This kind of situation only happens at this stage; once you start practicing advanced cultivation techniques, unless you’re about to break through a realm, it rarely occurs again.

After each cultivation session, William Carter could feel his dantian becoming more and more full—an indication that his true qi was increasing. William Carter knew this was normal, so he didn’t pay much attention to it.

Late at night, he woke up again in a state of chaos. Now, William Carter had directly defined this state as meditation. It didn’t really have anything to do with Zen; he was just borrowing the concept.

It was definitely more than nine cycles. William Carter calmly sat down and began to examine his body. Strangely, his dantian actually felt a bit empty, no longer overflowing as before.

This startled William Carter, but fortunately, there was nothing particularly uncomfortable about his body. After careful inspection, aside from a slight decrease in true qi in his dantian, everything else was normal.

He tried circulating his energy. He wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination, but the cycle seemed a bit faster. Maybe it was just the urgency from being nervous, which wasn’t a big deal. The real question was: where did the true qi go?

With this question in mind, William Carter pondered all night and finally discovered that the true qi flowing through his meridians seemed a bit more condensed than before. He wasn’t sure if this was the reason for the decrease in true qi. But aside from this, there was no other explanation, and since his body felt fine, he figured this must be it.

This both surprised and delighted William Carter. If this was really the case, then these symptoms should only appear at the fifth-level bottleneck. Could it be that just by circulating the basic body-strengthening technique for more than nine cycles, you could achieve this effect?

Energized by this, his determination to persist in practicing the body-strengthening technique grew even stronger. In class, he found himself much more focused, and the teacher’s lessons seemed incredibly simple.

The meditative state during cultivation happened almost every day for William Carter, even without him deliberately controlling it. This state also allowed William Carter to get much more restful sleep. Moreover, another benefit was that in this meditative state, the nurturing and growth of true qi was much faster than when he was consciously controlling it.

In this meditative cultivation state, it was also easier to surpass nine cycles. It happened almost once every half month, and the frequency was increasing. As a result, William Carter’s dantian hadn’t felt full of true qi for a while now. However, William Carter could clearly feel that his true qi was different from before.

It wasn’t that his true qi had suddenly mutated, but rather that it was becoming more and more refined. Practicing beyond nine cycles was continuously refining his true qi, and after several occurrences, William Carter could fully confirm this.

This was an unexpected benefit for William Carter; the advantages of having more refined true qi were obvious. This was also thanks to William Carter always cultivating two meridians. Otherwise, as his parents had said, the true qi produced wouldn’t even be enough to fill the meridians, so how could he possibly break through so easily?

There was another benefit: it seemed that the production of true qi was related to its current level of refinement. New true qi was basically generated on the foundation of already refined true qi—the higher the quality of the true qi, the easier it was to produce more.

The two meridians seemed to have reached their limit in terms of how much true qi they could hold. With no other choice, the true qi could only be further compressed. Fortunately, after practicing the body-strengthening technique for more than nine cycles, the true qi would automatically be compressed. Otherwise, at William Carter’s cultivation speed, he would have had to start practicing advanced techniques by now.

Calculating the time, William Carter could, under certain coincidental circumstances, achieve eighteen consecutive cycles—two sets of nine cycles. His true qi was becoming more and more refined, and as a result, his meridians were also becoming tougher; the pressure was increasing on both sides.

Gradually, William Carter came to a conclusion: as true qi became more refined, the time needed for compression also increased. Two sets of nine cycles were no longer enough; next would be three sets of nine cycles.

Sure enough, half a year later, before the final exam at the end of the semester, William Carter successfully achieved three sets of nine cycles. In this state, the efficiency of compression was even higher.

During the holidays, after a period of adjustment, William Carter could already confirm that his results in practicing the basic body-strengthening technique had surpassed everyone who had tried it online. At the very least, none of them had achieved this level of true qi refinement. He just didn’t know what it would be like if he joined the army.

His academic performance was as good as ever, but there was still a gap if he wanted to get into Tsinghua University. After taking several mock exams, he had to admit that there were still many people who were true geniuses in academics. Although William Carter could be considered a genius in cultivation, it was clear he wasn’t an academic genius.

In the blink of an eye, it was time to graduate from high school. He was lucky enough to take the college entrance exam, but missed the cutoff for Tsinghua University by just twenty points.

After saying goodbye to his parents, William Carter followed his original plan and joined the army.

Chapter 8: The Stunning Medical Officer (Part 1)