Dragon Elephant Prajna Skill

This bell stood over two meters tall. Its body was an antiquated gold, devoid of any patterns, and it looked as though it had been around for quite some years.

"Lord Shen, this is the bell." Wang Changshou pointed at the massive bell. "This thing is downright uncanny. It's frighteningly heavy. We sent four or five strong soldiers to move it, but they couldn't even make it budge."

Shen Che stepped forward and placed one hand on the bell.

"Up."

Under the dumbfounded gazes of Wang Changshou and the others, he effortlessly lifted the golden bell, which weighed more than three thousand jin, with a single hand.

Ignoring their shock, Shen Che laid the bell sideways on the ground.

He looked inside the bell's mouth.

The inner wall was not smooth.

It was densely engraved with tiny characters.

Shen Che froze after reading only the first few words.

Dragon Elephant Prajna Skill.

Those five words exploded through his mind like five bolts of thunder.

This thing actually existed?

The legendary supreme body-tempering method of the Buddhist Esoteric Sect.

It was said that upon reaching great mastery, one could possess the strength of thirteen dragons and elephants, overturn rivers and seas, and shake mountains with sheer force.

This cultivation technique was never passed down to outsiders. How had it been engraved inside a golden bell, only to fall into the hands of those bandits from Iron Furnace Stronghold?

Shen Che's thoughts raced.

He recalled what Nangong Xue had said.

A year ago, the three chiefs of Iron Furnace Stronghold had slaughtered a wealthy merchant household in Beiliang City.

This bell, along with this divine technique, had most likely been plundered from that merchant's home.

He had truly stepped in dog shit and struck gold.

Both his Golden Bell Shield and Iron Shirt had already broken past their limits and reached the peak of his current realm. He had been worrying over the lack of a follow-up body-tempering technique.

This Dragon Elephant Prajna Skill was like a pillow delivered just as he grew sleepy.

Shen Che did not waste another thought on it and said to Wang Changshou, "I'm taking this bell."

"Huh? Oh, yes, yes, yes! Please, take it, sir!"

How could Wang Changshou dare say another word? Never mind one bell—even if Shen Che wanted to empty the entire treasury, he would have to help with a smile.

Shen Che pressed the Demon Suppressing Token against the golden bell.

A faint gleam flashed, and the bell weighing over three thousand jin vanished into thin air.

Wang Changshou and the nearby Prefectural Guards nearly had their eyes pop out of their sockets.

An immortal's means—this had to be an immortal's means!

"I'll leave the rest to you."

Shen Che put away the Demon Suppressing Token, turned, and left without the slightest hesitation.

After dawn, rather than traveling with the main force of Prefectural Guards, he set out alone on the road back to Cangyun City.

Three days later.

Cangyun City, Demon Suppression Division.

Shen Che entered the mission hall and went straight to Yan Xiu's counter.

"Deacon Yan, I'm here to submit a mission."

He handed over his Demon Suppressing Token.

Yan Xiu accepted the token and gave it a habitual glance, preparing to verify the information.

But when he saw the mission details and completion time, his hand stopped.

"The Iron Furnace Stronghold mission... was completed?"

Yan Xiu looked up, his face full of disbelief.

It had only been a few days.

The round trip alone took six days, yet this kid had already uprooted the festering tumor that had plagued Ping'an County for years?

This efficiency was simply absurd.

After carefully verifying the corpses of the bandit chiefs stored in the Demon Suppressing Token and confirming that everything was correct, the look he gave Shen Che became complicated.

"Three hundred Contribution Points have been transferred into your Demon Suppressing Token."

Yan Xiu's voice was somewhat dry.

He had thought this mission would be enough to make Shen Che suffer, but the other man had dealt with it as easily as though he had gone out for a leisurely trip.

"Thank you."

Shen Che retrieved his Demon Suppressing Token and turned to leave.

He went directly to the Demon Suppression Division's treasury.

The treasury deacon was a sleepy old man. Shen Che handed over his Demon Suppressing Token and got straight to the point.

"I want to exchange for three Meridian Opening Pills."

One Meridian Opening Pill cost one hundred Contribution Points. It could assist martial artists in opening True Meridians and was hard currency in the eyes of True Meridian Realm martial artists.

The rewards from Shen Che's mission were just enough to buy three.

The old man took the Contribution Points, fetched three jade bottles from a medicine cabinet, and handed them to him.

Taking the pills, Shen Che returned to his residence and shut the door.

He sat down cross-legged and, without hesitation, swallowed all three Meridian Opening Pills in one gulp.

The pills entered his stomach and transformed into a gentle medicinal force that spread through his limbs and bones.

Shen Che immediately circulated his Horizontal Training True Qi, guiding the medicinal force toward the second main meridian in his body.

Opening meridians was originally a slow grind, dangerous and lengthy.

But he had a cheat.

"System, consume Time Value and accelerate the meridian nourishment."

[Consumed 200 Time Value. Acceleration begins...]

Under his control, a warm current surged through and nourished that brand-new meridian again and again at an utterly unreasonable speed.

A process that normally required months of painstaking work was compressed to the extreme beneath the power of time.

After an unknown amount of time, a muffled boom sounded from within Shen Che's body.

[Successfully opened the second True Meridian: Foot Shaoyang Gallbladder Meridian.]

A far more majestic force than before surged from the newly opened meridian and flowed throughout his body.

His bones, muscles, and fascia all crackled beneath the nourishment of that power, undergoing another round of strengthening.

Shen Che clenched his fist, feeling the explosive power within him.

The strength of one arm had skyrocketed by ten thousand jin, reaching a terrifying forty thousand jin!

He slowly exhaled a mouthful of stale air.

Opening his first True Meridian had forcibly cost him five hundred Time Value.

This time, with the help of three Meridian Opening Pills, he had used only two hundred points, greatly reducing the cost.

It was just that Meridian Opening Pills were too expensive, and Contribution Points were too difficult to earn.

It seemed he would need to take on more missions and kill more demons and monsters in the future.

After stabilizing his realm, Shen Che took the golden bell out of the Demon Suppressing Token.

He spent some time memorizing every word of the Dragon Elephant Prajna Skill's cultivation formula engraved on the bell's inner wall.

Only after studying it carefully did he understand why this divine technique was an Esoteric Sect secret art.

The threshold was simply too high.

The first step of cultivation required True Meridian Realm cultivation. One had to use one's own True Qi and a specific method to transform it into "Dragon Elephant Qi" within the body, then use that qi to temper the flesh.

That requirement alone eliminated ninety-nine percent of martial artists.

Second, its difficulty was outrageous.

According to the technique's description, an ordinary True Meridian Realm martial artist would need at least two to three years of arduous training to cultivate the first layer.

Every layer after that required twice as much time.

The second layer required four to five years, while the third required eight to ten.

As for the legendary completion of the thirteenth layer, theoretically, it was simply not something human effort could achieve.

No wonder Golden Bell Shield and Iron Shirt were so widely circulated, while Dragon Elephant Prajna Skill existed only in legends.

For ordinary people, these cultivation requirements were practically a dead end.

But Shen Che smiled.

What others saw as an impassable chasm was instead a broad road for him.

His body had long surpassed ordinary people's, his Horizontal Training True Qi was incomparably abundant, and opening True Meridians was far less difficult for him than for others.

The stronger the body and the denser the Horizontal Training True Qi, the easier it became to open True Meridians.

The more True Meridians he opened, the greater his total True Qi became; the more Dragon Elephant Qi he could transform, and the better the effect of tempering his body.

This was practically a perfect cycle tailored specifically for him.