After Qi Refinement comes Gathering Spirit, and after Gathering Spirit comes entry into the Primordial Pill Realm.
The Primordial Pill Realm, as the third Great Realm for a cultivator, is also the second tribulation one must face on the road of cultivation.
You only get one chance. If you succeed, you enter the Primordial Pill Realm and gain a greatly extended lifespan, reaching a higher level of life. If you fail, there is no longer any path forward—you can only spend the rest of your days stuck at Gathering Spirit, and your path of cultivation abruptly ends.
If you're unlucky enough to encounter an accident, at best your cultivation regresses, at worst your soul is wounded and you become crippled.
Shen Hao had done a lot of preparation beforehand, and the "Great Five Elements Technique" that Nie Yun had helped him obtain also contained descriptions related to the Primordial Pill Realm.
