81 Cal! Qi and Blood Like Mercury!
The icy potion bottle pressed against his cracked lips, Chen Fan used the last of his strength to clamp down with his teeth.
Crack.
The cap shattered.
He did not even have the strength to raise his hand. He could only tilt his head and let every drop of the medicinal liquid, brimming with immense energy, pour down his throat.
The medicine entered his stomach.
A scorching torrent erupted in an instant, violently scouring every inch of his meridians and flesh that teetered on the brink of collapse.
The tearing sensation in his muscles and the groaning of his bones were swiftly soothed by that warm yet overbearing power. His extreme exhaustion receded like the tide.
In its place came an unprecedented sense of fullness!
But the energy far exceeded what was needed to repair his injuries.
The excess medicinal power surged together with his abundant Qi and Blood, which had already reached eighty cal, instantly turning into a towering wave. Chen Fan could clearly feel that his Qi and Blood was actually showing signs of increasing!
Boom!
"I never thought that after the Gravity Training Room suppressed my Qi and Blood, combining it with a Qi and Blood Potion and coming back out could actually raise my Qi and Blood so quickly!"
Chen Fan's eyes lit up. Just as he was about to circulate the Five Elements Stars Method to raise his Qi and Blood,
A voice as cold as iron, utterly devoid of emotion, suddenly rang out beside Chen Fan's ear.
"Suppress it."
Chen Fan froze.
Suppress it?
He abruptly raised his head and looked at the ghostly figure outside the gravity room.
There was no explanation or persuasion in Gu Ci's deathly still eyes, only an unquestionable command.
In that instant, countless thoughts flashed through Chen Fan's mind, but they all eventually settled.
After pondering for a moment, a flash of resolve appeared in Chen Fan's eyes.
He took a deep breath, then began suppressing the Qi and Blood within him.
But the process of suppression was ten thousand times more painful than the gravity training just now!
It was a struggle against his body's instincts, a fight to the death against the torrent of energy!
Get... back!
Chen Fan let out a silent roar in his heart. He frantically circulated the Star-Transferring Blood Art, transforming that cold, aloof, and incomparably overbearing Star Power inside him into an invisible, resilient net of stars. It descended fiercely over the boiling Qi and Blood that was about to burst through the dam!
Forcibly... compress it!
"Pfft!"
A tearing agony far worse than before shot through his meridians, as though the two opposing forces were about to make them burst apart!
He could no longer hold it back. A mouthful of blood sprayed from his lips, splashing onto the floor like a sinister red lotus.
But he gritted his teeth and, in a manner bordering on self-mutilation, forcibly pressed that sky-soaring surge of energy back into the sea of qi in his dantian, inch by inch!
When the last trace of violent energy was completely suppressed and everything fell still, Chen Fan was utterly spent, his whole body looking as though it had been hauled out of a pool of blood.
But immediately afterward, he discovered to his surprise that the total amount of Qi and Blood within him still registered as 80 cal.
But it was different.
Completely different!
If his Qi and Blood before had been a vast cloud of vapor, now, under the extreme compression and tempering of Star Power, it had turned into viscous, heavy liquid mercury that gave off a faint starlight!
The quality of every strand of Qi and Blood had undergone an earth-shaking transformation!
As his mind reeled from this marvelous change, Gu Ci's hoarse voice finally sounded again, answering all his questions.
"The Quasi-Martial Artist Realm is the first cornerstone on the path of the Martial Dao, and the most important one."
"Mediocre people seek speed, vainly trying to reach the heavens in a single step. Their Qi and Blood is weak and insubstantial. Their realm may seem high, but in truth, they'll fall with a single push."
"Geniuses seek stability, fortifying every step. Their foundations are solid, and they can fight above their realm."
Gu Ci paused, a trace of fervor welling up in his deathly still eyes.
"But a true monster will hone his foundation in this realm to an extreme never before seen and never to be seen again."
"Your Qi and Blood is a messy mixture of impurities." Gu Ci's assessment was cold and direct. "It looks abundant, but it's all water. True power is condensed and pure."
He raised his hand and pointed at the gravity room that had just given Chen Fan a taste of hell.
"Starting today, what you have to do..."
"Is use this gravity room to squeeze every drop of water out of your 80 cal of Qi and Blood, one drop at a time!"
"Until I say you can, you're not allowed to break through."
Gu Ci's words landed in Chen Fan's heart, leaving him deep in thought.
So...
The path of the Martial Dao could be walked this way too!
He lowered his head, sensing the new Qi and Blood within him, as though it had shed its old form and become a liquid galaxy. Then he looked up at the gravity room, which was like an asura battlefield.
A smile appeared on his face.
"Perhaps... this isn't so bad either!"
The air in the Grade A Gravity Zone was cold and thin. Chen Fan spent every day under the crushing weight of 1.5 times gravity and a 50-kilogram load.
His muscle fibers were constantly being torn, and every bone gave off a faint groan under the unbearable strain.
The training was maddeningly monotonous.
Punching and swinging his sword.
He practiced the Five Elements Fist and Five Elements Swordplay over and over, until every trace of energy had been wrung from his body and his consciousness teetered on the verge of collapse amid the extreme pain.
Gu Ci was like the coldest of overseers, never speaking, never offering guidance.
He merely stood outside the gravity room like a ghost. Under the gaze of those deathly still eyes, even time seemed to grow viscous.
Whenever Chen Fan collapsed from exhaustion and his vision went dark, an icy Qi and Blood Potion would be tossed precisely to his lips.
What followed were those incomparably cold words.
"Drink it, then suppress it."
The first week.
Under the twin pressure of that overbearing Star Power and the merciless gravity field, the Qi and Blood within Chen Fan gradually condensed from a vast cloud of vapor into viscous, heavy liquid mercury that gave off a faint starlight.
The total remained 80 cal.
But every drop contained far more terrifying energy than before.
At the start of the second week.
Gu Ci walked over to the control console without expression and adjusted the number on the light screen from 1.5G to 2G.
The pressure surged!
His body, which had only just adapted, was instantly pushed to the brink of collapse once more.
Chen Fan felt as though an invisible mountain had crashed down on him. His already heavy body buckled, his kneecaps cracked, and piercing pain stabbed into his mind like a knife.
"Pfft!"
A mouthful of blood sprayed out.
His boiling Qi and Blood could no longer be restrained. Like molten lava run amok, it rushed madly against the sea of qi in his dantian, trying to force its way through that invisible barrier between realms.
Get... back!
Chen Fan's eyes were bloodshot. Amid that extreme pain, what flashed through his mind were the indistinct figures of his parents from behind, on the Starry Sky Frontline.
His soul, which came from an adult, erupted with a will of steel at that moment.
He circulated the Five Elements Stars Method to its limit, locking that rampaging energy firmly back into the liquid galaxy.
Outside the gravity room, Gu Ci's eyebrow twitched ever so slightly on his deadpan face.
For the first time, a barely perceptible change flashed through his deathly still eyes.
The third week, 2.5 times gravity!
Chen Fan's body had gradually grown accustomed to the terrifying rhythm of being torn apart and rebuilt every day.
He no longer endured it passively.
He began actively guiding the gravity strong enough to crush everything, treating it as an invisible furnace and using this mighty force of heaven and earth to temper every inch of his flesh and every drop of his Qi and Blood.
The fourth week.
Gu Ci stood before the control console in silence for a long time.
Finally, he reached out and adjusted the number to a value that could kill a nine-year-old child.
3G!
The moment the triple-gravity field descended.
Chen Fan could not even let out a grunt before a terrifying, irresistible force slammed him flat against the floor!
His body seemed to be pinned down by a miniature star.
His bones wailed, his internal organs shifted, and his vision turned blood red.
The 80 cal of liquid Qi and Blood within him, compressed to its limit, had by now become almost viscous, floating quietly at the center of the sea of qi in his dantian.
Yet this mass of viscous Qi and Blood contained an unimaginable amount of energy, on the verge of exploding.
"Get up."
For the first time, Gu Ci's icy voice penetrated the gravity room's soundproofing and rang out directly in Chen Fan's mind.
Chen Fan's teeth chattered as he clenched them, and the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth stained the floor red.
He braced his elbows against the floor, trying, bit by bit, to straighten his bent spine.
Every effort was accompanied by the agony of his muscles tearing apart inch by inch.
But in the end, he stood back up, moving with incomparable slowness and equally incomparable stubbornness.
He swayed on the verge of falling, but in the end, he did not fall.
Under the crushing force of triple gravity, he resumed his training, moving as though in slow motion.
As time passed, Chen Fan soon completed a month of training under Gu Ci's guidance.
When Chen Fan once again poured a Qi and Blood Potion down his throat, an abrupt change occurred.
That mass of viscous Qi and Blood, dormant in his dantian for a month, had finally reached the limit of what it could contain.
This time, no matter how Chen Fan tried to forcibly suppress it with the Five Elements Stars Method, he could not stop his Qi and Blood from rising.
Boom!
Chen Fan's body trembled slightly, and his Qi and Blood began to surge. He could feel that his Qi and Blood had increased by a trace.
81.0 cal!
It's over...
Chen Fan sensed the power within him. Although it had increased by only a trace, it seemed to have undergone a qualitative change. Yet what welled up in his heart was a profound sense of failure.
He had failed to hold the line.
In the end, he had still broken through.
Outside the gravity room, however, Gu Ci's reaction was completely different.
He stared fixedly at the number 81, and for the first time, satisfaction appeared on his eternally unchanging, deadpan face.
He switched off the gravity field. His hoarse voice carried a trace of excitement that even he himself had not noticed.
"Take off the weights."
"Go to the tester and throw a punch."
Hum!
The instant the pressure vanished, Chen Fan felt his whole body grow light, as though he had broken free of the shackles of the entire world.
He felt as light as a swallow, as though a single step could shatter the void and a single punch could shake a mountain.
It was the terrifying illusion that came when power suppressed to its limit was completely released.
He removed the weighted gear, long since soaked through with sweat and blood, and walked step by step toward the massive, intricate Comprehensive Strength Tester.
He took no fancy stance, nor did he circulate any cultivation art.
Chen Fan took a deep breath and mobilized all 81 cal of his Qi and Blood, heavy as mercury and condensed to the utmost, channeling it into his right fist.
Then, at the thick metal target, he threw an utterly ordinary basic straight punch.
The instant his fist touched the tester.
There was no earth-shattering boom as expected, not even the faintest muffled impact.
Time seemed to freeze at that moment.
The numbers on the light screen of the precision instrument, which could withstand a full-force strike from a peak martial artist, did not budge in the slightest.
The next second.
"Crack..."
A soft sound.
Under Gu Ci's gaze, a fine, spiderweb-like crack silently appeared at the center of the tester's indestructible light screen!