Heading to the Inner Courtyard

Staring at the fighting skill scroll in his hand, Xiao Yang felt an inexplicable fury surge within him.

"Fine, fine, fine. So this is how you Ancient Eight Clans want to play? Just you wait!

"If Soul Emperor could wipe out the Stone, Spirit, and Medicine Clans, then what, I, Xiao, can't wipe out your Lei Clan?

"Damn it, this time, even if your Dou Di ancestor came back to life, he still wouldn't be able to save the Lei Clan! I, Xiao Yang, said so!"

After leaving the Book Collection Pavilion, Xiao Yang and the others returned to the Outer Courtyard. In another two days, they would be heading to the Inner Courtyard.

Taking advantage of these final two days of rest, Xiao Yang read through the Yuan Magnetic Xuan Gang Overlord Body to familiarize himself with the requirements for cultivating this fighting skill.

Xiao Yang had initially thought it was a fighting skill that required earth-attributed Dou Qi to cultivate, and he had intended to make it part of the Xiao Family's foundation. Yet he unexpectedly discovered that this fighting skill was even more domineering than he had imagined.

Once mastered, this fighting skill could, much like the Ice River Valley Master's artificially created Woeful Poison Body, grant its cultivator an acquired earth-attributed constitution... No, more accurately, it should be called a terrestrial-attributed constitution.

No wonder Xiao Yang had vaguely felt, when he first obtained this fighting skill, that it would be of tremendous help to him.

The Vajra Glazed Body and Great Sun Glazed Art, this set of Heaven-Tier cultivation technique and fighting skill, held an extremely lofty concept: using Great Sun True Fire to forge a glazed golden body. It truly fit that saying—only when my fate is in my own hands can I plant a golden lotus within fire!

Yet metal and fire clashed. Using raging fire to refine true gold, the agony involved went without saying.

But now, if he cultivated the Yuan Magnetic Xuan Gang Overlord Body and artificially acquired an earth-attributed constitution, then fire would produce earth, and earth would produce metal. The original mutual restraint between two attributes would become the mutual generation of three attributes, weakening this flaw of the Vajra Glazed Body.

However, since Xiao Yang himself did not possess an earth-attributed constitution, he needed the aid of a pill called the Profound Origin Later Earth Pill.

To refine this pill required Vajra Bodhi, Profound Yellow Earth Spirit Ginseng, Centennial Qi Gathering Grass, and an earth-attributed Magic Core of at least Rank 6!

In other words, this was a fucking Sixth-Grade Pill!

And one pill could sustain the cultivation effect for three months. To master this fighting skill, he would need at least a year and a half!

That meant Xiao Yang needed to prepare no fewer than four or five Sixth-Grade Pills. It truly deserved to be called an Earth-Rank Fighting Skill—it was absurdly expensive!

If Xiao Yang had not obtained the treasure left behind by that Eighth-Grade Alchemist who created the Life Devouring Pill, there was simply no way he could cultivate this fighting skill.

To put it bluntly, even Xun Er, who had yet to return to the Gu Clan, could not produce five Sixth-Grade Pills on such short notice.

However, the scroll recording the fighting skill also stated that if one could find a Yuan Magnetic Earth Eye, the power of the pills could be dispensed with.

The Yuan Magnetic Xuan Gang Overlord Body absorbed the vital energy of the earth veins to nourish the body, used the power of earth as its foundation, and protected the body with a Yuan Magnetic Force Barrier. Impervious to all methods, it was truly wondrous and extraordinary.

Xiao Yang closed the scroll and rubbed his brow with a headache. It seemed he could only follow the old path his brother had taken in the original story and go win over that gluttonous dragon who was basically a human-shaped treasure detector.

Two days later, Xiao Yang and fifty others gathered in the plaza. Hu Qian, the Principal of the Outer Courtyard, smiled and said, "The Inner Courtyard is the core of Jia Nan Academy. Due to its secrecy, most Outer Courtyard students, including the instructors, do not know its precise location. Therefore, we will be taking you somewhere first."

As he spoke, ten black shadows swept through the azure sky. Moments later, the shadows gradually grew larger, revealing themselves to be ten enormous Griffins.

The ten Griffins cast massive shadows as they passed over the academy, finally stopping above where Xiao Yang and the others stood. As their wings beat, violent winds surged forth, nearly knocking some of the students below off their feet.

Hu Qian waved at the Griffins in the sky, and the shadows descended. Amid the howling wind, the ten Griffins landed some distance away in the open space. Looking closer, everyone found that each Griffin had two people on its back controlling it.

"Alright, the time has come. Students, board them in groups of five."

Seeing the Griffins land, Hu Qian pointed toward them and smiled.

With a leap, Xiao Yang jumped onto a Griffin's back and found himself a comfortable chair to sit in.

Xiao Yang was the sort of person who would never stand if he could sit, so he naturally had no intention of showing off by standing on the Griffin's slick back.

Hu Qian and the several elderly men beside him swept their gazes across the clearing. Once they saw that everyone had boarded the Griffins, they exchanged looks and nodded slightly. Hu Qian waved his hand, and he and the three old men flashed into the air. With a tremor of their shoulders, four pairs of dazzling Dou Qi wings extended from their backs. Their wings beat gently as they hovered in midair before the envious eyes of the crowd below.

"We will personally escort you along the way." Looking down at the clearing below, Hu Qian smiled and waved his hand. The people controlling the Griffins below let out whistles, and at once, the Griffins beat their wings fiercely. Their massive bodies slowly rose into the air, accompanied by the shadows on the ground shrinking ever smaller.

"Xiao Yang, do your best! Remember, if you perform well in the Inner Courtyard, you can earn leave!"

As the Griffins rose into the sky, Instructor Ruo Lin's voice suddenly rang out from below.

At that moment, Xue Ni and the other Senior Sisters who were usually closest to him stood by her side, looking up at the Griffins as they flew higher and higher. When they saw Xiao Yang lower his head to look at them, they smiled and waved at him as well.

Xiao Yang chuckled softly, pressed his right hand to his lips, then waved at them.

Seeing this, Instructor Ruo Lin could not help but laugh and scold, "You little rascal, acting all grown-up."

The other female students immediately began discussing who exactly Xiao Yang's kiss had been meant for.

Beneath the azure sky, ten enormous Griffins flapped their wings and flew toward the academy's seemingly endless Back Mountain.

Outside the Griffins' formation, Hu Qian and the three elderly men positioned themselves at its four corners, surrounding the entire group. Powerful Dou Qi emerged around their bodies, and no matter how fiercely the wind raged, it could not move them in the slightest.

The vast forest sea was filled with all manner of magical beasts. Every so often, magical beasts radiating savage auras would burst from the forest and roar at the Griffin formation in the sky. Occasionally, flying magical beasts would even pursue them, but whenever they came within a hundred meters of the formation, the formidable aura pouring out from Hu Qian and the other four terrified them into retreat.

After more than half an hour, the Griffin formation finally began to slow down, coming to a stop above a bottomless mountain ravine within the vast forest sea.