A Frenzied Rise in Strength!

Inside the Grade A Gravity Zone, a deathly silence reigned.

The air seemed to have frozen, leaving only the faint hum of electricity from the operating Comprehensive Strength Tester.

Chen Fan and Gu Ci both had their eyes fixed on the dark screen of the massive machine.

The spiderweb of cracks spreading from the very center of the target refracted a heart-stopping light beneath the cold lamps.

Chen Fan slowly withdrew his fist.

He lowered his head and looked at his hand, still somewhat youthful in appearance, yet capable of unleashing terrifying power just moments ago. Its skin was smooth and completely unscathed, without even a trace of redness.

"Is this... Qi and Blood after a qualitative transformation?"

He murmured to himself.

He had needed no circulation of the profound Five Elements Stars Transformation, no enhancement from any fancy martial skill. He had merely mobilized the 81 calories of Qi and Blood in his body, thick as mercury, to deliver the most basic physical impact.

Yet the result was utterly inconceivable.

He understood in an instant that the explosive power of his 81 calories of Qi and Blood, compressed to the limit and fundamentally transformed in quality, could no longer be measured by conventional figures.

This power had likely surpassed the peak Quasi-Martial Artist's 100 calories, and was even enough to contend head-on with true martial artists who had just entered the Qi-Blood Realm!

"Feel it?"

Gu Ci's voice, hoarse as scraping sheets of iron, broke the silence.

A rare trace of satisfaction appeared on his face.

Without waiting for Chen Fan to answer, Gu Ci continued in his distinctively cold tone, "How can a hundred calories of water mist compare to eighty calories of mercury? Ordinary people seek quantity, but true martial artists seek quality."

"What you've laid down now is the first foundation stone on the path of the Martial Dao."

Hearing this, Chen Fan raised his head and looked quietly at Gu Ci with his bright eyes, waiting for him to continue.

"Starting today, the compression phase is over," Gu Ci announced succinctly. "You have only one task... stop holding back, use every means available, and increase your total Qi and Blood with all your might."

At last... I can increase my strength without any reservations!

The light in Chen Fan's eyes suddenly brightened, his desire to break through, suppressed for a month, like a volcano on the verge of eruption.

But Gu Ci's next words were like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head.

"But when you reach 100 calories, the real test will have only just begun."

"Until then, I won't allow you to break through."

The blazing fighting spirit that had just ignited in Chen Fan faltered in an instant.

He won't let me break through?

This order completely contradicted the conventional wisdom drawn from hundreds of years of Martial Dao education in the Federation.

Reaching 100 calories of Qi and Blood meant achieving perfection in the Quasi-Martial Artist Realm. It was the best time to attempt a breakthrough to the Qi-Blood Realm and complete a leap to a higher level of life.

Forcibly suppressing it would only make the breakthrough harder, and might even damage one's foundation.

Chen Fan frowned.

He neither questioned nor challenged him. Instead, for the first time, he took the initiative to ask.

"Why?"

His tone was calm, but filled with the purest thirst for unknown knowledge.

Gu Ci gave him a long, searching look.

"One hundred calories is the threshold for an ordinary person's breakthrough, the minimum standard the Federation set to ensure a sufficient number of martial artists."

"True Prodigies, however, frantically build up their foundation at this realm, expanding the Qi Sea in their dantian to its limit. That limit determines the heights you can reach in the future."

"The larger the Qi Sea, the stronger the foundation, and the greater the power it can contain and transform after a breakthrough. Even in the same Qi-Blood Realm, the combat power of a martial artist who broke through at 100 calories is worlds apart from one who broke through at 105."

Gu Ci's voice grew colder.

"For ordinary Prodigies, the limit is 105 calories. The minimum standard for my former students was 110."

He paused, his lifeless eyes staring fixedly into Chen Fan's without blinking.

"That is the minimum requirement... for you to attempt a breakthrough."

One hundred and ten calories!

The number exploded like a thunderclap in the empty gravity zone.

In the Federation's Martial Dao, anyone capable of raising their Qi and Blood to 110 calories in the Quasi-Martial Artist Realm was without exception a top Prodigy.

Yet now, Gu Ci had casually presented this legend to Chen Fan as a minimum requirement.

Inside the office, a deathly silence reigned.

Chen Fan said nothing.

Gu Ci did not speak again, either.

He merely watched the nine-year-old boy before him in silence, watching the changes in his expression.

He wanted to see shock, astonishment, fear, or even the slightest trace of hesitation. Because those were the reactions a normal person should have.

But he was disappointed.

None of the emotions he had expected appeared on Chen Fan's face.

In those startlingly bright eyes, there was not the slightest pressure or fear. Instead, after a brief silence, an unprecedented flame ignited!

So... the path could be walked this way, too!

So 100 calories was only the beginning!

He slowly turned his head, his gaze falling once more on the tester he had cracked with a single punch.

The path in his heart had never been clearer than at this moment.

"Good!"

Chen Fan's voice slowly rang out in the spacious room.

In the days that followed, the Grade A Gravity Zone became Chen Fan's personal prison.

With the compression phase over, Gu Ci had only one order.

Increase his strength with all his might.

No more holding back.

Eighteen bottles of Primary Qi-Blood Potion arrived on time every week, like sweet spring water.

Chen Fan practically drank them like water. Their immense medicinal power exploded inside him, then was refined by the Five Elements Stars Transformation as a whale swallowed the sea, merging into that sea of Qi and Blood, thick as mercury.

Yet the growth of his Qi and Blood was far slower and more arduous than he had imagined.

His Qi and Blood, compressed to the limit, was of too high a quality. Every tiny increase required more than ten times, even dozens of times, the energy an ordinary person needed to fill it.

An ordinary Quasi-Martial Artist might gain 0.1 calories of Qi and Blood from absorbing one bottle of potion.

For Chen Fan, after three bottles, the number on the tester might only tick up once, as if lazily.

Time flew by amid cultivation so grueling and monotonous it was maddening.

Two months passed in the blink of an eye.

During those two months, Chen Fan had hardly set foot outside the gravity zone.

He could already move freely under the terrifying threefold gravity. Every punch and every swing of his sword carried a refined quality that had returned to its original simplicity, and his control over his own power had reached an inconceivably minute level.

Finally, after exhausting nearly 150 bottles of Primary Qi-Blood Potion, a vast quantity of resources enough to take an ordinary Quasi-Martial Artist from zero to the peak several times over.

"Hum..."

On the Strength Tester's screen, the scarlet number, after countless slow struggles, finally inched up to a deeply symbolic figure.

100 calories!

But the instant the number stopped.

Chen Fan's body shuddered violently.

He clearly felt something inside him click and lock shut completely.

That ceaselessly surging sea of liquid Qi and Blood was tightly enclosed by an invisible yet indestructible barrier.

No matter how he circulated his cultivation technique, the energy he absorbed afterward was like a tide crashing against a dam, mercilessly repelled and scattered by the barrier, unable to merge into the sea of Qi and Blood in the slightest.

"Have I reached the end...?"