Breaking Through to the Innate Realm

Breaking Through to the Innate Realm

"How... how are we supposed to handle this?"

"The Commandant killed the deputy hall master of the sect's Law Enforcement Hall!"

The two Black Armored Guards in the distance saw this scene, and their expressions changed drastically. They had no idea what to do.

At this moment, their minds were buzzing. For a while, they could not accept this reality.

They truly had not expected the Commandant's nerve to be this great. When he said he would beat the deputy hall master of the Law Enforcement Hall to death, he had actually done it. It was not just empty words—he had acted on them directly.

This was the deputy hall master of Guiyuan Sect's Law Enforcement Hall!

If the territory controlled by Guiyuan Sect were compared to a small kingdom, then Guiyuan Sect would be equivalent to the imperial cabinet, the sect master to the emperor, and the Law Enforcement Hall to the Ministry of Justice and Supreme Court. The Black Armored Army in each prefecture would be the local government forces, and even the commanders of the Black Armored Army could only take office after discussion among Guiyuan Sect's upper ranks.

Although Meng Yan was merely the deputy hall master of the Law Enforcement Hall, outside the sect, he represented Guiyuan Sect's face.

Zhou Shan had directly beaten Meng Yan to death. It was no different from a local official killing a vice minister from the Ministry of Justice sent down from above. This was practically rebellion. No matter how highly Commander Fang regarded Zhou Shan, he would have no say in this matter.

"What happened!"

"Who was so blind as to dare cause trouble at the Commandant's residence?"

"The troublemaker has already been killed by the Commandant."

At this time, the Black Armored Army guarding the Commandant's residence heard the commotion and immediately rushed to Zhou Shan's courtyard. There, they saw Liu Jianshan buried beneath the collapsed courtyard wall, as well as Meng Yan lying in a huge pit.

After confirming that both Meng Yan and Liu Jianshan had stopped breathing, Zhou Shan returned to the room and gathered all his banknotes. Then he walked out and said to the Black Armored Army present, "I'm leaving. Just report the course of events truthfully."

With that, Zhou Shan directly performed lightness skill, treading through the air as he swiftly flew out of the Commandant's residence and vanished from everyone's sight.

"He's leaving? What does the Commandant mean by this?"

"Is the Commandant going to Qingyang City, or somewhere else?"

"Du Yu, Lu Mu, you arrived before us. Do you know what happened?"

The Black Armored Guards questioned one after another.

"This time, when the Commandant leaves, he won't be coming back." The Black Armored Guard named Du Yu let out a sigh, then said, "Of these two men, one was the deputy hall master of Guiyuan Sect's Law Enforcement Hall!"

"What? The deputy hall master of Guiyuan Sect's Law Enforcement Hall!"

"Y-you mean the Commandant killed the deputy hall master of the Law Enforcement Hall?"

"H-how could that be possible?"

Upon hearing this, the Black Armored Guards present looked at one another, each staring at the next, momentarily at a loss for words. The Commandant had even dared to kill the deputy hall master of the Law Enforcement Hall—he truly acted without restraint!

Meanwhile.

After leaving the Commandant's residence, Zhou Shan headed straight out of the city.

Moreover, he swiftly moved far away from Luyang County and arrived in Wushan County instead.

Zhou Shan did not go to Wushan County's city. Instead, he entered Black Mountain, the largest mountain range within Wushan County. He went deep into Black Mountain, retreating to a place far from human habitation to cultivate in seclusion.

He would not leave seclusion until he had reached the Innate Realm.

Day after day passed.

Thirty-eight days later, Zhou Shan's Golden Bell Shield reached two hundred and fifty years of cultivation.

"Two hundred and fifty years of cultivation is enough to challenge the Innate Realm!"

At once, Zhou Shan circulated the Golden Bell Shield Cultivation Technique and mobilized his Internal Force to launch an assault on his Ren and Du Meridians.

Boom!

Zhou Shan's body shuddered as his vast Internal Force burst through the Ren and Du Meridians within him.

With two hundred and fifty years of cultivation, breaking through the Ren and Du Meridians came as naturally as water flowing into a channel. It posed no obstacle to Zhou Shan. Then, his Internal Force circulated through the opened Twelve Primary Meridians and Eight Extraordinary Meridians.

With every circulation, his Internal Force and Internal Qi were refined once.

After breaking through to the Innate Realm, the route through which the Cultivation Technique circulated was completely different from before the Innate Realm. Once Internal Force and Internal Qi completed a major cycle through the Twelve Primary Meridians and Eight Extraordinary Meridians, they would be refined, until a hundred refinements turned them into steel.

This process could be called "Qi Refinement."

Before the Innate Realm, whether it was the Accumulation Realm or the Aperture-Opening Realm, the essence was still the cultivation of Internal Force and Internal Qi. Reaching the Innate Realm meant refining the Internal Force and Internal Qi one had cultivated, raising their quality until a hundred refinements turned them into steel.

To carry out "Qi Refinement," one had to open the Twelve Primary Meridians and Eight Extraordinary Meridians.

At this time, Zhou Shan circulated the Innate Realm portion of the Golden Bell Shield Cultivation Technique, guiding the acquired Internal Force within his body through the Twelve Primary Meridians and Eight Extraordinary Meridians. As the Cultivation Technique circulated again and again, this acquired Internal Force was refined and transformed into Innate True Qi.

After breaking through to the Innate Realm, only by refining all the acquired Internal Force in one's body and converting it into the higher-grade Innate True Qi could one's strength undergo a qualitative leap.

In the blink of an eye, another ten days passed.

All the Internal Force within Zhou Shan's body had transformed into Innate True Qi.

However, the quantity of Innate True Qi was only one-tenth of his previous acquired Internal Force.

To increase his Innate True Qi from here on, he would have to cultivate slowly. Even Martial Dao prodigies blessed with extraordinary talent would see their cultivation speed slow after entering the Innate Realm.

That was because cultivating even a single strand of Innate True Qi required repeated refinement. Although Innate Yuan Qi was easier to refine than a martial artist's Qi and blood, cultivating Innate True Qi still took roughly five times as long as cultivating Internal Force.

In other words, if a martial artist had spent over a hundred years breaking through to the Innate Realm, then without relying on cultivation pills capable of increasing cultivation, reaching the peak of the Innate Realm would require over five hundred years.

Yet an Innate Realm martial artist's lifespan was only around two hundred years. After subtracting the time spent cultivating before that, only a hundred years remained. Thus, for those Martial Dao Grandmasters who had spent more than a hundred years merely to barely break through to the Innate Realm, their martial path had basically reached its summit. Reaching the peak of the Innate Realm was already difficult, let alone breaking through to the realm of Supreme Martial Dao Grandmaster.

Some Martial Dao prodigies blessed with extraordinary talent could break through to the Innate Realm in only six or seven years, but their cultivation speed would also slow after entering the Innate Realm. To reach the Peak Innate Realm, they still needed thirty or forty years of bitter cultivation.

There was a common understanding in the martial world: to become a Supreme Martial Dao Grandmaster, it was best to break through to the Innate Realm before the age of fifty. There were also those who reached the Innate Realm after fifty and became Supreme Martial Dao Grandmasters, but their numbers were exceedingly few. They were usually not extraordinarily talented Martial Dao prodigies from major powers, whose entire sects or clans had pooled their resources to forge a Supreme Martial Dao Grandmaster.

Zhou Shan slowly withdrew his cultivation.

Very soon, he discovered that after breaking through to the Innate Realm, the Nine Breaths Assimilation talent he possessed seemed to have changed as well. The Heaven and Earth Yuan Qi he drew from the void was no longer ordinary Yuan Qi, but a higher-grade "Spiritual Qi."

After this Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi entered his body and passed through the Twelve Primary Meridians and Eight Extraordinary Meridians, it did not need repeated refinement. It directly transformed into Innate True Qi.