For the time being, Fang Hao opted to simply rest to recover his Qi instead of instead of meditating despite it being less efficient. This was because, meditating took a lot of focus and he would have been able to devote less of his attention and creativity to speculate as to how he should evolve the Fire Serpent Spell. He had made a made a tentative road-map to attempt evolving the Fire Serpent spell.

'Enough grinding of Primal Thunder Reinforcement for now. I always got the feeling that the Fire Serpent spell is exceptionally powerful spell for a Qi Condensation Disciple. Lets check it out.' thought Fang Hao as he started casting the Fire Serpent spell.

It took him around one second to complete the cast, significantly shorter than what it took to cast at Qi Condensation, and a shimmering King Cobra like serpent made of orange flames manifested a few meters away from him. Despite the distance, he could feel scorching hot heatwaves emanating from the serpent. It's size had significantly increased compared to his Qi Condensation days.

The snake's body was as thick as his thigh, and it stood at around eight feet (2.4 m) tall even with a significant portion of its body and tail curled up on the ground. Fang Hao estimated that if it uncoiled and stretched out, it would reach two storeys (6 m) high. The mere presence of the Fire Serpent had caused the nearby grass to char . Fang Hao quickly dismissed it and noticed that where the Fire Serpent had manifested, a fine layer of ash was visible over the ground.

'Not only the casting time reduced to a third, but its power increased multiple times as well. Looks like Qi Cultivation Base is the primary deciding factor for my battle power, at least for now. Good thing I didn't order the Fire Serpent to burn down a tree or something. No telling how much damage full force of that spell would do. Also, I must stay low key for now and not go burn around shit. Who knows when the Great Elder will return.' thought Fang Hao.

Fang Hap then focused on grinding the Wind Blade spell. His increased Cultivation had caused the Wind Bade to increase in power, but it wasn't comparable to the Fire Serpent spell. The Wind Blade cast was almost instantaneous now. It took him around 10 days to upgrade the spell all the way up to Perfection proficiency and earned 9 skill points and around 4k xp. He was pleased to find out that not only was his skill grinding speed significantly faster due to increased Qi capacity / regeneration, but he also found it a lot easier to upgrade to Master and Perfection when compared to his Qi Condensation days.

Fang Hao spent around four months to fully upgrade all his Qi Condensation spells to Perfection Proficiency. Other than the Wind Blade spell; Fang Hao upgraded Elementary Qi Barrier, Frost Chains, Concealing Mist, Minor Illusion, Telekinetic Hand, Call Clouds, Static Web, Acid Splash, Lion's Roar, Thunder Sparrow and Blood Thorn Whip to Perfection Proficiency earning sizable amount of skill points and xp. During the monotonous grinding, he was contemplating how to evolve the Fire Serpent spell.

'Come to think of it wouldn't it have taken me at most two weeks to grind the Aura Blast spell to Perfection? Not only would I have saved the 18 skill points used to upgrade it, but also lost the 9 skill points I could have gained from the grinding! Seeing almost 500 skill points got me too excited.'

'The Great Elder said he would be back shortly, and it has been four months already. I guess for those old fogeys a few months is actually a very short period of time. I have already finished around a fifth of the nourishment pills, hope the Great Elder returns before the pills get over.' sighed the fatty mentally.

Even though the Great Elder had claimed that one pill could last him a month at the least, his first pill had satiated his hunger for roughly ten days. In the first two months he had consumed six of the nourishment pills till he had recovered from the status effect of “Deficient Marrow (mild)”. From then on, he had required approximately two nourishment pills every month. He had around thirty or so nourishment pills left which he estimated would last him around a year or so. Theoretically, he could go for months without eating as a Foundation Establishment Cultivator, but having the distracting hunger at bay was nice.

After all his Qi Condensation spells were grinded to Perfection, he spent around two months grinding the Primal Thunder Reinforcement to Expert Proficiency gaining 13 skill points. He gained a total of 123 skill points and around 60k xp from skill upgrades in these six months. Grinding this Foundation Establishment level spell was noticeably slower than his Qi Condensation level spells. On one hand, grinding Foundation Establishment spells was less efficient skill point wise; Qi Condensation spells would have difficulty even being a distraction to seasoned foundation establishment cultivators.

'Either earn lesser skill points, but keep competitive battle power while grinding spells in your Cultivation Realm; or grind more skill points but keep shit battle power grinding lower level spells. Of course, if I can evolve the lower level spells the situation changes somewhat. In essence though I shouldn't look to min-max my skill points, but focus on optimizing my battle power and not squander skill points like a retard.' Fang Hao summarized his experience on spell grinding before/after Foundation Establishment.

'Speaking of Evolving Spells, I think I have a rough idea on how to do that for the Fire Serpent spell. I should start my experimentation with attempting to evolve the contemplation image. A snake became a king cobra, so what will be next evolution after the King Cobra?' wondered the Fatty.

'As I see it, there are multiple possible paths. One would be to add horns / claws to the Serpent, making it similar to a Chinese Dragon; Another option would be to make it more humanoid. From a King Cobra to a Nāga, with lower half snake and upper half human, perhaps? Alternatively I could also try modifying the element, but its less obvious. It went from Flame to Fire in the first evolution, but both are essentially fire itself, with one more intense than the other.'

'I think I should focus on the creature for the contemplation image as that makes it more obvious while also picturing a more intense fire instead of attempting to significantly modify the element. But to go for a clawed serpent or a half-human Nāga? Either way I should wait with my manual spell evolution experimentation till I get my Core Disciple Residence. I don't want to chance another possible mystic phenomena in my temporary residence here.' decided Fang Hao as he resumed grinding the Primal Thunder Reinforcement spell.