Innate Grandmaster

The next day.

Heavenly Prison.

Zhou Yi, carrying the condemned prisoner's last meal, arrived at Cell C-9.

A scene of white mourning garments met his eyes. Four children, three daughters and one son, lay neatly on the ground, already lifeless. A woman in mourning clothes was slumped on the ground, her eyes staring blankly ahead.

Li Xiong stood in the cell, watching Zhou Yi approach with cold eyes.

"You remember this, this general and my wife and children will be waiting here. When Li Wu comes, tell him!"

Zhou Yi frowned slightly at the tragic scene of a father killing his children in the cell. Looking around, he saw no guards on duty, and he understood.

The imperial court did not intend to carry out the execution publicly, signaling Li Xiong to commit suicide in Heavenly Prison to atone for his crimes.

"General, you are honest and dedicated, with outstanding achievements. In the future, you will be worthy of sharing the ancestral temple and leaving your name in history." Yesterday, Zhou Yi's words to Li Xiong had been somewhat out of line due to his indignation at the slaughter of the common people.

Today, how could he possibly criticize Li Wu and the imperial court? Even if the officials wished they could exterminate Li's entire clan, they would still have to praise his loyalty and service to the country on the surface.

"He will come, I'm waiting for him!"

After Li Xiong finished speaking, he struck the woman's forehead with his palm, then struck his own head.

The couple died together, their skulls shattered.

"If only you had known this earlier, why did you do it in the first place!"

Zhou Yi pretended to panic and went out to call the guards, carrying Li Xiong's family out of the cell. Li's family members would come to collect the bodies, but whether they could be buried in the ancestral grave was unknown.

"I'm not in a good mood today, I'll pick a unlucky guy to use my demonic art on!"

Zhou Yi, carrying good wine and dishes, strolled to Cell A-12.

The prisoner was as burly as a bear, even half a head taller than the ten-foot-long torture rack. Several scars crisscrossed his shiny bald head, making him the kind of person that people would report to the authorities for entering the city.

The prisoner glanced at the wine and meat, licking his lips: "Is it this granddaddy's turn today?"

"You're quite the connoisseur."

Zhou Yi set out the wine and dishes, picked up a piece of meat and put it to the prisoner's mouth.

The prisoner didn't stand on ceremony, eating meat and drinking wine with relish, finally letting out a satisfied burp: "This granddaddy heard outside that there's a jailer in Heavenly Prison who likes to torture martial arts experts the most, and no one can withstand his cruel torture."

"I actually have a reputation in the martial world?"

This was the first time Zhou Yi had heard of this. He lived a simple life, never caring about the martial world or the imperial court.

The prisoner said: "The martial world calls you the Blood Prison Old Demon. It is said that your whole family died at the hands of martial arts experts, which is why you are so cruel."

"Old Demon?"

Zhou Yi looked at his graying hair and nodded slightly: "Not a bad nickname, quite imposing. The martial arts community is too kind!"

The prisoner said coldly: "You're like a turtle, hiding in Shenjing and not going out. Otherwise, you would have been beaten to death long ago!"

"Perhaps they have been to Shenjing, but no one knows."

Zhou Yi's small courtyard in Shenjing has been quite lively these past two years. The jujube tree in the courtyard is growing vigorously, and the jujubes it bears are praised by colleagues as fragrant and delicious.

Perhaps it was because the martial arts experts had cultivated their bodies, and their flesh and blood contained special energy, making the jujubes grown were also extraordinary.

Zhou Yi planned to plant another grape vine and invite his colleagues to taste it.

"This granddaddy doesn't believe it. Today, I'll try your cruel torture."

The prisoner said triumphantly: "Back then, I committed murder in the temple. Eighteen martial monks broke their batons, but I still endured it!"

"So you're a high-ranking disciple of Buddhism, my respects."

Zhou Yi cleaned up the dishes and chopsticks, placed his palm on the prisoner's dantian, and activated the Heaven Devouring Demon Art.

Thick inner energy flowed out of the prisoner's body like a flood being released. In a short time, the inner energy in the prisoner's dantian was completely devoured.

"What are you..."

The veins on the prisoner's bald head throbbed, his eyes widened in disbelief: "Heaven Devouring... Demon Art?"

"You actually know about it?"

Without waiting for the prisoner to speak, Zhou Yi slapped him on the head, and inner energy burst out, turning his brain into tofu.

"The more you know, the greater your curiosity, and the more dangerous it becomes!"

The twelfth year of Hongchang.

General Li Wu crushed the enemy's main force at Serpent Coil Mountain, killing 200,000 and capturing the third prince of Great Yong alive.

Then, he pursued the defeated soldiers for 1,200 miles, completely recovering the old territory of Fengyang Kingdom.

The good news spread to Shenjing, and the people cheered, while the officials in the court remained silent.

In the autumn of the same year.

Li Wu led his army into Great Yong territory, capturing twelve cities in a row, and reaching Soul Suppression Pass, Great Yong's natural barrier in the southern border.

The general guarding Soul Suppression Pass allowed Li Wu to challenge him, but he turtled up and refused to come out. The Great Yong court sent envoys to sue for peace.

The changing world outside had nothing to do with Zhou Yi.

In the courtyard.

Zhou Yi sat cross-legged under the grape trellis, silently circulating the Heaven Devouring Demon Art.

The surging internal energy, like a river, flowed through his meridians, faintly emitting the roaring sound of crashing waves.

"Seven years, devouring the internal energy of more than ninety Jianghu experts... Now, I've finally reached the five-hundred-year limit!"

Zhou Yi had requested a vacation from the prison warden and was wholeheartedly in seclusion at home, waiting to break through to the Innate realm.

"According to the Demon Art's description, with internal energy reaching five hundred years, one only needs to circulate it continuously until one can leverage the power of heaven and earth with oneself, and naturally comprehend the Innate Grandmaster realm!"

The internal energy circulated continuously along the meridians, running for more than a dozen major cycles.

Zhou Yi only felt that his meridians had reached their limit of endurance, and some minor meridians had already cracked, yet he still couldn't sense the Innate realm.

"Humph!"

Zhou Yi couldn't help but groan in pain. The pain of meridian cracks was no less than the cruelty of slow slicing.

At this moment, continuing to circulate the Demon Art might lead to a breakthrough to the Innate realm, or it might lead to complete meridian breakage and becoming a cripple, or even directly lead to death.

"Ordinary people might grit their teeth and persevere, gambling their lives to break through to the Innate realm, after all, lifespan waits for no one."

"I... I'll try again tomorrow!"

So.

Zhou Yi stopped circulating his energy, got up to brew a pot of good tea, and held a Daoist scripture to read.

Focusing his mind and calming his restlessness.

The next day.

Zhou Yi circulated the Demon Art again, a few more cycles than yesterday, and again reached the limit of meridian endurance.

"It seems my talent is indeed a bit lacking."

"Ordinary people with low talent, seeing year after year pass, either become disheartened and fade into the crowd, or desperately try to gamble their lives to break through, after all, lifespan waits for no one."

"Fortunately, I have the Longevity Dao Fruit. No bottleneck or shackle can withstand the passage of time."

"Only I, even if the world changes and the seas turn into mulberry fields, will remain the same!"

Zhou Yi stopped circulating his energy and picked up a volume of Buddhist scriptures to read.

The Buddhist scriptures, apart from the doctrines of enduring suffering, also had explanations of karma and karmic retribution, which Zhou Yi quite agreed with.

Autumn passed and spring came, and time slipped away.

In the blink of an eye, half a year had passed.

At first, there were still people in the Heavenly Prison asking when Old Zhou would return, but later they got used to it.

This day.

Zhou Yi was burning incense and chanting scriptures when suddenly a profound feeling arose in his heart, and the Heaven Devouring Demon Art began to circulate on its own within his body.

It circulated for dozens of cycles, yet his meridians did not feel swollen or painful.

At this moment, wisps of cool air gathered from the outside and flowed into Zhou Yi's body, like icy silk and fine rain, silently nourishing things.

"This is heaven and earth spiritual energy?"

Zhou Yi closed his eyes and sensed that there was a faint and mysterious energy between heaven and earth, divided into five colors, almost imperceptible and extremely thin.

As the majestic internal energy circulated, it drove the five-colored spiritual energy to merge into his body, into his internal energy. Like clouds and mist, the loose internal energy gradually solidified as the spiritual energy merged into it.

Five hundred years of majestic internal energy compressed and transformed, becoming a trickle.

"This is Innate True Essence? The quantity is ten times less, but the quality has increased a hundredfold!"

Zhou Yi circulated his True Essence, which penetrated out of his body from his fingertips, condensing into a visible Qi sword, and waved it towards the stone slab on the ground.

Swish!

Silently, the Qi sword cut the stone slab into two pieces.

"Using internal energy to injure people, the power is greatly reduced after three or four feet, and beyond ten feet, the internal energy will dissipate on its own. True Essence is different, even at a distance of two or three zhang, it can remain condensed and undiminished in power."

"Such a means of killing people, in the eyes of mortals, is almost like an Immortal!"

"No wonder the Jianghu legends say that below the Innate Grandmaster, all are ants!"

Zhou Yi circulated his Innate True Essence, and after one cycle, the heaven and earth spiritual energy that flowed into his body was almost imperceptible.

"At this rate of cultivation, will it take hundreds of years to cultivate to the Innate Completion?"

"The reason for such slow progress must be more than just poor talent. Neither the Heaven Devouring Demon Art nor the Origin Returning Art has a cultivation method after the Innate stage."

"Secondly, the heaven and earth spiritual energy in the mortal world is extremely thin, so absorption is naturally slow. Thirdly, relying purely on self-cultivation, without the assistance of elixirs and other things..."

Zhou Yi carefully pondered and listed several reasons for the slow cultivation.

"However, I still have to cultivate in seclusion in the mortal world, even if it takes hundreds of years, until one day I truly make no progress at all, then it won't be too late to go to the Immortal cultivation world."

"The Immortal cultivation world is different from the mortal world, it is too difficult to hide, there are too many ways to harm people, and it is difficult to cultivate as peacefully as I do now."

Zhou Yi, on the contrary, believed that the extreme thinness of spiritual energy in the mortal world was a form of protection for him.

"Moreover, it seems there aren't no cultivation methods..."

Zhou Yi suddenly recalled the Nameless Incantation that Wei Chang had taught him back then. Its content was about sensing the Qi of Heaven and Earth, and refining it into the body through the incantation to strengthen the physical body.

Back then, no matter what he did, he couldn't get started, but now that Zhou Yi had advanced to the Innate stage, he could sense the spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth.

"...Calm the heart and be natural, slow and steady breathing, gather the divine light, and reach the heart of Heaven..."

Zhou Yi silently recited the incantation, the True Essence within his body circulated on its own, and the spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth gathered at a rate several times faster than before.

The spiritual energy refined by the Nameless Incantation did not increase his Innate True Essence, but rather merged into his muscles, bones, internal organs, and limbs. His physical body, which had just entered the Viscera Realm of the Martial Path, visibly grew stronger.

"This incantation isn't a cultivation method, it should be a legendary body refinement technique!"

"In that case, can I cultivate another horizontally-trained Innate body?"

Zhou Yi smiled. Whether practicing martial arts or cultivating immortality, it was all to protect the Longevity Dao Fruit. As long as it could increase his strength, he wouldn't hesitate to spend time cultivating. A hundred years or a thousand years made no difference.

"I should go to work tomorrow!"

Heavenly Prison.

Zhou Yi greeted the guard on duty.

"Old Feng, long time no see."

"Eh?"

Feng Qiao was savoring the memory of the Spring Breeze Pavilion's Lianxiang girl, the courtesan who, eight years ago, wealthy merchants and tycoons couldn't obtain even with a fortune, now only cost five taels of silver.

"Old Zhou, you're not dead?"

"..."

Zhou Yi asked, "Who said I was dead?"

"That's what everyone in the prison is saying. They say you always liked to torture Jianghu experts, killing so many people. You had many enemies outside, and you were ambushed and killed in revenge, leaving not even a complete corpse!"

Feng Qiao explained, "Captain Zhu even sent someone to your house, but no one answered the door, so everyone believed it."

"I was hiding outside for a while, but I'm fine now."

Before Zhou Yi went into seclusion, he prepared a large amount of food, locked the door, and spent his days drinking tea, reading books, and comprehending his state of mind, too lazy to pay attention to whoever knocked on the door.

During that time, thieves did break into the courtyard, perhaps enemies, perhaps robbers, but no one could withstand Zhou Yi's palm.

One punch with five hundred years of power, who could stop it!