Three Days to Reach the Ninth Rank

Inside the bedroom.

Chen Mu carefully examined the copy of the Golden Jade Art placed on the table.

The Golden Jade Art had two main parts. The first was a breathing technique that required three long breaths and one short breath, with the interval between each breath kept as close as possible to a perfect measure.

The second part was stake standing. Like every other martial art, it used stake standing and breathing to make one harmonize with Heaven and Earth, as if becoming part of nature. In this way, Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy would naturally enter the body with each breath and form a cycle within it.

As for the secondary parts, they consisted of medicinal baths and the ingredients for their prescriptions. These could accelerate the body-tempering process. As a bastard son of the Xuanguo Estate, Chen Mu was also entitled to receive one portion each month.

"It's rather interesting..."

Chen Mu studied it for a while, then revealed a thoughtful expression.

The Golden Jade Art had nine poses in total. Reaching the third meant entering the Ninth Rank, reaching the sixth meant becoming Eighth Rank, and reaching the final pose meant becoming a Seventh Rank Martial Artist!

For ordinary people, even the stake-standing step alone was extremely difficult.

Leaving aside the fact that ordinary people needed many days of practice before they could stand for an entire day, even if they could manage that, whether their posture was perfect would determine the strength of the cultivation effect.

Although the art contained detailed illustrations, even with a Martial Instructor personally teaching and guiding them, they might not achieve perfection. After all, everyone's bone structure was different in size, and even the same posture would vary in its details. The more perfect it was, the more closely it harmonized with Heaven and Earth, and the better the cultivation effect!

But.

For Chen Mu, this step was far too simple!

Martial artists could only use their naked eyes and rely on the supposedly ethereal sense of perception to hazily judge their degree of harmony, barely finding the most suitable state and maintaining it. Spell Masters, however, possessed Spirit Sight and could easily adjust every detail to perfection!

Even an Eighth Rank or Ninth Rank Spell Master who could not directly see Spiritual Energy could use basic Spirit Sight alone to adjust their condition to its optimal state.

This was already equivalent to possessing the "aptitude" of a martial arts genius!

The second part, breathing, was the same.

Ordinary people needed to spend a long time merely searching for the most suitable state, but Spell Masters could likewise rely on Spirit Sight to directly find and maintain the perfect state.

Chen Mu took two steps back.

After slowly closing his eyes, he directly activated Spirit Sight.

Spirit Sight with one's eyes closed was known as inner vision. His gaze could directly see the channels within his body, even his internal organs. Every part of his physical body was displayed with incomparable clarity.

Then Chen Mu manipulated his body and, following the Golden Jade Art's description, assumed the first pose. He faced the sunlight, held one hand upright before his brow, placed the other behind his back, and spread his feet shoulder-width apart.

After assuming the pose.

Chen Mu immediately saw a slight disturbance appear in the original flow of the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy nearby. Extremely faint strands of Spiritual Energy surged toward his body.

As he continuously adjusted the finer details of his body, the tiny motes of Spiritual Light nearby gradually produced greater disturbances in their flow. More and more Spiritual Energy surged into his body.

"This is actually no different from a Spell Master's Feng Shui activation. It's just that martial artists treat their bodies as objects that alter Feng Shui. By occupying a specific position with a unique posture, they affect the disturbance of Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy, making themselves part of Heaven and Earth, then draw in Spiritual Energy to temper their bodies."

Chen Mu murmured inwardly.

This was fundamentally identical to the conclusion he had reached while watching Xiao Mei practice martial arts before.

Spell Masters changed the flow of Feng Shui by altering the terrain and layout of buildings, while the breathing techniques and so-called postures for connecting with Heaven and Earth used in martial arts followed the same principle.

But martial artists groped their way forward through their physical bodies. Even if countless experiences accumulated into a martial art, it was still far less precise than a Spell Master directly seeing everything in the most intuitive way!

A moment later.

Chen Mu adjusted his body into the optimal posture, almost perfectly harmonizing with Heaven and Earth. It seemed as if he had completely merged into his surroundings. Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy surged endlessly into his body, tempering his bones and skin.

"This should be the most perfect state."

Chen Mu secretly nodded.

His current state should be the most perfect one. After observing carefully, Chen Mu judged that maintaining this state for about a month would allow him to enter the Ninth Rank!

According to his memories, his elder brother Chen Wu had possessed extraordinary talent back then, yet still spent a full month and a half entering the Ninth Rank. Chen Mu had already achieved that kind of speed!

Moreover.

Chen Mu was a Sixth Rank Spell Master, not one of those low-ranked Eighth Rank or Ninth Rank Spell Masters. What he could do was not merely adjust himself to perfection. That was only basic manipulation!

After manipulating his body to maintain the Golden Jade Art's first pose, Chen Mu suddenly gathered his Mind-Soul Power.

"Come!"

These were not words spoken by Chen Mu, but a long cry on the level of the mind-soul. In an instant, it stirred all the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy throughout the courtyard!

Within a radius of nearly a hundred meters, even including the crisscrossing Spirit Veins underground, strands of Spiritual Energy began howling toward Chen Mu as their center, gathering into dazzling droplets of mist.

Elsewhere.

Inside the side room.

Xiao Mei opened her eyes, and a trace of confusion flashed through them.

She glanced toward Chen Mu's bedroom.

Could it be Second Master?

Ordinary people could not see the flow of Spiritual Energy. Even Fourth Rank Martial Artists could not, and Xiao Mei was naturally the same. But at such a close distance, as a martial artist who happened to be cultivating, she barely sensed a trace of abnormal fluctuation. This kind of fluctuation had rarely appeared before.

If this had happened in the past, she probably would not have thought of Chen Mu. But she now knew that Chen Mu had reached the Spell Master realm, and that he had just brought back a cultivation art from the Martial Arts Academy.

Putting these things together, it was naturally not difficult to guess what Chen Mu was doing.

As for the servants currently working, such as Ren Yan, they knew absolutely nothing. They could not sense the ethereal Spiritual Energy at all, much less react to it.

Inside the bedroom.

Under Chen Mu's Spirit Sight, he clearly saw vast amounts of Spiritual Energy being drawn toward him and confined within the bedroom. Its concentration was more than ten times higher than normal!

With Spiritual Energy this dense, combined with the most perfect posture and breathing to draw it into his body and use it to temper his flesh, his progress had become so rapid that he could almost feel it directly.

Ordinary martial artists needed years of accumulation to slowly increase their physical strength.

But for Chen Mu, the progress was already so fast that he could feel every cell in his body seemingly breathing desperately, straining with all its might to absorb Spiritual Energy, and transforming one after another!

Three days!

At this rate, he would need only three days to enter the Ninth Rank!

"Mm, this speed is acceptable."

"If the Spiritual Energy in the area were already denser, it might be a little faster. But if it were any faster, my body might not be able to endure it."

Chen Mu murmured inwardly.

It was said that high-ranked Spell Masters could enter the Ninth Rank in one day and become Eighth Rank in three. Most likely, only Spell Masters above the Fourth Rank could accomplish that. They could greatly increase their speed while diverting some of their power to protect their bodies, preventing them from collapsing under the excessively violent impact of Spiritual Energy.

As for him, he temporarily could not spare more Soul Points to protect every cell throughout his body. He could only guide Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy to gather and maintain this state.