Huaxia's First Cultivator Is Born!

Indeed, he was the sole candidate left. Aside from Xiao Jiguang, who possessed three spiritual roots, the others—whether Zhou Xi and Li Weihao with four spiritual roots, or Han Qingyu with five—had all concluded their Awakening cultivation. By the time they stepped out of their cultivation chambers, Zhou Xi and Han Qingyu had breached four nodes in total, while Li Weihao, hampered by various factors, had fallen slightly behind with only three. This aligned closely with the intelligence on Awakening that Lin Yi had previously provided. Within the Guihua Sect, Su Qing, who also possessed four spiritual roots, had required three attempts to complete her Awakening. Cutting her losses before reaching her limits on the first two, she had consumed twenty-five Primordial Origin Pills in total. Wei Chongshan, another cultivator with four spiritual roots, had needed four attempts to succeed, consuming thirty-seven Primordial Origin Pills. As for Lin Yi himself... It had taken him nearly two full months and more than a hundred and forty Primordial Origin Pills to officially step across the threshold of cultivation. Back then, to assist Lin Yi in his breakthrough, Wu Xiangnan, who had already awakened, imparted his entire experience without holding anything back. Professor Xu Hua had even sold a low-grade Dharma artifact to scrape together thirty Primordial Origin Pills, lending them to Lin Yi interest-free. The other transmigrators had also pitched in to varying degrees. The difference was that some were as generous as Professor Xu, asking Lin Yi for nothing in return, while others were more calculating, demanding interest or promissory notes in writing. But all of that was understandable. Under such harsh living conditions and immense pressure, looking out for oneself was entirely blameless. Different people had different temperaments; it takes all kinds to make a world. Back to the present. At this very moment, with the other soldiers having bowed out, everyone in the vast test facility—including Sun Guozhu—kept their eyes glued to the screens. Only Ma Yuan's voice echoed through the room: "Xiao Jiguang's heart rate is 190! Body surface temperature is 38.4 degrees Celsius, breathing rate 51 breaths per minute!" "Heart rate 193! Body temperature 39.6, breathing rate 65 per minute!" "Heart rate 197! Body temperature 41.5, breathing rate 73 per minute!" "Xiao Jiguang has taken the eighth Primordial Origin Pill!" "The... ninth pill!" "Heart rate 214, body temperature... 43! Breathing rate 82 per minute!" ... While the expert panel waited with bated breath, inside a cultivation chamber dozens of meters away that remained brightly lit, a young soldier had entered a state of complete detachment from self and world. He was in his early twenties, not particularly tall, with dark skin and a square jaw. His features were neither rugged nor handsome, but they radiated a distinctive, stubborn resolve. It was Xiao Jiguang. At this moment, Xiao Jiguang's eyes were shut tight, his entire body trembling violently out of control, his respiration astonishingly rapid. Large beads of sweat rolled down his forehead one after another, and the edges of several monitoring patches had begun to peel away, soaked through with perspiration. Suddenly, Xiao Jiguang whipped up his left hand and, with all his remaining strength, slapped his palm against his lips, popping an already-prepared pill straight into his mouth. Almost the instant it crossed his lips, the pill dissolved inside him, melting into his limbs. At the same time, the spiritual energy in the chamber began to slowly spin. Shifting from its previously diffuse and chaotic state, it quietly coalesced into a vortex. A pale-green miniature tornado—or rather, the nascent funnel of one—gradually took shape above Xiao Jiguang's head. Had Lin Yi been present, he would have recognized at a glance that Xiao Jiguang had arrived at the most critical juncture of the Awakening phase. Strictly speaking, this state was no longer part of the standard Awakening process. At this knife-edge threshold, one step forward meant breaking through successfully, crossing the threshold of cultivation, and becoming a true Qi Refining cultivator. Yet failure would require at least one to two weeks of recovery—far exceeding the normal three-day cooling-off period after a standard Awakening attempt. Even Lin Yi had barely managed to succeed after running into two hair-raising, perilous obstacles. Xiao Jiguang, however, neither knew this nor had the luxury to consider it. His mind and body had both reached their absolute limits; the only two thoughts left in his head were the agony, and the drive to charge forward at all costs. Minutes and seconds ticked by. The excruciating pain steadily seized control, yet the final node within Xiao Jiguang's body remained... completely unmoved. In Xiao Jiguang's perception, endless darkness stretched out all around him. He was trapped tight inside a barrier, and no matter how desperately he struggled, he could not breach the wall before him even a fraction of an inch. I can't give up... Absolutely not! A few more minutes passed. Crack... With a faint snap, a trickle of bright red seeped from the left corner of Xiao Jiguang's mouth. Without realizing it, he had clenched his jaw so hard that a molar shattered. In the next second, that crimson trace was diluted by the sweat coursing down his cheek, flowing downward in a thin rivulet like meltwater atop a snow mountain in early spring. Huh? Wait... ...A snow mountain? Meltwater? For reasons unknown, those two words, completely disconnected from his current predicament, flashed through Xiao Jiguang's exhausted mind. Immediately afterward, far off in the distance of his visualization, a towering sight abruptly emerged... A snow mountain! Its slopes were steep and perilous, its peak blanketed in pristine white snow. Yet right at the highest summit, several blurry figures clad in military green stood proud. One of them looked almost identical to Xiao Jiguang's elder brother, Xiao Nianjiang! Whether it was an illusion or not, Xiao Jiguang even seemed to see his brother laughing as he snatched an orange segment from someone else's hand and popped it into his mouth. Then his brother raised his right fist high, pumped it against the air, and threw him an encouraging gesture across the distance. Turning around, his brother walked shoulder to shoulder with the others, striding off into the distance. As the figures receded, they transformed in Xiao Jiguang's sight into human-shaped rays of light, streaming directly into the node barrier that blocked his path. Finally... Crack! Another crisp sound rang out. A fissure abruptly opened across the surface of the pitch-black barrier, letting a beam of light shine through from the other side. Then came a second crack, and a third... The fissures widened, and the light grew ever more brilliant. The seemingly impenetrable barrier of the node shattered into fragments right before Xiao Jiguang! A moment later— Boom! The entire barrier collapsed and vanished! At that very moment, a gentle, soothing warmth spread through Xiao Jiguang's body, bringing a sensation so comfortable he nearly groaned aloud. He felt his body grow weightless. Still seated in the lotus position, he slowly floated up into midair! The vortex of spiritual energy hovering above his head sank gently down. Strands of spiritual energy were drawn through the crown of his head into his body, flowing through the nodes that had already been opened, and finally coalescing in the right side of his abdomen. A sea of qi had formed! Right after, Xiao Jiguang felt a soft tremor in his head as his perception began to expand outward. Even with his eyes closed, he could clearly perceive the interior of the cultivation chamber. He could even make out every detail of the infrared camera glowing behind his head. This was... Divine sense! With divine sense awakened and the sea of qi formed, modern Huaxia's first cultivator... Was officially born! ...