Shen Che slowly opened his eyes and rose to his feet.
He could feel the true qi within him, which had become sluggish from striking at the bottleneck, now surging and circulating at an unprecedented speed.
Facing the empty space before him, he casually threw a punch.
He did not use the Vajra Zen Fist—just the most ordinary straight punch.
Where the edge of his fist passed, his sleeve was instantly dyed crimson, like red-hot branding iron.
A high, resounding dragon's roar erupted alongside the fist wind.
Boom!
The air ahead was forcibly blasted apart by the fist force, creating a vacuum.
Violent airwaves swept outward, rolling up the dust on the ground into an earthen dragon several zhang high. It roared as it slammed into the wall, making the entire room tremble.
Shen Che looked at his fist thoughtfully.
The Tiger Roar Golden Bell Shield specialized in defense. Its core lay in passive rebound force—using defense as offense.
The Dragon's Roar Iron Shirt specialized in offense. Its core lay in actively shattering armor, unstoppable against anything, and it even carried an effect that intimidated the mind.
One attacked and one defended; together, they complemented each other perfectly.
With 1,500 Time Value remaining, Shen Che decided to cultivate on his own with the Meridian Opening Pills first, then use Time Value once he encountered another bottleneck.
Having made up his mind, he took a bottle of Meridian Opening Pills from the wooden chest and swallowed them with his head tilted back.
The vast medicinal power exploded within his body like a mountain flood.
For an ordinary martial artist, a whole bottle of pills would have swollen their meridians until they burst inch by inch.
But Shen Che's meridians had long been tempered a thousand times over by the Dragon Elephant Prajna Skill and the Tiger Roar Golden Bell Shield. Their toughness was no longer what it had once been.
He guided that violent medicinal power, mixing it with his exceptionally high-quality golden true qi, and launched an assault on his sixth main meridian.
The first day.
The sixth true meridian was opened.
A new power surged from every limb and bone. His physical strength increased out of nowhere by ten thousand jin.
The second day.
The seventh true meridian was opened.
The fifth day.
The eighth true meridian was opened.
The tenth day.
The ninth true meridian was opened!
In merely ten days, he had broken through four meridians in succession.
If word of such cultivation speed spread, it would be enough to shake the entire martial world of the Great Jing Dynasty.
The medicinal power of the Meridian Opening Pills, combined with his transformed true qi—the result was astonishingly effective.
At this moment, nine true meridians had already been opened within him, and his true qi flowed like great rivers.
His physical strength had reached an utterly terrifying level as well.
Only the last three remained before the twelve true meridians of the True Meridian Realm were complete.
However, when he swallowed another bottle of Meridian Opening Pills and tried to open the tenth true meridian, he ran into trouble.
The medicinal power entered his body like a mud ox sinking into the sea.
The barrier around that main meridian was unimaginably solid. No matter how he attacked it, it merely trembled faintly.
His cultivation speed abruptly fell to rock bottom.
Shen Che stopped.
He understood that from the tenth true meridian onward, the difficulty of opening them would increase geometrically.
With ordinary slow and steady cultivation, it would take at least a year and a half to break through.
He could not wait that long.
"System."
Shen Che sank his consciousness into his mind.
"Modify the time required to open the tenth true meridian."
[Opening the tenth true meridian requires 200 Time Value. Consume?]
"Consume."
[Time Value -200] [Remaining Time Value: 1300]
The moment his words fell, a vast force arose from the void, driving his stagnant true qi forward and smashing it viciously into the barrier.
Crack.
With a crisp sound, the tenth true meridian shattered open.
Shen Che did not pause.
"Modify the time required to open the eleventh true meridian."
[Opening the eleventh true meridian requires 400 Time Value. Consume?]
"Consume!"
[Time Value -400] [Remaining Time Value: 900]
Another muffled boom rang out as the eleventh true meridian was opened.
"Continue."
"Modify the time required to open the twelfth true meridian."
[Opening the twelfth true meridian requires 800 Time Value. Consume?]
"Consume."
[Time Value -800] [Remaining Time Value: 100]
Bzzzz—
The instant the final main meridian was opened, Shen Che's body jolted violently.
The twelve main meridians formed a perfect circulating cycle within him, and the speed at which his true qi surged was several times faster than before.
A pearly white radiance seeped from the surface of his body. Twelve distinct meridian patterns appeared across his skin like twelve small white dragons, coiling endlessly around him.
Even the air in the room became thick and sluggish beneath that vast aura, brimming with oppressive force.
True Meridian Realm, twelve meridians complete!
Feeling the surging strength within him, Shen Che realized that the three newly opened true meridians had granted him a full increase of thirty thousand jin in strength.
His pure physical strength had now reached one hundred seventy thousand jin in a single arm.
That figure was already very close to Yan Hong's strength back when Yan Hong had stood at the Primal Force Peak.
The True Meridian Realm had reached its end. His next step was to strike at the Primordial Qi Realm.
Shen Che did not slacken in the slightest. He immediately guided the endlessly surging true qi within him, following the method for breaking into the Primordial Qi Realm as he began trying to transform the quality of his true qi and condense it into astral qi.
But he soon discovered that something was wrong.
The speed at which his Horizontal Training True Qi transformed into astral qi was so slow it was maddening.
It was like a pot of clear water and a pot of mercury. Both were heated and evaporated, but evaporating mercury was hundreds or thousands of times more difficult than evaporating water.
Because of the transformations brought by the Tiger Roar Golden Bell Shield and the Dragon's Roar Iron Shirt, the quality of his true qi far surpassed that of ordinary martial artists. It was pure and condensed to an absurd degree.
This meant that completing its qualitative transformation was more than ten times harder for him than for anyone else.
"Damn."
After analyzing the cause, Shen Che could not help cursing.
Was this what they called the troubles of the fortunate?
He estimated that at this snail-like speed, even with Time Value acceleration, his remaining 100 points would be nothing more than a drop in the ocean.
Unless he could obtain a Qi Condensing Pill, each one priced at a staggering two thousand Contribution Points in the Demon Suppression Division's treasury.
Only by combining the pill's medicinal power with Time Value modification would he have any hope of breaking through quickly.
He did not have enough Contribution Points, so that path was temporarily blocked.
Shen Che did not stubbornly bore into a dead end. With a turn of his thoughts, he immediately came up with another path.
The Dragon Elephant Prajna Skill!
The cultivation speed of this technique was closely tied to the depth of one's internal cultivation.
Now that his true meridians were complete and the quality of his Horizontal Training True Qi was frighteningly high, was this not the perfect foundation tailor-made for the Dragon Elephant Prajna Skill?
If the road to the Primordial Qi Realm was blocked, then he would first take the path of physical strength to its utmost limit!
Having made up his mind, Shen Che sat cross-legged once more.
Following the method of the Dragon Elephant Prajna Skill, he began slowly transforming the crimson-gold Horizontal Training True Qi within his body into Dragon Elephant Qi, tempering his tendons, bones, flesh, and skin again and again.
Time passed day by day.
Half a month later.
Inside the quiet chamber, Shen Che's body was like a red-hot furnace, radiating astonishing heat.
The Dragon Elephant Qi within him had already filled to its utmost limit.
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