With a sudden ripple that echoed through his core…
The Qi sank into the lake.
The water churned. Then stilled.
His entire dantian pulsed, and the space within him… changed.
He could feel it instinctively: the end of the Qi Gathering stage had arrived.
His dantian wasn't just a vessel anymore. It had reached its limit. Not in size, but in potential. Like a sponge soaked to the brim, it could take no more without changing form. Every drop of Qi he gathered from this point forward would no longer simply sit inside him.
It would demand refinement. Transformation.
The next step was clear.
Not Core Formation. Not yet.
Meridian Opening.
He felt it like a whisper in his bones, a quiet truth his body had come to understand. His three lesser meridians were no longer enough. The Qi within him yearned to expand its reach, to burst outward into the deeper channels of his body. It wanted more paths. More freedom. More flow.
And he would give it that.
