Martial artists cultivated in a rather unusual way, drawing out their own strength to develop inner qi.
Thus, cultivating inner qi-even innate inner qi-still caused a certain amount of damage to their bodies.
This damage only stopped once they reached the Martial King realm, and only after entering the Martial Emperor realm did they begin to repair it.
In a sense, before reaching the Martial King realm, martial artists consumed additional reserves of their bodies' potential, and even certain special forces within them that could be considered their bodies' source power.
Thus, the later a martial artist reached the Martial King realm, the greater the damage they suffered.
Even in the Martial King realm, although this damage stopped, the longer they remained there, the more firmly those injuries became ingrained in their bodies.
After all, the Martial King realm involved tempering the innate inner qi they had cultivated. In doing so, they effectively set the injuries to their bodies' source power in place, making them permanent.
Once they entered the Martial Emperor realm, they could use the process of beginning to convert their qi into spiritual qi to recover the source power their bodies had lost and repair their earlier injuries.
But this undoubtedly increased the time needed to recover. The slower their recovery, the more it delayed their cultivation.
Thus, advancing to the Martial Emperor realm later was no good thing for a martial artist.
Although Wang Shihao did not know this, he understood that the sooner one entered the Martial Emperor realm, the higher one could climb in cultivation.
Advancing to Martial Emperor while still young could even improve one's chances of stepping into the Saint-grade realm and becoming a saint among martial artists.
The Wang Family had no Martial Saint, but the appearance of the True Martial