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

The fire in the hearth went out completely on the morning of the seventh day.

Li Hanshan sat cross-legged in front of the blue stone alchemy furnace, his pure yang energy flowing smoothly through his meridians, guiding the last trace of residual heat in the furnace to dissipate evenly.

As he lifted the lid of the furnace, a crisp, almost piercing medicinal fragrance wafted out, carrying a quality akin to the essence of herbs and trees, refined through repeated tempering, slowly spreading through the quiet room. Wherever the fragrance passed, even the mist rising from the surface of the spirit spring was tinged with a very faint bluish-green hue, like the cool light shimmering on a deep pool filled with clear spring water under the sunlight.

Three Qingmai Pills, their bodies a deep blue-green with fine golden patterns flowing across their surfaces, lay quietly at the bottom of the furnace, their roundness just right. He reached out and picked one up, placing it in his palm. He could feel that the medicinal power contained within was so pure that it could automatically seep into his meridians without needing any refining. Each strand of medicinal power carried a warm, tamed quality.

Lin Qingyin sat opposite him, her fingertips pausing slightly as she took the Qingmai Pill. She could feel the calm warmth emanating from the pill's surface, a warmth unique to it after repeated refining, like holding a piece of jade warmed by the sun in her palm.

She looked up at Li Hanshan, didn't ask any questions, and swallowed the pill.

The moment the medicine entered her stomach, she felt a refreshing power, so strong it seemed to awaken all the impurities that had been dormant in her meridians for years, spreading outward from her dantian. The power was neither scorching nor cold, like a riverbed moistened by spring water. Everywhere it passed, it loosened, peeled away, and expelled the impurities that had accumulated for hundreds of years, following the flow of spiritual energy.

She could feel her meridians becoming clearer than ever before. Those previously blocked branches were like dredged channels that had been cleared again. The long-lost sense of unobstructed flow made the speed of spiritual energy circulation more than double in an instant.

"Are you ready?" Li Hanshan asked. "Yes!" Lin Qingyin nodded emphatically. As she spoke, she had already taken off all her clothes, appearing naked in front of Li Hanshan.

Without further hesitation, Li Hanshan embraced Lin Qingyin, his pure Yang energy penetrating her body. He casually condensed it into a warm, golden halo that reached towards her dantian. He could sense the impurities stripped away by the Cleansing Meridian Pill being rapidly expelled from her body by his pure Yang energy, as swiftly and naturally as fallen leaves being carried away by a stream.

He pushed his spiritual power deeper, along the widest main branch of her meridians, until he reached the edge of the barrier that stood between the peak of the Nascent Soul stage and the Void Refinement stage.

"I'm about to begin." His voice was exceptionally clear in the quiet room.

Lin Qingyin closed her eyes and nodded slightly. Her body tensed instinctively for a moment the instant he touched that barrier, then slowly relaxed as if tamed, letting his pure yang energy flow gently along the edge of that barrier.

Li Hanshan pushed the Yang Ce technique to its limit, the pure Yang energy continuously merging with the medicinal power of the Qingmai Pill in her meridians, stirring up an unprecedentedly pure energy, like two fuses lit at the same time bursting into bright flames at their intersection. He guided that energy to continuously impact that barrier, once, twice, three times—each impact more violent and precise than the last.

A violent tremor came from the depths of Lin Qingyin's sea of ​​consciousness, and fine cracks began to appear on the barrier under the continuous impact.

Her spiritual core trembled violently, like a bronze bell being repeatedly struck, each tremor leaving a deeper crack in the barrier. She could feel her spiritual power condensing, compressing, and transforming in a way she had never experienced before, like metal being forged and folded repeatedly until it became denser and more intricate.

When the ninth impact landed, the barrier shattered from its center.

The spiritual energy of the Refining Void Realm surged into her meridians like a flood bursting its banks, cleansing every corner of her body until it was crystal clear. At the moment of her breakthrough, her primordial spirit shone like a ignited star, and silvery-white light spread from the depths of her dantian to her limbs and bones, enveloping the entire quiet room with the oppressive aura that naturally arose from the breakthrough.

The stone walls surrounding the quiet room hummed slightly, and the surface of the spirit spring pool churned with fine water droplets, which exploded into rings of tiny light spots in the glow of the luminous pearl.

At the moment of that breakthrough, Li Hanshan also sensed an extremely pure source of Void Refinement flowing back into his meridians along the point where the two were joined, like spring water that had been accumulating for too long finally finding an outlet.

That primordial power, carrying the unique aftertaste of the Heavenly Dao from when Lin Qingyin broke through to the Void Refinement stage, surged ceaselessly along his Pure Yang Meridian. Every time it passed through a meridian node, it rapidly healed, expanded, and reshaped itself, just like a cracked riverbed soaked by rainwater.

He felt his pure Yang primordial spirit tremble violently under the impact of the reversed source. Fine golden patterns began to appear on the edge of the barrier at the peak of the Nascent Soul stage that had stood for so long, like the first crack appearing on the surface of ice that had been repeatedly struck.

The patterns spread outwards at an increasingly rapid pace, from as fine as a hair to spreading out like a spider web, extending from the edges to the core, and then—the entire barrier shattered with a deafening roar.

The spiritual power of the peak Nascent Soul stage blazed fiercely in his dantian like kindling. He felt his total spiritual power surge by nearly 50% at the moment of breakthrough, and the silver-purple lightning patterns on the surface of his Pure Yang Primordial Spirit became even more solid due to the tempering during the breakthrough, like a jade statue that had been repeatedly carved, gleaming with a warm, cold light in the dim light.

The air in the entire quiet room trembled slightly under the impact of the aftershocks of the breakthrough, and the light of the luminous pearl flickered for a moment before stabilizing again.

When Lin Qingyin opened her eyes, her clear eyes shone with a unique, clear luster, like water after tempering, characteristic of cultivators at the Void Refinement stage. Her entire aura was completely different from before.

She looked down at her hands, a ball of silvery-white spiritual light gathering in her palms. She could feel that the power contained within was many times stronger than when she was at the peak of the Nascent Soul stage. Then she looked up at Li Hanshan opposite her, her gaze lingering for a moment on the slowly receding golden aura around him. Her voice, still carrying the soft, slightly hoarse quality unique to breakthroughs, said, "Husband, you... you've broken through?"

"Peak of the Nascent Soul stage." Li Hanshan opened his eyes, sensing the pure Yang primordial spirit in his dantian that was nearly 50% more robust than before. A smile naturally appeared on his lips due to his advancement in cultivation. "The power that fed back when you broke through was more intense than I expected."

Lin Qingyin already knew Li Hanshan's cultivation level. She reached out and gently touched the crease on the edge of his clothes, which was slightly curled due to the impact of spiritual energy. Her movements were very light: "You helped me break through to the Void Refinement stage, and I helped you cross that peak threshold. We're even."

As she spoke, her tone softened naturally with the seriousness in her voice. She could feel the lingering resonance between them, a resonance that arose naturally from their simultaneous breakthroughs, still flowing gently in the air, like two candles lit at the same time drawing a warm arc of light as they drew near each other.

A series of extremely light footsteps came from outside the quiet room, and Shen Qingyue's voice came through the silver-white light barrier: "Husband? Sister Lin? Are you inside? I could feel the lingering effects of the spiritual energy fluctuations from earlier..."

She stopped mid-sentence, because the light barrier was pushed open from the inside by Lin Qingyin the next second. Although the pressure of the Void Refinement level was deliberately reduced by most, a layer of translucent luster still lingered around her.

Shen Qingyue's gaze lingered on Lin Qingyin for a moment, then turned to Li Hanshan behind her. Sensing the aura around him that was significantly stronger than before, her clear eyes widened slightly: "Sister Lin has broken through to the Void Refinement stage? And my husband... he's broken through too?"

"Peak of the Nascent Soul stage." Li Hanshan stepped out of the meditation room and stood by the spiritual spring pool. "I'm just one step away from the Void Refinement stage."

Shen Qingyue's gaze lingered on his face for several moments. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but in the end, she simply stepped forward, gently straightened his slightly disheveled clothes caused by the earlier circulation of spiritual energy, and said in a voice that was neither too loud nor too soft, "Then let's take it one step at a time. There's plenty of time anyway."

Shen Yun stood at the door of her room. She looked at the much heavier pressure emanating from Li Hanshan, a peak Nascent Soul cultivator, and then glanced at the now-stable Void Refinement level spiritual energy flowing around Lin Qingyin. After a moment of silence, she spoke: "Tomorrow, draw that sixth-tier, second-level Purple Thunder Talisman for me again. The talisman drawn with peak Nascent Soul spiritual energy should be different from the one I drew back then."