Chapter 34

Divine opened his eyes.

He watched Nola, until she was exhausted and stopped training.

Heavily panting, she leaned on her knees.

The style of the robes available in the system shop were conservative, but Nola's workout had loosened hers a little and when she bend forward, Divine got a good view of her two small holy mountains.

In this case it was advantageous, that they were on the smaller side, because Divine could even catch a glimpse of the delicious mountain peaks.

Nola looked up and discovered Divine ogling her.

To hide her body and embarrassment, she turned around hurriedly.

Divine gave her figure a last look and went to his private cave.

A while later, he was relaxed and in a good mood.

It was time to cultivate again.

Divine contemplated how he could finally succeed in his breakthrough.

His breakthrough to the foundation establishment realm in his body cultivation had been so straightforward and uncomplicated.

What did his qi cultivation lack, that he had failed to break through the first time?

A promising idea came to him.

"Minion Scarface." Divine called.

Waiting a moment, Scarface didn't come.

"Minion Scarface!"

Now, Divine started to worry a little.

Had something happened?

"MINION SCARFACE!"

Divine wanted to try a last time, before standing up and checking it out.

Suddenly, he heard her steps and calmed down.

"Master Divine?" Scarface asked what he needed with a strained smile.

First taking so long and then looking at him with this wretched expression, Divine became a little peeved.

"Bring me bowl!" Divine ordered a little harshly.

"Big bowl? Small bowl?" Scarface asked.

Divine was gratified, that she at least diligently asked for details.

"Goblin-skull enough." Divine answered. This size should be more than enough and it was the bowl type they had the most of.

Without further delay, Scarface quickly went to the cavern and fetched a bowl for him.

Divine already had his water gourd in hand and dismissed Scarface with a wave, as soon as he received the bowl.

He poured half of the water in the gourd into the bowl.

The water shimmered with a special luster.

The fairy dust still hadn't dissipated.

Surprisingly, Divine couldn't even detect that the light qi concentration had become weaker.

It had just stayed the same.

It looked like it would stay that way for a really long time or until someone made use of it and used up all its energy.

Not that Divine had any active use for it.

He just wanted to study it and use it as a reference for his light qi manipulation.

Divine guessed, this was what he was lacking to break through.

The spirit qi in his dantian was already concentrated enough. It only needed a slight push to condense from its gaseous state to a liquid one.

This hadn't been the problem last time. His spirit qi had become liquide, but it hadn't stayed that way.

There had been something lacking.

His control over dark qi and blood qi and over his spirit qi in general should have been more than sufficient, leaving only light qi.

For hours, Divine studied the feeling the light qi in the fairy dust gave off with his qi sense.

At the surface, light qi was warming and nourishing.

And going deeper, it was blinding and burning.

Afterwards he dipped his finger inside the bowl with the fairy dust water, tasting it.

It had no real taste of its own, but the water tasted even clearer and more natural than when he filtered it with his water manipulation.

Additionally, it seemed to have an energizing effect.

Divine could only detect a hint of it, since he had tasted so little. But it was there.

In the past he had already tried to transform his spirit qi into light qi many times with little success.

But now that he had a high quality sample, giving him a clear impression of light qi, all his past failures helped him learn it swiftly.

Soon, the claw on his right index finger glowed.

After a few tries, Divine managed to create a small ball of light that hovered a little above his finger.

It was just bright, without any additional properties, it didn't even emit any warmth.

Divine was completely immersed.

Making progress with his powers and cultivation was exhilarating and motivated him to reach even higher.

The barrier of his qi cultivation between the qi condensation realm and the foundation establishment realm was crumbling.

Divine could feel it.

If he tried to break through right now, he would succeed.

But he held back and continued his light qi experiments.

It was incredibly difficult, but with perseverance and patience, he managed to induce some effects into the ball of brightness.

Only one at a time and they were still very weak, but he managed to make the ball of light shine even brighter, to make it emit warmth and even got hints on how to give it a nourishing property.

Only when he got the impression, he wouldn't make any more leaps right now with his light qi manipulation, he stopped to take a little break.

The other inhabitants of the cavern were sleeping and after he had stretched his legs a little, Divine went back to his cave.

To prepare, he especially payed attention when he blocked the entrance with the spirit hemp rope.

And to adjust himself to peak condition, Divine first took a nourishment pill and then consumed a drop of blood qi essence.

After starting to meditate, he took his time to reach his equilibrium, before he began cultivating according to the Eternal Divine Demon Cultivation Scripture.

Slowly but surely, his gaseous spirit qi was compressed and refined until it transformed.

His spirit qi liquefied.

A qi sea originated in his dantian.

Its water was a mix of different qi, but one third was darker, one was lighter and the last third was redder than the others.

Now, Divine had to keep cultivating.

His spirit qi had transformed, its quality and concentration was much stronger.

His qi sea was restless and chaotic after its origin.

Black impurities were constantly being expelled through his pores.

For a second he wanted to get angry at himself, because in his eagerness, he had forgotten to take off his robe... again.

Luckily, he caught himself and managed to surpress his temperament.

Losing control of his feelings at this time could lead to dire consequences with his restless qi sea.

Divine concentrated on the qi circulation and the exhilarating feeling of getting more powerful, and soon, forgot about his robe.

When Divine was done and finally came out of his cave, the others were awake.

With quick steps he went to Minion Scarface.

Swiftly, he peeled himself out of his sullied Sea Serpent Hide Robe and handed it to her.

"Get robe clean. Then give back." Divine had to make that clear, because when he had given the goblins dirty robes in the past, he hadn't wanted them back. "And bring water!"

Filthy and stark naked, Divine went to wait near the latrine pits.

Scarface first found two minions, Hooknose and the female fatty, and and pushed the dirty robe to them.

Then, Scarface went to get the water with a spring in her step.

She happily helped Divine wash his body.

After washing, he splurged and bought a new low quality robe, because his Sea Serpent Hide Robe wasn't clean yet and he didn't want to put on one of the dirty old ones, that were in the minions' possession now.

[+1 Silk Robe] [-1 Blood Qi Essence]

Hooknose and Fatty were trying to clean his robe and arguing about something.

It was no wonder, they weren't done yet.

Divine went over to take a look.

The two had only managed to clean a small portion until now.

The beautifully dark green shillering serpent hide had turned dull under the excessive rubbing, that was needed to clean off the filth.

If he only had some leather polish, that would make his robe shiny again.

Wasn't the main ingridient of leather polish animal fat?

If he remembered correctly, some animal fat mixed with a little beeswax already made a leather polish, that should work well.

That would be no problem. They had water and pots, only missing something to sieve. And of course they had dead animals here all the time.

Divine had always tossed the animal fat together with the entrails away. Venus could really decompose everything, except for whole bones.

And the goblins obviously always ate the animal fat. They would eat a toe off the ground.

Wasn't animal fat useful for much more than only leather care?

Fat lamps? Insulation? Soaps?

It was also an ingredient of different foodstuffs.

Divine could've used animal fat already months ago.

That showed it wasn't enough to be knowledgeable, you had to remember the right facts at the right time.

Now that he was thinking about this topic, he should slowly make a more concrete plan on how to develop the goblin civilization, paving the way for his future sect.

But he had time. His personal development definitely had priority. And the goblings weren't ready yet.