Minutes bled into hours. The sun climbed higher into the sky, its external heat mirroring the internal inferno Yoriichi was enduring.
As he meditated, the dense concentration of worldly energy gathering around him began to cause a disturbance in the surrounding forest. The air pressure dropped. The hot stream bubbled more violently.
From the depths of the murky water, a pair of cold, slit-like yellow eyes broke the surface.
It was a Rank 1 Iron-Scaled River Python. Drawn by the intoxicating density of the gathering Dou Qi, the magical beast slithered silently onto the edge of the boulder. It saw the meditating human as nothing more than a highly nutritious, defenseless pill.
The python coiled its thick, metallic-scaled body, its jaws unhinging as it prepared to strike with enough force to snap a man in half.
Yoriichi did not open his eyes. He did not break his breathing rhythm.
His Selfless State activated passively.
To the python, the human's presence suddenly vanished. There was no killing intent, no fear, no biological scent—just an empty void. Confused, the beast hesitated for a fraction of a second.
In that second, the internal heat of 'Breath of the Sun' bled slightly through Yoriichi's pores.
The air around the boulder superheated instantly. The python lunged, but the moment its snout entered the one-meter radius around Yoriichi, its iron scales began to sizzle and warp from the sheer, radiating solar heat.
The beast shrieked—a horrifying, wet hiss of agony. Instinct overriding hunger, the python completely aborted its attack, thrashing backward and diving frantically into the deepest, coldest part of the stream to soothe its burned flesh, terrified of the silent, burning apex predator sitting on the rock.
Yoriichi's expression didn't so much as twitch. He remained a calm shell, an unmovable mountain.
The unruly Dou Zhi Qi, battered by the intense internal heat and crushed by Yoriichi's monstrous willpower, could no longer maintain its scattered state. The energy particles slammed together, screaming under the immense pressure.
Then, at the very center of the chaotic white gas, a tightly packed spiral began to take shape. The scattered Dou Zhi Qi was being forcibly compressed into true Dou Qi.
The moment the spiral formed, it began to spin. It acted like a gravitational singularity. The remaining milky-white energy in his Dantian was violently sucked into the spinning core, gathering the Qi into a dense, organized storm.
Faster. Faster.
The spinning intensified, pulling in the ambient world energy from the air around the boulder. The steam from the hot stream was physically drawn toward Yoriichi, swirling around him in a miniature vortex.
Then, inside his Dantian...
BOOM!
A muffled, deep vibration echoed within his very core as the condensation stabilized.
The pain vanished instantly, replaced by an overwhelming, intoxicating surge of absolute power. The scattered, unrefined Dou Zhi Qi was completely gone. In its place, sitting perfectly in the center of the vast space of his Dantian, was a small, rapidly revolving gaseous vortex of pure, compressed milky-white Dou Qi.
A Dou Cyclone.
Yoriichi had successfully entered the realm of a 1-Star Dou Zhe.
Slowly, Yoriichi opened his eyes.
A brilliant, piercing flash of crimson light passed through his irises, sharp enough to cut the mist. He parted his lips and exhaled deeply. A long, dark gray stream of impure Qi—the final impurities expelled from his mortal body—shot out from his mouth, striking the surface of the stream and causing the water to violently boil.
He let it all out, his chest rising and falling with newfound, effortless strength.
He checked the perimeter first. His senses expanded outward, far sharper than before. He felt the terrified python hiding at the bottom of the river, the insects in the trees, the wind moving through the pines. There were no human threats nearby.
He sighed, a profound sense of accomplishment settling over his stoic features.
"Finally," Yoriichi whispered to the empty clearing. "Dou Zhe."
It was the true starting line. The first great realm that a cultivator crossed to break free from their mortal, fragile shell and step onto the path of longevity. He was now fully qualified to practice a true cultivation technique, which would eventually transform this attribute-less milky-white Dou Qi into the blazing, specific attribute of the sun.
He clenched his fist. The raw physical power he possessed before was now backed by a dense, highly compressed cyclone of true energy. If he used the Iron Fist now, he knew he could smash the boulder into pieces he was sitting on.
He then closed his eyes again, eager to test the hallmark ability of a Dou Zhe.
He turned his focus inward.
Before this moment, his mastery of the Transparent World allowed him to feel his muscles, hear his blood flow, and instinctively map his body's mechanics. It was a physical, sensory intuition.
Now, as he channeled his newly formed Dou Cyclone, his internal view changed completely.
It was no longer an instinct. It was full, brilliant clarity.
Neishi. Inner Vision.
In his mind's eye, his internal anatomy lit up like a constellation. He could clearly see the complex, glowing network of his meridians, wider and tougher than any normal human's. He could see his organs, pulsing with vitality. And there, sitting in the vast, glowing space of his Dantian, was the beautiful, mesmerizing milky-white with few golden sparks cyclone, spinning endlessly, generating power with every revolution.
It was a perfect fusion of his past life's ultimate biological awareness and this new world's profound magical cultivation.
Yoriichi stood up, his dark robes fluttering in the wind.
The sun was high overhead. The real training was about to begin.