After finishing a patrol round to inspect the nightmare worms, I head to the house where Wei Wang left me to cultivate, with a new shock in my heart.
Meanwhile, Wei Wang heads back toward the sect building to complete the registration, just as he said.
"Damn it, why did I choose this demonic sect that raises monsters?"
I feel an urge to cry as I remember refusing to go with Kang Sora and Shu Bai Tsai, and stubbornly insisting on joining the Sect of Seekers of the Secrets of Life and Death.
"Why am I so stupid?"
I sigh in despair as I enter one of the rooms in the wooden house.
The room's furniture was extremely simple—just a basic wooden bed and a prayer mat used for meditation practice.
"Come on, endure all this suffering for the sake of a better future."
I try to comfort myself with the promise of ruling the world alongside dozens of beautiful girls in the future once I become stronger.
"Enough stupid fantasies. Now it's time for real cultivation."
I sit in the lotus position on the prayer mat and begin trying to absorb spiritual energy and corpse qi.
"The density of corpse qi here is truly astonishing."
Although it wasn't overwhelming enough to become lethal like at the end of the second cycle,
"Still, wouldn't it be deadly in the long run? Then why are there still so many people living on the island?"
Suddenly, I remember that there was no corpse qi at all in the wooden city.
"Strange. Do they have a way to isolate it, or what?"
"Damn it, focus on cultivation."
I throw these random thoughts to the back of my mind and return to focusing on absorbing spiritual energy and corpse qi.
The technique "Sea of Corpses" relied on absorbing corpse qi and spiritual energy, and using spiritual energy to reduce the toxicity of corpse qi.
When following the steps described in the technique word for word, a faint green mist appears in my dantian.
"So this is diluted corpse qi?"
I feel a mix of astonishment and fear as I watch the familiar green mist gather in my dantian.
"Focus."
I begin gathering the green mist toward the center of the dantian and start compressing it in the manner described in the technique.
At first, the green mist gathers to form a rotten, illusory corpse man. As I continue absorbing corpse qi and spiritual energy, the man becomes more realistic, and even signs of the second leg begin to appear.
"Damn it, this is taking a long time."
I feel sweat begin to cover my forehead as I continue gathering spiritual energy.
As the process continues, more parts of the corpse begin to appear:
the right leg, the hip, the abdomen, the chest.
"Just a little more."
Red veins begin to appear in my eyes as I force myself to continue.
The right hand, the left hand.
And finally, a rotten, featureless corpse head appears.
"Finally."
I sigh in exhaustion as the accumulated fatigue crashes into my body.
"This way, I've completed the first corpse."
The Sea of Corpses technique relies on merging spiritual energy and corpse qi and storing them in the form of corpses inside the dantian to form a sea of corpses. The greater the number of corpses forming the sea, the greater the cultivator's progress in qi gathering.
Five corpses are equivalent to entering the Qi Gathering stage.
One hundred corpses are equivalent to the middle stage of Qi Gathering.
Five hundred corpses are equivalent to the late stage of Qi Gathering.
One thousand corpses are equivalent to perfection in Qi Gathering, at which point one can attempt to enter Qi Condensation.
"Ugh, I want to continue, but I'm extremely tired."
I feel my entire body aching, as if I had done a hundred push-ups, squats, and pull-ups back to back.
"I want to sleep."
I yawn tiredly as I head toward the bed to sleep.
"But how much time has passed?"
Curious about how long I trained, I step out of the wooden hut to check the sun's position.
There, I see the light of dawn emerging from the east.
"…"
"It's dawn?"
"But I started my training at noon."
I feel absurd as I stare at the morning sun.
"Does this mean it took me an entire day of intense training just to form one corpse?"
"Wait—doesn't that mean I'll need nearly a year to reach the peak of Qi Gathering?"
I start rubbing my head as it begins to ache, imagining three years inside a corpse worm farm.
"Ugh, too many things to think about. Let me sleep first."
I throw all these random thoughts to the back of my mind and return to my room in the wooden house to sleep.
I continue sleeping until nightfall.
"I'am hungry."
"Didn't senior brother leave some food?"
I get up from my bed and begin searching the wooden house for anything edible, and indeed I find some rations, salted meat, and dried fish stored in the pantry.
"Wait, why is the color of this meat strange?"
The salted meat had a strangely bluish color.
"…"
"I hope it's not what I'm thinking."
I ignore the horrifying possibility that crossed my mind, and along with it ignore the meat, taking only the dried fish slices.
After eating an unappetizing meal, I return to training since I had nothing else to do.
This routine continues for three days, during which I condense three corpses in my dantian.
On the third day, while I'm trying to gather my courage to carry out the task assigned to me, Wei Wang returns.
"Senior brother!"
Upon seeing Wei Wang enter the wooden house, I almost jump toward him and hug him out of sheer joy, because it means I'm not forced to enter the worm cave alone.
"Congratulations, junior brother. I see you're close to entering Qi Gathering."
Wei Wang smiles at me as he hands me an emerald-green robe along with a paper and a leather pouch.
"Take these—your supplies as an outer disciple of the Sect of Seekers of the Secrets of Life and Death."
I take the robe and supplies from Wei Wang's hand.
"And there's more good news."