I'll make you the furnace and the cauldron, so you can refine Yin and Yang and prove the Great

Time, in the process of cultivation, is like a piece of silk stretched out, slipping silently and gently through one's fingertips.

In the blink of an eye, another ten years have passed.

Deep within the southern cave dwelling, in a renovated stone chamber, the light from the luminous pearl refracted a warm glow through the spiritual mist. The air was filled with the lingering scent of refined medicinal herbs and a faint fragrance of cosmetics. Li Hanshan sat cross-legged in the center of the stone couch, his pure Yang energy surging through his meridians. The patterns on the surface of his golden primordial spirit were even denser than they had been ten years ago, resembling a statue that had been repeatedly sculpted, each line containing pure spiritual power refined countless times.

Over the past decade, his cultivation pace has become more relaxed and efficient. Every so often, Ye Shuanghua and Zhang Qingxuan would travel from their respective peaks to the southern foothills to cultivate with him for a night before departing. The interval between their visits had lengthened from several days to once every two weeks, but each time the effects were more significant than before. Shen Ruoxi moved to a small peak near the southern foothills, making travel more convenient. Sometimes she would even stay in her cave dwelling on the southern foothills for several days at a time, working with Li Hanshan to refine the details of spiritual energy circulation, repeatedly purifying the residual parts of the medicinal power that had not been completely refined.

The women brought back from the cave have undergone tremendous changes in the past ten years.

Hua Nongying's breakthrough came earliest. She had already reached the peak of the Golden Core stage. After arriving at the main sect of the Hehuan Sect, the combined influence of the dense spiritual energy and Li Hanshan's pure Yang energy was like watering a parched flower, rapidly revitalizing her meridians. One autumn night in the fifth year, Li Hanshan was in the middle of dual cultivation with her when he suddenly sensed a violent tremor deep within her dantian—the bottleneck that had been blocking her for so long was shattered by his pure Yang energy during that spiritual energy cycle. Hua Nongying tensed her back abruptly, let out a muffled groan, and collapsed into his arms. It took her a while to open her eyes, her gaze a complex mix of bewilderment and ecstatic joy, as if she had survived a catastrophe. Ten years later, her cultivation had soared to the mid-Nascent Soul stage, traversing in just a few years a path that would normally take ordinary cultivators hundreds of years to complete.

Liu Ruoxue followed closely behind. Her extremely Yin body, under the continuous harmonization of pure Yang energy, became increasingly docile. The extreme cold energy entrenched deep within her meridians was gradually dissolved and transformed, merging into her spiritual power and becoming an aid to her cultivation. In the spring of the eighth year, after a night of dual cultivation, Liu Ruoxue secluded herself for three whole months. When she emerged, her body was covered in a fine layer of white frost, but her eyes shone with a warm golden light. Her cultivation had leaped to the mid-stage of the Nascent Soul realm. Her entire demeanor seemed to have been reforged; the coldness remained, but much of its previous sharpness had diminished, replaced by a refined tranquility.

Yun Shuyue's breakthrough came relatively smoothly. She successfully broke through the Nascent Soul barrier in her second year without too many twists and turns. It was like a carefully rehearsed tide that overflowed the embankment according to the predetermined timeline. In the remaining eight years, Yun Shuyue's cultivation improved further, and she broke through to the mid-Nascent Soul stage.

Jiang Nianwei's cultivation steadily climbed to the mid-Nascent Soul stage. Wu Xinyue's breakthrough was the most vigorous. This red-clad female cultivator was inherently fiery, and her cultivation was equally impressive. In the autumn of the ninth year, she secluded herself for two months under a remote cliff on the back mountain of the southern foothills. When she emerged from seclusion, she was already at the peak of the Nascent Soul stage, just one step away from becoming a Divine Transformation cultivator.

Xu Lingxi's progress astonished everyone. This child was born with an extremely Yin constitution, and after arriving in the spiritually rich Central Continent, she was like a fish entering the deep sea, her cultivation speed far exceeding that of ordinary people. She did not cultivate with Li Hanshan, so her progress was much slower than the other girls, but she still broke through to the Golden Core stage early on. With Li Hanshan's help, she made rapid progress all the way, and is now at the late Golden Core stage.

As for Li Hanshan, his cultivation also improved further. After ten years of hard work and with the help of the women, he broke through the fourth level of the Nascent Soul stage in just six years and officially entered the middle stage of the Nascent Soul stage.

However, after reaching the fourth level of the Nascent Soul stage, Li Hanshan felt that he had encountered a bottleneck and that he would need more time to break through to the fifth level.

That's normal; the further you progress in the Nascent Soul stage, the longer it takes.

However, during these ten years, the path of progress that Li Hanshan valued most was not in the cave, but in the dream world.

The gray-white void remained boundless, the mist churning as before. The last time Luo Li appeared before him, she didn't immediately teach him pill formulas or formations as usual, but instead remained unusually silent for a moment. Her clear eyes, spanning thousands of years, fell upon him: "Grandpa, your soul foundation is now stable. Your peak Nascent Soul stage divine sense only needs one final tempering to reach the threshold of Void Refinement. I will assist you on your journey."

That dream lasted an exceptionally long time. Luo Li pressed her fingertips against his brow, and her warm, gentle soul power flowed into his sea of ​​consciousness through that point of contact. Like a carefully controlled warm current, it flowed slowly along the edges of his soul, filling, polishing, and smoothing out those not yet fully solidified corners. Li Hanshan could feel that the boundaries of his divine sense had expanded by a full circle that night. The coverage of the golden light in his sea of ​​consciousness was much wider, and the details he could perceive when his divine sense tentacles reached out were several times clearer than before. Although the improvement was not as dramatic as a breakthrough in cultivation, it was like a dam that had been repeatedly reinforced, silently raising the strength of the entire foundation to a new level.

Her face paled slightly as she withdrew her fingertips, a sign of excessive soul power depletion. But she simply shook her head, indicating that he needn't worry, and then said, "One more time, and your divine sense will truly step into the Void Refinement Realm. At that time, when you enter this dream again, you will see far more than you do now." She didn't explain what "far more" meant, and her figure vanished into the mist like melting snow.

Meanwhile, the battle in another dream has also undergone some subtle changes over the years.

The sword-wielding woman's appearances became increasingly regular. Every so often, Li Hanshan would be drawn into that gloomy world, so different from where Luo Li was. The woman in the pale blue robe would still emerge from the mist, the three-foot-long sword in her hand still gleaming with a cold, eerie light, but the angle of her first swing was becoming increasingly pronounced. From initially veering half an inch, to later veering several inches, and most recently, her sword would pause slightly at the very last moment before falling. That brief pause, though extremely brief, was enough for Li Hanshan to see a flicker of vulnerability deep within her eyes.

During their last encounter, her sword grazed his shoulder, leaving a silvery-white rift in the air. Li Hanshan didn't seize the opportunity to retaliate; instead, he stood still and asked, "You know I'm not a Heavenly Demon, right?"

The woman did not answer, but her second sword did not strike. She stood there, sword in hand, her cold eyes fixed on him, silent for a very long time. Just when Li Hanshan thought she was finally about to speak, her figure dissolved into the mist like dust blown away by the wind, leaving him alone in the gradually calming void, his breathing exceptionally clear in the boundless silence.

These experiences in his dreams intertwined with his real-world cultivation progress in his cave, like two parallel streams eventually flowing into the same lake. Over the past ten years, his divine sense had quietly climbed to the critical point between the Nascent Soul stage and the Void Refinement stage; that barrier was as thin as a cicada's wing, requiring only a final push to cross.

Li Hanshan stood on the stone platform outside his cave on the southern slope, gazing at the lights flickering in the twilight towards the main peak, feeling the golden world in his sea of ​​consciousness, several times larger than it had been ten years ago. Luo Li had said that "just one more time" would allow him to break through, and he could vaguely sense that that time would come soon.

He withdrew his gaze and turned to enter the cave. Several women were sitting around a low table in the stone hall, drinking tea and chatting. Hua Nongying leaned back in her chair, a pipe between her fingers; Liu Ruoxue sat in a corner with a teacup; and Yun Shuyue was whispering something to Jiang Nianwei. Seeing him enter, several gazes simultaneously fell upon him. Hua Nongying spoke first: "How are you? Has your bottleneck loosened?"

"Soon." Li Hanshan sat down at the table, picked up an empty cup, poured himself a cup of tea, took a sip, and said, "In another two or three years, I should be able to break through to the fifth level of the Nascent Soul stage."

Liu Ruoxue put down her teacup and glanced at him: "Two or three years, that's not too long." Her voice was still cold, but the concern in her tone was genuine.

Yun Shuyue picked up the conversation: "I've recently been going through the pill formula I borrowed from the Scripture Pavilion, and I found that some of the auxiliary ingredients can be replaced with the purple Ganoderma lucidum produced on Jade Peak. The age requirement is lower, but the medicinal effect isn't much different. Would you like to give it a try?"

Jiang Nianwei turned around and took out a silver-white jade slip from her sleeve, handing it to him: "This is a newly compiled ancient prescription record. Several of the main ingredients in the fifth-grade pill prescriptions have a high compatibility with the spiritual herbs in our herb garden. Take a look when you have time." Li Hanshan took the jade slip, and when his fingertips touched the cool jade surface, he could feel her spiritual power leaving a fine trail within it.

As they were talking, the stone door to the cave was pushed open a crack from the outside, and Xu Lingxi peeked in. Her gaze swept over everyone, and when it landed on Li Hanshan, it lit up: "Grandpa Li, Senior Sister Ye asked me to pass on a message. She said she'll come to see you tomorrow morning to discuss something." After she finished speaking, she withdrew her head, and her footsteps faded away lightly on the stone steps.

Hua Nongying glanced towards the entrance of the cave, a slight smile playing on her lips. "Senior Sister Ye certainly comes quite often. In the last ten years, she's probably traveled the same distance to the southern foothills as she did in the previous few hundred years." Her tone was teasing, but without malice. Li Hanshan tucked the jade slip into his sleeve, sensing the lingering coolness on it. His gaze swept over the women sitting around him—some were drinking tea, some were flipping through books, and some were lost in thought, each exuding a composure honed by time.

Night seeped in through the cracks in the stone door, casting a warm glow on the candlelight within the cave. Wisps of white steam rose from the teacups on the low table, swirling slowly in the halo of the luminous pearl before dissolving into the shadows of the cave ceiling. Li Hanshan leaned back in his chair, listening to the intermittent chatter of the women around him. Deep within his consciousness, the golden light was expanding at an extremely slow yet irreversible pace. He could feel the critical barrier thinning inch by inch; perhaps the moment he truly touched the threshold of the Refined Void Divine Consciousness would come upon his next entry into a dream.