Vessel of Worlds

Refining a Foundation-Nurturing Pill took a full half day to complete, and the process tolerated neither error nor interruption—one slip and the entire furnace was ruined. So Andy's routine was to begin a batch immediately after deploying his formations. Whether it succeeded or failed, he would refine no second batch, but rest in meditation and quietly await the beasts.

The techniques for refining pills from beast cores proved thoroughly refined indeed. Though Andy's alchemy could hardly be called masterful, his success rate with the Foundation-Nurturing Pill exceeded thirty percent—one furnace in three. And of the failures, most yielded inferior pills, which the small bowl could enhance into ordinary finished ones.

The results delighted him. By the time he exhausted his ingredients, he had over twenty Foundation-Nurturing Pills and thirty or forty inferior ones. By his reckoning, once the bowl enhanced them all, they would carry his cultivation to the peak of early-stage Foundation Establishment—perhaps even through to mid-stage.

And these were only the rank-three cores. His rank-four cores were more numerous still, and could be refined into Spirit-Gathering Pills, beneficial to both early- and mid-stage cultivators. If his success rate held, even reaching late-stage Foundation Establishment would pose no great difficulty.

Could it be that I have real hope of attempting Core Formation? The thought rose unbidden, thrilling—then cooled just as fast. Beside the difficulty of Core Formation, the Foundation Establishment bottleneck was child's play. For a cultivator of poor spiritual root aptitude, Core Formation was, in truth, a threshold that could not be crossed.

When a Qi Condensation cultivator attempted Foundation Establishment, aptitude good or bad, in theory enough Foundation Establishment Pills gave anyone a solid chance of breaking through.

But no elixir existed anywhere in the cultivation world that could be taken dose after dose to force the Core Formation bottleneck!

The few legendary elixirs said to help added only the slightest sliver to the odds—and even so, late-stage cultivators hoping to form their cores fought tooth and claw over them. Worse, each could be taken only once, at the moment of the attempt; further doses gave nothing at all.

Which meant aptitude mattered doubly. The fabled heavenly root cultivators faced no Core Formation bottleneck whatsoever—once their cultivation arrived, the golden core condensed as naturally as water finding its channel. Cultivators who scoured the world for formulas to aid their own attempts could have vomited three measures of blood from envy.

Apart from heavenly roots, even dual-root and mutated-root cultivators could not escape the bottleneck—though their road was far easier than an ordinary cultivator's. Yet even among those elites, more than half never crossed the chasm, stalled at late-stage Foundation Establishment for life.

For a five-root cultivator like Andy, to speak of Core Formation as harder than climbing to heaven was no exaggeration.

The thought dampened his spirits considerably.

But he rallied quickly. He had long since grown used to being written off for his poor spiritual roots—by others, and sometimes by himself—and still he walked the cultivator's road, one firm step at a time. Perhaps someday another strange fortune would find him, and with it a path to Core Formation. Who could say?

On this day, Andy stopped at a deserted island some dozens of kilometers around. It held only two or three unremarkable stone hills, scattered with trees tall and short. The island was slightly large for his hunting method, but nothing more suitable lay within several hundred kilometers, so he prepared to lay his formations and begin the next station of the hunt.

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He was about to plant a formation flag in the earth when, far off at the sky's edge, he caught a moving black speck. He stowed the flag at once, cast the Concealment Technique, and slipped quietly into a crevice among broken rocks, watching the distant sky with every sense alert.

As for the dharma treasure remnant cloak—for safety's sake he had worn it constantly, never once taking it off.

The black speck grew larger and clearer. After half an incense stick's time, Andy could make out what seemed a ball of black mist moving fast—and heading, it seemed, straight for his island.

A while longer, and he saw more: two or three human figures dimly visible within the mist.

It's them! Andy's heart clenched. Not daring even to lift his head, he buried himself entirely beneath the cloak and pushed the Concealment Technique to its limit, letting not a wisp of aura escape—while his spiritual sense, stretched equally to its utmost, tracked every movement within several kilometers.

Before long, three black-robed cultivators emerged from the mist and landed together on the island.

Andy's spiritual sense read them faintly: two at late-stage Foundation Establishment, the third at mid-stage.

"Young Master, we've combed these waters for years now and searched countless barren islands in detail—not a trace of Recluse Ximen. Could the rumor itself be wrong?" It was an old man's voice, and it carried more than a little discontent at so much fruitless labor.

"Hah. If it were that easy to find, would the secret have kept for two or three hundred years? This young master paid dearly to pry the information from a Core Formation cultivator—it is no fabrication. Only the precise location is impossible to fix; we know just that it lies in the waters north of Island Five in the Outer Star Sea." The reply came cold from a young man.

"Young Master, how much longer do you mean to search? We've lost half our men along the way. If this continues, the danger grows very great indeed!" This was a middle-aged man's voice—the weakest of the three at mid-stage Foundation Establishment, and the more timid for it.

"What is there to fear? So long as we stop picking fights with other cultivators, can we not at least protect ourselves? Patience, both of you. Once this young master finds the dwelling Recluse Ximen left behind, I will make certain my uncle hears of it, and your names will be written large in the roll of merit. Spirit stones, pills, furnaces and vessels will be yours in heaps. What are a few short years against that?" the young cultivator soothed.

"Our thanks, Young Master! Your subordinates will spare no effort to see this done!" Both men brightened at once. Then the old man asked: "If I may ask, Young Master—this Recluse Ximen was merely a late-stage Core Formation cultivator of some small fame in the Outer Star Sea three hundred years ago. What treasure could his dwelling hold, that Young Master would pour such painstaking effort into the search? With Young Master's station, even treasures beyond the reach of Core Formation seniors come easily to your hand. Why care about the leavings of one rogue Core Formation cultivator?"

"Heh. Ask or not, you'd learn it sooner or later. The truth, then—do you know what my spiritual root aptitude is?" The young man gave a bitter laugh and turned the question back.

"Ah—that is—your subordinate has heard that Young Master's roots are ordinary, not especially superior, but that Young Master's exceptional mind and grueling practice produced the peak late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivation you hold today," the old man answered, hesitant and hedging.

"Ha!" The young man laughed dryly. "Ordinary? Say worthless and be done with it. This young master is a five-root cultivator—the worst aptitude there is!"

"Five roots?" the middle-aged cultivator murmured, astonished.

"Just so. My roots are wretched. Were my birth not what it is, and without mountains of pills to prop me up, how could I ever have climbed this far?" The young man's voice turned fierce with resentment. "My fate is mine—not heaven's! Five roots or no, this young master will cross the Core Formation bottleneck—and condense a Nascent Soul besides, and become a hero of the age like my uncle!" The declaration came from the marrow, and carried such force that even Andy, eavesdropping kilometers away, felt something stir in his chest.

These three were the very Demon Gate cultivators who had attacked him, Xi Feng, Di Er, and the others three years ago—only two fewer now. One of the missing, the ugly mid-stage cultivator, had died at Andy's own hand. But the other—a late-stage cultivator—had perished by some cause unknown.

Had Xi Feng's group killed him? Then might some of them yet live? The question rose in Andy's mind of its own accord.

Since fate had delivered these Demon Gate cultivators to him again on this barren island—and his strength was no longer what it had been—he had no intention of letting them slip away.

But still he waited, patient. He needed the right moment to annihilate all three—and leave not one alive.