Digging out the dragon bones of Dragon Burial Mound was a colossal undertaking. This true dragon measured a hundred feet from head to tail, and its remains were overgrown with trees, shrubs, and thorny brambles. They had to slowly excavate the dirt and rocks, clearing away the vegetation.
Su Yun and the four fox demons worked from sunrise to sunset. It took them more than a month to clear Dragon Burial Mound and expose the dragon bones in their entirety.
During that time, Su Yun took advantage of the North Sea tides to make several trips to the shore, catching Green Rainbow Crabs to exchange for money.
By the end of September, the sea breeze had turned somewhat cool. Once October came, the temperature plummeted, and the autumn wind carried a grim, killing chill. Yet Tianmen Town showed not the slightest hint of cold. It stood near Dragon Burial Mound, where hot springs were plentiful. Crocodile Dragon Pool was one enormous hot spring, keeping this place like spring all year round.
Crocodile Dragon Pool was also a Treasure Land, sustaining many Crocodile Dragons.
The streams of Dragon Burial Mound were warm as well. At the turn of autumn and winter, they sent up billowing clouds of steam.
Su Yun and the four fox demons stood atop Dragon Burial Mound, gazing from afar at the full form of the dragon bones in the valley.
Su Yun activated Great Furnace Transformation, stirring his qi and blood. Carefully, he guided it to his eyes. In his pupils, the imprints of the Immortal Sword and Tianmen Town rotated and receded in every direction.
Gradually, his vision changed from utter darkness to glimmers of light, then from blur to clarity.
Su Yun greedily took in Dragon Burial Mound—the dragon bones crawling through the valley, every blade of grass and tree, the two houses at its head and tail. Then he turned, examining the Stone Tablets scattered across the slopes. At last, his gaze fell upon the little foxes beside him.
Though he could not keep his eyes open for long before needing to seal them again and restore his vitality, the feeling of seeing the light once more was simply wonderful!
Su Yun bowed to the dragon bones, then straightened and raised a hand toward the remains in the valley. High-spirited, he threw back his head and laughed. "Get it!"
The four fox demons also bowed to the dragon bones and laughed loudly, their voices bright and ringing. "Get it!"
They began with the dragon bones as a whole, observing their bearing and spirit from different angles and using qi and blood to imitate the true dragon's structure.
Su Yun even took out the Immortal Rope and climbed into the air, observing from above the course of the dragon bones and the positions of its claws.
Six days later, they moved closer and carefully copied the dragon's skeletal structure: tail bones, leg bones, toe bones, the walls of the inner cavity, the inside of the cranial cavity, and more. Su Yun even examined the cross-sections of the true dragon's marrow, studying the inner structure of its bones.
—These marrow cross-sections must have been wounds inflicted by the Human Demon. With utterly terrifying destructive force, the Human Demon had injured the true dragon in dozens of places, leaving it grievously wounded beyond cure!
During these days, Su Yun and the four fox demons ate, drank, slept, and relieved themselves at Dragon Burial Mound, focusing wholeheartedly on their research. Only when the sun was about to set and the dragon's spirit appeared did they leave Dragon Burial Mound.
"A dragon has far more bones than humans. The human body has only over two hundred bones, but a dragon has as many as one thousand and sixty-eight!"
Su Yun glanced beneath the dragon's body, his face flushing slightly. "Even that sort of place has bones, along with scale-like barbs."
Over the past two days, they had reached a bottleneck and could no longer gain further knowledge from the dragon bones.
That was because their foundation of accumulated knowledge was insufficient.
Without sufficient accumulation, even if boundless wealth lay before one's eyes, one would fail to recognize it. Even upon stepping into a mountain of treasures, one would return empty-handed.
The dragon bones contained far too many profound and mysterious secrets, yet they were incomparably abstruse. Su Yun and Flower Fox had studied for years at Mister Wild Fox's school, but their foundation still could not compare to that of Tiandao Academy's Scholars. They could only gain superficial knowledge from the dragon bones' shape and structure, unable to uncover more profound mysteries.
Even so, their Crocodile Dragon's Roar and Flood Dragon's Chant had undergone earthshaking transformations!
Flower Fox was the first to transform his Crocodile Dragon's Roar into Flood Dragon's Chant. His flood dragon was lifelike and exquisitely vivid. In both form and spirit, it was no less impressive than Su Yun's. Though he still fell short of Su Yun in some respects, there were not many Scholars capable of attaining his level.
The other three little foxes had also improved greatly, rapidly catching up to Flower Fox.
Their Flood Dragon's Chants had once possessed only a superficial appearance, without bones. Now that they had skeletons, their power advanced by leaps and bounds!
"A true dragon has so many bones, and its bones are connected to its tendons and flesh. That means the tendons and muscles within a true dragon are also five times more numerous than a human's!"
Su Yun's scalp went numb. The gap between human and dragon bodies was not as simple as being fivefold.
A dragon's bone density was five times that of a human, its number of bones five times greater, its tendons five times more numerous, its muscles five times more numerous, its breath five times stronger, and its blood flowed five times faster. These numbers were not added together—they were multiplied!
Moreover, Su Yun had yet to calculate the difference in organs such as the heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys.
If those were calculated as well, the gap between human and dragon would only become even greater!
"The only place humans can narrow the gap with dragons is through our nimble minds."
Darkness gradually fell before the youth's eyes, and he gently closed them. "That is why humans are the spirit of all things. If our bodies cannot match dragons in every respect, then we study them, grasp the secrets of their strength, turn dragons into our techniques and divine abilities, and strengthen our own bodies."
His clothes suddenly trembled slightly. Then his chest rose and fell, the motion growing larger and larger.
"Wanggu!"
"Wanggu! Wanggu!"
Bursts of dragon roars came from his chest. His back broadened more and more, until a powerful surge of force ripped his clothes apart with a hiss!
Flower Fox and the other fox demons jumped in alarm. Strips of muscle had appeared on Su Yun's back in vertical rows, like ribs slanting into his spine one by one!
His back had become twice as broad as before, and the lines of muscle across it had increased by more than double. Combined with the taut tendons and bulging blood vessels, Su Yun's back displayed a violent beauty!
Swish—
The dragon tattoo emerged. The flood dragon bared its fangs and brandished its claws as it swam across his back, slowly stretching out before crouching upon it.
However, unlike before, the dragon's tail coiled around the outside while its head rested at the center. Together with Su Yun's wasp waist and ape-like back, broad above and narrow below, it resembled a magnificent painting of a dragon coiling atop the heavens!
"Little Yun has applied the true dragon's ribs to his own body!"
Flower Fox immediately saw the mystery. Su Yun had not grown true dragon ribs. Rather, he used qi and blood to simulate them, doubling the number of his own ribs.
Not only that, he had used qi and blood to imitate additional muscles and tendons as well!
He had never dissected a true dragon. He had merely inferred from the dragon bones that such muscles and tendons should exist. Yet even so, his strength had explosively increased!
Su Yun dispersed his qi and blood, and his body returned to normal. The muscles in the youth's face twitched, and Flower Fox hurriedly asked, "Little Yun, has your qi and blood gone astray?"
"No. I just lost another piece of clothing."
Su Yun wore a regretful expression. The front of his clothes was still fine, but the back had become strips of torn fabric, making it quite breezy.
"I saved up two new outfits for going into the city. If I wear them now, they will not be new by the time I go there."
The youth tied together the ragged strips of cloth on his back. "The people in the city will laugh at me."
A biting cold wind blew through the valley, howling like the horns of winter. When Su Yun and the others left Dragon Burial Mound, goose-feather snow began drifting down from the sky.
Before the snowflakes could reach Dragon Burial Mound, they were melted by the billowing heat into raindrops that fell upon them, carrying a faint chill.
The farther they walked, the colder it became. Su Yun and Flower Fox hurried back to Tianmen Town. Su Yun endured for a while, but in the end could not resist changing into his new clothes early.
Tianmen Town, influenced by Dragon Burial Mound, received no snow, only rain. Yet beyond the town, the land was soon covered by a vast expanse of snow. Even the trees were hung with snowflakes, all clad in silver.
The next morning, Su Yun woke, dressed, and pushed open the door. A gust of cold wind rushed toward him, washing away the heat from his body.
Flower Fox and the other fox demons were nowhere to be found. Su Yun opened the brushwood gate and looked out. The ground of Tianmen Town was wet, and gloomy clouds floated overhead. But in the distance, snow stretched white and boundless, covering the mountains, the trees, and the roads alike.
Cooing birdcalls came from beyond the town. Su Yun saw several enormous birds, each more than half a person tall, standing in the trees. Not far beneath them, several foxes were hunting in the snow.
Flower Fox led them. He sat in the snow with his head tilted to one side, glancing around from time to time. Suddenly, he seemed to spot prey tunneling through the snow. Flower Fox sprang high into the air, head down and feet up, then plunged straight downward.
His head buried itself deep in the snow, leaving only his large tail exposed.
That tail still twitched restlessly twice.
Flower Fox crawled out of the snowbank with blood flowing from his nostrils. He had likely struck a rock beneath the snow, but there was now a field mouse in his mouth, one that had emerged to forage through the snow.
This was the favorite food of the foxes of Tianshiyuan.
Li Xiaofan, Hu Buping, and Qingqiu Yue copied him in the snow. Sometimes they got lucky and caught field mice. Other times, they simply smashed themselves until their noses bled profusely.
Su Yun watched the scene, and his heart was filled with peace.
Just then, he suddenly froze. "My eyes..."
After waking from one night's sleep, his eyes had regained their sight.
Within him, the furnace fire in the Great Furnace blazed fiercely. The flames were divided into six layers, the outermost layer a pure blue.
Without realizing it, he had cultivated Great Furnace Transformation: Qi Cultivation Chapter to the sixth level.
It was time for him to leave. Time to leave Tianmen Town.
Before you continue