Spirit Cultivation

A savage force capable of blasting away a three-ton artificial hill, an explosive burst strong enough to punch through a double-layer cement brick wall, the ability to detect most disturbances within thirty meters with a calm mind, a running speed faster than a sedan, and a body fully covered by the Innate Qi of Qi Cultivation Grand Completion that could withstand pistol bullets without injury.

All that terrifying data had converged in a single martial artist.

And this martial artist not only possessed an exceptionally firm will and rich combat experience, he had also been fighting to the death on arenas where everyone had signed death warrants since the age of twenty, weathering countless tempests and storms!

In the world of Artificial Divine Realm 1909.

Such an existence could be called the reincarnation of Xiang Yu, famed as invincible!

Faced with a formation of fully armed soldiers in an open field, such a ferocious martial artist could predict most bullet trajectories with his bare hands, determine the moment the triggers would be pulled, easily run around and lure them into firing blanks, and then launch into a one-sided massacre like a tiger among sheep!

Without a doubt.

From the perspective of ordinary people, he had already surpassed mortals.

But was surpassing mortals really all there was to it?

Lan Yi had expended his energy and precious psionic power to give him the true-transmission martial art Zhu Yan Tramples Mountains. Huo Yuanjia himself possessed an unwavering conviction. After all that effort had been poured into raising him, was his purpose really just to deal with a squad of trash armed soldiers?

Seated cross-legged and floating above the podium in the lecture hall, Lan Yi closed his eyes to rest. Behind him, Cang Hua had already formed two rings, radiating blazing white and dim-blue electric light like an immortal's canopy of divine radiance.

All unrelated people had already been cleared out.

In this spacious room, hundreds of sheets of white paper floated before Lan Yi. In front of each sheet, several strands of Cang Hua steadily released electrical energy, burning rows of tiny regular script into the paper.

In the distance, the gunfire that sounded like raindrops and firecrackers finally ceased.

About a quarter of an hour later.

A figure silently darted into the lecture hall like a monkey from a mountain ravine.

"After Qi Cultivation Grand Completion comes the refinement of the fist into the brain. With the mind like an ape and the intent like a horse, one becomes demonic and devilish—capable of achieving a mirror-like stillness while also stirring up raging seas." Lan Yi did not open his eyes. He pointed forward with one hand.

Boom!!

Thunder suddenly erupted indoors!

A serpent of lightning perceptible only to living beings rampaged wildly, biting into the monkey in the blink of an eye!

Huo Yuanjia, who had been concealed within the mountains and forests and easily overlooked by others, was violently thrown out of his unique state the next moment.

"You said this was fake, but I really was struck by lightning." Huo Yuanjia raised his hand. Distinct blackened marks from an electric burn covered his arm,

"If you can't distinguish the real from the fake, then what difference is there between the real and the fake?" Lan Yi opened his eyes, which were a sheet of silver-white. Inside his eyeballs was Cang Hua, already successfully embedded and transformed into lotus circuits.

The electric light of Daoist arts and the martial artist's mind and spirit reflected each other!

The Nine Heavens Responding Primordial Treasury had solidified a Daoist art, and Colorless Eyes had been cultivated to completion.

Solidified Daoist Arts

Unlike a Daoist art such as Palm Thunder, which was cast and released immediately, Solidified Daoist Arts referred to Daoist arts loaded onto the body. They could be invoked anytime and anywhere. As long as Colorless Eyes received a steady supply of psionic power and Cang Hua did not run out, it was equivalent to a perpetually operating Daoist art, directly granting a psionic cultivator a passive skill.

Colorless Eyes saw through the appearances of things. This Daoist art not only provided psionic vision, allowing a psionic cultivator to directly see all kinds of psionic power, it could also dispel numerous illusions and see through external demons.

At this moment, within Lan Yi's psionic vision,

Huo Yuanjia's entire body was filled with orange-yellow Innate Qi. Even his brain and lower abdomen had been successfully covered. The Innate Qi radiated outward in a regular pattern, like a furnace slowly and powerfully burning with steady flames.

Qi Cultivation Grand Completion had already begun advancing toward Spirit Cultivation.

"How do I do it so that I can release a mind-and-spirit attack that makes people unable to distinguish the real from the fake, like you just did, Immortal Master?" Huo Yuanjia tried throwing a punch, and the air boomed.

Although the air boomed, no supernatural phenomenon occurred.

Huo Yuanjia had yet to grasp the power of Spirit Cultivation.

"Follow your heart, and let nature take its course." Lan Yi cut off the psionic power. His eyes gradually returned to normal, while the lotus circuits in his pupils also faded from sight, leaving behind only a faint white shadow.

"This is the Spirit Cultivation chapter of Zhu Yan Tramples Mountains."

"Once you achieve Self-form, you can cultivate the mind-and-spirit arts within it."

Several strands of white hair delivered the completed true-transmission martial art to Huo Yuanjia.

Such a great gift...

Huo Yuanjia hesitated for a moment before asking,

"Immortal Master, have we met before?"

"We have." Lan Yi nodded.

Back then, he had been hungry and cold. Because his gaze had been deemed insufficiently respectful, Japanese ronin from Dongyang had broken his ribs. Without a cultivation method for Cang Hua, he had nearly become a fresh corpse by the roadside.

It was Huo Yuanjia who had saved him.

Lan Yi said nothing more, and Huo Yuanjia did not press him. The martial arts grandmaster was clearly much more at ease. He accepted the true art and said,

"Immortal Master, several dozen foreign-settlement constables came earlier, but I drove them all away." Huo Yuanjia's voice involuntarily rose.

Several dozen constables, all carrying guns at that!

Those constables had naturally come to arrest the wanted criminal Lan Yi. Given his glorious record today, it was enough to make the foreigners gnash their teeth in hatred and wish they could hack him into a thousand pieces.

Huo Yuanjia had never dreamed that one day he could easily knock them all down by himself. Those constables had aimed and pulled their triggers far too slowly—so slowly that it was like watching cotton drift and settle to the ground.

"They'll come again."

Lan Yi knew all too well what the foreigners of this era were like.

Huo Yuanjia had merely driven them all away rather than killing every last one. The humiliated foreign constables would definitely bring more men, more guns, and perhaps even artillery.

There were foreign troops stationed in the foreign settlement, after all.

Huo Yuanjia was no fool. He could also imagine that the foreigners would return with a crazed vengeance.

"Immortal Master, why don't you relocate first?"

"No need. However many come, I'll kill however many come." Lan Yi's voice made people shudder. "Master Huo, tell the martial artists outside that anyone who wants to receive martial arts should line up and come in."

To deal with the foreign-settlement constables, the foreign armies, and even take control of this city, while rapidly gathering manpower and resources for his own use, he clearly could not rely only on himself and Huo Yuanjia.

Ordinary martial artists would be raised to Qi Cultivation, while a grandmaster like Huo Yuanjia would be raised to Qi Cultivation Grand Completion, giving rise to Spirit Cultivation Practitioners.

Lan Yi was not afraid of the martial artists running out of control, either.

Ordinary food could not satisfy the intense consumption of Qi Cultivation Practitioners. If they wanted to cultivate and fight prolonged battles, their only source of psionic power was Lan Yi's Cang Hua replenishing them.

"I shall obey the Immortal Master's Order." Huo Yuanjia cupped his hands.

"Tell them that anyone who wants to receive martial arts must first cut off the braid at the back of their head." Lan Yi disliked those braids. In the past, he had even been harassed because of the issue of his braid.

Huo Yuanjia was dumbfounded upon hearing this.

This demand...

It was an outright call to rebellion and a declaration of allegiance. Surely not many people would agree to it.

Worried, Huo Yuanjia left the lecture hall. But when he turned around, he saw a dense crowd filling the corridor, each person holding a braid they had just cut off.

Even the foreign reporters had cut some of their own hair. Every one of them wore a feverish look, staring like tigers eyeing their prey.