Deep within an unremarkable cave carved into the heart of the Great Desert, Su Min sat cross legged in perfect meditation. The air around her was still and silent, heavy with the scent of dry stone and concentrated spiritual power.
"The five elemental treasures are finally gathered," she murmured, her voice the only sound in the profound quiet. "But before I can attempt the breakthrough, I must first prepare the Foundation Establishment Pill. This seclusion will last for years." A faint, satisfied smile touched her lips. "Fortunately, no one should ever disturb me here."
She retrieved her trusted alchemy cauldron, its familiar weight comforting in her hands. Her eyes then scanned the precious materials laid out before her with a critical gaze. The pill's legendary rarity stemmed from its near irreplaceable ingredients, though its classification as a Grade 3 mid tier pill posed little actual challenge to her control and the supreme quality of her Nanming Lihuo.
"This should succeed in one attempt," she stated, her confidence born of meticulous preparation. "I have already burned through enough of Prince Yong's herbal treasury these past months. Failure is not an option here."
Unlike most pill recipes that allowed for some ingredient substitutions, this one was rigidly, unforgivingly fixed. She had only managed to gather two complete sets of materials. A single mistake, a moment of lost focus, would mean total failure and the loss of a priceless opportunity.
Three days passed in a cycle of controlled flame, subtle spiritual manipulation, and intense concentration.
"Huff... that was more exhausting than I expected."
It was clear Su Min had deliberately slowed her usual process to an almost painstaking pace to eliminate any risk of error. Now, resting in her palm were two perfectly formed pills, each emitting a soft, internal golden glow that pulsed with condensed power.
"Foundation Establishment Pills..." she whispered, a note of awe in her own voice. "If word of this ever got out, the entire cultivation world would be shaken. In those ancient realms with deeper legacies, a bloody, continent spanning war would likely erupt over just one of these."
She chuckled dryly to herself but was not in a rush to consume them. Instead, she carefully brought out the five elemental treasures. This was the true, monumental challenge of cultivating the Heavenly Dao path.
Of the three main cultivation paths—Heaven, Earth, and Man—the human path was the simplest, requiring only a successful breakthrough aided by the pill. The Earth path was more demanding, requiring the integration of at least three of the five elemental treasures. As for the supreme Heavenly Path, all five were absolutely necessary.
The problem was that to establish a true Heavenly Foundation, all five treasures had to be completely refined and their core essence absorbed into her very being. The process was agonizingly slow, a meticulous fusion that could take ten to twenty years. But the reward was immense. Some legendary cultivators could even begin to condense a phantom Golden Core during this stage, laying the groundwork for the next realm and gaining access to powerful, innate divine abilities. The only significant drawback was the vast amount of time it consumed.
By the time she emerged, others might have caught up to her in raw cultivation level. But true battle strength was an entirely different matter. Heavenly Foundation cultivators were exceedingly rare, perhaps only a handful appeared in an entire generation. In the Great Wei Dynasty, which had essentially served as the starting zone for players, resources were scarce and truly powerful beings were few. Competition there was not particularly fierce. In the higher, more advanced realms she knew of, however, it was a brutal, dog eat dog world where only the strongest and most ruthless survived.
In such places, without a dominant, righteous sect to regulate resources and maintain order, chaos reigned supreme. Even the battle to secure a single one of the Five Elemental Treasures was a terrifying prospect. But here, she had faced no real competition, likely because no one else even dreamed of reaching Foundation Establishment within a few decades, or even knew the secrets of the Heaven Path.
"Whew."
Exhaling softly, she initiated the process. The five treasures—the earthen shield, the fiery root, the metallic core, the aqueous pearl, and the wooden spirit—rose into the air around her, each glowing with its own distinct elemental light as they began to slowly orbit her form. She needed to absorb their fundamental essence fully into her dantian before taking the pill. The Heavenly Foundation was not something just anyone could attempt. One had to withstand the simultaneous refining and balancing of all five elemental forces within their body, a feat of endurance and spiritual control that few could survive. But as a "player," Su Min's body possessed a unique, inherent adaptability, allowing her to endure and integrate far more than native cultivators. Even the violent, conflicting Five Elemental Forces were within her potential to master.
Time lost all meaning. The cave she had created was gradually buried beneath layers of wind blown sand, its entrance completely obscured. Yet her preparations had been meticulous, and the sealed chamber remained clean and untouched. The shifting dunes above even served as a perfect natural camouflage. Even with the advanced technology of her past life, finding her now would have been nearly impossible. And so, the years slipped away, one after another, silent and unmarked. In that sun bleached, silent desert, a full twenty years passed.
"Huu…"
With a deep, shuddering breath that was her first in a very long time, Su Min, who had been as still as a jade statue, slowly opened her eyes. They glowed with a new, profound depth.
"How many years has it been?" she whispered, her voice raspy from disuse. "It feels like waking from a long, long dream..."
She looked around the dusty, sealed cave, a trace of complex emotion flickering in her newly awakened eyes. Her body, however, remained pristine and spotless. A gentle, continuous flow of spiritual energy circulated through her, actively repelling any dust. Her gleaming artifact armor made her seem almost like a divine being misplaced amid the desolate surroundings.
"Finally... I have reached Foundation Establishment... and it is a Heavenly Path Foundation, even..."
Suddenly, she clutched her head. A torrent of unfamiliar, profound information, vast and complex, surged into her mind, not as a memory, but as a direct download of understanding.
"Heavenly Dao Insight? No—this is different... It is the Heavenly Dao's direct gift!"
She recognized the source of the influx immediately and a wave of pure, unadulterated joy washed over her. She had endured countless hardships and sacrificed decades for this moment, and now came her true, unparalleled reward. Although she had been able to defeat fused experts at the peak of Qi Refining, her raw combat potential had still fallen short compared to those players who pursued min maxed, battle oriented builds from the start.
Just look at the others she remembered: those with Desolate Holy Bodies, Flameborne Physiques, Netherworld Death Bodies...
When paired with perfectly compatible destinies and techniques, their strength became overwhelming. Late stage Qi Refining cultivators who could defeat ordinary Foundation Establishment experts were not even that rare. The most monstrous could even hold their own against early Golden Core cultivators. Compared to them, Su Min's path was different, more foundational and long term, but their explosive advantage came with a heavy, hidden price—a severely shortened lifespan.
Spiritual energy revival in this world came in grand cycles. Although the current era's energy was gradually recovering, reaching the Golden Core stage was already considered the peak of elite achievement. Progress beyond that was currently impossible, a hard cap written into the very laws of the world. This bottleneck would last for nearly five centuries, the natural limit of the Golden Core stage. To advance further within that timeframe, they would have no choice but to reincarnate, to start over in a new body. Their cultivated fortunes and karma might carry over, but their innate physiques did not. Creating a new body with the exact same legendary constitution was nearly impossible. Once their bodies changed, the unique "compatibility physique" that players started with would vanish forever. And that very adaptability, she now realized, was her own greatest and most enduring strength.
It was a cruel irony that the game she remembered had never made this ultimate trade off clear.
As for the desperate tactic of sealing themselves inside magical treasures to wait out the bottleneck? That was futile. In the game's lore, all such known artifacts had long been looted in ancient wars, and the real world would be no different. The Demon Queen herself was a living testament to this; she had shattered her own foundation and crippled her power in a failed attempt to use one. The cost of such a gamble was simply unbearable.