Night deepened further. Most of the Lin Family estate had already sunk into silence, with only a few courtyards still lit, like isolated islands in a sea of darkness.
Yet within the dilapidated little courtyard, energy fluctuations completely unlike the outer world's tranquility filled the air—almost violently so!
Lin Chen sat cross-legged in the center of the courtyard, his body shrouded in a faint, visible white glow. This was not Qi Projection, but an anomaly caused by the excessive energy within him circulating too quickly and stirring up the surrounding Spiritual Qi!
On the ground before him lay a small pile of crystalline Low-grade Spirit Stones, like white jade, along with the exquisite Jade Bottle containing the "Qi Condensing Pill (Remnant)."
After a brief period of deliberation and preparation, he began another round of frenzied cultivation without the slightest hesitation!
His goal—break through to a higher realm! Accumulate the strongest possible power for tonight's "hunt"!
"Furnace! Open!"
With a thought from Lin Chen, the mysterious black iron fragment within his Dantian Sea of Qi—the Myriad Dao Furnace—once again erupted with deep, domineering radiance!
This time, its target was those Low-grade Spirit Stones containing pure Spiritual Qi!
Buzz!
An invisible yet incomparably powerful suction force instantly enveloped the pile of Spirit Stones on the ground!
The light on the surfaces of those crystal-clear Spirit Stones visibly dimmed! Strands of incomparably pure white spiritual energy, almost tangible, were forcibly extracted from the stones, turning into brilliant streams of light that poured madly into Lin Chen's body!
At the same time, the optimized Basic Qi Refining Art within Lin Chen began circulating madly at an unprecedented speed! The cultivation art guided the thin Spiritual Qi from the outside world, while the furnace directly extracted energy from the Spirit Stones that was a hundred, a thousand times purer than ordinary Spiritual Qi!
Two-pronged approach!
Rumble!!!
Lin Chen felt as though his body had become the center of a massive energy vortex! Boundless spiritual energy surged and scoured through his resilient, broad meridians like a roaring river!
His Dantian Sea of Qi was like a parched sponge struck by a torrential downpour, greedily absorbing and containing this pure energy! The Sea of Qi kept expanding, his total amount of true qi rapidly increased, and the quality of his true qi became more condensed and purer at an astonishing rate!
Having only just broken through to the Body Tempering Realm Fourth Layer Early Stage, his cultivation began climbing rapidly under the push of this overwhelming energy, without the slightest pause!
Fourth Layer Early Stage Peak!
Fourth Layer Mid-stage!
In less than half an hour!
Lin Chen's cultivation crossed another minor realm, steadily entering the Body Tempering Realm Fourth Layer Mid-stage!
And the rate of this advancement did not slow in the slightest!
That pile of Low-grade Spirit Stones on the ground was dwindling at a visible rate! One Spirit Stone after another dimmed, eventually turning into grayish-white powder stripped of all energy!
"Good! Such pure energy!" Lin Chen was ecstatic inwardly!
The effects of directly refining Spirit Stones truly far surpassed refining medicinal dregs and ordinary demonic beast flesh and blood! The energy within Spirit Stones was already pure, and after further purification and conversion by the Myriad Dao Furnace, it contained virtually no impurities and could be perfectly absorbed by him!
The feeling was like a man starved for three days and three nights suddenly feasting upon delicacies from mountain and sea! Every cell in his body rejoiced!
He could even feel his physical body slowly strengthening under the nourishment of such pure energy! Though it was not as direct as refining Vitality Essence, it still far surpassed ordinary cultivation!
"Continue!"
Lin Chen's gaze burned as he spared no effort in driving the furnace, continuing to devour Spirit Stone energy madly!
He had nearly five hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones on hand now, enough to sustain his extravagance for quite some time!
Time flew by in this extreme cultivation.
One hour... two hours...
When nearly two hundred of the Low-grade Spirit Stones before Lin Chen had been consumed, his cultivation finally touched a new bottleneck once more—
Body Tempering Realm Fourth Layer Peak!
He was only one step away from the Body Tempering Realm Fifth Layer!
Feeling the mighty power within him, several times stronger than before, Lin Chen's breathing unconsciously grew heavier.
In a single day, he had shot all the way from the Body Tempering Realm Triple Layer Early Stage to the Fourth Layer Peak!
If word of such cultivation speed got out, no one would dare believe it! It was simply a myth!
Yet Lin Chen was not satisfied!
His goal was not merely the Fourth Layer Peak! He wanted to charge into—the Body Tempering Realm Fifth Layer!
Once he entered the Fifth Layer, his true qi would undergo another qualitative transformation, and his strength would take a tremendous leap! At that time, let alone Lin Bao, even against an ordinary Body Tempering Realm Sixth Layer martial artist, he might not be without the power to fight!
This was of vital importance to his upcoming plans and to dealing with crises that might arise in the future!
But he could also clearly sense that charging from the Fourth Layer Peak into the Fifth Layer was far more difficult than his previous breakthroughs! That invisible realm barrier was as solid as a wall of bronze and iron! The energy supplied by refining Low-grade Spirit Stones alone seemed... somewhat insufficient!
His gaze fell upon the Jade Bottle that he had carefully kept to one side all this time—the Qi Condensing Pill (Remnant)!
This was his true trump card for charging into the Fifth Layer!
The Qi Condensing Pill was a second-tier medicinal pill! It was specifically used to assist Body Tempering Realm martial artists in breaking through bottlenecks and condensing true qi! The purity of its energy and the dominance of its Medicinal Power were far beyond what Low-grade Spirit Stones could compare with!
Even as mere remnants, its value was absolutely immeasurable!
Lin Bao had failed his breakthrough and injured his meridians precisely because he had been too eager for quick success and could not completely refine the pill's domineering Medicinal Power.
But Lin Chen was different!
He possessed the Myriad Dao Furnace!
No matter how domineering the Medicinal Power or how difficult the energy was to refine, before the furnace, it would become the tamest and purest nourishment!
"Let me see just how powerful the remnants of this second-tier medicinal pill truly are!" A trace of madness and anticipation flashed through Lin Chen's eyes!
He carefully opened the Jade Bottle. A rich, pungent smell carrying a strange medicinal fragrance instantly spread through the air! Inside the bottle was only half a bottle of dark-brown medicinal liquid, thick as syrup, still faintly emitting astonishing energy fluctuations!
Without the slightest hesitation, Lin Chen brought the Jade Bottle directly to his lips and swallowed the remaining half-bottle of Qi Condensing Pill liquid in one gulp!
Boom!!!!
The instant the medicinal liquid entered his stomach!
Lin Chen felt as though he had swallowed a blazing sun!
An indescribably scorching energy, violent to the extreme, erupted within his body like a volcanic explosion! It crazily battered his internal organs and spread through his limbs and bones!
Even with his body strengthened many times over, he felt waves of tearing pain! His skin instantly turned red, as though this energy were about to burst him apart!
"What domineering Medicinal Power!" Lin Chen was startled inwardly!
No wonder Lin Bao's breakthrough had failed! That initial eruption alone was enough to shatter the meridians of an ordinary Body Tempering Realm Fourth Layer martial artist and make him explode to death!
But Lin Chen was utterly fearless!
"Furnace! Refine it for me!!!" he roared inwardly!
Within his Dantian Sea of Qi, the Myriad Dao Furnace erupted with unprecedentedly brilliant black radiance! A terrifying suction force capable of swallowing heaven and earth burst forth, like a bottomless black hole, instantly wrenching in and devouring the violent Medicinal Power ravaging his body!
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—!!!
Within the furnace, invisible flames burned wildly! Under the furnace's terrifying power, the violent, domineering medicinal energy struggled and roared fiercely like a savage beast putting up a last stand! Yet in the end, it was still broken down, purified, and refined bit by bit!
The pill toxins and impurities produced by the failed refinement, along with the overly violent fire-attributed energy, were ruthlessly refined away and erased by the furnace!
In the end, all that remained were streams of incomparably pure, incomparably condensed pale-golden essence of Medicinal Power—like liquid gold!
The quality of this energy was even higher than the origin energy the furnace had released on its own before!
The next instant, this liquid-gold essence of Medicinal Power poured forth from the furnace like enlightenment pouring into his head, instantly merging into Lin Chen's torrent of true qi as it prepared to assault the bottleneck!
Rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble—!!!!
It was like equipping an army of thousands about to charge into battle with the sturdiest armor and the sharpest weapons!
Lin Chen's torrent of true qi, which had already reached its limit, underwent a qualitative transformation the instant it received the support of this essence of Medicinal Power! It became more condensed! More substantial! More... irresistible!
"Break for me—!!!!!!"
Lin Chen's eyes turned scarlet. With all his strength and will, he guided this unprecedented torrent of true qi, which gathered all his power, toward the indestructible Body Tempering Realm Fifth Layer barrier—launching his fiercest assault!
Boom!!!!!!
A supremely muffled explosion, seemingly from primordial antiquity, thundered through the depths of Lin Chen's soul!
That incomparably solid Body Tempering Realm Fifth Layer barrier, which seemed as though it could never be shaken, faced the terrifying impact formed from the furnace's power, the Spirit Stones' power, the medicinal pill's power, and all of Lin Chen's will—
At last, it was as though struck head-on by a divine hammer!
Crack, crack—boom!!!!
It shattered completely, turning into specks of light filling the sky!
Crash, crash, crash, crash—!!!!
Like a hundred rivers returning to the sea! Like ten thousand streams converging at their source!
Brand-new true qi—more vast, more majestic, more pure, and carrying a faint golden gleam—instantly filled Lin Chen's once-more expanded Dantian Sea of Qi!
At the center of his Sea of Qi, true qi spun at high speed, faintly condensing into an even more stable and solid—vortex core!
This was the mark of the Body Tempering Realm Fifth Layer! True qi transforming into a vortex!
A terrifying sensation of power, far surpassing the Body Tempering Realm Fourth Layer and so strong that even Lin Chen himself felt palpitations, instantly spread through his limbs and bones!
He could clearly feel that his strength, speed, defense, perception... had all undergone a qualitative leap!
It was as though a small stream had suddenly merged into a rushing river!
Body Tempering Realm Fifth Layer!
He had succeeded!!!
And this was not merely entering the Fifth Layer!
The Medicinal Power of the Qi Condensing Pill (Remnant) was simply too vast! Even after layer upon layer of purification by the furnace, it still contained unimaginable energy!
After the barrier was broken, the remaining essence of Medicinal Power continued pouring into his Dantian without end, driving his cultivation onward and upward!
Body Tempering Realm Fifth Layer Early Stage Peak!
Body Tempering Realm Fifth Layer Mid-stage!
Only after he had completely absorbed and refined the remaining Qi Condensing Pill's Medicinal Power did Lin Chen's cultivation finally stabilize at—Body Tempering Realm Fifth Layer Mid-stage!
He was now only one step away from the Body Tempering Realm Sixth Layer!
"Huu—"
Lin Chen slowly exhaled a long breath of turbid air carrying a faint golden glow and medicinal fragrance, then gradually opened his eyes.
Within his eyes, it seemed as though suns, moons, and stars revolved! Deep, bright, and filled with intimidating pressure!
Feeling the ocean-like vastness of true qi within him, feeling the terrifying power in every gesture that seemed capable of tearing apart the air, Lin Chen finally revealed a smile from the bottom of his heart, brimming with powerful confidence!
Body Tempering Realm Fifth Layer Mid-stage!
This was his true strength now!
With his current power, along with the heaven-defying trump card that was the Myriad Dao Furnace, even if he faced Lin Yan at the Body Tempering Realm Sixth Layer Peak, he would dare confront him head-on!
As for Lin Bao?
Heh heh, he was merely a clown leaping about on a stage! On the platform earlier, Lin Chen had used only seventy percent of his strength—and that was seventy percent of his disguised strength! If he went all out... Lin Bao probably could not even withstand a single finger of his!
"Very good! Excellent!" Lin Chen nodded in satisfaction.
This surge in strength filled him with even greater confidence in the coming "hunt"!
He glanced at the ground. Of the nearly five hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones he had originally possessed, fewer than a hundred remained! The Qi Condensing Pill (Remnant) had also been completely depleted.
For this breakthrough, he had nearly exhausted all his "spoils of war" and rewards!
But all of it was worth it!
Strength! It was the only true reliance in this world!
"The time is about right." Lin Chen looked at the sky beyond the window. It was not far from midnight, precisely the time when the night was deep and still—the perfect time to act!
He rose to his feet and stretched his limbs again, familiarizing himself with his greatly increased strength. This time, he no longer deliberately suppressed or disguised it, allowing the powerful aura of the Body Tempering Realm Fifth Layer Mid-stage to flow naturally.
On his own territory, there was no need to keep acting!
He put the remaining Spirit Stones and some miscellaneous items into his storage pouch, then wore the Green Light Soft Armor beneath his clothes and hid the sharp short blade in his boot. Though he was very confident in his current strength, there was never any harm in making more preparations.
Lastly, he carefully tucked the two packets of medicinal powder refined through special methods into his robe.
Everything was ready!
Lin Chen walked to the window and gazed toward Leopard Garden, where several points of lamplight still shone in the distance. Cold, excited light flickered in his eyes, like a top predator about to pounce upon its prey!
"Lin Bao... I'm coming for your 'treasure.'"
With a flash of his body, Lin Chen once again silently melted into the deep night like a ghost.
Before you continue