Inside the inn room, candlelight swayed.
Su Xian sat cross-legged.
He had finished reading the two thin secret manuals looted from the corpses of those two vicious criminals, and their contents had all been entered into the Demon Strategy.
"Moon Shadow Twin Blades... So that's how it is."
A trace of understanding flashed through Su Xian's eyes.
The two manuals shared the same origin. Together, they formed an extremely intricate and tricky blade technique.
Its threshold for entry was exceptionally high. The cultivator needed extraordinary talent, the ability to multitask, and the capacity to control two blades while splitting his focus.
Knowing their own talent was limited, the brothers had found another path. They split the complete blade manual into two parts,
each painstakingly cultivating one blade, then relying on years of tacit understanding to attack in tandem.
When both blades were unleashed together, their might could actually approach that of an ordinary Initial Bone Tempering Realm martial artist!
"Luckily, my Lightning Flowing Fire Slash was a cut above!"
Su Xian shook his head slightly, a sharp glint flashing briefly through his eyes.
"The time has come!"
"It's time to raise my Savage Dragon Bone Tempering Force!"
With a thought from Su Xian, he began pouring Demon Lifespan into the Savage Dragon Bone Tempering Force.
[Year Twenty: You cultivated the Savage Dragon Bone Tempering Force day and night without pause! At last, you cultivated the Savage Dragon Bone Tempering Force to the introductory realm!] [Year Fifty-Three! You did not slack off in the slightest and continued cultivating day and night. At last, you cultivated the Savage Dragon Bone Tempering Force to the minor mastery realm! Your physical attributes improved further!] [Year One Hundred Twenty-Five: You continued cultivating the Savage Dragon Bone Tempering Force! At last, you cultivated it to the major mastery realm! Your physical attributes underwent a leap forward! Every gesture and movement now carried boundless immense force!] [Year One Hundred Seventy-Eight! At last, you cultivated the Savage Dragon Bone Tempering Force to the perfected realm! Your physical strength underwent another leap forward! Your bones became incomparably tough, your vital energy surged like a dragon, roaring and churning. A fierce aura originating from the ancient primordial wilderness burst from your body, as though you had become a humanoid ferocious beast—the Savage Dragon reborn!]
Su Xian stopped infusing Demon Lifespan and exhaled a long white plume of breath carrying scorching heat.
The white plume condensed without dispersing, even giving off a faint sizzling sound in the air.
"Phew..."
He exhaled and gave voice, his sound like muffled thunder.
At that instant, a vast, indescribable force suddenly erupted from within his body!
The vital energy he had originally reined in could no longer be suppressed. It was like a dormant volcano awakening,
transforming into a blazing pillar of blood visible to the naked eye that shot into the sky from his crown!
The berserk vital-energy force instantly dyed the entire room blood-red,
while the tables, chairs, and other objects shuddered violently beneath its pressure!
Su Xian's thoughts raced. He immediately circulated the perfected Savage Dragon Bone Tempering Force with all his might, drawing the vital energy throughout his body back inside.
Su Xian closed his eyes and focused his mind, carefully experiencing the earth-shaking changes within his body.
That surging, turbulent sensation of strength, seemingly inexhaustible and bottomless, made his heart swell with excitement.
"Although it consumed a full one hundred seventy-eight years of Demon Lifespan..."
Su Xian felt the mighty, reborn strength within his body and nodded in satisfaction,
"the results... were worth it!"
At this moment, his physical body was already far stronger than martial artists at the Peak Bone Tempering Realm of the same level!
Relying on nothing but this physique tempered through a thousand trials, he was already strong enough to confront some Initial Organ Nourishing Realm martial artists in their prime, with abundant vital energy, without falling behind!
"Although it was worth it... that was one hundred seventy-eight years of Demon Lifespan! It still hurts!"
Su Xian smacked his lips as a pang of heartache welled up inside him.
However, that trace of heartache was soon replaced by even more intense excitement.
All this sacrifice had been worthwhile!
"If I hadn't had this Savage Dragon Bone Tempering Force!"
"Even if I exhausted those one hundred seventy-eight years of lifespan, how much cultivation could I have increased?"
"I probably could have barely crawled from the Initial Bone Tempering Realm to the Intermediate Bone Tempering Realm at most, right?"
Understanding dawned in Su Xian's heart.
"Refreshing! Exhilarating!"
He clenched both fists, feeling the terrifying force between his finger bones—enough to crush metal and iron—
and the corners of his mouth curled into a confident smile.
"Even if I encountered those two just now, why would I need to dodge? Why would I need a blade?"
"With nothing but these iron fists, I could smash their scrap metal to pieces and blast them—people and blades alike—into complete pulp!"
At this moment, compared with before his breakthrough, how could his combat power have merely doubled?
It had undergone a qualitative leap! He had been reborn from the inside out!
Now, even against the master of the Blazing Sun Martial Arts School, he had the confidence to fight him!
"Everything is ready! It's time... to break through in cultivation!"
In the next instant, after consuming only fifty years of lifespan,
Su Xian raised his cultivation from the Initial Bone Tempering Realm to the Bone Tempering Realm major mastery stage!
Afterward, he consumed another fifty years before raising himself from the Bone Tempering Realm major mastery stage to the Peak Bone Tempering Realm!
"Total consumed... two hundred seventy-eight years?" Su Xian's brows drew together slightly.
Even though his physical body had long since met the requirements, breaking through in cultivation had still consumed a hundred years!
Was his cultivation aptitude truly this wretched?
"If I hadn't first cultivated this Savage Dragon Bone Tempering Force to perfection and had instead directly consumed lifespan to forcibly break through the realms..."
"I'm afraid these several hundred years of Demon Lifespan would have been nothing more than a cup of water on a burning cart!"
Su Xian shook his head helplessly, but the joy brought by the even stronger sense of power within him soon washed that feeling away.
He calmed his mind and looked inward at himself.
His bones were crystalline as jade, flawless and translucent, gleaming with a warm yet resilient luster;
beneath his skin, his vital energy flowed like mercury, surging without end, with the faint sound of dragon roars within.
This was precisely the supreme body-tempering achievement described in the Marrow Cleansing Bone Refining Scripture:
Ice Muscle Jade Bone!
The classic recorded that upon reaching this realm, one could not only greatly improve one's cultivation aptitude,
but also significantly accelerate one's comprehension and cultivation of martial techniques and cultivation methods!
At this moment, Su Xian felt that his mind had never been clearer, his thoughts moving as swiftly as lightning.
Many obscure and difficult martial-arts principles that had once baffled him now became lucid and clear.
"It truly is wondrous! I'll test the marvels of this Ice Muscle Jade Bone!"
Su Xian murmured, his eyes gleaming with eager anticipation.
He immediately took out one of the blade manuals for the Moon Shadow Twin Blades obtained from the Ghost Shadow Twin Blades.
His heart moved with his will, and his steps followed his body.
He did not wield a blade. Instead, using his fingers as blades, he performed those profound and strange blade moves within the tiny space.
His figure drifted like a ghost, while the wind from his fingers was sharp as a chill edge.
Strangely, those tricky blade paths that originally required splitting one's focus in two
now seemed quite smooth in his hands. The sluggishness caused by dividing his mind between two tasks had been greatly reduced.
Before long, Su Xian felt that he had gained an initial grasp of it.
Su Xian paused for a moment, then closed his eyes and began cultivating.
The moment he began cultivating, Su Xian immediately felt that something was different.
At that moment, he clearly sensed the bottleneck leading to the Viscera Nourishing Realm.
Moreover, from the sensation, he felt that compared with before, the difficulty of this bottleneck had been reduced by an unknown amount!
"Perhaps I can break through to the Viscera Nourishing Realm on my own!"
Su Xian's heart stirred. His current cultivation aptitude told him
that even without a cultivation method for the Viscera Nourishing Realm, he could still attempt to break through into it!
"Why not give it a try?"
Su Xian looked at the 340 years of Demon Lifespan remaining in the Demon Strategy, and he could not help feeling tempted.
"Damn it, I've got more than three hundred years. If I don't gamble on this, when will I? I'm going for it!"
Su Xian gritted his teeth and immediately began pouring in Demon Lifespan, preparing to break through to the Viscera Nourishing Realm!
In the next instant, the Ice Muscle Jade Bone within Su Xian's body began shining in unison!
The radiance burst through his body,
illuminating the room!
Before you continue