertures and was directly converted into gaseous Mystic Truth Qi. Then, as if by teleportation, it was transmitted straight into the dantian.  The dantian quickly accumulated a large amount of Mystic Truth Qi. Instead of circulating meridians to refine it into true essence, it all surged directly into the Wood-Fueled Metal Forging Cauldron.  The Mystic Truth Qi surged into the cauldron and, passing through its body, gradually took on the aspect of wood and the meaning of metal. Then this transformed Mystic Truth Qi entered the flames inside the furnace and began forging.  The wood aspect fueled the fire aspect, allowing the flames to burn continuously. The metal meaning within reacted intricately with the Mystic Truth Qi during forging, causing the Mystic Truth Qi to gradually evaporate, while the golden sand inside the flames grew increasingly solid.  Even the sect leader would be stunned seeing this; this wasn’t cultivation at the Foundation Establishment stage—it looked no different from the Golden Core stage!  Su Yuan would say this was naturally different. The golden sand he was condensing was only a simplified miniature version of the Golden Core. Since it was a level below Golden Core, it was still logically part of the Foundation Establishment stage.  The natural formation barriers inside Su Yuan’s body were indeed a defiance of the heavens. They even faintly resonated with the external natural formation barriers. The spiritual liquid in the Yuan Pool divided into 118 streams, connecting to Su Yuan’s body and continuously flowing in.  Su Yuan closed his eyes and focused on circulating the Wood-Fueled Metal Forging Cauldron, forging the golden sand!  Soon, spiritual liquid equivalent to ten top-grade spirit stones’ worth was consumed, and finally, a golden sand grain so small it was nearly imperceptible was forged inside the cauldron!  Su Yuan could proudly say he had reached the Golden Sand stage.  He had forcibly added a Golden Sand stage between Foundation Establishment and Golden Core, and he could add further stages above Golden Sand, like Golden Grain and Golden Pearl stages.  Actually, Su Yuan believed this method was more reasonable, a step-by-step process like a ten-month pregnancy. Other cultivators went straight from nothing to having a precious Golden Core appear, but he nurtured it slowly. The speed might be slower, but the risks were minimal, and the details of the process were superior. His future potential was naturally unquestionable.  Obviously, Su Yuan didn’t consider that for other cultivators, refining golden sand as he did was no easier than condensing a Golden Core—it was actually harder...  Su Yuan’s refining continued, and after condensing one golden sand grain, he became proficient.  The second golden sand grain formed faster. The two grains floated in the flames, continuously receiving the cauldron’s fiery forging. Inside the furnace, the strong wood aspect and metal meaning provided ongoing nourishment for the two golden sand grains.  Su Yuan’s expression remained calm as he continued condensing golden sand.  When the number reached seven grains,  Su Yuan suddenly had an idea. He arranged the seven golden sand grains in the shape of the Big Dipper constellation!  It was nighttime!  The Big Dipper in the sky brightened slightly, and seven light pillars descended from the heavens, passing through layers of formations and directly entering Su Yuan’s body!  At this moment, the seven golden sand grains seemed to receive some special mystical blessing.  They performed an extremely complex rotation, displaying 365 variations of star maps in a short time.  Su Yuan, still in the state of the “buff,” saw everything clearly and instantly mastered it. This was a divine secret technique!  Su Yuan pondered and condensed two more golden sand grains. These merged directly between the seven stars forming the Big Dipper constellation, then gradually disappeared as if they never existed!  Then the Mystic Truth Qi flowing into the Wood-Fueled Metal Forging Cauldron no longer condensed new golden sand. Instead, it continuously nourished the previously condensed grains.  A complete Big Dipper golden sand formation rotated inside the cauldron. Flames gradually enveloped the golden sand grains, making them burn like actual stars!  Excellent. Now Su Yuan’s cultivation method was thoroughly unconventional. He couldn’t judge the rank of this so-called Wood-Fueled Metal Art anymore, but he had plans to pass it down as a supreme secret technique. He could simplify it into nine versions for future disciples to cultivate gradually.  The simplest version would only be ten times harder than the Mystic Truth Derivation Art in Immortal Seed Valley, so only peerless geniuses would succeed.  He would continue modifying the technique, innovating and updating versions. If a peerless genius truly followed his path, the future would be insane.  Time flowed slowly.  At this moment, inside the sect’s main hall, Sect Leader Gu stood before the core of the formation, already numb.  “Reserved spirit stones are almost depleted, please replenish in time, Sect Leader!”  “I know! Here you go!”  “Reserved spirit stones are almost depleted, please replenish in time, Sect Leader!”  “I know, stop reminding me!”  “Re….”  Sect Leader Gu’s mental state collapsed. He looked at the spirit stones used so far—over 800 million! Although this amount was just 8 million top-grade spirit stones, enough for his two months of cultivation, he was a Nascent Soul stage cultivator!  Is this really a normal Foundation Establishment cultivator training?  Completely unreasonable!  Is there any logic here?  Even cultivation respects basic laws. It’s impossible for a Foundation Establishment cultivator to possess Golden Core level energy and still remain Foundation Establishment. Either they’d explode or they’d already be Golden Core!  If the Foundation Establishment stage has Golden Core level power but no Golden Core, then what is the pseudo Golden Core stage? Isn’t that just a cultivator with Golden Core strength but no Golden Core? Others call such a person a minor true core stage cultivator.  If they have Golden Core level energy and power, that means Golden Core stage; having or lacking a Golden Core is irrelevant!  Sect Leader Gu frowned: “This kid can’t be cultivating wrongly. If he breaks through to Golden Core directly, his foundation would be too shallow and unstable, prone to accidents.”  But he didn’t stop Su Yuan from absorbing spiritual energy. Instead, he increased the investment.  His divine sense reached into his oversized space storage ring and found four mountains of spirit stones.  They were lower-grade spirit stone mountain, middle-grade spirit stone mountain, top-grade spirit stone mountain, and a small mountain of supreme-grade spirit stones.  His ring was actually the sect’s eighth treasury, allocated by the sect leader but accessible for advance use, with later reporting to the Nascent Soul Elder Council or the Supreme Elders.  His divine sense focused on the top-grade spirit stone mountain, dug out over a hundred thousand pieces from the foot of the mountain, and threw them all at the formation’s spirit core!  Looking at the obvious small pit created at the mountain’s base—a mere one ten-thousandth of the spirit stone mountain—Sect Leader Gu still felt heartbroken but chose not to look any further.  Heartbreaking! The recently earned 900 million spirit stones were gone, and he had to spend over a billion more! If Su Yuan messed up his cultivation, he would definitely make Su Yuan work like a beast to earn back all those spirit stones!