Strongest Scammer: Scamming The World, One Death At A Time-Chapter 202: Reaching The Mid Stage Of The Qi Refining Realm

The weeks passed in a blur of flavors, fumes, and occasionally—full-body hallucinations.

Han Yu, true to his word, became Li Mei’s exclusive pill tester. Every day brought a new concoction, and every day he swallowed it without complaint (or at least without much complaint). In return, his cultivation progressed at a steady, if absurd, pace.

By the end of the first month, Han Yu had reached the mid stage of the Qi Refining Realm. His dantian, once a shallow pool of wispy Qi, now resembled a misty cavern. Over half of it was filled with dense gaseous spirit Qi, and a small corner had begun to liquefy—marking the critical transformation toward higher cultivation.

But none of that changed the fact that, to achieve this, Han Yu had suffered more than most would dare.

Test #12: The Gravity Gumball.

"Side effects?" Han Yu asked.

"Weight fluctuation," Li Mei replied casually.

"What does that mean, exactly—?"

He didn’t finish the sentence.

Because he immediately sank into the floor.

"HRNGHHHH!!" he grunted, legs trembling under ten times normal gravity. His robe clung to him like wet parchment, and his knees dug small craters into the marble tile.

"Should... we help him?" asked a nearby disciple.

"No," Li Mei replied, already scribbling notes. "This is good for training his bone density."

Han Yu spent the next four hours crawling across the courtyard like an overburdened turtle, leaving behind a path of crushed grass, confused ants, and a series of progressively louder wheezes.

At some point, Elder Song walked past.

He paused. Looked down. Then nodded solemnly.

"Ah. Weighted cultivation. Reminds me of my youth."

"...I’m being crushed by my own fingernails," Han Yu croaked.

But even that earned him onlookers, whose reactions swirled into more Eight Emotions Energy:

Grey Surprise from new disciples who had never seen gravity-based torture.

Yellow Joy from the veterans who brought snacks to watch him struggle.

Dark Blue Sadness from a few sympathetic junior sisters who whispered, "He’s kind of brave, actually..."

Test #14: The Laughterberry Elixir.

"Temporary emotional instability," Li Mei said with a completely straight face.

Han Yu blinked. "Like crying and—HAHAHAHAHA!! HA—WH—HAHA—WHAT IS HAPPENING?!"

He erupted into laughter so intense it shattered the quiet of the morning meditation hall. His howls bounced off the stone walls, infecting other disciples who hadn’t even taken the pill.

Some laughed along helplessly.

Others were terrified by his cackling, tear-streaked face.

Elder Yu, trying to hold a lesson, eventually had to yell, "WHO BROUGHT A MADMAN INTO MY CLASS!?"

Han Yu, meanwhile, rolled across the floor wheezing and pounding the tiles like a possessed comedy drum.

By the time it ended, the Soul Core inside him had absorbed a veritable feast of Joy, Fear, and a single, suspicious thread of Red Anger from a disciple whose hair had been yanked mid-laughter.

Test #17: The Mirror Petal Syrup.

"This one causes romantic infatuation... with yourself."

"...You’re not serious."

"I need to know how narcissism affects spiritual balance."

Ten minutes later, Han Yu was blowing kisses to his reflection in the pond, twirling dramatically and reciting poetry about his own eyebrows.

"Han Yu," said a disciple, slowly backing away, "You’ve been staring into that mirror for two hours."

"BEHOLD," he cried, "THE ABSOLUTE PEAK OF HUMAN DESIGN!"

People laughed. Others cringed. A few debated the philosophical implications of falling in love with one’s own inner self.

But Li Mei only nodded in satisfaction.

"I’m getting great data."

And Han Yu, somehow, harvested Green Love, Grey Surprise, and—thanks to some bystanders nearly weeping from embarrassment—Dark Blue Sadness.

Test #21: The Hatred Core.

"This is risky," Li Mei warned. "It may trigger brief emotional aggression. If anything happens, bite down on this detox pellet immediately."

Han Yu nodded grimly.

He swallowed the pill.

For exactly seven minutes, Han Yu hated everything.

He cursed the sky, the walls, the windows, a beetle, the beetle’s mother, and a flagpole. He punched a tree and yelled at the wind.

"You think you can blow my hair around?! I grew this hair myself, you air-headed swirl of tasteless nothingness!!"

Thankfully, he didn’t actually hurt anyone, though one tree still bears the dent of a particularly scathing insult.

After it wore off, Han Yu collapsed, panting and apologizing to an entire garden.

Oddly enough, that test filled his Soul Cauldron with a thick ribbon of almost dark red Hatred, tinged with a hint of light green Reverence—likely from the terrified disciples who now viewed him as "that madman who yelled at the weather and lived."

By the end of the month, Han Yu had once more accumulated a full palette of Eight Emotions Energy:

Yellow Joy

Dark Blue Sadness

Grey Surprise

Green Trust

Red Anger

Indigo Disgust

Violet Fear

Orange Anticipation

He wasn’t sure if he should be proud or worried. But the truth was, his Soul Core was now bursting with emotional fuel. Every petal was vibrant as it fluttered within his Soul Space.

His body had toughened.

His meridians had expanded.

His mind was... probably less intact.

But most importantly, his dantian was now over halfway filled with refined Spirit Qi, and part of it had already started turning into liquid Qi, the precursor for the late stage of Qi Refining.

The requirements for each stage of the Qi Refining realm were as follows:

The first two stages, Early and Mid stage, involved Gaseous spirit qi. From zero to half full was the Early Stage, and Half to full was Mid stage.

For the Late stage, one had to begin refining the gaseous qi further into liquid spirit qi. This not only condensed one’s qi and allowed for greater storage but also improved the potency of their skills, allowing more qi intensive applications, such as using a Spirit Sword to fly.

Just like before, the Late stage of qi refining realm lasted till they had half of thier dantian filled with liquid spirit qi and when it reached the full capacity, they would have reached the Peak of the Qi refining realm.