"Teacher, didn't you say we were going to the Northwestern Divine Wilderness this time? When we got there, I could slay Savage Beasts from the Divine Wilderness. How did we end up in Yunhuang instead? Yunhuang is a barren land, and there aren't many powerful Savage Beasts there, are there?"
The young girl's voice was gentle and extremely pleasant to the ear.
"The Northwestern Divine Wilderness... Ah, you have an Innate Yin Meridian and lack physical strength. The Savage Beasts there are everywhere, and high-level Savage Beasts can also be found among them. They'd be too much for you to handle." The Fat Old Man shook his head.
"All right, Xin Tong. You have one quarter of an hour to refine this Level Six Ferocious Beast into a Bone Relic. As I said before, this is your trial. Unless your life is in danger, your teacher won't intervene."
The Fat Old Man's voice was indifferent. After speaking, he found a large rock, plopped himself down on it, and began admiring the scenery.
The girl nodded lightly. She gently brushed her finger across the wristband and took out a bronze formation plate covered in densely packed runes.
The moment the formation plate appeared, it flew into the sky and expanded with the wind.
Soon, the formation plate had grown to the size of a house. Then, the Level Six Ferocious Beast was directly sucked up by it, transforming into a dazzling white light.
Within the white light, the Ferocious Beast's corpse seemed to ignite. Its flesh and blood melted away, while all the essence of its flesh seeped into its bones. After only a dozen breaths, the Ferocious Beast had become a skeleton.
After another dozen breaths, the skeleton began to slowly melt and fuse...
During this time, the girl's fingers repeatedly formed hand seals. Her ten fingers were extremely slender, and because she moved so quickly, they left behind thick trails of afterimages.
Formation symbols were struck out one after another, flying into the formation plate and fusing with the beast bones.
In less than a quarter of an hour, the beast bones had been completely melted down and ultimately condensed into a Bone Relic only the size of a mung bean.
If Lian Chengyu had witnessed this scene, he would certainly have cried out in shock.
A Savage Heaven Master!
This girl was actually a Savage Heaven Master!
In less than a quarter of an hour, she had effortlessly refined a Level Six Ferocious Beast. Such terrifying strength was difficult to imagine coming from a young girl.
If this girl took action, the Lian Clan's refinement of the Cold Python Savage Bones would be as easy as blowing off dust!
The Bone Relic fell into the girl's palm. When she saw it, her misty brows drew together slightly, clearly dissatisfied.
"It's still not small enough."
The girl shook her head. Her goal was to refine a Level Six Ferocious Beast into a Bone Relic the size of a grain of rice within a quarter of an hour.
But judging from the result, she was still quite a distance from that goal.
"Xin Tong, don't be anxious. In all my years traveling the continent, you're the most gifted Savage Heaven Master I've ever seen. It's just a pity..."
As the Fat Old Man spoke, he sighed. At seventeen, she could refine a Level Six Ferocious Beast—flesh and bones together—into a Bone Relic the size of a grain of rice within a quarter of an hour. This achievement had already surpassed what the Fat Old Man could do in his youth.
However, it was a pity that the girl called Xin Tong had an Innate Yin Meridian. The reason her complexion was so pale was precisely because of it.
An Innate Yin Meridian was an extremely rare meridian constitution. It only appeared in women, and it was a Fatal Meridian.
Women with an Innate Yin Meridian were naturally cold-blooded and afraid of the cold. Even in the height of summer, they had to wear padded clothing. If a mortal was born with an Innate Yin Meridian, she would live to no more than seventeen or eighteen. After that, she would fall into one sleep after another, each lasting at least two or three days. The sleeps would grow longer and more frequent until the final sleep lasted a year or more. Her life force would slowly wither away in her slumber, and she would die.
Xin Tong, however, had been born into the ancient Lin Family. With the Lin Family's support, she could consume Bone Relics refined from Fire Element Savage Beasts, relying on the Pure Yang Power within them to neutralize the cold energy in her body.
Living to a hundred years would not be a problem. But as for cultivation...
When someone with an Innate Yin Meridian reached the Mortal Blood Fourth Layer's Meridian Realm, they could not truly open all the meridians in their body. A hidden danger would be planted at this realm.
The higher they cultivated in the future, the more difficult their progress would become, until they eventually fell into a bottleneck!
An Innate Yin Meridian was a curse.
However, there were exceptions to everything. According to legend, in ancient times, a female Human Emperor had possessed an Innate Yin Meridian.
Yet she had relied on her own strength to mend her Fatal Meridian.
After an Innate Yin Meridian was mended, it seemed to undergo an unpredictable transformation. However, the history books had never recorded the details.
Lin Xin Tong's teacher—the Fat Old Man—had always tried to mend Lin Xin Tong's Fatal Meridian. He had found several ancient formulas left behind by Savage Heaven Masters, but none had succeeded.
Those ancient formulas were obscure and difficult to understand. Moreover, the requirements for both the materials and the refining methods were shrouded in mystery. The Fat Old Man had tried again and again, yet never achieved anything.
The Fat Old Man loved his disciple dearly. He had traversed the Great Wilderness in search of possible methods, only to fail one after another.
"Teacher, stop sighing. Although I have an Innate Yin Meridian, with the support of Fire Element Savage Bone Relics, I can still live for at least three or four hundred years. Compared to mortals, I'm already far more fortunate."
The girl had originally lived among an ancient clan. Luxurious clothing and fine food were not enough to describe her life. She had seen countless Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures and ancient supreme artifacts.
Yet in recent years, she had gone out to train and traveled through the Great Wilderness, witnessing all the suffering in the world and learning how mortals struggled to survive in it.
This moved the girl deeply. Indeed, even with an Innate Yin Meridian, she was still a thousand or ten thousand times more fortunate than these mortals.
The girl swallowed the Bone Relic she had refined.
A Ferocious Beast Relic refined from a Ferocious Beast was somewhat inferior in quality to a Savage Bone Relic. However, most martial artists only consumed Savage Bone Relics on rare occasions. In their daily cultivation, Ferocious Beast Relics were usually sufficient. Consuming a Savage Bone Relic required quite a bit of time to refine.
"Going forward will take us into the territory of the Lian Clan. Hmm, the Lian Clan is a small clan with barely over a thousand households. We don't need to enter." As the Fat Old Man spoke, he took out a leather map and spread it open to examine it. He smiled as he looked and continued, "We have to thank the Brocade Dragon Guard of the Tai'a Divine Kingdom for this map. They drew a new map of Yunhuang. The original map of Yunhuang hadn't been updated for roughly eight hundred years. Many small clans had long since moved, and they weren't marked on the old map."
Seeing the map her teacher had taken out, Lin Xin Tong suddenly grew puzzled. Drawing a map of Yunhuang was actually a thankless task. Those small clans were as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, and one might be wiped out at any moment, only for a new one to appear.
Drawing a detailed map required immense effort, yet it would become useless after perhaps eighty or a hundred years.
Recalling the frequent movements of the Tai'a Divine Kingdom in Yunhuang recently, Lin Xin Tong asked, "Teacher, why did we travel more than a hundred thousand miles specifically to come to Yunhuang? And I heard that the Tai'a Divine Kingdom also sent the Brocade Dragon Guard here, preparing to hold a warrior selection in Yunhuang soon. Holding a warrior selection in the Great Wilderness is extremely troublesome. Why would the Tai'a Divine Kingdom do this?"
"Is our visit to Yunhuang connected to the Tai'a Divine Kingdom's selection?"
Before you continue