Breakthrough to the Spirit Gathering Realm!

[Year Eighteen, age thirty-five.]

[You had visited several small sects, but every one of them had shut you out.]

["Sigh, kicked out again. How rude."]

[You patted the dust from your clothes, rubbed the wounds on your face, and trudged down the mountain looking thoroughly bedraggled.]

[There was a village at the foot of the mountain. The moment you approached, you caught the heavy stench of blood.]

[When you entered the village, you discovered that everyone in it had been slaughtered!]

[Their corpses lay sprawled across the ground in every direction.]

["How could it be like this again? When we stopped here yesterday, everything was still fine..."]

[This was already the fourth village massacre you had encountered this year.]

[It was as though a professional band of killers had been tailing you all along. Wherever you went, they killed.]

[Yet strangely, whether the villagers had been alive or dead, "Spider Senses" had never reacted.]

[Old Liu nervously tugged at your clothes.]

["Boss Chen, let's get out of here. What if the murderer is still nearby..."]

["Let's go. These people... sigh, fate had not treated them well."]

[Your own family had also been wiped out by a mysterious group. Seeing the misery of these people, you could not help but think of yourself and feel their pain as if it were your own.]

[Could the people who slaughtered Luoding Village be the same group responsible for the village massacres you had encountered this year?]

[Year Twenty-Three, age forty.]

[You still had not given up on finding a master.]

[But as you grew older, the likelihood of those sects taking you in became lower and lower.]

[The consequences of gulping down too many pills during your time in the military camp had begun to surface.]

[Pill Toxin could not be expelled from your body. It began wearing away at your Blood Qi, causing you to cough frequently.]

[You had to cultivate diligently every day just to stave off the decline of your Blood Qi.]

[That day, you and Old Liu arrived at another sect.]

[Lingfeng Pavilion of Sanjiang Commandery, Qingzhou. Baling Commandery, where White Cloud County was located, was also within Qingzhou.]

["Cough, cough! Old Liu, if this doesn't work out either, I want to go back home and rest for a while. This area isn't too far from White Cloud County anyway.

"I still have some savings. I could open a martial arts school and fulfill what the general's personal guards entrusted to me back then, cough, cough!

"I've been running all over the place these past few years. I'm truly exhausted..."]

[Old Liu's hair had turned completely white. Though he was only fifty-five, he looked like an old man in his seventies or eighties.]

["Boss Chen, wherever you go, I'll go. If you open a martial arts school, I'll be the old man sweeping the floors for you, hahaha..."]

[Old Liu's laughter cut off abruptly, and your expression froze as well.]

[The gates of Lingfeng Pavilion stood wide open. Everything was silent, and a familiar stench of blood drifted out from within.]

[Looking closely, you saw that every disciple in the pavilion had already perished!]

[They had died in the same manner as those massacred villagers. Terror was etched across their faces, while their wounds were ragged and uneven, as though they had been torn apart by wild beasts.]

["How could this be..."]

[Villagers were ordinary people. It was easy for evil men to slaughter them.]

[But Lingfeng Pavilion, even if it was not some great power, was still a somewhat renowned Martial Artist sect in Sanjiang Commandery.]

[There were no Golden Body Realm Martial Artists in the sect, but there were quite a few Soul Tempering Realm and Spirit Gathering Realm Martial Artists.]

[And they had been slaughtered just like that?]

[You looked around, feeling as though boundless killing intent lurked within these silent mountains.]

[How could there be such a coincidence? Wherever you went, massacres followed?]

[But why had "Spider Senses" never activated?]

[Was a killer tailing you not enough to trigger "Spider Senses"?]

[What kind of pathetic rare trait was this!]

["Boss Chen! Come quick, look! Is this a Spirit Gathering Pill?"]

[At the mention of a Spirit Gathering Pill, your eyes lit up. Your body, weakened by Pill Toxin, immediately straightened.]

[Old Liu ran excitedly out of a room, holding a small porcelain bottle in his hands. Inside were exactly two blue pills.]

[You had heard Sun Cheng'en describe Spirit Gathering Pills before. Their appearance and scent were exactly as Sun Cheng'en had described.]

["Yes, these are Spirit Gathering Pills!"]

[Old Liu was overjoyed.]

["Wonderful! One each for you and me! I never thought I'd have a chance to reach the Spirit Gathering Realm in this lifetime!"]

[Old Liu was also a Martial Artist, but he only had a Low-Grade Bone Structure. He too had been stuck at the Ninth Stage of Body Refining, unable to break through.]

[He had traveled and struggled for so many years for the sake of this single pill.]

[At that moment, you could no longer care about the corpses around you. All you wanted was to take the pill at once and break through!]

[After swallowing the Spirit Gathering Pill, you immediately circulated your cultivation.]

[The Internal Cultivation Method Shen Qingshan had passed down to you, the Fervent Heart Art, could finally be put to use.]

[The Body Refining Realm cultivated Blood Qi, storing it within the Dantian to nourish the flesh and continuously strengthen the body.]

[Spirit Gathering Realm cultivation, however, used Internal Cultivation to condense Heaven and Earth Essence into Spiritual Qi, storing it within the human body's meridians.]

[The human body had Twelve Meridians, so the Spirit Gathering Realm had twelve levels.]

[Each completed meridian of Spiritual Qi cultivation constituted one level.]

[Under the effects of the Spirit Gathering Pill, your senses became extraordinarily sensitive to the Heaven and Earth Essence around you.]

[Once your Internal Cultivation began circulating, the Blood Qi throughout your body surged like countless great hands, greedily seizing Heaven and Earth Essence from the surroundings and sending it into your body.]

[You had still carried some of the crystals obtained in the military camp with you, all for this very moment!]

[When you grasped the crystals in both hands and absorbed the refined Heaven and Earth Essence within them, the efficiency of your Spirit Gathering increased tremendously!]

Outside the simulation, Chen Yi nervously watched line after line of simulation text appear.

"It looks like he's about to break through..."

Once he broke through to the Spirit Gathering Realm, when the simulation ended, he too would become a Spirit Gathering Realm Martial Artist in reality.

In this tiny Black Stone Gang, even the strongest gang leader was only at the Ninth Stage of Body Refining.

A Spirit Gathering Realm Martial Artist here would be a crushing blow from a higher dimension!

When the time came, Chen Yi could leave whenever he wanted and come whenever he pleased—he could charge in and out seven times over!

"Black Stone Gang, your end is near, hahaha..."

[As the medicinal power was gradually refined.]

[The first wisp of Spiritual Qi began to emerge within your body!]

["Success!"]

[You successfully broke through to the Spirit Gathering Realm. The probability of drawing high-quality traits has increased, and the number of equipable traits +2!]

[After your breakthrough, your exhilarated mind gradually calmed down, and you suddenly realized there was a problem.]

["Old Liu, how did you recognize a Spirit Gathering Pill?"]

[Old Liu was still sitting with his eyes closed, circulating his cultivation, as though he had not heard.]

["Old Liu, I never told you what a Spirit Gathering Pill looked like. Did someone tell you about it in the army?"]

[Old Liu opened his eyes.]

[At that instant, "Spider Senses" went wild.]

[Your hairs stood on end, and goosebumps erupted across your entire body!]

[You retreated several steps.]

[An inscrutable smile curled across Old Liu's lips.]

["I don't recognize Spirit Gathering Pills, but I can ask them."]

[As he spoke, Old Liu looked toward the corpses scattered all over the ground.]

[You understood everything.]

["You slaughtered Lingfeng Pavilion! And you slaughtered all those villages we passed through as well!"]

["Precisely."]

["No, that's impossible. How could you possess that kind of strength?"]

["I did not, once. Until six years ago, when I obtained this."]