Chapter 22
The first strand of vortex condensed when laying the foundation is called the foundation vortex, which can also be referred to as the vortex seed, and it is the center of the subsequent vortices and golden core.
Generally speaking, the vortex seed of a cultivator is formed by the combination of the qi within the cultivator's body and the first strand of Heaven and Earth spiritual qi drawn into the body. Its quality depends entirely on the qi within the body and the Heaven and Earth spiritual qi absorbed.
The standard for qi within the body is mass, and the standard for Heaven and Earth spiritual qi is purity.
It goes without saying that the quality of Li Shiyin's qi was high, and the spiritual qi of Dan Peak was also extremely pure. Therefore, the vortex seed condensed by Li Shiyin was not an ordinary one to begin with. It was the most fundamental, most classic and balanced vortex seed.
Of course, there are also some special vortex seeds during cultivation, such as when a high-level cultivator transforms his own magic power into a vortex seed and implants it into a cultivator who needs to lay a foundation, in order to condense the foundation vortex; or special cultivation techniques; or special talents and treasured lands.
These vortex seeds are indeed beneficial to cultivation, but they actually belong to the improper way, and there will definitely be many problems. Let's not go into details for now until we encounter them later.
For now, after Li Shiyin had planted a high-quality classic vortex seed, she no longer had to worry too much and directly opened all her acupoints, drawing in Heaven and Earth spiritual qi into her body.
Her physical strength was high enough that she didn't need to restrict herself, allowing the Heaven and Earth spiritual qi to swarm in unrestrained, even forming a small funnel at the top of her head.
Qin Ran withdrew his hand and looked at the spiritual qi funnel above Li Shiyin’s head, quite worried. Although he had laid a solid enough foundation for Li Shiyin, he was not sure whether he could allow Li Shiyin to absorb spiritual qi in such a crude way.
As the Heaven and Earth spiritual qi entered her body, Li Shiyin remained calm and unhurried. She guided it into her meridians with her cultivation technique. The spiritual qi was indeed a bit too much, and her meridians bulged slightly in pain, but she had confidence that her meridians were tough enough. Gritting her teeth, she recklessly led the spiritual qi to circulate within her body.
Li Shiyin's meridians were indeed resilient. The rampaging spiritual qi within her body was endured.
Moreover, her violent absorption of Heaven and Earth spiritual qi caused the spiritual qi in the vicinity to frantically gather here, then the spiritual qi drove the qi flow, the qi flow generated wind, and the wind led to changes in the clouds!
In an instant, winds rose and clouds surged on Dan Peak, creating a bizarre spectacle.
Li Shiyin was so reckless that Qin Ran was worried sick. He pinched hand seals, ready to rescue his silly disciple at any time.
Naturally, the high-level cultivators of the other three peaks also noticed this spectacle on Dan Peak. They sent their divine sense over and realized it was caused by a disciple laying their foundation. They couldn’t help but secretly praise that a formidable disciple had emerged from Dan Peak.
In particular, Liu Boxian, the head of Sword Peak, and the Sect Leader above Master Peak felt this way.
Liu Boxian knitted his brows in regret. Since Li Shiyin could cause such a spectacle when laying her foundation, her talent was probably better than he had imagined. Why didn't he persevere a little more back then?
As for the Sect Leader, he secretly assessed that this girl was formidable, and he might be in for an embarrassment.
The sky darkened, the wind grew stronger, and Chasing the Wind who was napping on the ground was roused awake. It crawled up to find a place to take shelter from the wind, but was careless for a moment and got swept up by the wind.
It yowled in panic until Qin Ran timely reached out and saved it.
In front of the log cabin on the grass, Qin Ran held the cat while pinching hand seals, his robes flapping in the wind. Li Shiyin sat cross-legged on the ground, a spiritual qi funnel above her head, wind swirling the clouds.
The spiritual qi funnel grew bigger and bigger, and the clouds overhead grew thicker and thicker. Suddenly, there was a flash of lightning in the clouds. Qin Ran was shocked and hurriedly looked up. Don't tell him there would be tribulation lightning during foundation establishment!
Li Shiyin was still madly absorbing spiritual qi. He anxiously considered in his mind, sending his divine sense into the Universe Bag to look for appropriate tools to cross tribulation while establishing foundation.
At this moment, Li Shiyin suddenly opened her eyes and urgently asked, "Master, Master! The vortex has successfully condensed, but the spiritual qi is still endlessly gushing in. What should I do?"
"The foundation is established?" Qin Ran was puzzled. He looked at the sky again and the lightning in the clouds had disappeared. It seemed there was no tribulation. He let out a sigh of relief.
But this silly disciple had actually forgotten the path to guide the spiritual qi out of her body.
He patted his forehead helplessly and said, "Spiritual qi enters through the Baihui acupoint and exits through the Surging Spring acupoint!"
Li Shiyin probably didn't know where the Surging Spring acupoint was. Not bothering with so much, she faced the strong wind and squatted down. He reached out and pointed at the sole of Li Shiyin's foot, yelling loudly, "This is the Surging Spring acupoint!"
"Oh oh!" Li Shiyin nodded in realization. "So that's why I couldn't apply half of the cultivation technique. It turns out it's for guiding the spiritual qi out of the body."
Qin Ran was quite speechless.
Li Shiyin hurriedly closed her eyes again to operate her cultivation technique, guiding the overflowing spiritual qi within her body toward the Surging Spring acupoint. At the same time, she also guided the spiritual qi still entering from the Baihui acupoint through two semi-circuits of the Heavenly Cycle to exit from the Surging Spring acupoint, completing a perfect full Heavenly Cycle.
The spiritual qi entered through Baihui, traveled through the upper half of the Heavenly Cycle into the Qi Sea, then exited through the lower half of the Heavenly Cycle via Surging Spring. In the process, part of the spiritual qi nourished the body, while another part turned into magic power to expand the vortex.
Connecting the upper and lower half of the Heavenly Cycle formed a complete cultivation Great Heavenly Cycle.
Li Shiyin was indeed silly when it came to reading and studying, but she was a true genius at cultivation and martial arts. In no time at all, she went from an ignorant girl who didn't know where the Surging Spring acupoint was to a genius who had grasped a perfect Great Heavenly Cycle.
There are these kinds of people in the world. She looked at the cultivation technique and didn't know which meridian was which or which acupoint was which, but when she officially started cultivating, she was able to correctly guide spiritual qi and magic power to circulate within her body. She knew which meridian to travel through but didn't know its name, and knew which acupoint to pass through but not its name. She had an intuition and just knew where to pass through.
This is what a genius is, never explaining itself to others.
Isn't it very familiar? The study god in class doesn't go to classes or read books, and is clueless about theoretical definitions. But when it comes to proper exams, they can get extremely high scores. If you ask them why they solved a question that way, they'll say it was just intuition.
Qin Ran watched from the side, worried his silly disciple would make a mistake, while also worried tribulation lightning would descend. Fortunately, everything went smoothly until the end. The berserk spiritual qi calmed down, the violent wind subsided, the clouds scattered, and no accidents happened.
Li Shiyin opened her eyes and excitedly jumped up, pouncing over to hug him. She shouted, "Master, I succeeded in laying my foundation!"
Li Shiyin wasn't much shorter than Qin Ran. In this world without precise metric rulers, Qin Ran guessed his own height was a little over 1.75 meters. Then if he was 1.75 meters, Li Shiyin should be around 1.72 meters.
So when Li Shiyin clung onto Qin Ran, it still felt a little awkward. Luckily she still had a young girl's figure that wasn't fully developed, relatively slender. And although she was tall and looked slender, she felt very light when hugged...
Qin Ran was stunned silly by Li Shiyin tree-hugging him. Adding up his previous and present lives, this was still the first time he was hugged like this by a girl. He instantly blushed, waving his hands about at a loss, not knowing where to put them. After being stunned for a while longer, he awkwardly patted Li Shiyin's back to show encouragement.
A young girl's back didn't have much flesh, but the lightweight bones and skin actually felt fine to touch... So he didn't dare continue touching, only gently patted a few times before hurriedly withdrawing his hands.
Li Shiyin took the chance to keep hugging Qin Ran for a good while. When she sensed the atmosphere was gradually becoming awkward, she promptly detached from Qin Ran. Grinning, she looked at Qin Ran and said, "Master, I've completed the early stages of laying my foundation perfectly!"
From this, it can be seen that although she was always called a silly disciple, in reality, apart from reading, she was not silly at all the rest of the time. Judging by how she liked to pretend being silly, the silly disciple was actually very crafty.
Qin Ran felt his cheeks burn and knew his face must be red. To maintain his master's dignity, he hurriedly turned around, leaving Li Shiyin with an awkward view of his back. He incoherently replied, "Mm, laying your foundation is a good thing. It represents the official start of your cultivation journey. You must guard against arrogance and impetuosity, and diligently cultivate from now on."
Li Shiyin looked at her master's shy behavior and smiled even more happily. There was a hint of flirtatiousness in her bright eyes, looking just like a little fox. This was no foolish disciple, but rather a man-eating demon. Even the Xuanming Spirit Tiger cub beside her shivered in fear, lamenting its own inferiority.
"Yes, Master!" She nodded.