Li Xuan's words sounded to Xu Yan like his master's guidance: how to comprehend, and how to break through the shackles.
"Capture the hidden sparks of inspiration around you, comprehend every blade of grass and tree, comprehend heaven, earth, and nature..."
In a daze, Xu Yan seemed to have gained some insight.
"Thank you for your guidance, Master. Your disciple understands!"
Xu Yan spoke respectfully.
Seeing that he had fooled his foolish disciple once again, Li Xuan nodded in satisfaction.
Over the next two days, Xu Yan did not cultivate. Instead, he wandered around the little village, feeding the chickens, planting vegetables, and sitting on a rock at night as he gazed at the stars overhead.
His mind was strangely tranquil.
Without his obsession with breaking through the Golden Bone shackles, without his obsession with cultivation, his mind seemed to have set down its burdens, and his whole person relaxed.
At one moment, he even gained the faint insight that heaven and earth were truly wondrous.
Three days passed like this. After Xu Yan finished weeding and was about to leave, he suddenly noticed an earthworm poking out of the soil and shrinking back into it.
Then he saw a small insect digging a hole in the earth.
A flash of inspiration struck him, as though a spark of insight had suddenly appeared.
"Cultivate true intent, Vital Energy like a dragon... I understand!"
At that moment, Xu Yan felt as if he had achieved sudden enlightenment. A flash of inspiration appeared in his mind, and he instantly grasped the profound meaning within the cultivation formula.
"I will definitely temper the Jade Bone!"
"Thanks to Master's guidance, I was able to achieve sudden enlightenment, capture the hidden sparks of inspiration around me, and thereby understand the cultivation formula and how to break through the bottleneck!"
Xu Yan was utterly exhilarated.
The next day, before dawn, Xu Yan began cultivating.
Li Xuan was startled when he saw this. Had his foolish disciple really recovered so quickly and persevered once more?
As long as Xu Yan did not realize that he had been deceived, everything was fine.
Once the year was over, he would immediately sever their master-disciple relationship, bring the con to an end, and go to Wu Kingdom to live a quiet little life!
Afterward, he probably would never see Xu Yan again.
At that moment, Xu Yan was nurturing Vital Energy into his bones, nourishing it within his bone marrow. Wisps of Vital Energy slowly seeped into his bones, continuously nourishing the marrow.
After three days, Xu Yan sensed a kind of soreness and swelling in his bones. Only then did he begin tempering them.
Once Xu Yan entered cultivation, he seemed to forget everything. Only the wondrous sparks of inspiration between heaven and earth surfaced in his heart.
Rumble!
The Vital Energy in his bone marrow roared like a giant dragon in an instant, while the marrow surged and raced as though it had come alive.
At that moment, Xu Yan felt an indescribable pain throughout his bones.
Numbness, itching, stinging pain, soreness, and swelling...
The bones throughout his body swelled one moment, as if they were about to explode, then contracted the next, as though they had become tiny. Even the bone marrow was compressed and condensed.
Between each expansion and contraction, purer Vital Energy was born.
Xu Yan seemed to sense an inexplicable resonance emerging within his bones.
What he felt now was even more painful and unbearable than when he had first refined his bones.
Sweat dripped continuously.
Xu Yan gritted his teeth and endured. Only when he was almost unable to hold on did he finally stop his cultivation.
"The Golden Bone has loosened a little..."
Xu Yan discovered that the Golden Bone, which had originally reached its limit and could no longer be tempered, had now loosened and grown slightly stronger.
"My insight was correct. The Jade Bone is within reach!"
Deeply invigorated, Xu Yan cultivated even more fiercely over the following days.
The pain he endured also grew more intense.
Seven days later.
The originally resplendent golden bones had actually faded.
Although the Golden Bone had grown paler, the strength of his bones had instead increased by more than thirty percent.
Half a month later, the bones throughout his body had turned white again, yet they were more than twice as hard as the Golden Bone.
His Vital Energy had become purer and more powerful.
"I haven't even formed the Jade Bone yet, and I'm already this powerful. If I form the Jade Bone, just how powerful will I become? My martial foundation surpasses that of an Ancient Prodigy!"
Xu Yan was immensely excited. The Jade Bone was already within reach.
Ten days later, Xu Yan's bones had developed a crystalline sheen. He was only one final step away from flawless Jade Bone.
However, at this final step, Xu Yan once again felt resistance.
It was as if he had encountered a bottleneck and could no longer continue transforming.
He was only one final transformation away from truly tempering the Jade Bone. How could Xu Yan possibly resign himself to that?
Thus, over the next two days, he tempered his bones without stop, yet made no progress at all. It seemed that only by breaking through some kind of shackle could he complete this final transformation.
Li Xuan had no idea that his foolish disciple was already close to tempering the Jade Bone.
With nothing to do that day, he dug out some of the village elders' belongings, most of them books and the like.
The people in the village had come here to escape disaster. Some of them had been literate, leaving behind a few books. Though there were not many, they were still the most treasured possessions in the entire village.
Smack!
A rolled-up cloth scroll fell to the ground. Li Xuan bent down to pick it up and discovered writing on it.
"Whose belongings are these? I don't think I've seen this before."
Curious, Li Xuan opened the cloth scroll.
The scroll was rather long. Once spread open, it revealed lines upon lines of writing. It seemed to be a diary?
"This is Da Niu's diary?"
Li Xuan's face filled with astonishment.
Da Niu was a rough, uncultured man, yet he had actually kept a diary?
"Da Niu died in Evil Fiend Forest, but that tiger has already been killed. At least he's been avenged."
Li Xuan sighed inwardly.
Back then, Da Niu had been among those who left the village. In the end, he was the only one who managed to flee back.
Flipping through the cloth 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. What ambition! What a pity."
When he flipped to the end of the cloth scroll, Li Xuan suddenly froze, and his expression grew solemn.
The final part of the cloth scroll recorded how Da Niu had once left the village alone, intending to go to the city.
Outside Evil Fiend Forest, he had seen a Fierce Beast!
"What Da Niu saw wasn't that tiger!"
The village had always spread word that Evil Fiend Forest contained a ferocious tiger Fierce Beast. Li Xuan had instinctively assumed that there was only that one tiger in Evil Fiend Forest.
In reality, besides that tiger, there was another Fierce Beast?
"That Fierce Beast was larger than the tiger, with a fiery mane and fangs a foot long..."
After reading Da Niu's description of the Fierce Beast in his diary, Li Xuan was utterly shocked. This Fierce Beast was even more terrifying than the tiger.
Why would there be a Fierce Beast in Evil Fiend Forest besides the tiger?
The tiger was the king of the forest.
How could it allow another Fierce Beast to exist within its territory?
And how could such a powerful Fierce Beast allow a tiger to occupy its territory?
"This is the first time I heard that there was a Fierce Beast in Evil Fiend Forest. I heard it from Da Niu. He mentioned the Fierce Beast more than once. Back then, when several of us were preparing to leave the village together, it was Da Niu who said there was a Fierce Beast and that it was too dangerous.
"Only after that fellow returned, claiming to have learned the Tiger Slaying Art, did we gain the confidence to leave the village..."
Li Xuan thought of a possibility. Could that tiger be the Fierce Beast's underling in Evil Fiend Forest?
"My foolish disciple led people to hunt the tiger. Did he encounter that Fierce Beast? It seems he didn't. Could it have hidden itself after seeing that there were many people and never shown itself?"
"No, I have to ask my foolish disciple. I'll have him lead people to search Evil Fiend Forest and make absolutely sure that Fierce Beast is killed!"
Li Xuan tidied away the items and then went out to look for Xu Yan.
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