[Self-Will]

To precisely manipulate [Qi and Blood], one first had to go through two steps.

1. Sense the existence of [Qi and Blood].

It was difficult to affect something one could not perceive.

2. Confirm one's influence over it.

Once one had recognized a certain object, one would undoubtedly need to make contact with it before exerting any influence upon it.

But for [Qi and Blood] existing within one's own body, so-called contact was clearly not any sort of physical contact.

The feeling was somewhat like trying to precisely control a particular group of muscles or a certain organ within one's own body.

Without a doubt.

This was by no means a simple operation.

It was the sort of thing that felt a little abstract just from thinking about it.

Even with their hands, feet, and limbs, many people could not achieve overly precise control and appeared clumsy. Much less when the target was something within their own bodies—something they could not perceive with their naked eyes and could not even feel at all.

For the vast majority of cultivators.

Simply figuring out how to sense their own [Qi and Blood] was already far from easy.

They often needed medicinal aid to have any chance of accomplishing that.

As for manipulating [Qi and Blood]...

That was even harder!

Even the simplest, roughest form of control still required a long period of time to achieve.

Spending several years on it midway through was entirely normal.

Therefore.

The White Crow Gang's training for newcomers at the training grounds lasted a full two years.

Yet they did not require them to reach any particular realm.

They did not even require them to attain the most basic [Body Tempering Realm].

They only required them to complete the training according to standard and not train themselves to death or disability.

In this world.

There was generally only one basic requirement for reaching the [Body Tempering Realm].

That was pure physical body strength!

Putting aside all other conditions, as long as one could lift a thousand jin from the ground with one arm, one could be considered to have barely entered the [Body Tempering Realm].

The reason was simple: one could not expect others to see through the [Qi and Blood] inside one's body with the naked eye.

Thus, how much weight one could lift became the most direct method of judgment.

And because of that.

Even if someone could not sense [Qi and Blood] at all, people would still acknowledge them as being in the [Body Tempering Realm].

It was only that.

Such a [Body Tempering Realm] would often be rather watered-down.

Moreover, their strength usually improved very slowly, relying entirely on conventional training methods to forcibly build up their power.

Those capable of controlling the [Qi and Blood] within their bodies, on the other hand, could use its effective circulation to accelerate their cultivation speed. This allowed them to grow stronger faster and pull ever farther ahead of others.

In other words.

If conventional training methods meant slowly walking down the road of cultivation.

Then controlling [Qi and Blood] was at least like leisurely riding a motorcycle.

Even if both sides trained effectively.

Their actual progress could not be mentioned in the same breath.

At this moment.

After forcibly sensing the [Qi and Blood] within his body through the effects of the medicine, Ling Wuyuan began focusing his attention on it according to the method recorded in the manual, attempting to observe its path of circulation.

It was a rather abstract thing.

And it existed within the body.

Under normal circumstances, accomplishing that was undoubtedly extremely difficult.

According to the records of the [Tiger Bone Body Strengthening Technique], people generally had to spend several months to achieve that step.

Then they had to spend even longer before they could barely exert a faint influence over that [Qi and Blood].

After that came the most difficult part: the cultivator needed to find a way to control that [Qi and Blood], keeping it continuously circulating along the route recorded in the technique.

Once a cultivator could relatively steadily control the [Qi and Blood] in their body and make it complete one cycle through the body according to the standard procedure, they could be considered to have officially entered the gate. They would count as true martial cultivators, no longer mere brutes with somewhat greater strength.

Now.

After sensing carefully for a while.

Ling Wuyuan had already formed a rough judgment of the [Qi and Blood] within his body.

In his perception, it was extremely faint. Its actual size was likely far smaller than even a strand of hair, as imperceptible as a spider's thread.

He understood that this was because his physical fitness was still not strong enough.

The stronger one's physical fitness, the more vigorous the [Qi and Blood] within one's body became and the easier it was to sense. This was also the main reason the White Crow Gang desperately trained the physical fitness of every newcomer.

The reason he could forcibly stimulate [Qi and Blood] now was entirely due to the medicinal assistance.

After calming himself slightly, Ling Wuyuan began using the calming meditation method recorded in the [Tiger Bone Body Strengthening Technique], relaxing his mind further so that his attention could become more focused.

Who knew how much time passed.

Perhaps several minutes.

When Ling Wuyuan's mind finally became completely calm.

In a daze.

He felt that his attention...

No, rather, some wondrous thing that could be called [Will], that could be called [Self-Will], was slowly becoming more substantial.

Though he did not know what had happened.

He could sense that it was some manifestation of his own mind and thoughts.

Faintly.

Even though he had long since closed his eyes.

The things around him gradually appeared within Ling Wuyuan's mind in a rather abstract manner.

It felt as though he possessed a pair of eyes, observing the surroundings from a third-person perspective in all directions.

For a moment.

A great mass of chaotic information—information many times more complex than all the sights human eyes could see—flooded into Ling Wuyuan's mind.

At this moment.

Ling Wuyuan could perceive with absolute clarity how many ants were crawling within a two-meter radius around him, and how many currents of airflow were stirring.

The sensation struck him as rather wondrous.

After instinctively being startled for a moment, he felt a strange sense of reassurance arise in his heart.

A marvelous reassurance, as though everything was under his control...

At the same time.

Under the command and control of his will.

His brain gradually adapted to the chaotic information flooding in from the outside. It began sorting through it by category, separating the useless information from the useful.

Moreover, that perceptive ability gradually drew inward.

Ling Wuyuan felt as though his [eyes] were continuously sinking deeper into his own body, allowing his [gaze] to pass through his flesh and bones and observe that thread of exceedingly faint [Qi and Blood] within him from multiple angles, with clarity countless times greater than before.