"Eight."
The moment that number appeared on the light screen, time itself seemed to have been paused.
Outside the cultivation tower, thousands of students—whether freshmen or seniors, geniuses of the Earth Class or freakish talents of the Heaven Class—stood frozen in place as if they had all been struck by petrification. Their faces held all manner of exaggerated, comical expressions—eyes wide, mouths agape, lips twitching.
The wind swept across the square, stirring up a few fallen leaves, yet it could not carry away that deathly silence.
Eight Times Gravity!
This could no longer be summed up by the word "record." It represented the ultimate barrier of physical strength in the Body Refinement Realm! A legend that countless outer academy students had gazed up at their entire lives without ever being able to touch!
Before this, throughout the entire history of Cloud Creek Academy's outer academy, only three people had entered the Eight Times Gravity zone while still in the Body Refinement Realm! Those three had all become towering figures in the inner academy, capable of stirring up storms, idols and goals for every outer academy student.
Yet today, right before their eyes, an unknown freshman from the worst class, Yellow Class Nine, had become the fourth!
The shock was enough to overturn everything they thought they knew!
"Mad... This world... it must have gone mad..." The senior student responsible for registration slumped limply into his chair, muttering to himself as he completely lost the ability to think.
Meanwhile, in the top-tier cultivation room on the fifth floor of the cultivation tower.
"Pfft—"
Xiao Lang could no longer suppress the churning blood and qi within him, violently coughing up a mouthful of blood. He had not been injured by gravity, but by the extreme humiliation and fury attacking his heart!
He struggled to his feet and stared fixedly at his communication jade talisman, as though he wanted to devour the name upon it alive.
Lin Xiao!
That name was like a steel needle steeped in deadly poison, viciously piercing his proud self-respect.
He, Xiao Lang—the eldest legitimate son of Marquis Wuwei's Estate in the royal city, the publicly acknowledged number one of the outer academy—had actually been trampled beneath the feet of some bumpkin who had appeared out of nowhere, in the most direct and brutal way possible, before the entire academy!
He could already imagine it. From this day onward, he, Xiao Lang, would no longer be the sole legend. Whenever people discussed the Gravity Tower's records, another name would inevitably be mentioned beside his, perhaps even... surpassing him!
"Argh—!"
An uncontrollable rage forced a suppressed roar from his throat. He slammed a fist into the obsidian wall beside him, leaving a shallow fist mark in the hard surface!
"Lin Xiao... I don't care what kind of monster you are, and I don't care what secrets you have! I, Xiao Lang, swear here and now that unless I tear you into ten thousand pieces, I am not a man!"
The raging waves outside did not affect Lin Xiao, who stood at the center of the storm in the slightest.
Eight Times Gravity!
When that terrifying pressure, enough to crush an ordinary Body Refinement Sixth Level cultivator into minced flesh, descended upon him, Lin Xiao's body finally let out a groan beneath the unbearable burden.
His bones creaked as though they might snap at any moment. His muscles trembled violently, and fine beads of blood seeped from every inch of his skin, turning him into a bloodied figure in an instant. His internal organs felt as if they were clenched by an invisible hand, making it incomparably difficult to breathe.
Pain!
Unprecedented pain surged from every corner of his body, madly battering his nerves.
Yet amidst that ultimate agony, Lin Xiao's eyes shone with a frightening brightness! A nearly crazed smile even appeared on his face!
"This is the feeling! It's not enough! Far from enough!"
He could clearly sense that the deepest potential of his body, transformed by the Earth Core Body Tempering Milk, was being squeezed out bit by bit under this extreme pressure!
He did not simply use Spiritual Energy to resist like everyone else.
He released his control over his Spiritual Energy and allowed that horrifying gravity to act upon his physical body. At the same time, the profound meanings of the thousand-plus body-tempering techniques in his mind flashed through his sea of consciousness one by one like stars filling the heavens.
The toughness of the Indestructible Vajra Art, the dominance of the Dragon Elephant Prajna Power, the force-dispersing methods of the Hundred Battles Body Tempering Technique...
Countless methods of tempering the body converged, fused, and evolved within his mind.
He began trying to adjust the vibration frequency of his muscles by the tiniest margins; to control the flow of his blood with absolute precision; to guide the resonance of his bones with the greatest efficiency...
He treated his body as a piece of stubborn iron. And this Eight Times Gravity was the merciless forging hammer!
Thump! Thump! Thump!
His heart beat heavily and powerfully like a war drum. With every beat, it pumped blood brimming with immense vital essence into every corner of his body, repairing muscle fibers torn by pressure and nourishing bones that had begun to crack.
Gradually, a faint golden glow began to emerge beneath his jade-like skin.
His body was undergoing an essential transformation!
He felt as though his physical body was awakening, breaking free from the restraints of Spiritual Energy, about to become an independent and powerful existence!
"Physical Body Extreme Realm..."
A legendary term surfaced in his mind.
It was a supreme achievement that Body Refinement Realm cultivators could attain! Once one entered that realm, the physical body could form its own heaven and earth, imperishable and indestructible, possessing the might to shatter mountains and split peaks with every gesture!
"Just a little more... I still need one final bit of pressure!"
Fiery battle intent burned in Lin Xiao's eyes. He knew that he stood before a once-in-a-thousand-years threshold. Once he crossed it, he would leap through the dragon gate like a fish, and the sea and sky would stretch boundless before him!
Dragging legs that felt as though they had been filled with lead, he once again walked toward the control panel that represented the limit, one difficult but incomparably resolute step at a time.
He extended his blood-smeared, trembling hand.
Everyone outside the cultivation tower had already gone numb. They merely stared blankly at the light screen, as if witnessing the birth of a myth.
Under gazes that could no longer be described with words.
That number, "Eight," a monument in the history of the outer academy, flickered once.
It became—"Nine"!
At that moment, the entire world seemed to tremble.
Boom—!
The instant Nine Times Gravity descended, Lin Xiao could no longer remain standing. With a boom, he was crushed face-down onto the ground.
His consciousness instantly sank into darkness.
He felt as though his body had been completely ground apart, reduced to its most primitive particles.
Yet within that endless darkness and destruction, a point of golden light quietly bloomed from the deepest part of his body.
Then came a second point, a third point...
Billions upon billions of golden lights illuminated from every cell in his body, eventually gathering into a brilliant river of stars!
It was as though a new universe had been opened within him!
Rumble!
A soundless roar exploded within his sea of consciousness.
His long-stagnant realm bottleneck was as flimsy as paper before the newborn power erupting from within, and was shattered in an instant!
Body Refinement Sixth Level!
When Lin Xiao regained consciousness, he found that he was still lying on the ground. Yet the Nine Times Gravity, enough to crush even mountains, now felt upon his body like nothing more than a gentle... "caress."
He slowly rose from the ground.
As he stood, the dried blood scabs covering his body cracked and fell away inch by inch, revealing skin beneath as delicate as that of a newborn infant, yet brimming with explosive power.
A faint golden radiance slowly flowed beneath his skin.
He had succeeded.
Not only had he broken through to the Body Refinement Sixth Level, but he had also stepped halfway into the legendary Physical Body Extreme Realm!
He slowly walked out of the cultivation room.
When he pushed open the heavy refined-iron door, the glaring sunlight in the corridor made him narrow his eyes slightly.
Outside the cultivation tower, when everyone saw the door to Profound Room Thirteen open and that figure emerge, the entire square erupted into an earth-shaking uproar!
"He's out! He's out!" "He lasted... a quarter of an hour under Nine Times Gravity! My heavens!" "A new record! A new record worthy of being recorded in the academy's history!"
Lin Xiao ignored the frenzied cries. He merely walked calmly to the registration desk.
The senior student had long since been waiting there respectfully. Looking at Lin Xiao as if he were a god, he tremblingly returned Lin Xiao's jade token with both hands.
"Lin... Senior Lin... Y-your reward... has already been fully deposited into your jade token..."
Lin Xiao accepted the jade token and swept it with his divine sense. The number representing merit points had become an astronomical figure that even made him click his tongue—fifteen thousand points!
He merely nodded, then turned and left.
Wherever he passed, the crowd automatically parted like water, opening a path for him. Every gaze was filled with awe and fervor.
At the entrance of the cultivation tower, he saw Shi Lei and Su Yue, who had been waiting there for some time, their faces flushed red with excitement.
At the stairway leading to the fifth floor, he also saw that figure with a face as dark as water and eyes filled with boundless killing intent.
Xiao Lang.
Their gazes met in midair.
There were no words, no provocations.
Yet invisible lightning seemed to crackle through the air.
It was the omen of a fated confrontation.
Lin Xiao merely looked at him calmly once before withdrawing his gaze, then vanished into the crowd together with Shi Lei and Su Yue.
Before you continue