If you die, I will be able to inherit your cultivation.

As Zhou Ming walked out of the inner courtyard, he practically jogged the entire way.

He walked through the covered walkway, turned through the hanging flower gate, and came to the outer courtyard.

I found a secluded corner, a pavilion that wasn't often visited, and plopped down on the steps.

Several clumps of bamboo were planted around the pavilion, completely blocking the view from the outside, which allowed him to quietly observe the changes within his body.

Within the dantian, the twelfth cyclone had been fully formed.

The twelve cyclones in his dantian were arranged in a ring, each rotating at high speed, attracting each other yet not interfering with each other, like a miniature nebula.

Before Zhou Ming could even adjust to the strange feeling of all twelve cyclones existing at the same time...

The boundaries between them suddenly began to blur.

The gaps between the cyclones were filled with the ever-flowing magical power, and the twelve cyclones slowly moved toward the center of the dantian, touching, overlapping, and merging with each other.

Zhou Ming held his breath. After all twelve vortexes were stacked together, a Dao platform condensed in the very center of his dantian.

The platform began to rise inch by inch, and with each inch it grew, the dantian was stretched outwards a little.

Zhou Ming's meridians were repeatedly tempered during that inch-by-inch growth.

The inner walls of the meridians feel as if they are being coated with a thick layer of paint, and the feeling of fullness is not a simple addition, but rather a layering of layers upon layers.

One inch, two inches, three inches... The Dao Platform slowly grew in his dantian, each rise accompanied by a surge of immense magical power that almost tore his meridians apart.

Foundation building.

He was pushed to the Foundation Establishment Realm by a broken causal chain without any preparation on his part.

The number of officials in charge of the Daotai (a type of official post) is still increasing.

Four inches, five inches, six inches... it kept rising until it stopped at nine inches nine.

Zhou Ming stared at it, sweating profusely. After a while, seeing that it didn't move an inch, he thought that was the end of it.

However, after only a few breaths of pause, the platform suddenly shot upwards again.

It broke through the 9.9-inch limit and rose all the way to 12 inches before finally stabilizing.

The moment the Daotai was created, the first thing to change was not his body, but his brain.

A refreshing coolness rushed in from the back of my head, like drinking a cup of well water with icy beads on the hottest part of summer.

That refreshing sensation flowed from top to bottom through his entire brain.

The previously hazy sensory world seemed to have been suddenly veiled off, and everything around suddenly became incredibly clear.

He could hear the very faint rustling sound of bamboo leaves rubbing against each other.

You can discern the subtle variations in the wind as it passes through the gaps in the bamboo poles, and you can hear the faint sound of bubbles bursting beneath the surface of the pond.

Then he felt his eyes "open" on the top and back of his head.

It's not that it actually has eyes, but rather a more precise and three-dimensional perception ability than sight.

Within a ten-meter radius around him, every detail was clearly visible.

Ants in the cracks of the steps were carrying a grass seed they had found somewhere and crawling toward their nest. The ant's antennae swayed from side to side, and the force of each step on the stone edge seemed to be amplified tenfold and transmitted into his brain.

He could even feel the extremely faint twitching of the ant's internal organs inside its chest cavity, a discovery that gave him goosebumps.

But that feeling itself carries a certain indescribable attraction.

Senses projected outwards.

Zhou Ming subconsciously thought of this word; his past life's reading of fantasy novels hadn't been in vain.

Immediately afterwards, Zhou Ming's body also began to change.

It felt like every pore on my skin had been thoroughly cleansed, inside and out; it didn't feel like I was taking a bath.

It was more like he was completely disassembled, all the impurities were plucked out from the gaps between his muscle fibers and internal organs, and then reassembled.

Immediately afterwards, a layer of black, greasy substance seeped from his skin, carrying a pungent, foul odor.

Those were impurities forced out of the meridians and bone marrow by magical power.

The stench was even worse than a stinking ditch. Zhou Ming looked down at the layer of black mud on his arm and almost gagged on the spot.

Before Zhou Ming could observe further, his stomach began to churn violently.

The churning sensation wasn't the usual stomachache from food poisoning; it felt like his intestines were being gripped and twisted repeatedly by an invisible hand before being suddenly released. The downward pressure was rapid and intense, like a tidal wave pressing down on his digestive system.

He felt that if he didn't run away, he would die right here in this pavilion today.

Zhou Ming didn't dare to delay and rushed to the nearest outhouse like a gust of wind.

His reaction speed was astonishing; it only took him a few breaths from getting up to rushing to the toilet door.

If Dongmei were there, she would probably be quite surprised by his sudden burst of energy.

He pushed open the toilet door, followed by a series of loud, earth-shattering crashes.

This was probably the longest, smelliest, and most satisfying bowel movement he had ever had in both his lives.

When he came out of the outhouse, he felt as light as if he had taken off a ten-pound cotton-padded coat.

As soon as he stepped out of the latrine, he ran into two third-class servants.

The two had probably come to the outhouse together, but when they were about three steps away from Zhou Ming, they both froze in their tracks.

The servant on the left was the first to change his expression.

His eyes widened suddenly, his nostrils flared violently twice, and his entire face contorted from its normal color into an indescribable expression at a visible speed.

The servant on the right reacted even more dramatically; he forcefully expelled the air he had already inhaled through his nose.

He turned his head away in an extremely unnatural posture, pretending to have a strong academic interest in the moss in the corner of the wall.

The two men covered their noses, gave Zhou Ming a very complicated and strange look, then lowered their heads in unison, brushed past him, and went into the outhouse.

Just as Zhou Ming was about to say something to smooth things over, he heard rapid gasps coming from the outhouse:

"……Oh My God!"

"This smell...did Manager Zhou really fall in?"

Zhou Ming turned around expressionlessly and strode towards the kitchen.

As soon as he pushed open the gleaming wooden door at the kitchen door, the people working inside all stopped what they were doing.

The man chopping vegetables stopped, the hand kneading dough hovered in mid-air, and even the handyman squatting by the back door chopping wood looked up at him with an indescribable gaze.

That gaze was exactly the same as the one Zhou Ming had seen at the outhouse entrance earlier.

Liu Sandao was standing in front of the stove simmering soup when he heard the sound. He turned around and looked Zhou Ming up and down.

Her gaze lingered for two seconds on the dark stains on his clothes, then she sighed.

He spoke in an experienced and earnest tone, expressing the common judgment that everyone was holding at that moment:

"Manager, did it fall into the latrine? Hurry up and go wash it off at the well outside."

Zhou Ming looked down and then saw the black mud stuck to his clothes and cuffs.

That wasn't mud; it was impurities seeping from the pores. However, these impurities were indeed indistinguishable from the sludge in a cesspool.

He opened his mouth, hesitated, and finally gave up trying to explain. He turned and walked towards the well outside the back door of the kitchen.