As for Meng Hao, after changing clothes, he left the black-walled Milky Way City without the slightest bit of hesitation. Some distance away from the city, he hopped onto the treasured fan and sped off into the distance, his body turning into a prismatic rainbow.
He kept going for several days, until it became apparent that no one was pursuing him. At that point, he felt a bit more relaxed. In the wilderness some distance away from Mount Daqing, he used a flying sword to cut out an Immortal’s Cave for himself and then entered into secluded meditation.
This time, he was determined to break through to the ninth level of Qi Condensation.
He had plenty of Spirit Stones which he could use to duplicate Heavenly Spirit Pills. When he consumed enough Heavenly Spirit Pills, and his Cultivation base reached the appropriate level, he would begin to push toward the next level.
Time passed slowly. Soon, several months had passed. Meng Hao did not leave the Immortal’s Cave. He sat there quietly, cross-legged, consuming medicinal pills and circulating his Cultivation base. As time passed, his Cultivation base grew more and more refined.
By the time the fifth month arrived, it seemed boundless. His Cultivation base roared, and his Core sea roiled. He had long since arrived at the peak of the eighth level of Qi Condensation. He was only a sliver away from the ninth level, and yet had been stuck at this sliver for two months already.
Thinking about the over one hundred thousand Spirit Stones he had spent already made Meng Hao’s heart hurt. But what hurt even more was that after spending all of those Spirit Stones, he still hadn’t been able to break through.
“Elder Xu told me that the fourth, sixth and eighth levels of Qi Condensation were bottlenecks. The year I broke through the fourth level, I had lots of Dry Spirit Pills. I broke through the sixth level when the North Sea demonstrated the Dao. Now I’m at the eighth level bottleneck… How do I break through?!” Meng Hao opened his bloodshot eyes.
Of the well over two hundred thousand Spirit Stones he’d had, only about fifty thousand now remained. The rest had been turned into Heavenly Spirit Pills. Currently, he was running low on Heavenly Spirit Pills as well.
As he had speculated, when relying only on medicinal pills to grow his Cultivation base, the effects grew weaker and weaker the more pills he consumed. He needed larger and larger amounts, a vicious cycle.
“I wonder what other people do in this situation,” he thought, frowning. Despite pondering the situation over and over, he couldn’t figure it out.
It seemed that no matter how many Heavenly Spirit Pills he consumed, and no matter how his Cultivation base grew, he just couldn’t make that final step.
Another month passed. Meng Hao had already spent half a year in secluded meditation. Today, he sat there, hair in disarray, eyes bloodshot. In the past month, he had duplicated ten Plateau Charging Pills, which were supposed to be effective in the ninth level of Qi Condensation. He had hoped that using them would enable him to break through the bottleneck. While they had been somewhat effective, they hadn’t produced the desired result.
“I must reach the ninth level of Qi Condensation!” He ground his teeth as he looked at what remained of his fifty thousand Spirit Stones. Not hesitating any longer, he took out the copper mirror. He had decided to duplicate the Foundation Establishment Pill!
A glow appeared, and there in front of him were two Foundation Establishment Pills. Including the original, he now had three Foundation Establishment Pills. If you showed these three pills to a disciple of one of the great Sects of the Southern Domain, they would gasp with astonishment. In the State of Zhao, it would be enough to cause a bloodbath if anyone saw them.
Today, Meng Hao would use these pills, not to reach Foundation Establishment, but to break through the bottleneck. Anyone who knew he was using the pills in this way would surely go crazy at the thought of such luxurious waste.
Through history, there were likely few people who would ever go to such extravagant lengths to break through a Qi Condensation bottleneck.
Meng Hao took a deep breath, then lifted up a pill, put it into his mouth, and swallowed it. A thunderous roar filled his mind, and his body shook. A majestic spiritual energy filled him that he never before could have imagined, exploding throughout his body.