For the past two days, heavy snow had raged through Heyuan Prefecture. Ice pellets fell together with the snow, and the cold was extraordinary. Today, the skies had cleared. Heaven and earth lay pure white, dazzling enough to blur one's eyes and making the interior seem all the darker by contrast.
It matched the strange state Liang Qu had been in upon emerging from seclusion.
"Mm..."
Yang Xu's mind swam for an instant. He rubbed his eyes hard, only to discover that his junior brother was once again standing perfectly well in the same spot, without the slightest change.
Yet when he focused his gaze and stared again.
That once-solid figure became illusory once more. A halo, neither real nor false, blurred around the edges of his outline, lending him an even lighter air.
An ordinary person might have assumed that exhaustion had caused hallucinations.
But a Hunting Tiger Great Martial Master was no ordinary person. With his origin firmly guarded, how could he jump to such a conclusion so readily?
"Junior Brother, this state of yours is..."
Liang Qu grinned. "At the top of a hundred-foot pole, I took another step forward. My cultivation method has achieved minor success!"
He expanded his chest and straightened his spine. Bones grated and muscles stretched, producing a faint Qilin Roar.
The final trace of residual heat in his back vanished without a trace. The yellow dragon dispersed, and all the increased vital energies silently merged into his body, thoroughly refined into it, stabilizing his formerly illusory figure.
Compared to the agony that had made him wish for death during his first Ying Long Favor, the bone-scraping, flesh-cutting tempering and forging of the second and third times, from the fourth time onward, Ying Long Favor had brought little pain. The fifth time had