Chen Du silently broke into a cold sweat for himself.
At that moment, he did not sense anyone around him.
The panel immediately popped up:
[Name: Chen Du]
[Realm: Sixth-Tier Evolver · Martial Dao path: Star-Pressing Realm / Third-Tier Evolver · factor path: Mortal Transcendence Realm]
[Current status: true spirit returning]
[Note: Golden-Nature Fruition, Qi Refining at grand completion, can easily kill Deification and Void Refinement cultivators!] [Note: Star-Pressing Realm, the name for a Sixth-Tier Evolver's realm on the Martial Dao path. The physical body has broken free of the constraints of a single world's rules. The evolver has mastered more than twenty kinds of Transcendent Martial Intent, successfully fused them, and united all three with the physical body. The physical body can cross the vacuum without perishing and can absorb cosmic energy radiating through the universe. The evolver can begin converting the true essence within the body into genetic primal energy and attempt to comprehend a Martial Domain!] [Special notice to host: The protagonist's strength has now risen to the forefront of the great wave of Spiritual Qi Revival, earning the protection of the will of Spiritual Qi Revival. For one month, the difficulty of killing the host will increase greatly. For ten days, no one will be able to kill the host, and they will increasingly forget the host.]
Chen Du carefully read the panel and the notices.
Above the Heavenly Human Realm is the sixth-tier Star-Pressing Realm?
The third-tier Transcendence Realm surpasses the peak of an ordinary martial world's realm. Martial intent and Spiritual Power merge to comprehend Transcendent Martial Intent! It's just that the Xuanye Realm here was a world of the smallest scale!
The Heavenly Human Realm could be called a world half martial arts, half fantasy, roughly as powerful as hundreds of Xuanye Realms! It was as large as a planet.
At the Fourth Tier Saint Tier, one comprehends more than three kinds of Transcendent Martial Intent, greatly increasing one's strength.
At the Fifth Tier Heavenly Human Realm, one comprehends more than ten kinds of Transcendent Martial Intent. A single strike at the Fifth Tier Peak Stage could instantly kill a hundred thousand people.
At the sixth-tier Star-Pressing Realm, one comprehends more than twenty kinds of Transcendent Martial Intent and merges them into one, then completely fuses that unified Transcendent Martial Intent with the physical body! Spiritual Power, the body, and Transcendent Martial Intent, all three fused together!
At the sixth-tier Star-Pressing Realm, one can absorb cosmic energy.
Why couldn't I absorb cosmic energy back then?
On second thought, Chen Du considered that perhaps it was because that world had been altered by the Motian Sect, leaving him unable to absorb even cosmic energy.
Breaking through to the sixth tier in a world like that, a slaughterhouse and harvesting ground, was truly a miracle.
Chen Du clenched his fist, feeling the unprecedented power within him.
At the Peak Stage of the Heaven-Human Realm, he could wipe out an army of a hundred thousand with one sword strike.
Now, a single punch from him could probably wipe the Yan Kingdom Royal City right off the map, leaving not even ruins behind.
But he had no time to savor this power. He immediately activated a method to conceal his aura.
The aura-concealment technique he had honed for twenty years suppressed and hid his Star-Pressing Realm aura, vast as an abyss, layer by layer,
as though an erupting volcano had been forcibly sealed beneath a thousand iron lids.
A few breaths later, not the slightest ripple remained around him. He looked no different from any ordinary evolver in these mountain woods, perhaps even weaker.
With that done, he sped toward the edge of the woods without looking back, vanishing among the dense treetops in the blink of an eye.
After seeing the panel's notice, he had a pretty good idea of what was going on.
Because he had evolved so quickly, he had earned the favor of Spiritual Qi Revival and was effectively a child of destiny. Killing him would therefore be far more difficult for others, and they might even face punishment.
So this Spiritual Qi Revival really was selecting something.
A few days later, Chen Du stood in another stretch of mountain woods.
The vegetation here was even lusher than in the last forest. Treetops towered into the clouds, and vines were as thick as a child's arm.
Faint green motes visible to the naked eye filled the air. They were Evolution Factors.
He sat cross-legged beneath a cliff in the woods, closed his eyes, and looked inward.
The Martial Canon slowly unfolded in his mind.
From the original Transcendence Chapter, to the Heavenly Human Saint Stage Chapter and the Heavenly Human Chapter he had created in the Heavenly Human Realm, and finally to the Star-Pressing Chapter he had comprehended upon breaking through to the sixth tier.
This overarching martial arts canon, which brought together the essence of martial arts from two great worlds, now had six chapters.
But on the factor path, he remained at the Third Tier Mortal Transcendence Realm.
His body had undergone an initial transformation and awakened a tenfold increase in strength, but the shackles deep within his genes did not seem to have truly been broken.
In other words, he could strive for a higher realm on the factor path.
He circulated his Star-Pressing Realm cultivation at full power, opening every pore on his body. Evolution Factors beneath the cliff surged toward him like a tide.
The pale green motes in the air converged into slender bands of light that coiled around him, seeping through his pores into his meridians, from his meridians into his flesh, and from his flesh into his bone marrow.
The essence of plants, the spiritual qi of the mountains and waters, and the earth-vein factors surging up from deep beneath the ground were all swallowed into his body in the most primal fashion.
He felt something trembling deep inside him. It was a shackle... some kind of restraint carved into the deepest level of his genes, locking down the upper limit of his life level.
The power of the Third Tier Mortal Transcendence Realm could do no more to it than scratch an itch through a boot.
But now, pressed from within and without by his Star-Pressing Realm martial insights, that shackle began to loosen.
He gathered all his strength and slammed it fiercely against the shackle.
A crisp cracking sound rang out inside him, as though something had snapped.
An indescribable sense of ease rose from deep within his bone marrow, as though some innate restraint had been completely shattered at that moment.
Fine golden lines appeared on the surface of his skin, then slowly faded beneath it.
This was a breakthrough on the factor path, a formal step from the Third Tier Mortal Transcendence Realm into the fourth tier.
But immediately afterward, Chen Du felt an unprecedented power surge up inside him.
It was no trickle, no gradual increase. It erupted with a roar like a mountain flood.
It surged all the way from deep within his bone marrow to the surface of his skin,
and every inch of his flesh cheered.
Restriction, as the name implied, was a shackle locked deep within the genes.
Every shackle was a gene lock, sealing away the possibility of a leap to a higher life level.
An ordinary evolver might spend an entire lifetime without breaking a single one, and now he had just broken the first.
His raw physical strength soared another fivefold from its previous level!
Muscle fibers rippled beneath his skin like quicksilver, and his bones gave off a rapid series of tiny cracks, a sign that their density was rising sharply.
But it was not over yet!
The shattering of the first restriction was like the toppling of the first domino.
The Evolution Factors, spiritual qi of heaven and earth, and essence of plants accumulated within him, along with the vast energy that had poured into him from heaven and earth at the moment of his breakthrough, merged into an unstoppable torrent that raged through his meridians and blood vessels.
The second restriction held out for only a moment against this torrent before shattering with a roar!
Then came the third, the fourth, the fifth... His body was like a machine whose seals were being undone one after another.
With each restriction that shattered, his aura surged another notch, and the force spilling from his body shook loose stones beneath the cliff, sending them tumbling down.
The sixth, the seventh, the eighth, the ninth... Fine golden lines appeared on his skin, like marks of evolution naturally emerging as his genetic sequence was reshaped.
The moment the tenth restriction shattered, the entire cliff trembled slightly.
His body devoured the dense Evolution Factors in the air, forming a pale green vortex visible to the naked eye above his head.
The panel popped up, and he glanced up at it:
[Name: Chen Du]
[Realm: Sixth-Tier Evolver · Martial Dao path: Star-Pressing Realm / Fifth Tier Evolver · factor path: Middle Stage of the Restriction Realm]
At the Middle Stage of the Fifth Tier Restriction Realm, his physical strength had increased a full thirtyfold compared to when he was at the third tier.
He clenched his fist, squeezing the air between his fingers into a brief sonic boom.
A shallow fist imprint appeared on the cliff's stone wall, stamped there from a distance by the wind of his punch.
"Still not enough!"