With a fortune of over one hundred and eleven gold burning in his spatial ring, Lei Man walked with a singular purpose. He didn't return to the common apothecaries or even The Gnarled Root. He went straight back to the immaculate, marble-floored temple of wealth: The Merchant God Pavilion.
He approached the same jade counter, and by a stroke of luck, the same wryly amused clerk was on duty. The clerk's professional smile was tinged with genuine surprise.
"Welcome back, sir," the clerk said, his voice smooth. "It is rare to see a client so soon. I trust your previous purchase was... effective?"
"Extremely," Lei Man said, his voice a low, confident hum. "I need something more. I am at the peak of the ninth level. I need a treasure to break through to the Qi Gathering realm."
The clerk's eyebrows shot up. The leap from the sixth level to attempting a realm breakthrough in just a few days was not just rare; it was utterly unprecedented. His smile became one of genuine, professional respect. This was not just a client; this was a prodigy, or a madman with a heaven-defying secret. Either way, he was a profitable customer.
"A realm breakthrough is the most critical step in a cultivator's journey," the clerk said, his tone now serious. "For such a purpose, a simple herb will not suffice. You require an alchemical pill, a treasure refined by a master. We have one item suitable for your needs. It is called the Heavenly Foundation Pill."
He led Lei Man back to the same discreet, private room. This time, the box the attendant brought in was not lacquered wood, but carved from a solid piece of cool, white jade. The clerk opened it, and nestled on a bed of black silk was a single, longan-sized pill. It was a deep, celestial blue, and it seemed to swallow the light in the room. A tiny, perfect silver cloud swirled within its depths.
"The Heavenly Foundation Pill," the clerk said with reverence. "It is formulated to violently purge the last of one's mortal turbidity, construct a flawless spiritual foundation, and open the body's channels to the Qi of the heavens and the earth. It is a guaranteed path to the Qi Gathering realm."
"The price?" Lei Man asked, his heart hammering.
"One hundred gold."
It was almost everything he had. It was the price of his ticket. "I'll take it," he said, and the transaction was made.
He left the pavilion with the jade box in his ring and just over eleven gold to his name. He couldn't risk a breakthrough of this magnitude in the wilderness. He needed a secure, controlled environment. He found a high-end cultivation inn called "The Serene Abode" and, for the exorbitant price of one hundred silver, rented their most secure, sound-proofed "breakthrough pavilion" for twelve hours.
Inside the stark, stone-walled room, he sat in the center of a complex, inscribed array on the floor designed to stabilize spiritual energy. He took out the Heavenly Foundation Pill. It felt heavy in his palm, thrumming with a power that dwarfed every herb he had ever consumed combined.
He took a deep breath and swallowed it.
—KA-BOOM—
The trip was not a gentle slide; it was a detonation. His consciousness was blasted into a million pieces and scattered across an infinite, chaotic multiverse of information.
He was in a sleek, modern news studio. A handsome anchor with a perfect jawline looked gravely into a camera. "News flash! Grieving souls grieve for Krai as his luck runs out. Our sources now confirm that the so-called 'genius' was, in fact, a level 8 fraud! More on this scandal at eleven!"
The scene shattered.
He was standing on a vast, grassy plain under a single, enormous, dark gray thundercloud. The cloud had a grumpy, cartoonish face. Below it, a row of bright yellow, anthropomorphic bananas with jaunty hats stood in a perfect line, looking up expectantly. The thundercloud rumbled, and a gentle rain began to fall on them. "There's a lovely bunch of bananas, diddly dee," the cloud sang in a deep, baritone voice. "There they all are, standing in my rain!"
The scene dissolved into static.
He was in a dark, primal forest, the smell of blood and pine thick in the air. Before him, held in a spectral version of his own hands, was the still-beating, crimson heart of a Violent Red Mountain Elk. The heart pulsed with a raw, savage life force. It spoke to him, its voice a wet, urgent, meaty sound. "What are you waiting for, man?! EAT ME!"
He obeyed. He devoured the heart, and its raw, vital energy exploded within him.
This final, visceral act was the anchor. The scattered fragments of his consciousness, empowered by the news report's absurdity, the bananas' surreal joy, and the elk heart's primal energy, began to rush back together. They coalesced in his dantian, which was no longer a star, but a swirling, nascent galaxy.
The pill's true power, a violent, purifying blue energy, erupted. It was a tsunami. It didn't just purge his mortal turbidity; it scoured his very bones. It didn't just build a spiritual foundation; it constructed a fortress. It didn't just open his channels; it blasted them open, turning tiny streams into vast, celestial rivers.
The barrier between Body Strengthening and Qi Gathering, a wall that had stopped countless cultivators for their entire lives, was not broken. It was annihilated.
He didn't just step into the Qi Gathering realm. He was launched. The sheer, overwhelming force of the breakthrough, amplified by his unique, trip-fueled cultivation, propelled him straight through the first level in a tidal wave of power.
He snapped back to reality with a roar, a shockwave of pure, untainted Qi erupting from his body and slamming against the walls of the pavilion, making the entire stone structure groan. He was on his feet, his body wreathed in a soft, visible blue aura. He could feel it—a tangible connection to the spiritual energy of the world around him. He could draw it in, feel it flow through his newly forged foundation, and make it his own.
The breakthrough was a resounding, terrifying success. He had not just arrived at the first level of Qi Gathering. The momentum had been so great, the foundation so flawless, that he had blown past it and landed solidly in the early stages of the second level.
He had seven days to prepare. It had taken him one. The Red Cloud Sect was waiting.
Lei Man spent a few hours in the serene quiet of the breakthrough pavilion, not cultivating, but simply feeling. The difference between the Body Strengthening realm and the Qi Gathering realm was the difference between a perfectly crafted lantern and a lit flame. Before, his power was a contained, internal force. Now, it was a living aura that connected him to the world. He could feel the spiritual energy in the air, could project his own Qi in a soft, visible blue halo around his hand.
He had the power. Now, he had to clear the board. There was no point entering a sect competition with a venomous snake nesting in his own home. It was time to handle Jiao.
He didn't wait for a chance encounter. He walked back to the Lei family estate in the dead of night, his movements silent and purposeful. The guards at the gate instinctively flinched away from the palpable pressure he now emanated, averting their eyes and letting him pass without a word.
He walked directly to Lei Jiao's opulent residence. He didn't knock. He pushed the ornate doors open and stepped inside.
The main room was a mess. A half-eaten meal sat cold on a table, and a priceless vase lay shattered in a corner. Lei Jiao was pacing back and forth like a caged animal, his fine silk robes rumpled, his face pale with a paranoid, sleep-deprived anxiety. He was clearly waiting for news from his hired killer.
He spun around as Lei Man entered, a flicker of hope in his eyes that died and was instantly replaced by sheer, undiluted terror.
"You!" Jiao stammered, stumbling backwards. "What are you doing here? Get out!"
"Your man failed," Lei Man said, his voice as calm and cold as the moonstones outside. He let the doors swing shut behind him, plunging the room into a deeper gloom.
Jiao's face went white. "I... I don't know what you're talking about!"
"Don't insult my intelligence," Lei Man said, taking a slow step forward. And with that step, he released his aura.
It wasn't a punch. It was pure, unadulterated Qi pressure. The air in the room instantly thickened, becoming as heavy as water. The candles flickered violently, then extinguished. To Lei Jiao, a mere fifth-level Body Strengthener, it felt as if a mountain had just been dropped on his shoulders.
His breath caught in his throat. His knees buckled, and he fell to the floor with a choked gasp, his hands planted on the polished wood to keep from being flattened completely. This wasn't Body Strengthening. This was a different dimension of power entirely.
"Qi... Qi Gathering..." Jiao wheezed, his voice a strained, terrified whisper. "How?"
Lei Man stood over him, a silent, imposing shadow. "Your hired ghost was at the peak of the ninth level. He had even bought a spatial ring full of herbs to celebrate his breakthrough after he killed me." Lei Man let that sink in. "I found them very useful."
The last of Jiao's bravado shattered. He was a frog at the bottom of a well, and the man standing over him was the entire sky.
"I won't tell anyone! I swear!" Jiao pleaded, his voice cracking. "It was a mistake! I'll give you anything! Gold! Pills! I won't bother you again! Just... just let me go!"
Lei Man looked down at the pleading, pathetic figure on the floor. He felt a brief, ghostly twinge of something—pity, perhaps, or just the old Leo Mann's aversion to violence. But a colder, harder lesson, learned in the jaws of a snake and under the claws of a desperate killer, rose to the surface.
You don't leave people alone to send assassins.
Mercy was a luxury. It was a poison that created future troubles. This was a weed that had to be pulled out by the root.
"You're right," Lei Man said, his voice soft, almost a whisper. "You won't bother me again."
He knelt down, placing a single, calm hand on the top of Jiao's head. Jiao flinched, but was too terrified to move, perhaps thinking it was a final, humiliating gesture.
It was not.
Lei Man closed his eyes and sent a single, controlled thread of his new, pure Qi Gathering energy down his arm. It was a precise, surgical instrument. The thread entered Jiao's body and instantly slammed into his chaotic, weaker Qi.
Jiao's eyes went wide. There was no explosion, no sound. Internally, his meridians were instantly thrown into a catastrophic, irreversible reverse flow. His heart seized. His spiritual foundation, such as it was, crumbled to dust.
The light in his eyes vanished. He slumped forward, his forehead hitting the polished floor with a soft thud. He was dead. To any cultivator who found the body, the cause would be obvious: a fatal Qi deviation brought on by extreme stress and a flawed cultivation. A common enough end for an arrogant, impatient young master.
Lei Man stood up, a cold, grim finality settling over him. He felt no triumph, no guilt. He felt… quiet. A problem had been identified, and it had been solved. Permanently.
He looked around the room, his gaze pragmatic. He walked to Jiao's alchemy table and picked up an ornate box containing several high-grade herbs. He slipped a few pouches of gold from a nearby chest. He placed them all in his spatial ring without a second glance.
He walked out of the silent room, leaving the body of the family's "genius" to be discovered in the morning. The board was clear. The last, most dangerous loose end from his old life was tied up for good. Now, he could focus on the real game.
The news of Lei Jiao's death swept through the Lei estate like a cold wind. The official cause, delivered by the family's grim-faced elders, was a fatal Qi deviation. It was a plausible, almost predictable end for an arrogant young genius known for pushing his cultivation too aggressively. But a quiet, unspoken fear took root in the courtyards and corridors. Servants whispered. Disciples fell silent when Lei Man walked past. They had all seen his impossible rise, and they had all witnessed Jiao's public humiliation. They drew their own conclusions, and those conclusions painted Lei Man as a silent, terrifying demon.
No one dared to speak to him. His own father, a man who had ignored him for fifteen years, now actively avoided him, his gaze a mixture of fear and confusion. Lei Man, for the first time in his life, was left completely and utterly alone.
And he savored it.
For the next six days, he did not leave his courtyard. He had a mountain of gold, a ring full of herbs, and the peak of the ninth level still to conquer. The old Lei Man, driven by the frantic energy of his trips, would have immediately consumed everything, chasing the next explosive breakthrough.
But he was not the old Lei Man. He had learned from the snake and the falcon. His trips gave him the raw materials—the steel—but the Flowing Butterfly Art had taught him the value of skill. The furnace was hot, but he needed to learn how to be a blacksmith.
His days took on a new, quiet rhythm. He would wake with the sun and simply sit in the center of his courtyard, feeling the world. He would extend his senses, feeling the soft, ambient Qi of the heavens and the earth, a river of energy he could now perceive and touch.
He practiced control. He would focus, drawing a single, thread-thin wisp of his blue Qi from his fingertip. He would guide it through the air, making it dance and weave. He'd use it to lift a single scarlet willow leaf from the ground, making it twirl and spin. He'd practice for hours, his brow furrowed in concentration, until he could make the leaf float effortlessly for minutes at a time.
He would then move on to power. He'd stand before a large river stone and press his palm against it. He wouldn't smash it. He would release a slow, steady pulse of Qi, not a sledgehammer, but a drill. He worked until he could leave a clean, smooth hole right through the center of the dense rock.
He was not actively trying to break through. He was simply mastering the power he already had. The Rainbow Caterpillar Method, his strange, innate technique, worked passively in the background, constantly circulating his Qi, solidifying his foundation, and making his control more refined with each passing hour. It was a slow, meticulous process, the antithesis of the chaotic explosions that had defined his journey so far.
It was, he realized, a form of relaxation. It was the calm, focused joy of a craftsman honing his tools. For the first time, he wasn't reacting to a crisis. He was preparing for an opportunity.
On the morning of the seventh day, the day of the Red Cloud Sect competition, he awoke feeling a profound sense of peace. The immense, volatile power of the second level of Qi Gathering no longer felt like a raging river threatening to burst its banks. It felt like a deep, powerful ocean, utterly under his command.
He stood up and dressed in a simple, clean set of dark robes he'd bought in the city, the plain uniform of a common mercenary. He looked around the small, familiar courtyard, the only home he had ever known in this world. He felt no attachment, no nostalgia. It was just a place.
He walked out of his courtyard, leaving the past behind. He passed through the main gates of the Lei estate without a backward glance. The guards, as before, averted their eyes, their fear a silent, final farewell.
He was walking to the city's central plaza, where the competition was to be held. He wasn't just bringing power earned through madness and miracles. He was bringing mastery, forged in six days of quiet, deliberate calm. The storm was coming, and for the first time, he was ready to direct the lightning.