He gained a total 975 Qi a day, so he spent most of his time forming the Qi into proper shapes. He first started by reinforcing his pillars, and then, started to build new ones.

From afar, it looked like a skyscraper extending upwards and outwards, building one steel column at a time.

The 2nd layer is larger than the 1st layer, and it had a bigger surface area. So, the pillars needed to be strong to hold on the weight. His core was filled with criss-crossing beams and bars, meant to reinforce the entire structure.

He had taken to a liking for this construction concept. The fact that it had a very physical analogy, such as a building meant it would be a lot easier to teach this type of cultivation to young children. He recalled that many children back in their world struggle to comprehend airy concepts like rings and circles floating in the sky.

It was intuitive, and easy to illustrate with sticks.

How many young men and women’s potential has been wasted because maybe some of them couldn’t visualize an airy concept? Could some of their world’s failures actually be geniuses, had they built their cores differently?

Mingwei’s past memories even felt guilt, and that made himself feel strange. It wasn’t him, but it really did feel like he was there, telling all these young children to give it up. If he had another chance, he would’ve asked them to try a different method.

“Ah. No time for regrets.” He said softly, and continued working on his cultivation.

He cultivated for 50 days, and broke through to the middle 2-star realm. He felt his Qi output, storage and toughness all shoot up tremendously. 40,000, was where the middle 2 star was. 40% off the total of 100,000 Qi. 40% was where one is deemed to have broken through the ‘middle’ of that star range, and it’s just so that a middle-star is significantly stronger than a low-star of the same realm.

Qi Cultivated

48,750/100,000

Qi Output Limit

480

Qi Storage

2,400/2,400

Core Toughness

5,100/5,100

During these 50 days, he also had his 11th birthday, and so received a letter from his family. His parents are well, and his brother had just broken through to 4-star! Clearly, his brother was doing well.

He suddenly missed home. Was this the life of a cultivator? He wondered, and maybe once he made it to 3-stars, he would take a break and go home.

-

Mingwei had to stop cultivating, as Elder Qing summoned him to help with pill making. His task was quite menial, mostly just assisting to pass the materials to Elder Qing. She was making 5-star pills this time. Healing pills, and neutralisation pills.

Elder Qing’s skill at healing pills was very respectable and Mingwei honestly didn’t have much to criticise. If anything, when it comes to healing pills, she was about 95% there, the 5% being mostly on resource processing.

Perhaps it’s a function of this world, that since everyone fought more, healing pills are a lot more developed.

“No one from your batch had broken through to 3-star, yet.” Elder Qing said, while she worked on a batch of Yin-Yang Poison Neutralisation Pills.

“Really?”

“I think you’re the fastest at this point, having broken through to mid-2 stars. Most of them are still in their early 2-star realm, like your roommate.”

Mingwei froze. That’s no good! He’s a crafter! If he’s the first to break through, everyone from the earlier batches are going to pick on him, and he would have to bear the responsibilities as the de-facto leader of their batch, because he’s the first to break through!

Memories of his earlier lives flooded him, and he recalled memories of having to fight off jealous seniors who tried to guard their own position, or elders who suddenly paid attention to him.

If he wanted to avoid fighting, being the first of their batch to break through to 3-star is not a good idea! That’s no good at all!

He sat and he thought about it. He had to help his fellow batchmates! But who? Maybe all of them?

Maybe he should start with his roommate, Yu Huadao! He needed to see how he could help him be the first to break through.