True Meridian Realm

Shen Che stood rooted to the spot, feeling the warm yet tyrannical current within his body. His entire being went numb.

Everything he knew about martial arts churned over and over in his mind before finally being ground to dust.

Cultivate a breath within, temper sinews, bones, and skin without.

This was an iron law every martial artist had drilled into them by their master, tapping their forehead, on the very first day they began.

Yet he had somehow cultivated a breath from his sinews, bones, and skin.

What was this supposed to be?

Was the end of External Martial Arts internal cultivation?

He tried to circulate the newly born qi within him.

The moment the thought arose, that qi responded like an arm obeying a hand.

It was nothing like the soft, enduring inner qi described in the manuals. Instead, it brimmed with explosive power—wild, violent, like a beast caged within his meridians.

Horizontal Training True Qi.

Shen Che gave this unorthodox power a name.

With another thought, the Horizontal Training True Qi flowed through his meridians and spread throughout his entire body.

"Phew—"

An invisible wave of qi rippled outward from him. His black robe billowed without wind, swelling fiercely.

A faint dark-golden sheen surfaced over his skin, entirely different from when he activated the Golden Bell Shield.

It was a texture that shone from within, as if his entire body had become a humanoid Magic Tool.

He casually threw a punch into the air.

He did not use any power of qi and blood, merely circulating the Horizontal Training True Qi.

His fist tore through the air, producing a piercing shriek.

The fist wind rubbed violently against the air, even bursting into tiny scattered sparks.

Holy shit.

Even Shen Che gave a start.

Was this still human?

The emergence of this Horizontal Training True Qi had raised his strength and physical toughness to another inconceivable level.

A thought began breeding wildly in his mind.

Now that he had true qi, could he... open up true meridians?

Stepping into the True Meridian Realm required two prerequisites.

First, the physical body had to be strong enough to withstand the pain and impact of true qi tempering the meridians during their opening.

Second, one needed true qi within the body, the foundation for opening and nurturing the meridians.

Shen Che lowered his head and looked at his fist.

Physical strength?

The fourteenth level of Golden Bell Shield, the eleventh level of Iron Shirt—both top-tier External Martial Arts had broken past their limits.

If he claimed second place, no one would dare claim first.

True qi?

He did not know where it had come from, but he had it now.

Everything was ready.

He took a deep breath and suppressed his surging emotions.

Let's do it!

Shen Che sat cross-legged, palms, soles, and crown facing heaven, and sank his consciousness into his body.

He guided that wild Horizontal Training True Qi, cautiously wrapping it around the first of the twelve primary meridians of the human body—the Hand Taiyin Lung Meridian.

The instant the true qi touched the meridian, agonizing pain struck him.

His meridians were countless times tougher than those of ordinary martial artists, yet under the impact of this Horizontal Training True Qi, he still felt intense stabbing pain.

How was this nurturing? It was clearly like scraping hard with a whetstone!

At this pace, even with the slow grind of water wearing down stone, he would not succeed in less than a year and a half.

Too slow.

"System."

Shen Che called out in his heart.

"Consume Time Value and accelerate the opening of my true meridian!"

[Detected that the host is tempering meridians. Time Value may be consumed to accelerate the process.]

[Accelerating...]

[Time Value consumed: 100 points.]

[Time Value consumed: 200 points.]

[...]

The Time Value on the panel rapidly drained at a rate visible to the naked eye.

He originally had 500 points left.

In the blink of an eye, it fell to zero.

And at the very moment his Time Value was completely exhausted—

Within Shen Che's body, it was as if an invisible shackle had been violently shattered!

The Hand Taiyin Lung Meridian, which had been repeatedly scoured and tempered by the Horizontal Training True Qi, suddenly bloomed with dazzling radiance. Its formerly fragile meridian walls underwent a rebirth-like transformation, becoming tough and broad.

The first true meridian had been successfully opened!

A force far purer and more majestic than before flowed back from the newly opened true meridian, instantly spreading through his limbs and bones.

A dense series of crackling pops erupted from Shen Che's bones. Every pore on his body opened, greedily absorbing that power.

It felt as though he were soaking in a hot spring, warm and comfortable enough that he nearly moaned aloud.

He had officially stepped into the realm countless martial artists dreamed of.

The True Meridian Realm!

Shen Che slowly rose to his feet and clenched his fist.

An unprecedented feeling of power filled his heart.

He could clearly sense that the power within his body had undergone a qualitative leap.

According to the records of the Demon Suppressing Prison, when ordinary martial artists entered the True Meridian Realm, every true meridian they opened would grant them roughly a thousand jin of tremendous strength.

But Shen Che felt that the growth he had experienced in that instant was absolutely far greater than a thousand jin.

He walked over to the stone lock in the courtyard.

It was the heaviest one he usually used to train his basic strength, weighing a full ten thousand jin.

Previously, although he could lift it one-handed with ease, he could still feel its weight.

But now...

Shen Che extended one hand and lightly pinched with two fingers.

The ten-thousand-jin stone lock was lifted lightly by two fingers, as though he had picked up a small pebble.

After opening the first true meridian, the strength of one of his arms had surged by a full ten thousand jin!

It shot directly from twenty thousand jin to thirty thousand jin!

Ten times that of others!

Was this the true meridian opened by Horizontal Training True Qi?

It was simply absurd.

After the intense excitement passed, Shen Che calmed down and realized there was also a serious problem.

He opened the system panel.

[Host: Shen Che]

[Time Value: 0]

[Techniques:]

[Black Tiger Saber Technique (Level 6) (Cannot be upgraded for now)]

[Golden Bell Shield (Level 14) (Cannot be upgraded for now)]

[Iron Shirt (Level 11) (Cannot be upgraded for now)]

His Time Value was gone.

Opening the first true meridian had used up all 500 Time Value points he had painstakingly saved.

What about the second one?

Given the way the difficulty kept escalating, would it take a thousand points? Two thousand for the third?

Opening all twelve true meridians would require an astronomical number.

If he relied only on his current method of going to the Demon Suppressing Prison to collect corpses, who knew when in the Year of the Monkey and Month of the Horse he would ever gather enough.

He had to think of another way.

Shen Che's mind spun rapidly, and he soon sorted out two paths.

First, continue strengthening his physical body.

The root of his Horizontal Training True Qi lay in his monstrous physical body.

The stronger his body became, the more abundant the Horizontal Training True Qi it produced would be, and the higher its quality would become.

Using stronger true qi to nurture his meridians would naturally improve efficiency considerably, perhaps reducing the Time Value consumed.

Second, make use of external resources.

He recalled the "Meridian Opening Pill" Yan Xiu had mentioned before.

That kind of pill, specifically used to assist breakthroughs into the True Meridian Realm, would surely greatly shorten the time needed to temper the meridians.

Meridian Opening Pills required Contribution Points from the Demon Suppressing Prison to exchange for.

Contribution Points, meanwhile, had to be earned by completing missions or slaying demons and monsters.

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