It has been three months since Li Shiming moved into the Wei family's residence. During this period, the two immortal cultivation families, the Tie family and the Hu family, have used many means, but they still have not been able to break the formation of the Wei family's residence.
Finally, in a rage, they set fire to the market outside.
The two families left behind several Qi-refining monks. In fact, after the two families left the valley, Li Shiming saw through his split soul that the two families were lying in ambush outside the valley. Once the monks in the Wei family’s base came out to attack the remaining Qi-refining monks, they would rush in immediately.
Unfortunately, their plan had no effect at all, and Li Shiming was too lazy to pay attention to them, allowing several Qi-refining monks to stay in the valley.
He used his top-grade spiritual veins to practice every day. In three months, with the help of his clone, he raised his spiritual power to the peak of the ninth level of Qi Refining.
However, reaching the peak of the ninth level of Qi Refining does not allow one to break through to the Foundation Establishment Stage. One also needs to regulate the spiritual power in the body.
Of course, if he doesn't want to have any good development during the foundation-building period, he can choose to break through directly. He believes that with the guarantee of seven foundation-building pills, there will be no big problem in breaking through the foundation-building period.
But how could he dare to do so? He needed to lay an extremely solid foundation before he could make a breakthrough.
In the cave hall, Li Shiming closed his eyes and connected his consciousness to IBMz15.
As early as three months ago when he moved in, he developed a new study for IBM z15.
That is to use the resources at hand to set up a formation that cooperates with the "Five Elements Qi Gathering Technique" to balance the five elements of spiritual power.
This is a method recorded in the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Technique' that can increase the success rate of breakthroughs to a certain extent, and it can also purify spiritual power during the process of spiritual power conversion.
When Li Shiming was on Tianhai Island, he was reminded by many cultivators, even a Jindan cultivator, that his physique was too strong and far exceeded his spiritual power cultivation, which led to a counter-effect and reduced his chances of breaking through.
He himself has three spiritual roots, and the chance of a breakthrough with three spiritual roots is not high.
After all this, he had a knot in his heart, so he tried desperately to get more Foundation Establishment Pills. Intentionally or unintentionally, he got seven Foundation Establishment Pills.
But this did not reduce his fear of failure in breaking through. He was not as good as that person with heavenly spiritual roots, so he did not need to worry about breaking through the foundation at all.
Those with natural spiritual roots only need to worry about the trouble of breaking through the golden elixir stage. Building the foundation is a piece of cake for those with such talent.
Therefore, he attached great importance to the vague records in the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Technique'.
He even made a judgment that this was a solution designed to give cultivators with five spiritual roots a chance to break through to the foundation-building stage.
This solution is something that any cultivator with five spiritual roots can use to break through. If he uses his three spiritual roots, wouldn't the chances of him breaking through be even greater?
Over a three-month period, IBMz15 continuously modified the design of the formation until the current formation design was achieved.
This formation made full use of the formations at the Wei family's base and the top-grade spiritual veins, and eventually became a formation named the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Formation', which was specially designed to serve the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Art'.
Li Shiming took out the iron spirit wood, green crystal, flame crystal, earth-forming stone, and wood-turned iron. These five second-grade five-element formation materials were refined into formation items by him.
There are more spiritual power lines on the floor of the hall than before, and these spiritual power lines converge from all over the base.
In order to build these spiritual power lines, he not only used up all the formation materials he had, but also demolished many of Wei's buildings before he could gather all the materials.
If there were still any living cultivators in the Wei family, they would definitely not believe their eyes after seeing the situation in the garrison.
There are almost no complete buildings left in the Wei family’s residence now, only the main body of the building remains. It’s not that he doesn’t want to demolish the main body of the building, but because the main body of the building is the node of the defense formation and cannot be demolished.
But the rest of the auxiliary formations were all converted back into formation materials by him.
On the ground of the base, simple array lines are densely packed, connecting all the nodes in the base.
This is the case when the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array' is not activated. Once the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array' is activated, these array lines will automatically merge into the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array' and will no longer be visible.
This was a huge task, and it took him and his clone many days to complete it.
Today has come to the most critical moment, which is the last part of the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array'.
He carefully placed the second-grade iron spirit wood, green crystal, flame crystal, earth-forming stone, and wood-turned iron into the five spiritual power line gathering points in the cave hall.
"Open!" He shouted softly, and the entire Wei’s base shook.
Several Qi-refining monks in the valley also felt it, but they just stared at the entrance of the base for a while and didn't notice anything else, so they didn't pay any more attention to it.
The few Qi-refining monks who stayed behind in the valley were no longer the Qi-refining monks from the two immortal cultivation families, the Tie family and the Hu family, but were missions assigned to a few independent cultivators.
Therefore, these Qi-refining monks only need to report when someone enters or leaves the base, and the rest has nothing to do with them.
Li Shiming released his spiritual thoughts and sensed the operation of the formations around him.
Since the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array' has only been simulated by IBM z15 and has not been actually applied, everything still needs to be tested in practice.
The formation lines throughout the Wei family’s residence flashed with light, and the power of the five elements in the formation was extracted and gathered in the cave hall along the formation lines.
The 'Five Elements Gas Gathering Array' was activated, and five array spirit objects made of second-grade five elements array materials emitted five kinds of light respectively.
Gold, green, blue, red, and yellow, the five colors represent the attributes of the five second-grade five-element formation spiritual objects.
Li Shiming's real body is sitting at the center of the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array'. The core of the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array' is not the five five elements array spiritual objects, but himself.
As the main body began to practice the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Technique', the five kinds of light passed through the main body's body and the spiritual energy vortex at the same time.
He felt that his spiritual energy vortex had become one with the 'Five Elements Energy Gathering Formation', and he could almost sense that the formation of the entire base was operating with him.
As his spiritual energy vortex rotated, the power of the five elements in the station formation was gathered onto five second-grade five-element spiritual objects, and connected to his spiritual energy vortex through the five nodes of the five second-grade five-element spiritual objects.
Originally, the spiritual energy in the spiritual vortex in his body had only one attribute, that is, gold. But at this time, with the operation of the "Five Elements Gas Gathering Array", part of the gold attribute was transformed into wood attribute.
Part of the wood attribute spiritual power is transformed into water attribute. When the water attribute spiritual power reaches a certain amount, part of it is transformed into fire attribute, and then into earth attribute.
Finally, the earth attribute transformed into gold attribute to form a closed loop. For the first time, the five elements were complete in his spiritual energy vortex.
Li Shiming was surprised to find that every time the attributes of the spiritual power in his body changed, it brought purer spiritual power.
And during this transformation process, a 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array' is also formed in the body.
He had nothing to worry about, because in his opinion, the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array' in the spiritual energy vortex was just the result of the combined effect of the five external five elements array spiritual objects and the Wei family's base array.
He believed that after stopping the 'Five Elements Gas Gathering Array' outside, the 'Five Elements Gas Gathering Array' in the spiritual energy vortex would disappear.
A formation appeared in the body, which was a novel experience.
He deliberately adjusted the position of the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array' in his body so that it would be more compatible with the circulation of spiritual energy in his body.
After an unknown amount of time, Li Shiming felt extremely hungry. He gave a bit of his consciousness to his clone, who replenished his original body with spiritual food and spiritual water, which relieved his hunger.
After doing all this, he withdrew all his consciousness. At this critical moment, he did not dare to separate his consciousness.
Time had no meaning at this moment, and he could not sense the passage of time.
Anyway, whenever he felt hungry, he would allocate a bit of his consciousness to let his clone replenish food for his original body and also for his clone.
He has a lot of spiritual power in his body. The internal 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array' is combined with the external 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array'. The transformation of the spiritual power in his spiritual energy vortex is not fast, but it is ongoing.
Since he was sitting at the exit of a high-grade spiritual vein, spiritual energy continuously flowed into his body during the conversion process and was transformed into spiritual power by the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Technique'.
For some unknown reason, the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Art' has never stopped working when it is combined with the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array'.
Many outside forces had long given up on the Wei family's base. Since no cultivators came out of this tortoise-shell-like base, they rebuilt the market town in other places, which was considered the completion of their original plan.
The Wei family is no longer a threat. According to the judgment of various forces, the Wei family has at most one cultivator in the early stage of foundation building left.
Such strength is no longer competitive for other forces, and they even gave up on the monks guarding outside.
Three months passed, and this valley, which was once bustling, was now full of weeds and shrubs. Now, no mortal could find the entrance to the valley even without the use of formations.
The area in the valley where the original market was located was also covered with weeds taller than a person, with only a few dilapidated buildings that had been burned down as witnesses of its past.
Li Shiming in the cave residence has reached the most important moment. The spiritual power in his body has been condensed to the extreme.
In the spiritual energy vortex, the 'Five Elements Energy Gathering Array' composed of five light spots of gold, green, blue, red and yellow no longer needed his control. As long as spiritual energy entered the spiritual energy vortex, it would be automatically included in the conversion.
Eventually, the spiritual power in the body will be evenly divided into five attributes, and the five attributes will automatically transform into extremely pure spiritual power.
As for the spiritual energy vortex space that was compressed and vacated during the conversion process, it has been refilled with the spiritual energy absorbed and transformed through the continuous practice of the "Five Elements Qi Gathering Technique".
He once again reached the peak of the ninth level of Qi Refining, but this time it was the ninth level of Qi Refining where his spiritual power was condensed to the extreme.
His consciousness returned and he thought about whether to make a breakthrough.
The first thing to do in order to break through the foundation is to stop the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array'. He sent out a trace of spiritual thought, wanting to stop the operation of the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array' outside.
However, he was horrified to find that the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array' outside had disappeared at some point, and only the shells of the five second-grade five-element spiritual objects remained, but the pure five-element energy inside had completely disappeared.
"What's going on?" Since the external 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array' has stopped, why is the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array' in his body still working?
IBMz15 also did not give an answer, and it is obvious that this result is beyond IBMz15's analysis.
He discovered that although the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array' in the outside world had become an empty shell, the formation at the Wei family's base was still continuing to gather the power of the five elements here, but it was directly sent into the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array' in his body.
The 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Technique' was still running, absorbing spiritual energy into the body, but the choice of spiritual power was no longer the same as before. Instead, it absorbed all spiritual energy of all attributes.
No matter what kind of spiritual energy it is, as long as it enters the body, it will be converted into spiritual power of various attributes through the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Technique' and sent into the spiritual energy vortex, then it will join the circulation of the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array' and become pure five elements spiritual power.
Li Shiming could no longer stop this process, not because he did not want to stop, but now it was the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array' that was driving the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Art' to operate.
The spiritual energy vortex in his body had long reached its maximum endurance range. Every time he input spiritual power into the spiritual energy vortex, he thought that his spiritual energy vortex would be broken.
Just when he was at his wits' end, the vortex of spiritual energy in his body exploded. At the same time, every node in the entire Wei family's base formation dimmed.
If a cultivator attacked the defensive formation of the Wei family’s base at this time, a cultivator in the early stage of foundation building could break it with a single strike.
Over a period of three months, the power of the five elements had been continuously drawn from this formation, causing the various energies within the formation to lose balance.
Li Shiming felt as if his whole body was soaked in warm water, and even his soul was enjoying this warm feeling.
A strange energy emanated from the vortex of spiritual energy, nourishing every part of his body and his soul, strengthening both his body and soul.
And in his body, a spiritual power lake formed at the original vortex of spiritual energy. In the center of the lake was a liquid spiritual power that emitted light.
Around the spiritual power lake, five light spots still maintained the operation of the 'Five Elements Qi Gathering Array'.
Li Shiming woke up from his enjoyment. He sensed the changes in his body and an inexplicable look appeared on his face.
"That's it?" he muttered to himself.
He had prepared seven foundation-building pills, and had been extremely worried all along. He had thought many times about how difficult foundation-building would be, but he had never imagined that he would actually break through the foundation-building stage without using a single foundation-building pill.
Yes, he became a foundation-building cultivator, and the liquid spiritual power in his body was proof of that. At the same time, his soul had been transformed and he could naturally emit spiritual thoughts.
Of course, for someone like him who has mastered spiritual thoughts during the Qi Refining Stage, the effect of his spiritual thoughts has been greatly improved.
Being able to advance to the foundation-building stage without using foundation-building pills is a qualification only possessed by those with heavenly spiritual roots. Even those with heavenly spiritual roots cannot guarantee that they will not use foundation-building pills 100% of the time during the foundation-building process.
This is also the reason why cultivators with natural spiritual roots will still carry a foundation-building pill when they are building their foundation.