He Changsong nodded in reply. "Yes, you're right."
"When the time comes, your master will certainly teach you a proper lesson..."
Meanwhile, Gu Chen had long since left the ruined temple and headed toward a nearby forest.
According to Gu Chen's memories, he only needed to keep walking in this direction to reach the Lingxu Secret Realm.
To be honest, Gu Chen truly missed his previous life back then.
With merely a stomp of his foot, he could cross mountains and rivers.
With nothing more than the slightest stir of a thought, he could span seas and turn fields.
Yet now, he actually had to rely on his own two legs.
Step by step, walking all the way to the Lingxu Secret Realm!
"At the Body Tempering Realm Tenth Level, I still can't walk through the air."
"But if I break through to the Innate Realm, I'll save myself a lot of trouble with my legs."
However, Gu Chen had no intention of breaking through to the Innate Realm in this place.
As he had said before, cultivation was like building a house. The foundation was important, but the building materials were just as important.
If Gu Chen absorbed spiritual energy in this forest and broke through to the Innate Realm,
it would work in principle, but the spiritual energy here was not pure enough, nor was its concentration high enough.
It would be like building a house with the most ordinary bricks and tiles, or even thatch and mud.
It might look decent, but in reality, it would crumble at the first blow.
But if he went to the Lingxu Secret Realm and raised his Cultivation Level with the aid of treasures,
it would be like forging an indestructible divine palace from refined steel and pure iron—utterly impregnable!
What was more, this was a breakthrough from the Body Tempering Realm to the Innate Realm, so Gu Chen had to take it even more seriously.
Fortunately, patience was what Gu Chen lacked least. Who knew how much time passed?
It was only when the sun was about to set once more that Gu Chen finally reached the depths of the forest.
Lush, towering trees rose from the ground here, making the already thinning sunlight even scarcer.
The surroundings were steeped in gloomy darkness, as though he had fallen into a bizarre world of nothing but black and white.
"The Lingxu Secret Realm should be nearby."
Gu Chen muttered to himself, unable to stop his memories from resurfacing.
In his previous life, he had come here with Gu Youwei.
Back then, Gu Youwei had kept complaining about why they had come to such a gloomy, damp place.
But this time, Gu Youwei was no longer by his side, chattering away nonstop.
At that thought, a ripple of emotion appeared in Gu Chen's eyes.
Of course, it was not because he had begun to miss Gu Youwei.
He simply felt that without Gu Youwei here, he had indeed saved himself quite a bit of trouble.
With that thought, Gu Chen's mind instantly returned to reality.
He stared intently into the darkness before him, his hands beginning to search over the surrounding trees.
Gu Chen frowned tightly, looking as though his mind was weighed down with worry.
After searching the area for quite some time, Gu Chen could not help muttering to himself.
"Strange, I remember it being around here."
"Where was the mechanism that opened the Lingxu Secret Realm?"
Gu Chen scratched his head, feeling a little troubled.
But thinking about it carefully, it made sense. Even in his previous life, he had only come to the Lingxu Secret Realm at the very beginning.
Now that so much time had passed, it was only natural that he could not remember it clearly.
"Ah, I remember now..."
Gu Chen spoke to himself as he suddenly recalled what had happened in his previous life.
At that time, he and Gu Youwei had also been searching for the entrance mechanism to the Lingxu Secret Realm.
Then a wild boar accidentally met their eyes, and in the next instant, it charged straight at them.
Fortunately, Gu Chen had immediately picked Gu Youwei up, and the boar crashed headlong into a large tree beside them.
By a stroke of blind luck, they had found the mechanism for the Lingxu Secret Realm.
Following the route in his memories, Gu Chen fixed his gaze on a crooked-necked tree not far away.
However, just as Gu Chen was about to go over and activate the mechanism,
he suddenly sensed an extremely strange energy fluctuation appear around him!
One had to know that Gu Chen was now at the Body Tempering Realm Tenth Level.
As a cultivator only one step away from entering the Innate Realm,
he could already clearly sense the changes in the internal force and energy around him.
What was more, Gu Chen possessed the combat experience of his previous life, making him exceptionally vigilant.
At that moment, a thought suddenly flashed through Gu Chen's mind.
Someone's here!
The instant that thought appeared, Gu Chen instinctively dodged to the side.
The next second, a longsword radiating a cold gleam appeared before Gu Chen!
The sword had come within a hair's breadth of piercing straight through Gu Chen's throat.
Of course, it was not because the other party's swordsmanship was particularly exquisite that it had missed by only a little.
The main reason was that Gu Chen knew full well that as long as he avoided it by that tiny margin, he would not be injured.
In an instant, the longsword's edge swept sideways and slashed toward Jiang Feng once again.
Ever since breaking through to the Body Tempering Realm Tenth Level, Gu Chen had not properly stretched his limbs.
Now that someone had conveniently come knocking, Gu Chen could take the chance to loosen up.
Whoosh!
Yet Gu Chen vanished from where he stood in an instant!
It was as though a complete image had suddenly lost a frame—Gu Chen disappeared into thin air.
The black-clad swordswoman froze for a moment. Before she could react, Gu Chen had already appeared behind her.
The instant she sensed Gu Chen's presence, the black-clad swordswoman hurriedly twisted her blade around and stabbed toward him.
This strike carried the force of thunder, whipping the surrounding wind into a frenzy and making even century-old trees creak and groan!
With a single glance, Gu Chen knew that this person's Cultivation Level was at least at the Third Level of Innate Realm.
Moreover, with the enhancement of that sword cultivator's treasure, her Cultivation Level had even reached the Fifth Level of Innate Realm.
But in Gu Chen's eyes, this was only a tiny bit more advanced than children playing house.
One had to know that although Gu Chen's Cultivation Level was only at the Body Tempering Realm Tenth Level,
his cultivation foundation was exceptionally solid.
If other people's cultivation foundations were brick-and-tile houses,
then Gu Chen's cultivation foundation was already a diamond rock as solid as a fortified city!
If such cultivation were unleashed, it could even possess the power of the Sixth Level of Innate Realm!
The sword tip was just about to pierce straight through Gu Chen's brow.
Yet Gu Chen merely raised his hand lightly and caught the sword edge between just two fingers!
At that moment, the overwhelming force of thunder carried by the longsword instantly dispersed.
The raging wind around them vanished as though it had never existed.
The surroundings fell into a deathly silence, and even the black-clad swordswoman's expression froze on her face!
"H-How is this possible..."
The black-clad swordswoman's pupils suddenly shrank. She had never expected Gu Chen to catch her sword so effortlessly!
"Even if you were reborn, you shouldn't be this weak, right?"
"Could it be that all the sword techniques and cultivation arts you trained in during your last life ended up in a dog's belly?"
Before you continue