Primordial Beginning

Primordial Beginning. Lion-and-elephant-like strength roamed through his body. Li Hao clenched his fist slightly and felt as if his small hand could easily crush a huge rock! One moment ago, he had still had the body of an ordinary mortal, yet in this brief span, he had actually become a cultivator! The Power Through Realm was the first realm of martial arts, mainly cultivating strength! Strength coursing through the entire body—that was Power Through.

Over long years, the standard for each level of the Power Through Realm had been clearly divided. One level meant lifting one cauldron, which was 200 jin of arm strength.

Ordinary households, through common food and exercise, could also barely manage to rival the first level of the Power Through Realm.

But if they wanted to go higher, unless they were born with great strength, they had to do it through cultivation.

Each level raised one cauldron.

The seventh level was seven cauldrons, which meant that Li Hao, with his five-year-old body at this moment, could lift something weighing 1,400 jin.

And that was only arm strength. The power bursting from his whole body could let him easily leap a hundred meters, move like lightning, and effortlessly fight and kill over a hundred ordinary strong men.

"I can finally cultivate. At the very least, I'll have the power to protect myself from now on."

Li Hao's heart surged with excitement. He felt that with only the slightest exertion, his whole body tightened, and the surface of his skin became incomparably thick. Though it was still tender flesh, it would no longer be pulled up with a light pinch; instead, it was like taut cowhide, impossible to twist!

"However, this should only be the limit of Stone Skin Hundred Refinements. If I cultivate those two secret manuals, my cultivation should rise some more!"

Li Hao thought to himself.

He took a deep breath and adjusted his physical state. Only when the crimson color on his skin gradually faded and returned to normal did he leave the room.

Afterward, Li Hao called Uncle Zhao over and had him send someone to notify First Madam.

Very soon, there was a response from First Madam's side. It was still that maidservant called Xue Jian who came to accompany him.

This time, they went straight to the sixth floor. Li Hao picked up the two secret manuals and began flipping through them one by one.

With the understanding and insights of the first stage of the Path of the Physical Body, when he looked at the contents again, Li Hao discovered that many words he previously could not understand even when reading them together suddenly became comprehensible.

"Already learned the basics. Record?"

Yes! After recording both secret manuals into the panel in succession, only less than half a quarter of an hour had passed before Li Hao had Xue Jian take him downstairs.

Although Xue Jian felt helpless inside, she did not show it on her face. He was a child, after all, so she could just treat it as accompanying him here to play. As for flipping through secret manuals and the like—heh, never mind this little bit of time, even if he read for several more days, it would be a ghost story if he could understand them.

Even the secret manuals on the first floor, if tossed outside, would be considered mid-grade. Without three to five days of comprehension, it would still be very hard to learn even the basics.

Let alone secret manuals from the sixth floor.

The stronger something was, naturally, the harder it was, and the higher its threshold for cultivation.

Li Hao did not know what the little girl was thinking, but even if he did know, he would not care. She was a child—who would lower themselves to argue with her? After returning to the Mountains and Rivers Courtyard, before cultivating, Li Hao had the maidservants prepare some food and drink.

When he had cultivated Stone Skin Hundred Refinements earlier, he had felt his body's consumption was rather great. Now, after only a short while, he actually felt as if his belly was rumbling with hunger.

"Who is this little bit enough for?"

"Bring another plate. I mean another plate of each dish. I'm still growing. Don't tell me you think I can't eat it?"

Under the dumbstruck gazes of the maids, Li Hao ate down an entire large table of meat dishes. He wiped his greasy little mouth and felt that he was only sixty percent full.

But fearing that he would scare these people, he did not continue. He swaggered back to his room in carefree style and began cultivating.

The previously obscure "Thousand Dragons Sacred Body" had four layers. When it was recorded into the panel, only the first two layers showed as already mastered.

The first layer, Dragon Demon Body. After cultivating it, the bones throughout the body would become hard, the skin like dragon scales, impervious to blades and swords.

The second layer, Dragon Body. It contained the power of half a dragon, further improving every aspect of the body.

Huff! Li Hao opened his stance, his body crouching low like a fierce tiger, his spine rising like a bent bow, the bones throughout his body making faint sounds.

Through the understanding of the first stage of the Path of the Physical Body, he was opening the hidden-treasure door of his own body.

The cells throughout his body seemed to be stimulated, and his blood flow accelerated again. This time, Li Hao also sensed threads of cool power seeping in from the outside world and swimming into his body.

This was the Taiyin Power within the energy of heaven and earth.

As Taiyin Power entered his body, Li Hao's crimson body gradually returned to its normal color, while the flesh and blood throughout him rapidly transformed.

The hidden-treasure door was opened, tempering himself with heaven and earth.

As more and more Taiyin Power poured in, Li Hao's complexion gradually turned pale, then took on a few shades of bluish green, like a corpse. Even on the surface of his skin, faint small protrusions appeared, like dragon scales.

After three sticks of incense, cultivation of the first layer ended.

Li Hao glanced at his cultivation. Astonishingly, it had risen again from the seventh level of the Power Through Realm, reaching the tenth level—the completion realm!

In the first nine levels of the Power Through Realm, the gap between each level was not large; they were all measured by an increase of 200 jin. But from the ninth level to the tenth was a threshold, and strength would double! The tenth level meant one had thoroughly achieved Power Through, strength reaching the entire body, fused into one whole! The strength of lifting with both hands would also reach 3,600 jin! Amid his pleasant surprise, Li Hao carefully sensed his body and immediately felt some regret. His divine blood had not awakened.

Those who inherited divine blood could awaken it at Power Through Realm Completion. At that time, their strength would rise again, reaching 7,200 jin! Such a gap was enough for a divine-blood Power Through Realm cultivator to easily sweep across the same realm, and could even make up for differences in technique, purely breaking methods with force!

It was like the difference between a pay-to-win big shot and an ordinary player in a game.

It looked extremely unfair, but it was also normal, because divine blood inheritance required one's father's generation to have reached the Three Immortalities Realm. Looking across all nineteen provinces of the Great Yu Dynasty, the number of people who had reached that realm could be counted.

Without the support of divine blood, Li Hao was not discouraged. After a slight adjustment, he continued cultivating the second-layer cultivation method.

Half an hour later, he slowly finished, his eyes opening as if divine lightning burst from them. His pupils seemed to have become even darker and deeper.

He sensed his own body. His strength was clearly much more powerful than just now. At this moment, he even wanted to find someone to exchange moves with and test his exact strength.

Calling up the panel, Li Hao looked over in surprise, only to discover that he had not broken through realms. His cultivation was still at the tenth level of the Power Through Realm.

His strength had obviously soared, yet he had not reached the Circulation Realm?

Li Hao froze, then suddenly realized that he still did not know how to circulate qi.

After reaching Power Through Realm Completion, something called "qi" had appeared in his body. Strength and qi—when strength was full, qi was born.

The sensation of this qi was like the feeling of power when the biceps bulged.

Only, qi roamed throughout his body, yet he could not control it.

Li Hao suddenly remembered that the second layer of this Thousand Dragons Sacred Body also seemed not to mention how to circulate qi.

As for the third layer, with his current Path of the Physical Body, he still could not comprehend it.

"Dragon Body, grasping the power of half a dragon. I wonder how much strength I have now?" Li Hao thought inwardly. He could sense that his strength was far greater than before, at least double, or even more.

Li Hao was not impatient to test it. Instead, he turned to another body-refining art:

The fragment of "Primordial Beginning."

With the enhancement of his insights into the Path of the Physical Body, Li Hao quickly understood many things and immediately began cultivating.

According to the general outline recorded in the Primordial Beginning fragment, this body-refining method had five realms.

But the fragment in Li Hao's hands only had the first two realms. The latter three had all been lost.

For just the first chapter, the Primordial Beginning secret art required opening the hidden-treasure door of the physical body, sensing the Taiyang Power and Taiyin Power within heaven and earth, and also bringing the powers of yin and yang into the body at the same time to temper the fleshly body.

Without the help of the Path of the Physical Body, for an ordinary person to complete the first step would already be as difficult as climbing to heaven.

But at this moment, Li Hao seemed to know the road like the back of his hand and controlled it with ease.

As the powers of yin and yang gathered into his body, his fleshly body was also continuously remade.

By the second chapter, one used the yin-yang power contained within the body to draw star power into the body and cultivate the Star Battle Body.

This was a physique even more domineering than Dragon Body. The body contained Taiyin and Taiyang Power, and the fleshly body was like a star's inner-core furnace, containing exuberant heat and strength.

When Li Hao opened his eyes again, it was already midnight.

Without realizing it, he had actually cultivated for seven or eight hours.

His gaze was restrained and calm. He slowly opened his eyes, his breathing as deep and long as a coiled Dragon Body.

His hearing and vision had both received an enormous improvement.

Li Hao even heard that there was still a faint whistling sound in the courtyard. That was not the sound of wind, but a sword.

Someone was practicing the sword.

With Li Hao's sword dao realm, even just by this sword-wind sound, he could imagine the posture and appearance of the person practicing the sword.

It was that little girl.

Was she working this hard too? A faint smile appeared at the corners of Li Hao's mouth. Then he called up the panel and looked at it.

Name: Li Hao

Age: 5

Cultivation: Power Through Realm tenth level

Sword Dao: second stage

Skill: Boundless Sea - Tide (Supreme Perfection) [Forbidden]

Path of the Physical Body: first stage

Skills: Stone Skin Hundred Refinements (major achievement) Thousand Dragons Sacred Body (Dragon Body minor achievement) Primordial Beginning (Star Body entry)

Chess Dao: third stage (0/5000)

Chess manual illustration collection: 0

Art Skill Points: 0

"Still the Power Through Realm?"

Li Hao was somewhat surprised. He could sense that the changes in his body were enormous. He was clearly several times stronger than when he had first reached the tenth level, and he even felt that with his current physique, he could use Supreme Perfection-level Tidal Sword Art without any pressure at all, yet in the end, he still had not broken through.

However, up to now, he indeed still did not know how to circulate qi through the heavens.

These first two chapters of the Primordial Beginning body-refining art seemed to be only for use in the Power Through Realm.

Yet the strength they brought had already far surpassed the Power Through Realm.

The only problem was that cultivation was far too difficult!

With his current first-stage insights into the Path of the Physical Body, he had only barely entered the threshold. If an ordinary person cultivated it, it would probably take ten or twenty years to reach this level.

And by then, they would probably have long since stepped into the Circulation Realm.

After all, compared with stepping into the Circulation Realm, this seemed even harder.

Li Hao stood up and adapted to his body for a moment. Then he opened the window and looked out. Sure enough, in the courtyard outside, there was a small figure practicing the sword under the starlight.

Only, what surprised Li Hao was that compared with her clumsy, crooked sword swings in the morning, she was now actually performing them with decent form.

This little girl did have some talent.

Li Hao smiled, then pressed his palm down and flipped out through the window, landing lightly on the ground.

He came before a rockery at another spot in the courtyard. He had heard Uncle Zhao say that this rockery had been lifted with one hand and carried back by his father when he was young, and it weighed a hundred cauldrons!

Li Hao crouched slightly. The manservants and maids had all gone to rest, and the few on duty were patrolling elsewhere.

Taking advantage of there being no one around, he ran to the rockery, looked it over twice, reached out to touch a groove in a stone hole, and tried to push it.

Rumble!

What shocked Li Hao was that when he used all his brute strength, this rockery weighing over ten tons was actually forcefully lifted by him! As the rockery moved, the pond water beside it immediately surged and poured backward beneath the rockery.

Power Through Realm tenth level, no divine blood, strength lifting twenty thousand jin!

Li Hao was so frightened that he hurriedly and gently let go, putting the rockery down.