Time was like droplets seeping through the stone walls of Heavenly Prison, quietly accumulating in corners no one noticed.
Xu Qian maintained the shell of a "good-natured jailer" as always—checking in on time every day, sweeping the prison wing and using imperceptible Sword Qi to whisk away every speck of dust, occasionally taking care of a few foolish rats while on night duty. No one knew that this seemingly ordinary young man was undergoing a world-shaking transformation within.
The Longevity Dao Fruit was his foundation. It circulated ceaselessly day and night, converting the Yin Sha Qi drifting through heaven and earth into pure true essence.
The improved Longevity Blood Circulation Method was like adding a supercharger to this perpetual-motion engine, increasing his cultivation efficiency by a full twenty percent.
Even more remarkable was the self-created method of "tempering the body with Sword Intent." Whenever night fell and all was quiet, Xu Qian would rouse the pale green Sword Intent Seed in his dantian, letting Sword Qi pierce through every bone in his body like fine needles. The pain cut to the marrow, as if hundreds upon hundreds of tiny hammers were pounding every bone at once. But after the pain came a satisfying sense of his bones growing ever tougher.
"Three hundred and sixty-seven, three hundred and sixty-eight..."
That night, Xu Qian was performing the final cycle of "tempering the body with Sword Intent."
The pale green Sword Qi was as fine as cow's hair. Wrapped in Longevity True Qi, it pierced precisely into every groove of the ulna in his left arm. He could "see" it—in the internal vision projected by the Longevity Dao Fruit deep within his Sea of Consciousness—as the Sword Qi filled and packed the tiny, invisible pores on the surface of his bones, gradually transforming