Although the excruciating pain of his meridians repeatedly rupturing and repairing nearly made Xiao Yan black out, the rapidly widening and toughening meridians told him that if he endured it, he would reap enormous benefits.
Once these tiny meridians were opened, the speed at which he could mobilize his Dou Qi in the future would undoubtedly increase greatly. In battle, being able to command Dou Qi as easily as an arm would give one a tremendous advantage.
After opening one tiny meridian after another, the energy continued surging forward. Then, with a series of soft pops, streams of tiny energy suddenly burst from the pores across Xiao Yan's body. For a moment, he looked like a kettle riddled with countless holes.
The eruption lasted only a few seconds before disappearing completely. Once the energy vanished, however, traces of blood slowly seeped from the pores that had expelled those tiny energy streams. The blood rolled down, soaking half of Xiao Yan's body.
The opened pores gradually began returning to normal. Yet Xiao Yan could clearly sense that whenever he formed the cultivation hand seals, the pores connected to his meridians became like wind tunnels, madly absorbing energy from the outside world at a rate more than ten times faster than before.
This energy rapidly circulated through his meridians. With each completed cycle, a large mass of refined, pure energy was poured into the vortex. Each time this happened, the vortex's volume surged noticeably.
Originally, the vortex held only three-quarters of its capacity in liquid energy. Now, the liquid within had occupied more than ninety percent of the vortex, coming infinitely close to the completion of the Dou Master realm.
As time slowly passed, Xiao Yan's body gradually became shrouded in a faint glow. The glow covered his body, taking the shape