Jade Bone Bottleneck, Diary, and Fierce Beasts

Li Xuan's words, to Xu Yan, felt like guidance from his Master on how to gain insight and break through his limitations.

"Capture the hidden spiritual energy around you, gain insight from every blade of grass and every tree, from heaven and earth, from nature..."

In a daze, Xu Yan seemed to grasp something.

"Thank you for your guidance, Master. Your disciple understands!"

Xu Yan said respectfully.

Seeing that he had fooled his naive disciple again, Li Xuan nodded with satisfaction.

For the next two days, Xu Yan didn't cultivate. Instead, he wandered around the small village, feeding chickens, planting vegetables, and sitting on a rock at night, gazing at the stars.

His mind became surprisingly tranquil.

Without the obsession of breaking through the Golden Bone bottleneck, without the obsession of cultivation, his mind felt as if it had shed its shell, and he felt completely relaxed.

At one moment, he even had a feeling of wonder at how marvelous the world was.

After three days like this, as Xu Yan was weeding and about to leave, he suddenly noticed an earthworm poking out of the soil, retracting back into it.

He then saw a small bug digging a hole in the dirt.

A flash of inspiration struck his mind, as if a spiritual opportunity had suddenly appeared.

"Nurture the true intent, let Blood Essence surge like a dragon... I understand!"

At this moment, Xu Yan felt he had achieved enlightenment. A flash of inspiration lit up his mind, and he instantly understood the profound meaning within the Cultivation Technique.

"Jade Bone, I will definitely be able to temper it!"

"Thank you for your guidance, Master. It allowed me to achieve enlightenment and capture the hidden spiritual energy around me, thus understanding the Cultivation Technique and how to break through the bottleneck!"

Xu Yan was extremely excited.

The next day, before dawn, Xu Yan began to cultivate.

When Li Xuan saw this, he was surprised. Had this naive disciple cheered up so quickly and decided to persevere?

As long as Xu Yan didn't realize he had been deceived.

Once the one-year period ended, he would immediately sever their master-disciple relationship, the deception would be over, and he would go to the Wu Kingdom to live a simple life!

In the future, he probably wouldn't see Xu Yan again.

Meanwhile, Xu Yan was channeling his Blood Essence into his bones, nurturing it within his bone marrow. Gradually, strand by strand, he seeped Blood Essence into his bones, nurturing it in the marrow.

After three days, Xu Yan felt a dull ache in his bones. Only then did he begin the tempering process.

As Xu Yan entered cultivation, he seemed to forget everything else. Only the profound spiritual energy between heaven and earth appeared in his mind.

Boom!

The Blood Essence in his bone marrow instantly roared like a great dragon, and his bone marrow surged and churned as if it had come alive.

At this moment, Xu Yan felt an indescribable pain throughout his entire skeleton.

It was itchy, stinging, and achy...

His bones would swell as if about to burst, then contract as if becoming smaller, even squeezing and solidifying the bone marrow.

With each expansion and contraction, more refined Blood Essence was born.

Xu Yan seemed to feel a mysterious charm being born within his bones.

The sensation at this moment was more painful and unbearable than during his first bone refinement.

Sweat dripped down continuously.

Xu Yan gritted his teeth and persevered until he could barely hold on, then he stopped his technique.

"Golden Bone, it's a little loose..."

Xu Yan discovered that his Golden Bone, which had reached its limit and could no longer be tempered, had now loosened and become a bit stronger.

"My insight was correct. Jade Bone is not far away!"

Exhilarated, Xu Yan cultivated even more diligently in the following days.

The pain he endured also became more intense.

Seven days later.

The originally golden bones actually faded.

Although the Golden Bone had faded, the strength of his bones had increased by more than thirty percent.

Half a month later, his bones returned to white, but they were more than twice as hard as the Golden Bone.

His Blood Essence was more refined and more powerful.

"I'm already this strong without even achieving Jade Bone. If I achieve Jade Bone, how powerful will I be? My Martial Dao foundation surpasses that of an Ancient Prodigy!"

Xu Yan was filled with excitement. Jade Bone was not far off.

Ten days later, Xu Yan's bones had already taken on a crystalline appearance, and he was only one step away from flawless Jade Bone.

However, at this final step, Xu Yan felt resistance once again.

It seemed he had hit a bottleneck and couldn't undergo any further Transformation.

With only the final step of Transformation left before he could truly temper Jade Bone, how could Xu Yan be willing to give up?

Therefore, over the next two days, he continuously tempered his body, but there was no progress. It seemed only by breaking through some kind of shackle could he complete this final step of Transformation.

Li Xuan had no idea that his foolish disciple was on the verge of tempering Jade Bone.

One day, with nothing better to do, he rummaged through some of the belongings left behind by the village elders, mostly books.

The villagers had come here to seek refuge, and some of them were literate. Books were left behind. Although there weren't many, they were the most treasured items in the village.

Slam!

A rolled-up cloth scroll fell to the ground. Li Xuan bent down to pick it up and found writing on it.

"Whose belongings are these? I don't think I've seen this before."

Out of curiosity, Li Xuan unrolled the cloth scroll.

The scroll was quite long. When spread out, he saw it was filled with writing, seemingly a diary?

"This is Da Niu's diary?"

Li Xuan looked astonished.

Da Niu, a rough fellow, actually wrote a diary?

"Da Niu died in the Evil Fiend Forest, but that tiger has been killed, so at least he got his revenge," Li Xuan mused inwardly.

Da Niu had been among the group that left the village back then, but he was the only one who returned.

Flipping through the scroll and reading Da Niu's diary, Li Xuan treated it as a way to pass the time and read some gossip.

"Da Niu actually wanted to marry eight wives. Quite ambitious, what a shame."

As he reached the end of the scroll, Li Xuan suddenly froze, his expression becoming serious.

The end of the scroll recorded Da Niu's solo departure from the village to go to the city.

He had encountered a Fierce Beast outside the Evil Fiend Forest!

"What Da Niu saw wasn't that tiger!"

The village had always spread rumors about a fierce tiger in the Evil Fiend Forest, and Li Xuan had subconsciously assumed there was only that one tiger.

In reality, besides that tiger, there was another Fierce Beast?

"That Fierce Beast was larger than the tiger, its mane like fire, its fangs nearly a foot long..."

Seeing Da Niu's description of the Fierce Beast in his diary, Li Xuan was shocked. This Fierce Beast was even more terrifying than the tiger.

Why would there be a Fierce Beast in the Evil Fiend Forest besides the tiger?

The tiger was the king of the forest.

How could it allow other Fierce Beasts to exist in its territory?

And how could such a powerful Fierce Beast allow a tiger to occupy its territory?

"The first time I heard about a Fierce Beast in the Evil Fiend Forest was from Da Niu. He mentioned the Fierce Beast more than once. When the few of us prepared to leave the village together, it was Da Niu who said there was a Fierce Beast and it was too dangerous. "It wasn't until that guy came back, claiming he had learned the Tiger Slaying Art, that we had the confidence to leave the village..."

Li Xuan thought of a possibility: could that tiger be a subordinate of the Fierce Beast in the Evil Fiend Forest?

"Did my foolish disciple encounter that Fierce Beast when he took people to hunt the tiger? It seems not. Could it be that the Fierce Beast hid because it saw so many people and didn't show itself?"

"No, I have to find my foolish disciple and ask him to take people to search the Evil Fiend Forest and make sure to kill that Fierce Beast!"

Li Xuan tidied up his things and went out to find Xu Yan.