Published: March 2, 2025
CHAPTER 17: Bottleneck in Cultivation (Major Refinement)
Time flows slowly in the world of cultivating immortality, and three years have passed.
After these three years, Liu Yu's appearance had not changed much; he still looked like a young boy. However, his physique appeared much more robust compared to before.
His cultivation had made great strides, reaching the full circle of the sixth layer of qi refinement, just one step away from the late stage of qi refinement.
In fact, supported by elixirs, he had already reached the full circle of the sixth layer of qi refinement eight months ago.
But he encountered a bottleneck, making it difficult to advance further.
He had no choice but to refine his magical power, making it purer. During this period, he had attempted to break through the bottleneck several times, but all ended in failure.
With Liu Yu's qualification of three spiritual roots, encountering a bottleneck at the late stage of qi refinement, although a bit unfortunate, was not surprising.
"It is said that those with a heavenly spirit root qualification will not face a bottleneck even until the golden core stage."
"Truly deserving of being the favored child of the heavens!"
In his cave dwelling, after failing to break through the bottleneck once again, Liu Yu thought gloomily.
With his three spiritual roots' qualification, relying solely on cultivation to break through the bottleneck could take an unknown amount of time.
But time waits for no one. He decided he could not continue like this and needed to find a way to resolve the bottleneck immediately.
Based on the information he had previously browsed in the Scripture Vault, Liu Yu had three methods available to break through the bottleneck:
The first was to stimulate the breakthrough through a duel of magic between life and death.
Between life and death, there is great terror!
But it can also greatly unleash one’s potential, significantly increasing the chances of breaking through the bottleneck.
However, not everyone can calmly face the terror of life and death, so cultivators who choose this "extreme" method are few.
The second method is to purchase the "Breakthrough Elixir," using the power of elixirs to dissolve the bottleneck.
However, Breakthrough Elixirs have always been in short supply. Once they appear, many cultivators will fight over them, and their price is often extremely high.
This amount of spiritual stones is not something an ordinary cultivator can afford.
The third method is to carefully refine magical power, repeatedly attempting to break through the bottleneck.
Dripping water can wear through stone; over time, magical power will become more and more pure, and perhaps one day, success will come.
However, the time it takes can vary greatly and is full of uncertainty.
This is a common method used by most cultivators.
After all, the Breakthrough Elixir is expensive, costing at least five hundred spiritual stones, making countless ordinary cultivators sigh in despair.
And fighting in life-and-death duels is even more dangerous; a slight negligence could result in death before achieving success.
"First, let's take a stroll through the markets inside and outside the sect and see if I can buy a Breakthrough Elixir," Liu Yu thought, still leaning toward the second option.
At the same time, he would not give up on refining his magical power; who knows, maybe one day the bottleneck would loosen?
If both methods fail, for the sake of the path of eternal life, Liu Yu would participate in some dangerous tasks, seeking opportunities for a breakthrough through life-and-death trials!
Wealth and riches come from danger; the fate of the dao is grasped amid peril!
In these three years, Liu Yu had already mastered the concealment technique to the first level.
He could conceal himself from cultivators one minor realm higher, but only within the same major realm.
He was at the mid stage of qi refinement, so even cultivators at the late stage of qi refinement could not see through his power unless they were at the full circle of qi refinement.