well I have no idea whether I am up to the task to take on an extreme realm quest she just leveled on me but the prospects of supreme Qi root... heh! I don't think that I'm ready to relinquish that prize, birds dies for food human dies for wealth? isn't that how they say it.

  well thanks for the update received from her, I'll be able to have a one up against the potential competitions, now time to disperse it so that the cloud of Qi doesn't rain. I sat down and meditated got a visualization of my Qi wisps or Qi clouds as it presented itself to me.

  a little flex of my will dispersed the clumps into many 'clumplets' and it took all my attention from then on not to mistakenly breakthrough since I've already reached the ninth level and able to breakthrough at anytime this also could improve my Qi manipulation skill by constantly working my will against my Qi

  so my next level of Qi manipulation is clear which is when I can unconsciously manipulate Qi even in my sleep this will aid in my breakthrough, hopefully this will enable me to clear the extremes of this level, now this girl didn't even tell me what to expect upon reaching the extreme of this level of mine, well no sweat let's find out.

  " it's about 3 weeks had passed I now have about 13 'cloudy' wisps of Qi in my secret space, time to get things in order and breakthrough to the internal Qi refinement phase." I mumbled to myself while sitting cross legged, I've observed that the extremities of cultivation brings good stuff, for me now Qi manipulation had ingrained itself into my behavior enabling me to disperse the Qi with but a mild amount of concentration.

  "It also helps when I go to sleep and I found out that I have a talent in remaining unfazed by anything that's considered an emotional stimulator like anger and so on no wonder inordinate anger in cultivators could make them spit blood... I'm talking about actual blood here"

  there I realized that the right amount of realization that a cultivator could pull out of a certain experience and an emotion to tag along with it, coupled with a smattering of surprise, if taken to the extreme could agitate the Qi within the dantian and meridian and cause a breakthrough in one's realm.

  A major breakthrough or level of which is called the minor breakthrough and the latter is more common rarely will you hear or see the former in the world of cultivation it's more like a myth, a myth that shows up one in a thousand years.

  I steadied my breath, concentrated within, making sure that there are no disturbances from within or without and initiated my breakthrough, the Qi clouds condensed and it was as if rain fell, droplets made out of Qi formed but with the flex of my will I held them suspended then I fused two together success another fusion of two droplet success rinse and repeat until I reached the thirteenth fusion which the fusion almost failed but succeeded.

  I opened my eyes and beheld the world same as before no expulsion of gunk from the body and whatnots 'the heck, thought that it will be the time for me to pollute the river with my gunk flushed out of me as it is usually put in all xianxia novels but guess the rules changed here, who am I bullshiting' I thought mildly pissed off.

  well it's about time I checked my gains I then slipped back into meditation to checkout my secret space well what I saw was a round ball of liquefied vital Qi, tried manipulating it, it worked 'guess this will be called Qi manipulation lvl 3 then,' I thought while playing with the orb of liquid.

  I did another test, I initiated the process of reinforcing my body, a stop so loud that it could have woken the dead roused me out of meditation, huh? I looked around here and there then I saw xiao xiao looking at me with an exceedingly earnest look on her face.

  what happened I asked

  you just have collapsed your own cultivation, came the reply

  huh, came a surprised reply from me,

  " you see I'll hate for if you spend your precious cultivation flexing then regressing thereafter "

  " why" I asked her,

  "well, you did just broke through and haven't stabilized your breakthrough yet making this phase of yours somewhat shaky at best" then Xiao Xiao entered lecture mode

  "you see the process of breaking through to the internal Qi refinement stage is to 'collapse' your cultivation into liquid form from the gaseous wisps they're, thus this I tell you is the process of the vital Qi lake breakthrough", she started.

  in order to proceed I to learned to focus your will upon your collapsed cultivation and kept rotating the pearlescent liquid orbed droplet to create the gravitational effect upon it this will allow it to passively gather the excess vital Qi you produce.

  that been all said and done, now learned to split the droplet, the bigger the droplet so that I get more efficient at gathering vital Qi, as you can see, the more orb you have, the more 'tanks' of Qi you have oh and also increased vital Qi gathering efficiency you have even more so than the one big Qi droplet, this is due to each droplet being given a Qi gravitation effect unconsciously by me though the 'unconscious' part will be at the later stages.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  the true issue is about splitting the 'one big orb to two small orbs' 13 times, this will require full focus in meditation this is where things starts getting dicey where weeks of works could be lost if disturbed in an inopportune time.

  if done well like done as I did in the last stage then I'll have 16 early stages threshold, 256 mid stages threshold, 4096 late stages threshold and then a staggering 8192 Qi droplets to burn in the peak stages threshold of this cultivation phase.

  mind you this stage starts creating either genius or trash depending on how they broke through and how they cultivate later for example in some sects they go on the big droplet role where they make it as big as they want it but will hit a wall soon mostly because of how encumbered their soul will be while manipulating the big 'lake of Qi.

  this faux pas could be avoided by this method that I'm using making the speed of gathering exponentially faster and also with more substance to my foundation. the downside to this method as nearly all methods have is that you must be focused throughout this phase so as not to suffer a recoil and Qi dispersal causing you to start again from your nearest Qi threshold.

  Xiao Xiao done with her lecture left me alone with my thought contemplating on whether I want to co convenient and loose advantage or go full focused and breeze through this phase with a deeper foundation.

  the answer was already clear I want my stage thirteen not contented to stop at the standardized stage nine and loose my advantage small as it might be it'll will all add up sooner or later, firm on the knowledge that I'll go for the latter I stood up and left for the village one of the rare times that I did not faint from intense training.

  ***************

  I had wanted to test my powers very badly but when I remembered that it's only one tiny pearlescent little droplet is inside me I thought better of it but this is making me fidgety like I took in some super caffeine drink and then some .

  very well then, I decided to keep it cool since it's not every day you train without fainting as a result, no real change has occurred no spitting out black gunk no lifting something weighing 250kg using but an arm just like your every day person this of course will stop being like that when I reach the body refining stage.

  well I hope to see that, the path was not too long just about 1li to around 1.5 li away from the village come to think of it I didn't really have much in friendship going on in the village with me crafting my young master persona and the village voluntarily buying it not calling my bluff.

  only God knows how long it's going to be before a proper young master comes to call my bluff, the answer is that he/she will not live to see the light of the next day, for one will be about trying to wreck the plan to make the village independent of the Da Hai's influence making it one of the 'hidden villages' under my control.

  secondly, this might make me lose face if the young master (the true one) decides to initiate a duel, I'll lose ,I'll lose face (prestige you may call it) and the only thing that will make the village to accede to my request of owning it is the sheer destructive potential that Xiao Xiao represents.

  This to me is bad market, for it's best to conquer man's will instead of his body this of course will make them in one accord with you making them a far more potent force under your leadership, I've almost reached the village when I got out of my introspective thoughts.

  "Uncle Hua!"I was accosted by Wei Ping on my way to old Chu's noodle shop while I was thinking on what to do in order to sate my jittery hands, at first I was stunned into reality and there I saw a little... well not so little boy running towards me hands raised for a speedy carry-hug, well I happily obliged.

  "not so fast lil' Pingping" I scooped him up with a smile on my face

  "uncle I told you that I'm not young anymore" the boy complained

  "huh" I exclaimed in mock shock "sure our lil' Pingping is now a fully grown boy, great job growing up do clap for yourself"

  "uncle hua!" the boy said in mock indignation

  "umm,"

  "someone is bulling me" he said immediately my visage turned stern "tell me boy who bullied you so that I may dish out an appropriate punishment to the person" I said with my chest puffed out trying to mimic a baritone voiced super hero who save kids from villains.

  "you" he answered

  "me?!" I asked in mock incredulity

  " yes" Wei Ping answered with a giggle

  "now pray tell little one," then I puffed out my chest spine straight and trying to act important "how do you want this young master to appease you "

  " old Chu's place!, my favorite nodules!" Wei Ping crowed victoriously

  "ok ok we've almost reached there," the nodules shop was in sight, I simply sauntered in a little boy in arm and made my orders.

  Wei Ping ended up eating his favorite nodules, tenghulu snacks and some other desserts till he felt stuffed, I left the shop satisfied and headed for Luo Chang the scholar's place.

  I knocked on the door knockers of Luo Chang's building for a bit only for me not to receive any answers that was weird this place is accessible everyday even if the old bloke isn't around so now what happened.

  I rounded the house towards the not so impromptu schooling area to check whether Wei Mu who is Wei Hao's wife and Wei Ping's mom is still around teaching the kids or at least around for well just anything she could be doing at school since she's like the boss in school, that is if you remove Luo Chang of course.

  Nope my luck didn't hold waters at all, told that they had an urgent meeting with the village head, now now, what the heck!, if that's the case then my fart luck that I still did not have anything to do my theory on this is that this new phase of cultivation I find myself in as of now is cranking my metabolism up to 11 thereby making me feel like I can bench a truck.

  no head way on using the strategy of using the books reading therapy to my advantage I opted to go home, yes, going home to do nothing.

  *****************

  Xiao Xiao returned to the village after giving her young master pointers about the vital Qi lake phase, when she arrived in front of the house ready to retire for the day and do her routine work, there at she met, in the courtyard a messenger sent specifically to her by the village head waiting for her.

  she got the message from Ling Yun the family's maid cum messenger that the village head is making a request for summoning, felling intrigued she went along, it's not every day you get summoned to the village heads house she mused while taking her time on the way.