Silent Valley, Life Withering Away!

Time slipped by, and another day passed without him noticing.

This was already the fifth day since Zhang Ruohan had left.

Li Yun had just finished another round of observation.

The Cognition Points on the panel had once again reached around 1.4 million. As he got up to find something to eat, he realized that, without noticing, he had eaten all the food Zhang Ruohan had left behind.

"Damn!"

"I ate it all?"

"Senior Sister Zhang still hasn't returned. Doesn't that mean I'm going to starve?"

Li Yun was rather speechless.

He did not think Zhang Ruohan had done it deliberately or forgotten about him. After all, she was an Inner Sect Disciple; perhaps trivial matters had tied her up.

With nothing to eat, there was no food in the valley that could serve as a substitute.

Li Yun simply endured it, using cultivation to distract himself so that the more he thought about food, the hungrier he would not feel.

His cultivation had already reached the Body Tempering Thirteenth Layer through the Primordial Chaos Stance. Further Body Tempering was useless. Continuing to cultivate would only allow him to gain more insight into the Primal Chaos True Intent, making minute progress in terms of True Intent. It should have been a good thing, but he would not see any results in the short term.

So Li Yun temporarily stopped cultivating the Primordial Chaos Stance and set his sights on the Reverse Fate Art, which he had long been thinking about.

It had cost ten thousand Cognition Points for the Reverse Fate Art to go from never having entered the path to the Entry Realm.

From the Entry Realm to the Initial Accomplishment Realm, it had cost one hundred thousand Cognition Points.

As for how many Cognition Points it would take to go from Initial Accomplishment Realm to the Proficient Realm... Li Yun did not know yet. Still, even if the cost increased tenfold again, his roughly 1.4 million Cognition Points would definitely be enough.

He did not hesitate.

He got straight to work!

Sure enough, this thing was truly a voracious eater of Cognition Points.

The moment the upgrade began, one million Cognition Points vanished.

The Reverse Fate Art also advanced from the Initial Completion Realm into the Proficient Realm.

A hint of excitement appeared on Li Yun's face.

After entering the Proficient Realm, the mysteries of breathing and circulating his blood and qi that he had comprehended before... gained many more profound subtleties, becoming more complex and more complete.

It also made him understand why using the Reverse Fate Art had been so painful before.

A large part of the reason was that the Reverse Fate Art at the Initial Completion Realm had not been complete enough. It had flaws.

The Reverse Fate Art after reaching the Proficient Realm was more complete and had fewer flaws.

Naturally, it was also more suitable for cultivation.

Li Yun immediately struck a stance and began trying to cultivate it.

That familiar sensation of blood and qi boiling, battering his internal organs, and sending his body temperature soaring appeared once more, but it was clearly not as violent as before.

Instead, it was gentler and slower.

As a result, although his body temperature continued to rise and he still felt the torment of pain, the stimulation was no longer so fierce, and he somehow managed to endure it.

Especially since things were different now.

His cultivation had reached the Body Tempering Thirteenth Layer. His physique had improved in every aspect and was far beyond what it had been before.

In the end, this round of Reverse Fate Art cultivation actually allowed him to last a full half hour before he could no longer hold on and was forced to stop.

The results, however, were gratifying!

When he opened the System Panel, he saw that the aptitude line had actually risen from Rank 5 Aptitude to Fourth Grade Lower!

"It even crossed an entire grade!"

Li Yun was overjoyed!

One had to know that among the nine aptitude grades, the gap between each grade was enormous. The difference between Rank 5 Aptitude and Rank Four Aptitude could not be mentioned in the same breath; they were simply two completely different tiers.

Take Acquired to Innate Reversal as an example. Although Fourth Grade Lower aptitude still had an extremely low success rate for reversing to Innate among ordinary people, compared to Rank 5 Aptitude, the improvement was at least tenfold.

To test the effects of Rank Four Aptitude,

Li Yun quickly sat down again and once more observed the Wind of the Valley Mouth.

Observing the Rhythm of the Wind, Cognition Points +20

It had been +10 before, but now it was +20.

It had doubled!

Do not underestimate this doubling. Cognition Points were gained by the second. What he had earned in an hour was now doubled.

If he observed for ten hours a day, he would gain an extra 360,000 Cognition Points out of thin air.

"But I'm so hungry... ah..."

Perhaps because cultivating the Reverse Fate Art had improved his aptitude and invisibly increased his body's consumption as well, Li Yun suddenly felt a fierce wave of hunger.

He was so hungry that he nearly became dizzy and saw stars.

Yet Zhang Ruohan still had not come, and he did not know any lightness skill. There was simply no way he could leap over that three-hundred-meter cliff face.

He was effectively trapped here.

Could it be that he would become the first person in history whose aptitude and cultivation had both improved, only to starve to death in a valley due to a lack of food?

That could not possibly be so miserable, could it?

Li Yun shook his head and got to his feet, preparing to search the valley once more. Even if he had to eat grass, he could not truly let himself starve to death here.

But at that moment, his gaze suddenly froze.

As he watched the wind continuously moan at the valley mouth, an idea suddenly flashed through his mind.

"That's not right..."

"This valley isn't completely sealed off. Can't I leave through that valley mouth?"

"How stupid am I? I observe that place every day, yet I never thought of walking out through the valley mouth to take a look?"

Seeing hope of escape, Li Yun suddenly felt more energized.

Without hesitation, he headed toward the valley mouth.

As he approached the valley mouth, the moaning wind clearly grew exceptionally fierce, forming a powerful tearing force.

Wind blades like swords struck his skin, making it faintly sting.

Li Yun suddenly understood why Zhang Ruohan had deliberately left food for him before departing. She had known that, with his strength from a few days ago, he would not have been able to withstand the wind at the valley mouth.

With Body Tempering Fourth Layer cultivation at the time, whether in strength or physical toughness, if he had dared to try walking out, there would have been only one outcome: the wind would have swept him to his death!

But this time was different.

Li Yun's cultivation was already at the Body Tempering Thirteenth Layer. When his strength erupted, it reached as high as three thousand jin. His physique was even stronger than that of fierce beasts such as tigers and leopards. Although the wind at the valley mouth made his body faintly ache, it did not tear his skin. It merely left pale marks upon it.

Walking against the wind like this for around ten minutes,

he actually passed through the valley mouth and followed a narrow mountain path into another valley.

When he looked around,

Li Yun could not help but stare in stunned disbelief.

This valley was broader, yet it was barren. A faint wind blew in from an even narrower Mountain Crevice ahead. It made no sound at all, yet it caused all life in this valley to wither away.

Not only was there not a trace of grass or trees, but the ground was covered in tiny white bones. At a glance, one could tell they were the remains of various birds.

At that moment,

a fallen leaf happened to drift down from above the valley. Before it even touched the ground, it silently split apart and turned into dust.

At the same moment,

Li Yun suddenly felt an intense pain spread across his skin.

Looking down,

he was horrified to discover that his exposed skin had somehow become covered in densely packed sword marks. Threads of blood seeped out, and blood had long since dripped from all ten fingers of his hands onto the ground.

"Damn..."

Li Yun was instantly seized by terror.

Without another word, he turned and ran.

As though fleeing for his life, he rushed back through the narrow mountain path into the previous valley and collapsed weakly onto the ground. By then, he had become a man covered in blood.

Hunger and blood loss made him fall directly into unconsciousness.