"Three experience points. Hmm, not much." Zhang Wan murmured as he looked at the experience points required to break through the Houtian bottleneck. Three experience points—even with bad luck, three days of accumulation would be enough.
Compared to his savings, it was merely a drop in the bucket.
But Zhang Wan did not immediately invest the experience points to break through.
He spent some time trying to break through on his own.
The result was that a month passed, yet that door remained utterly unmoved, showing not the slightest sign of being shaken.
This gave Zhang Wan a deeper understanding of how difficult those three experience points were.
"Going from Mortal to the Mortal Limit requires thirty experience points. I spent more than five years, plus one experience point, to complete that stage."
"Roughly speaking, three experience points amount to six or seven months of hard work." Zhang Wan naturally knew that they could not be converted so simply, but this calculation gave him a better measure of the breakthrough's difficulty.
"Normally, I'd have to cultivate bitterly for six or seven months to match three experience points. But breaking through a bottleneck requires me to gain growth equivalent to three experience points in an instant."
"This difficulty is simply..." Zhang Wan clicked his tongue repeatedly, his face filled with emotion.
No wonder Xu Hui and the others, despite possessing decent talent, had all accumulated for several months after tempering their qi and blood to the limit before successfully breaking through.
If he had to do it that way, he would probably need even more time.
Unless he could obtain excellent pills or other heavenly treasures and use their power to push the breakthrough forward.
"Fortunately, I have experience points." Zhang Wan smiled faintly.
After trying for a month without making the slightest progress and learning how difficult it was, he decisively gave up and directly invested three experience points.
At once, Zhang Wan felt the door blocking his path shatter, and the barrier separating him from the spiritual energy of heaven and earth disappeared.
The qi and blood in his body, tempered to the limit, began circulating on its own. Following the circulation method recorded in the Ox Demon Body Tempering Fist, it formed a vortex of qi and blood.
This vortex drew the spiritual energy outside into his body.
The pure spiritual energy was refined and absorbed within his vast qi and blood, which had been condensed to the limit.
Then, a strand of mana was born!
A moment later, this strand of mana fell into his lower dantian. The hazy lower dantian was opened up, becoming a place to store mana.
Afterward, the mana traveled once around his body, and the Niwan Palace was opened as well, giving birth to spiritual sense.
Throughout this process, Zhang Wan continued absorbing the spiritual energy outside, constantly strengthening that strand of mana. His physical body was also continuously cleansed in the process.
Only because he had endured several years of arduous training, possessed a powerful physique, and had qi and blood tempered to the limit as a buffer could Zhang Wan's body withstand the spiritual energy's surge.
An ordinary person would already have been scraped raw, their flesh reduced to a bloody mess.
After nearly half a day, Zhang Wan finished breaking through and formally stepped into the Houtian Realm.
Before Zhang Wan could experience the marvels of the Houtian Realm, he caught a whiff of a foul stench.
During the breakthrough, as the spiritual energy cleansed his body, impurities within him were expelled and formed a layer of black, foul-smelling grime on his skin.
The smell was unbearable.
Zhang Wan drew several buckets of water before he finally washed the grime away.
Only after feeling refreshed did he begin sensing his current strength.
Surging power filled his body, more than four or five times greater than before the breakthrough, far surpassing the Mortal Limit.
His qi and blood had also multiplied.
Together, these changes had forged a formidable physique.
"The physical body is the boat that carries one across the world. Naturally, the stronger it is, the better."
"And in a martial artist's cultivation, much of it rests upon this body." Zhang Wan tested the strength of his enhanced body. Every aspect had improved tremendously, leaving him highly satisfied.
Afterward, Zhang Wan closed his eyes and activated his spiritual sense.
Although it had only just been born and remained weak, it still allowed Zhang Wan to clearly perceive everything within a one-meter radius of himself.
Even with his eyes closed, he could still see everything with perfect clarity.
He could also see through his own body completely.
His flesh, bones, and internal organs were all laid bare to Zhang Wan's sight.
Under his spiritual sense, any injury to his body could be discovered immediately and promptly healed.
Finally, Zhang Wan activated the mana within his body.
This was the foundation of transcending martial arts and the source of a martial artist's mighty power.
Although the mana within Zhang Wan remained extremely weak, he could still sense its strength.
With a slight activation of his mana and the accompanying use of the Ox Demon Body Tempering Fist, the might of his punches and kicks immediately soared.
It increased by more than thirty percent.
"The Ox Demon Body Tempering Fist is still only Mortal martial arts. If I switched to a true martial cultivation method and martial technique, the power displayed would be even more astonishing." Zhang Wan murmured, carrying a hint of excitement.
After finishing sensing his condition, Zhang Wan finally opened the system panel.
Host: Zhang Wan (ten years old) Realm: First Level Houtian (120 experience points to reach perfection) Realm bottleneck: None Cultivation method and martial technique: Mortal Martial Art Ox Demon Body Tempering Fist (7 experience points to reach perfection/Perfected) Available experience points: 8,146
"One hundred and twenty experience points—four times the thirty experience points needed for a Mortal's qi and blood to reach perfection. The difficulty of cultivation has skyrocketed several times." This change was within Zhang Wan's expectations.
Cultivation was naturally more difficult the farther one advanced.
That was also why he had kept saving his experience points instead of using them recklessly. He feared that the difficulty of cultivation would soar later, that the required experience points would skyrocket, and that he would not have enough.
But if the First Level Houtian only required one hundred and twenty points...
Then the entire Houtian Realm had nine levels. Even if the difficulty of each subsequent minor realm increased slightly, the total experience points required should still be only a little over one thousand.
Even if it required twelve or thirteen hundred experience points, Zhang Wan could still afford it.
With the number of experience points he possessed now, he could easily pass through the entire Houtian Realm.
But if the entire Ninth Level Houtian required more than a thousand experience points, then how many experience points would the later Xiantian and True Core realms require?
"I still need to verify whether the way experience points are obtained has changed."
"If the number of experience points I gain each day increases as I break through into the Houtian Realm..."
"Then I can afford to loosen my reins a little and spend experience points more freely."
"Otherwise, it will still be more suitable to use them slowly."
"Moreover, it says that one hundred and twenty experience points are required for perfection. It looks fine now, but in the future, as I cultivate other methods and martial techniques, I'm afraid words like these will fill the entire panel."
With a thought from Zhang Wan, the words "one hundred and twenty experience points to reach perfection" on the panel changed to 0/120.
The 120 represented the experience points required to reach perfection in the entire minor realm.
The 0 in front represented the experience points invested and the results achieved through his own cultivation.
Since Zhang Wan had only just broken through and had not invested any experience points, it was still zero.
Once he began cultivating, this number would start to change as well.
"Now, all I'm missing is a cultivation method."
When dawn broke and morning training began, Zhang Wan hurried to the Fifth Training Ground. There, he found Instructor Liu and revealed his Houtian cultivation.
Instructor Liu was delighted.
Among the students led by instructors like them, the more who advanced to the Houtian Realm, the more generous the rewards granted by the sect would be.
Therefore, seeing Zhang Wan advance, he was quite happy.
Nor did he find it strange.
Zhang Wan's progress had already been quite good, so breaking through at this time was not abrupt at all.
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