The core formation process, according to most dusty, ancient cultivation manuals, could be summarized as: "Compress Qi. Pray for results. Repeat." It was an exercise in brute force, hoping that simply squeezing all your gathered energy into a tight, hard orb wouldn't accidentally rupture your meridians or implode your dantian, turning you into a spiritual puddle.
Elias found the idea depressingly primitive. "Cultivators are a suicidal bunch," he muttered to himself, shaking his head. "They treat their bodies like flimsy sacks of flour, then try to cram a supernova inside. What could possibly go wrong?"
Naturally, he opted for something smarter. Much, much smarter.
The Cyclonic Core
Most cultivators compressed their Qi during Core Formation like they were squeezing dumpling filling into a marble—a violent, uncertain, and incredibly messy process. Elias, as usual, had better ideas. Why force something when you could guide it?
He sat alone in his cultivation chamber, now comfortably settled in his new, sleek, self-synthesized outfit. He breathed in slow, rhythmic patterns that perfectly matched the gentle, invisible spinning gyroscopic formation he held hovering above his hand. His divine sense (his advanced mind-scan ability) meticulously traced the blueprint of a powerful vortex formation into his own internal dantian—that central energy hub within his body. This new dantian, he reminded himself, was shaped like a tokamak, a nuclear fusion reactor, a structure designed for densely magnetized spiritual containment.
He didn't begin the core formation in his dantian. That would be like starting a factory with just the main assembly line. No, Elias started with the smallest, most fundamental units: the mini-reactors in his cells.
Every single one. All thirty trillion cells in his body had already been transformed into these tiny micro-dantians weeks earlier—Qi-saturated, spiritually dense, and perfectly regulated. Now it was time to consolidate their immense power.
"Why compress Qi when you can spiral it?" Elias muttered, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. Simple compression via brute force? Inefficient. Cyclonic rotational compression? Now they were talking about proper physics.
Elias initiated the process by spinning a tiny filament of Qi within one of his micro-dantians (a single cell) in a wide, lazy orbit. Slowly at first. Then, with a mental command, faster. And faster. With each revolution, the immense centrifugal force (the outward pull of spinning) pressed the Qi inward, layering it upon itself like a hurricane folding in toward its calm, powerful eye.
Inside each and every micro-dantian, he initiated this spiraling motion. A subtle, precise spin of spiritual energy. He then wove in opposing centripetal forces (the inward pull of the center) using magnetic Qi fields, directing the energy to circle inward like a perfectly controlled cyclone feeding on itself. Each rotation compressed the Qi, not by brute-force squeezing—but by the elegant power of geometry and controlled angular momentum. It was pure, natural harmonics, allowing the Qi to compact itself efficiently.
It wasn't even that hard, for Elias. His divine sense, which now operated at an atomic resolution, mapped and adjusted millions of these microscopic cyclones per second. He was like a master conductor directing a vast symphony of tiny storms, all raging silently and perfectly controlled inside his own flesh.
The process took hours. Hours of precise, unwavering focus. But it was strangely exhilarating, feeling this profound, synchronized transformation on a cellular level.
And then, one by one, each cell's core formed—a miniature, hyper-compressed vortex at the center of each mini-dantian. They glowed faintly beneath his skin like countless tiny stars in a living galaxy, a profound network of controlled power.
He paused, taking a moment to appreciate the sheer audacity of what he had just accomplished on a microscopic scale.
The next step was the main event. The tokamak.
His central dantian—more accurately, his personal, Qi-powered nuclear reactor—had been designed for exactly this moment. A central magnetic containment unit, now shaped like a sleek, bladed tokamak, forged from restructured soul filaments and hardened Qi lattice.
Unlike normal cultivators who feared the collapse of their dantian like death itself, Elias had no such issue. He had trillions of backup generators. As he dismantled the old, inefficient structure in his core—scrubbing out the outdated design with the gentleness of a surgeon clearing away scar tissue—he barely felt a thing. His body didn't weaken. His Qi didn't vanish. His vast network of cellular cores instantly supported him, keeping his entire system running at full capacity, completely unaffected.
He actually laughed aloud. "If those cultivators knew what I was doing, their eyes would drop out," he chuckled, picturing the horrified faces of the sect elders. "Idiots. Ever heard of redundancy? Or, you know, basic engineering?"
The fragments of his old dantian floated like insignificant debris in his internal space. Elias scanned each shard with divine sense, analyzing its residual structure, elasticity, and saturation thresholds. Data about its previous inefficiencies poured into his mind like a high-speed sensory input stream. He learned from its failures.
He then synthesized a new, perfect model. Stronger. Smarter. Streamlined. And still shaped like a tokamak, but now perfectly tuned for its purpose.
He invoked the same cyclonic compression method—this time on a massive scale. Qi spiraled violently inside the blade-shaped reactor, drawing more and more raw Qi into the powerful spin. His internal magnetic Qi fields reinforced the outer shell, regulating torque, distributing heat, and preventing any energy leakage. The pressure inside increased exponentially. Temperature spiked, though it was perfectly contained. Rotational velocity blurred into an impossible hum.
The core was forming. Faster. Faster.
Then—
Boom.
A soundless implosion. A sudden, absolute stop of internal motion, followed by a powerful, steady hum.
Not an explosion—an arrival.
The tokamak core had formed.
It was a hyper-compressed, perfectly spinning Qi structure, bladed and radiant, humming with a violent, stable power. It vibrated in a harmonic frequency that instantly aligned with every single cell in his body.
The energy surge was immediate. Refined Qi overflowed from the new core, washing through him like a pure, clean tidal wave, invigorating every fiber of his being.
He barely had time to react before his pores opened—
—and black, viscous sludge jetted from his skin like spiritual sewage. It hit the floor in wet, disgusting slaps. It was acrid. Thick. Pure, concentrated filth, the accumulated impurities that had been trapped in his Qi for years, now purged by the sheer efficiency of his new system.
"Oh, no," Elias groaned, staring in horror at the dark, steaming puddles forming around him. "Not on the new outfit. Seriously?"
His sleek, custom-tailored combat uniform—lightweight carbon fiber weave, hex-threaded breathability, smart Qi conduction channels, matte black with elegant blue seams—was instantly stained and steaming. It looked like he'd just wrestled an oil slick.
He stared at it in disbelief. Then shrugged. "Disintegration it is." This was why he could synthesize clothes on demand.
With a snap of his divine sense, the stained clothing instantly unraveled into shimmering particles and vaporized harmlessly into the air, leaving no trace. He was now, quite suddenly, naked.
He stepped into the cleansing chamber he'd built into the wall and summoned water from the atmosphere. The bath formed in seconds, the temperature matched precisely to his preferences. He sank into it and let the remaining impurities melt off his skin, feeling lighter and cleaner than ever before.
Minutes later, clean and refreshed, he remade his clothing with the same method as before. This time with minor tweaks. Slightly more form-fitting. Reinforced at the knees for added durability.
He didn't look in the mirror for his final assessment. He didn't need to.
His divine sense confirmed what was already obvious: his overall muscle density was up by 43%, his flexibility had increased dramatically, and his overall physical symmetry was at peak aesthetics. His hair? Still stubbornly messy-chic. His jawline? "Arrogantly noble," he noted with a mental smirk.
He stepped out of the bath, fully dressed, and flexed a hand. Power thrummed through him—not just stored energy, but a continuous, rotational force. The cyclone within the tokamak dantian didn't settle. It spun constantly, drawing in ambient Qi and refining it without effort, creating a perpetual motion machine of spiritual energy.
He could feel it accelerating his cellular energy cycles, harmonizing his micro-cores perfectly. Even his divine sense range had expanded by nearly 12%, allowing him to perceive more of his surroundings with even greater detail.
This wasn't just core formation. It was core transformation. A complete overhaul.
And he wasn't done yet. Not by a long shot.
His hands curled into fists. Faint, blue sparks flickered across his knuckles, tiny discharges of pure Qi. Every muscle moved with lethal precision, supported by the spinning vortexes across thirty trillion cells.
He didn't know what the next sect challenge would be. He didn't know what new threats awaited him outside his chamber. But if someone tried to stop him now?
He'd tear through them like a cyclone through matchsticks. And probably make them spontaneously combust from the Qi residue.
He sniffed the air, frowning slightly. "Still stinks a bit, despite the purge," he muttered, referring to the lingering spiritual filth.
He turned to the wall panel and jotted a mental note for future projects:
❏ Invent spiritual Febreze. (High priority for personal comfort).
Then he smirked, a dangerous glint in his eyes, and walked out of the chamber, ready for whatever came next.