Grade Eight

"Chen'er, why waste your breath on a dying man?"

The old voice rolled through the main hall like muffled thunder. The pressure of an eighth-grade martial artist crashed down!

Chu Ning's knees suddenly buckled, and the bluestone beneath his feet shattered into powder.

The Wang family's Third Elder, Wang Chongshan, came slowly forward, leaning on a scarlet-copper cane. A Taotie beast was carved into the cane's head, molten lava dripping from its maw. Wherever he passed, the stone bricks melted into boiling pools of slurry.

"Marquis Wu's Estate will protect you?" His murky pupils locked onto Chu Ning. "Today, this old man will teach you what... rules are."

The instant the cane rose, Chu Ning's vision was flooded with scarlet.

Wang Chongshan stood to the side with his hands behind his back, his gaze heavy. "If you're willing to submit to the Wang family, your elder sister will remain safe and sound."

"Dream on!" Chu Ning sneered coldly.

The Sky Burning Force instantly transformed into nine coiling fire dragons that pounced to kill, tearing through the Frost-Thunder Barrier like thin paper.

The instant the aura of death licked at his throat—

"When did the Wang family earn the right to tear up the roster of Marquis Wu's Estate?!"

A Mysterious Iron Heavy Halberd tore through the air. The halberd's blade was wrapped in a chill like a blizzard from the Northern Frontier, and the nine fire dragons wailed as they froze into ice sculptures.

Zhao Tianyu entered the hall clad in Meteorite Armor. Every step he took forced Wang Chongshan's lava domain back three zhang.

He raised a hand and flung out a golden register. The two characters "Suppress Martial" on the Cold Jade Seal blazed like the sun.

"Chu Ning's name has already been entered into Marquis Wu's Estate's Grade-A register." He cast a sidelong glance at Wang Chongshan's livid face. "Touch him again, and you'll be declaring war on the three hundred thousand soldiers of the Northern Frontier's Town Martial Army."

The registrar trembled as he lifted the golden register. The ink of the Grade-A roster shimmered with icy-blue lightning.

Wang Chen's Sky Burning Force extinguished inch by inch beneath Zhao Tianyu's pressure. He stared fixedly at Chu Ning's hand as it pressed against the register, then suddenly let out a vicious laugh. "At the Azure Cloud Arena, I'll personally tear your bones apart."

Chu Ning dipped his brush in ink and swept it across the page. His final stroke fell like a blade. "I'll be waiting."

Chu Ning stepped out of the registration hall. The biting wind rolled fine snow down his collar, yet it could not suppress the cold sweat seeping from his back.

When Wang Chongshan's lava cane had struck the ground, the terrifying sight of the bricks within ten zhang melting into a pool of slurry had flashed before his eyes again and again. The pressure of an eighth-grade martial artist was like a branding iron, carving a trembling mark into his spine.

"Lord Zhao, thank you for your help today." Chu Ning cupped his hands solemnly.

Zhao Tianyu merely gave him a cold smile. "Spare me the useless thanks. If you truly want to thank me, prove your worth."

With that, he flicked his sleeve and left.

Chu Ning drew a deep breath, his gaze cold and sharp. Prove my worth?

The sound of Zhao Tianyu's Mysterious Iron Heavy Halberd grinding as he walked faded into the distance, but those words were like an icicle driven into Chu Ning's heart.

Chu Ning looked toward his palm. Three bloody marks were embedded deep in his flesh—the traces left by the residual heat of Wang Chen's Sky Burning Force.

After returning to the other residence of Marquis Wu's Estate, Chu Ning remained silent for a long while.

Chu Ning's gaze flickered faintly, and his elder sister's gentle, smiling face surfaced in his mind.

"Elder Sister..."

Chu Ning's fists trembled slightly.

He closed his eyes, and scene after scene surfaced in his mind.

That night, his elder sister had draped a tattered outer robe over herself and handed him the last remaining bowl of warm rice porridge. Her hands had trembled slightly in the cold wind, yet a tender smile curved her lips. "Brother Ning, eat up."

She was his only family, his only blood relative.

But now, she was trapped in darkness while he could do nothing to save her!

No! He could not go on like this!

Wang Chen's vicious laughter still rang in his ears. Candlelight illuminated the shadows beneath Chu Ning's eyes. He raised his head, and the struggle in his eyes transformed into resolve in an instant.

"No matter what price I have to pay..."

"I must become stronger!"

Chu Ning drew a deep breath and, with fingers trembling slightly, took out a jade box.

When the lid opened, a fist-sized Nine Revolutions Profound Sun Fruit lay quietly inside. Its skin burned like the blazing sun, radiating scorching light.

He had no time left.

It was impossible for him to learn alchemy in such a short time, let alone refine the Mysterious Sun Fruit into a gentle medicinal pill.

The candle flame abruptly went out the instant the jade box opened. The lava-red core of the Nine Revolutions Profound Sun Fruit illuminated the four walls.

Chu Ning's fingertip hovered above the fruit's skin. The Azure-Eyed Snow Fox's warning and Wang Chen's vicious laughter intertwined and tore at one another in his mind:

"If a mortal swallows this fruit, his meridians will be completely destroyed!"

"On the Azure Cloud Arena, I'll crush your bones inch by inch!"

He could not wait.

At this moment, he could only place his hopes in the Chaos Divine Order once more.

"If I swallow the Mysterious Sun Fruit and can't withstand its violent energy, will the Chaos Divine Order activate again and match me with a corresponding cultivation method?"

He did not know.

But this was his only chance.

"Even if it... consumes my lifespan!"

He had no other choice.

"Let's go for it."

"Crack—"

The sound of the fruit's shell splitting rang especially clearly in the deathly silence. Chu Ning's pupils contracted sharply, and he abruptly shoved the fruit into his mouth.

The instant the flesh touched the root of his tongue, his throat felt as though it had been filled with lava. Chu Ning staggered into the bronze medicine cauldron, denting its body with a clang. Violent heat exploded from his internal organs toward his limbs. His skin cracked inch by inch, and golden-red beads of blood seeped out before igniting, burning charred pits into the secret chamber's floor.

"Is this... the pain of being burned alive?" Chu Ning roared. His vocal cords had already been scorched through, and his voice erupted directly from his chest.

Pain surged over him like a tide.

Terrifying waves of heat burst from inside and out. The ground cracked in an instant, and even the air ignited with faint sparks.

"Ah—!"

Chu Ning could not hold back a low growl. His eyes were blood-red, his consciousness nearly devoured by the violent energy as his reason began to collapse.

At the brink of death, Chu Ning's sea of consciousness suddenly fell silent.

A thread of icy-blue light ignited within his heart. The phantom image of the Chaos Divine Order floated there, its residual image raising a hand and pointing at Chu Ning's brow. A vast stream of information, carrying ancient maxims, surged in:

"Exchange lifespan for life; prove the Dao through tribulation."

Chaos Divine Order detected an advance payment under emergency conditions. Matching...

Matching complete: "Chaos Body Refining Method"

Advance payment: three years of lifespan consumed

Repayment cost: after the advance payment, the Chaos Tribulation must be endured. After repayment, the next advance-payment effect will unlock!

Current advanceable cultivation methods and martial arts: 0

"Come on!"

"Ugh—ah!"

Chu Ning's left hand carbonized amid the Mysterious Sun flames. As the charred skin peeled away, it made a crisp sound like shattering porcelain. The newly formed finger bones were not white jade, but dark golden skeletons covered in blood-colored lightning patterns.

Nine blood-colored chains stabbed into Chu Ning's body from the void, pinning his brow, heart, dantian, and other vital points.

Before Chu Ning could even consider what the Chaos Tribulation was, the Chaos Divine Order's shriek pierced through his sea of consciousness. Countless chains reached out from the void—not to restrain the Mysterious Sun's power, but to guide the rampaging energy into the black hole deep within his dantian.

Chaos Body Refining Method: Use the body as a furnace and refine the stars into bone

When the golden radiance of the "Chaos Body Refining Method" pierced into his soul, Chu Ning felt as though he had been thrown into a furnace for forging stars.

The Mysterious Sun's power was no longer a tyrant, but a hammer for tempering steel.

With the first hammer, his spine snapped with a crack, and the newly formed vertebrae gleamed with the cold light of meteorite iron.

With the second hammer, his heart exploded into Blood Mist. When it reformed, it beat like a war drum roaring.

With the third hammer, both his eyes turned to ash. When he opened them again, golden sun-wheel patterns had been branded into his pupils.

Amid Chu Ning's screams, the chains transformed into blood-colored lightning patterns, eternally etched into his shoulder blades.

He "saw" his spine transform into a Meteorite Dragon Spine, his heart pumping out blood mixed with stardust, and vast lightning prisons emerge within his double pupils.

He raised his hand and lightly clenched it. The air actually produced a crisp sound like shattered glass.

His body was as though cast from vajra. Scorching energy flowed along his meridians, the impurities in his bones were burned away completely, and his blood became incomparably pure. Every beat of his heart seemed like thunder roaring, carrying astonishing might.

The barrier of Ninth Rank Middle Grade was broken through in an instant!

Eighth Rank Lower Grade!