Deep within an unremarkable cave carved into the Great Desert's jagged, sun-scorched heart, Su Min sat cross-legged in a state of perfect meditation. The air around her was utterly still, pressing against the grainy sandstone walls. It carried a heavy, dry scent of ancient stone and the low, rhythmic hum of concentrated spiritual power.
"The five elemental treasures are finally gathered," she murmured. Her voice was a low rasp, the only sound in the profound, cavernous quiet. "But before I can attempt the breakthrough, I must first prepare the Foundation Establishment Pill. This seclusion will last for years." A faint smile touched her lips as she adjusted her posture, feeling the solid, unyielding ground beneath her. "Fortunately, no one should ever disturb me here."
She retrieved her trusted alchemy cauldron from her spatial ring. It settled onto the cave floor with a muffled thud. She felt the cauldron's familiar weight and the cool, weathered texture of the metal beneath her fingers. Her eyes then scanned the precious materials laid out on a clean cloth. She maintained a critical, unwavering gaze. The pill's legendary rarity stemmed from its near-irreplaceable ingredients. Still, its classification as a Grade 3 mid-tier pill posed little actual challenge to her refined control and her Nanming Lihuo's supreme, white-hot quality.
"This should succeed in one attempt," she stated. Her confidence was born of meticulous preparation and the steady, deep rhythm of her breath. "I have already burned through enough of Prince Yong's herbal treasury these past months. Failure isn't an option here."
Unlike most pill recipes that allowed for some minor ingredient substitutions, this one was rigidly, unforgivingly fixed. She had only managed to gather two complete sets of materials through exhaustive searching and political maneuvering. A single mistake—a moment of lost focus where the flame flickered too high—would mean total failure and a priceless opportunity's loss.
Three days passed in a rigorous cycle of controlled flame, subtle spiritual manipulation, and intense concentration. The cave filled with the cauldron's dancing orange light and the sweet, heavy medicinal aroma of dissolving herbs.
"Huff... that was more exhausting than I expected."
Su Min exhaled a plume of hot air, her shoulders finally dropping from their tense position. She had deliberately slowed her usual process to an almost painstaking pace to eliminate even the smallest risk of error. Now, resting in her palm's center were two perfectly formed pills. Each one emitted a soft, internal golden glow that pulsed with a rhythm like a heartbeat. They radiated a condensed power that made the air around her hand vibrate.
"Foundation Establishment Pills..." she whispered. A note of genuine awe colored her voice as she watched the light play across her skin. "If word of this ever got out, the entire cultivation world would be shaken. In those ancient realms with deeper legacies, a bloody, continent-spanning war would likely erupt over just one of these."
She chuckled dryly to herself. The sound echoed briefly before the silence swallowed it. She wasn't in a rush to consume them. Instead, she carefully brought out the five elemental treasures. This was the true, monumental challenge of cultivating the Heavenly Dao path.
Three main cultivation paths existed: Heaven, Earth, and Man. The human path was the simplest, requiring only a successful breakthrough aided by the pill. The Earth path was more demanding, requiring the integration of at least three of the five elemental treasures. As for the supreme Heavenly Path, all five were absolutely necessary.
The problem was that to establish a true Heavenly Foundation, all five treasures had to be completely refined and their core essence absorbed into her very being. The process was agonizingly slow. It was a meticulous fusion that could take ten to twenty years of constant, unwavering focus. But the reward was immense. Some legendary cultivators could even begin to condense a phantom Golden Core during this stage. This laid the groundwork for the next realm and granted access to powerful, innate divine abilities. The only significant drawback was the vast amount of time it consumed.
By the time she emerged, others might have caught up to her in raw cultivation level. But true battle strength was an entirely different matter. Heavenly Foundation cultivators were exceedingly rare. Perhaps only a handful appeared in an entire generation across the world. In the Great Wei Dynasty, which had essentially served as the starting zone for players, resources were scarce and truly powerful beings were few. Competition there wasn't particularly fierce. In the higher, more advanced realms she knew of, however, it was a brutal, dog-eat-dog world where only the strongest and most ruthless survived.
In such places, without a dominant, righteous sect to regulate resources and maintain order, chaos reigned supreme. Even the battle to secure a single one of the Five Elemental Treasures was a terrifying prospect that left mountains of corpses in its wake. But here, she had faced no real competition. It was likely because no one else even dreamed of reaching Foundation Establishment within a few decades, or even knew the secrets of the Heaven Path.
"Whew."
Exhaling softly, she initiated the process. The five treasures—the earthen shield, the fiery root, the metallic core, the aqueous pearl, and the wooden spirit—rose into the air. Each one glowed with its own distinct elemental light. They cast long, shifting shadows against the cave walls as they began to slowly orbit her form. She needed to fully absorb their fundamental essence into her dantian before taking the pill.
The Heavenly Foundation wasn't something just anyone could attempt. One had to withstand the simultaneous refining and balancing of all five elemental forces within their body. It was a feat of endurance and spiritual control that few could survive without their meridians shattering.
But as a "player," Su Min's body possessed a unique, inherent adaptability. This allowed her to endure and integrate far more than native cultivators. Even the violent, conflicting Five Elemental Forces were within her potential to master.
Time lost all meaning. The cave she had created was gradually buried beneath layers of wind-blown sand as the desert shifted above her. Its entrance was completely obscured by the dunes. Yet her preparations had been meticulous, and the sealed chamber remained clean and untouched.
The shifting dunes above even served as a perfect natural camouflage. Even with the advanced technology of her past life, finding her now would have been nearly impossible. And so, the years slipped away, one after another, silent and unmarked. In that sun-bleached, silent desert, a full twenty years passed.
"Huu..."
With a deep, shuddering breath that was her first in a very long time, Su Min slowly opened her eyes. She had been as still as a jade statue for two decades. Her pupils glowed with a new, profound depth, reflecting a light that seemed to come from within.
"How many years has it been?" she whispered. Her voice was raspy and thin from disuse. "It feels like waking from a long, long dream."
She looked around the dusty, sealed cave. A trace of complex emotion flickered in her newly awakened eyes. Her body, however, remained pristine and spotless. A gentle, continuous flow of spiritual energy circulated through her limbs, actively repelling any dust or grime. Her gleaming artifact armor made her seem almost like a divine being misplaced amid the desolate, dark surroundings.
"Finally... I have reached Foundation Establishment. And it's's a Heavenly Path Foundation, even."
Suddenly, she clutched her head as her fingers dug into her temples. A torrent of unfamiliar, profound information, vast and complex, surged into her mind. It didn't't come as a memory, but as a direct download of understanding that made her vision swim.
"Heavenly Dao Insight? No; this is different. It's's the Heavenly Dao's direct gift!"
She recognized the source of the influx immediately and a wave of pure, unadulterated joy washed over her. She had endured countless hardships and sacrificed decades for this moment, and now came her true, unparalleled reward. Although she had been able to defeat fused experts at the peak of Qi Refining, her raw combat potential had still fallen short compared to those players who pursued min-maxed, battle-oriented builds from the start.
Just look at the others she remembered: those with Desolate Holy Bodies, Flameborne Physiques, or Netherworld Death Bodies.
When paired with perfectly compatible destinies and techniques, their strength became overwhelming. Late-stage Qi Refining cultivators who could defeat ordinary Foundation Establishment experts weren't't even that rare among those monsters. The most legendary could even hold their own against early Golden Core cultivators.
Compared to them, her path was different. It was more foundational and long-term, but their explosive advantage came with a heavy, hidden price. They suffered from a severely shortened lifespan. It was a hard cap written into the very laws of the world.
Spiritual energy revival in this world came in grand cycles. Although the current era's energy was gradually recovering, reaching the Golden Core stage was already considered the peak of elite achievement. Progress beyond that was currently impossible. This bottleneck would last for nearly five centuries, which was the natural limit of the Golden Core stage.
To advance further within that timeframe, they would have no choice but to reincarnate and start over in a new body. Their cultivated fortunes and karma might carry over, but their innate physiques didn't't. Creating a new body with the exact same legendary constitution was nearly impossible. Once their bodies changed, the unique "compatibility physique" that players started with would vanish forever. And that very adaptability, she now realized, was her own greatest and most enduring strength.
It was a cruel irony that the game she remembered had never made this ultimate trade-off clear.
As for the desperate tactic of sealing themselves inside magical treasures to wait out the bottleneck? That was futile. In the game's lore, all such known artifacts had long been looted in ancient wars, and the real world would be no different.
The Demon Queen herself was a living testament to this; she had shattered her own foundation and crippled her power in a failed attempt to use one. The cost of such a gamble was simply unbearable.