After testing the strength of this Mortal Breaking Realm movement technique,
Gu Cheng steadied himself and turned his attention to his personal attribute panel.
Host: Gu Cheng Cultivation: Qi Refinement: Ninth Level of Qi Blood Body Refinement: Seventh Level of Mortal Transformation Spirit Refinement: First Level of Mortal Transformation Remaining Lifespan: 805 years Martial Arts Learned: Raging Bull Fist: Minor Achievement Mortal Breaking · Blood Shadow Blade Technique: Extreme Intent (Greedy Wolf Blood Blade) Mortal Breaking · Flowing Cloud Riding Wind Art: Extreme Intent (Fox Shadow Traces) Qi Blood · Wind Thunder Blade Technique: Extreme Intent (Lightning Cyclone Slash) Qi Blood (Rare) · Hundred Refinements of the Azure Dragon: Perfection Mortal Breaking · Blood Blade Scripture: Great Achievement Pure Heart Manual: Extreme Intent (Bewitching Visage)
Ordinarily,
before becoming an Innate Grandmaster, a martial artist focused primarily on Qi Refinement, with Body Refinement and Spirit Refinement as supporting disciplines.
Someone like Gu Cheng, whose Body Refinement and Spirit Refinement had both reached the Mortal Breaking Realm while his Qi Refinement remained at the Qi Blood Realm, was an oddity among oddities.
Perhaps in other people's eyes,
since Gu Cheng had yet to condense his Sea of Qi, he was, at most, a martial artist at the peak of the Qi Blood Realm.
But in truth, with his cultivation in Body Refinement and Spirit Refinement, along with two Mortal Breaking Realm martial arts that had reached Extreme Intent,
Gu Cheng's true combat strength was already peerless among those in the Mortal Breaking Realm.
Even against an Innate Realm Grandmaster, he might well be able to hold his own!
In a sense,
Gu Cheng was also an extremely unconventional "level-suppressing powerhouse."
Just that string of martial arts, each at either Extreme Intent or Perfection, would be enough to leave anyone who heard about it utterly dumbfounded.
"But now that I think about it...
There seems to be one martial art on my panel that really doesn't fit in."
Staring at the "Raging Bull Fist," which had only reached Minor Achievement,
Gu Cheng furrowed his brow slightly.
His obsessive tendencies kicking in, he immediately poured his lifespan into it.
With Gu Cheng's current martial arts cultivation, a technique as crude as this posed no challenge whatsoever.
In less than a year, he had easily brought it to Grand Perfection.
Then he spent another ten years of lifespan, pushing the technique straight to Extreme Intent.
Raging Bull Fist: Extreme Intent (Ox Demon Strength)
Ox Demon Strength: You have mastered a unique method of exerting force. When you throw a punch, it is as if an ox demon has descended, and your own strength is slightly increased.
"Hmm, this passive effect isn't bad. It's a nice little bonus."
Feeling the changes within him, Gu Cheng's tightly furrowed brow relaxed at once.
Now,
the only martial art he had yet to bring to Perfection was the second volume of the Blood Blade Scripture.
There was no need to rush that.
Once Shopkeeper Song delivered the last few ingredients, Xiao Yun's younger sister could refine them into Boiling Blood Powder.
With eight hundred years of lifespan to pour into it, everything would fall into place.
What came after that was even simpler.
First, he would kill the two demon kings on Black Wind Mountain and stew them into soup, settling his old scores once and for all.
Then he would drag out that mysterious remnant of the Rebirth Sect and grind him to dust.
That would pretty much mean he had cleared Changle County, his "starter village," to perfection, wouldn't it?
The following morning.
Xu Nianxue leaned over her desk, continuing to transcribe the Mortal Breaking Realm martial art she had yet to finish.
But from her wandering gaze and messy strokes, it was clear her mind was elsewhere.
Just then, Gu Cheng gently knocked on her door.
He walked in carrying a red sandalwood food box and, as usual, began "feeding his pet."
"..."
Miss Xu glanced at the food box in the young man's hand and pressed her lips together, her expression a little uneasy.
Yesterday's "dark history" had been far too embarrassing.
Even someone as carefree as her found it too mortifying to bring up. She could only feign composure and pretend nothing had happened.
Xu Nianxue lifted her gaze to her "keeper" and immediately noticed the change in Gu Cheng.
The faint pressure that had clung to him before had vanished.
In its place was an air that felt like a spring breeze, making him seem especially easy on the eyes.
If she hadn't been fed by him every day and known him inside out,
she might have instinctively taken him for a refined, harmless young gentleman.
That wasn't all.
Miss Xu also keenly sensed that Gu Cheng's eyes were different from before.
Within those deep, ink-black eyes, a ray of divine light gathered without dispersing, giving them a smooth, rounded quality, as if he had returned to the basics.
His spiritual sense had clearly undergone a qualitative leap!
"Y-Your Spirit Refinement cultivation has broken through to the Mortal Breaking Realm?"
Xu Nianxue's small mouth fell open as she stared at the young man in shock.
"Mm."
Gu Cheng placed the food box on the table and nodded, his expression calm.
After all, he had spent nearly two hundred years in the illusion, opening silver handkerchiefs, and had ultimately defeated the desires in his heart.
Even the Pure Heart Manual had been pushed all the way to Extreme Intent. A breakthrough in Spirit Refinement to the Mortal Breaking Realm had naturally followed.
"..."
Xu Nianxue fell silent, her fair, delicate face filled with complicated emotions.
When Gu Cheng had condensed his spiritual sense in a single night before, she had assumed he was hiding his true strength—that he must have practiced some other method of Spirit Refinement before, perhaps for many years.
But even if Gu Cheng had begun refining his spirit in the womb,
to break through to the Mortal Breaking Realm in his early twenties without a renowned master's guidance or sufficient cultivation resources...
With such an extraordinary gift for Spirit Refinement, he would surely rank among the top ten across all twelve prefectures of Yunzhou, wouldn't he?
Xu Nianxue couldn't help letting out a quiet sigh.
Being mercilessly crushed in the very field she excelled at was a feeling she found hard to accept.
In her low spirits,
Xu Nianxue quickly opened the food box, grabbed a steamed bun, and stuffed it into her mouth.
Only after the food comforted her did the young woman feel a little less troubled.
She swallowed the bite and asked Gu Cheng:
"Since your Spirit Refinement cultivation has reached the Mortal Breaking Realm, Young Master Gu, have you decided which school you want to follow?"
"School?" Gu Cheng's eyes flickered.
"So Spirit Refinement has more specific branches?"
"Of course!" Xu Nianxue nodded as if it were obvious.
"Spirit Refinement cultivators have all kinds of methods, but mastering one skill is better than dabbling in a hundred.
If you don't settle on a direction to specialize in, you'll easily end up lurching from one thing to another, wasting your time and talent."
Seeing Gu Cheng's utterly bewildered expression,
Miss Xu's lips curved upward slightly. That long-lost feeling of superiority had finally returned.
In a much better mood, she patiently began to explain things to Gu Cheng.
Gu Cheng sat quietly beside her like an elementary school student.
As he listened to Teacher Xu's patient instruction, he soon gained a broad understanding of the various schools of Spirit Refinement.
Generally speaking, Spirit Refinement cultivators fell into three great schools:
Weapon Control, Spellcasting, and Demon Servants.
The Weapon Control school was the easiest to understand.
It relied on spiritual sense to manipulate artifacts and talismans to fight enemies—a straightforward gear-based approach.
Since it was relatively easy to get started, it was also the most popular school, though talismans and artifacts could be quite expensive.
The Spellcasting school was just as easy to understand.
It mainly used spiritual sense to cast spells, summoning wind and rain or commanding thunder and lightning. It was similar to a mage in a game.
The thunder arts that had made the Xu Family of Yunzhou famous were a classic example of Spellcasting.
The Demon Servant school, on the other hand, was a little unusual.
It required using spiritual sense to refine the souls of dead demons into one's own servants, making it roughly equivalent to a summoner in a game.
"...Generally speaking, Spirit Refinement cultivators who can command Demon Servants tend to be stronger than their peers."
Xu Nianxue took a small sip of hot tea and spoke with an air of authority:
"If their spiritual sense is powerful enough, they can even control several Demon Servants at once and easily fight several martial artists of the same rank single-handedly. They can be called invincible among their peers!"
"That powerful?" Gu Cheng's eyes lit up.
Compared to the straightforward, reckless fighting style of Body Refinement cultivators,
summoning a bunch of minions and overwhelming the enemy with numbers sounded a lot more impressive.
"It's powerful, sure, but refining a Demon Servant is incredibly difficult."
Seeing how tempted the young man looked, Xu Nianxue hurriedly doused his enthusiasm with cold water.
"If a Mortal Breaking Realm Spirit Refinement cultivator wants to refine a usable Demon Servant, it takes at least twenty years!"
"As for those peerlessly powerful Demon Servants renowned throughout the martial world, they take a hundred years or more to refine. They're practically all handed down from generation to generation by major powers and great lineages."
"If you have no backing and no faction, don't waste your time on this."
Oh? Waste time?
Gu Cheng liked nothing more than things that wasted time!
After hearing Miss Xu's warning, he only became more interested.
From his previous experience cultivating,
methods that took a great deal of time were often quite powerful.
For someone like him, with the Life-Spending System, they were practically tailor-made divine skills!
Besides, why did he have to choose just one of the three great schools of Spirit Refinement?
Only children had to choose. A cheat like him would take them all!
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