Sharp Metal Brilliant Qi Gathering Method

A black dagger had somehow appeared in his hand. A ghostly green sheen glimmered along its blade... It was poisoned!

A vicious glint flashed in his eyes.

He was going to take this chance to kill Jiang Tian.

In his eyes, Jiang Tian had expended so much effort that his body had to be depleted. This was his weakest moment.

The dagger soundlessly stabbed toward Jiang Tian's throat, fast and vicious, like a venomous snake lurking in the shadows before suddenly striking.

The poisoned blade was just about to touch Jiang Tian's neck.

A large hand seized his wrist.

Another hand clamped around his throat.

"Crack—"

Wang Yun's wrist was crushed outright. Shards of bone pierced his skin, and white splinters jutted out.

The dagger slipped from his hand and clattered to the ground, splashing a tiny spray of water.

Wang Yun's mouth fell open as he tried to scream, but the hand around his throat suddenly tightened, strangling the cry in his throat. Only a hissing wheeze escaped him.

"D-don't... don't kill... me..."

Wang Yun's face turned from white to purple, then purple to blue. His eyes bulged, and his voice seemed to squeeze through his teeth in broken, nearly inaudible fragments.

"I... I have treasures... in Prefecture City..."

Before he could finish, Jiang Tian snapped his neck.

"Crack—"

The crisp sound of breaking bone rang out through the curtain of rain, like someone stepping on a dry branch.

Wang Yun's body went limp, like a heap of mud, and all signs of life left him.

His eyes were still open. The light in his pupils rapidly faded, leaving behind a frozen look of resentment, terror, and a hint of regret too complex to name.

Jiang Tian let go, allowing Wang Yun's body to slide into the muddy water.

The rain kept falling.

He stood in the rain, drenched in blood, his chest rising and falling slightly, like a God of Slaughter who had walked down from a battlefield.

Jiang Tian crouched and carefully searched Wang Yun's corpse.

He found a total of forty thousand taels in banknotes, neatly stacked in a bundle and tucked inside Wang Yun's clothes, where the rain hadn't soaked them.

He put the banknotes in his pocket, then felt a small cloth pouch at Wang Yun's waist. Inside were several decent-looking pills and a white jade pendant.

The pendant was smooth and warm to the touch, like mutton-fat jade. It must have been the immortal treasure Wang Yun had mentioned.

But a black crack ran from one end of the pendant to the other, as though something had pierced it from within. It had lost all its luster.

Jiang Tian gave it a light tap. With a crack, the pendant shattered into pieces and sifted through his fingers.

He shook his head slightly, tossed the fragments aside, and continued searching.

Soon, he felt a yellowed book inside Wang Yun's clothes. Three large characters were written on its cover: Sharp Metal Brilliant Qi Gathering Method.

"This is..."

Jiang Tian's gaze sharpened. With a thought, his internal force surged out of his body and formed an invisible barrier around him, keeping the rain off the book.

He opened it and read page by page.

As he read on, his expression gradually turned strange.

So immortals really existed?

The doubts he had carried before now seemed to have been confirmed.

In simple terms, the Sharp Metal Brilliant Qi Gathering Method absorbed the "qi" within metal, drawing that invisible "qi" into the body to nourish oneself.

Copper, iron, gold, silver... One could gather qi from all kinds of metal.

With the aid of the Heaven-Defying Comprehension trait, Jiang Tian understood at an astonishing speed.

In less than the time it took to drink a cup of tea, he had fully mastered the Qi Gathering Method. Every key point and every route for circulating the energy was as clear as if carved into his mind.

"Metal..."

Jiang Tian's gaze flickered as he slowly raised his head and looked toward the last carriage.

It was piled with gold, along with several gold hairpins and ornaments, as well as a few porcelain pieces.

He carried all the gold to the middle of the open ground and piled it into a small golden mountain.

Jiang Tian sat cross-legged beside it, his eyes half closed. His breathing suddenly grew long and slow.

The internal force in his body began to circulate along the paths described in the Sharp Metal Brilliant Qi Gathering Method, flowing slowly through specific meridians. One circuit, two, three... The force grew more and more intense, surging beyond his body and enveloping the little golden mountain before him.

"Vmmm—"

The golden mountain trembled faintly inside the shroud of internal force, as if covered by an invisible magnetic field. The air around it began to warp, and raindrops striking above the pile were bounced away, leaving a dry patch.

Then, something miraculous happened.

Wisps of hazy golden qi rose from the mountain like steam lifting off water, curling upward, vivid against the curtain of rain.

The golden wisps drifted slowly toward Jiang Tian, slipped into his nostrils, and entered his body with each breath.

At first, there were only a few scattered strands, like spider silk swaying in the wind.

As time passed, the golden qi grew denser and more abundant. It rose from the golden mountain and gathered into a slender stream, flowing steadily into Jiang Tian's nostrils.

The "qi" entered his body through his airways, circulated once through his meridians, then sank into his dantian, where it gathered into a tiny golden vortex and began to turn slowly.

As the "qi" was steadily drawn out, the golden mountain's surface gradually grew dull.

Its original brilliant luster faded bit by bit, as if its soul had been pulled out, leaving behind only a gray, hollow shell.

At last, not another trace of "qi" emerged from the golden mountain.

Jiang Tian slowly opened his eyes. A brilliant golden glimmer flashed across them and vanished in an instant.

He rose to his feet and loosened his limbs. His joints cracked all over with a series of sharp pops, like a string of firecrackers exploding inside him.

He could clearly feel that his body had grown stronger. Even lifting a hand filled him with a heavy sense of power—he was stronger than before by more than a little.

More importantly, a mass of golden "qi" now rested in his dantian.

Jiang Tian narrowed his eyes slightly and opened his palm. A wisp of golden qi surfaced in his hand, curling around his fingertips like a nimble golden snake, carrying a faint, razor-sharp edge.

He raised his head and looked toward the dense forest not far away.

With a thought—

He threw a punch!

"Boom—!"

No Momentum, no flashy techniques—just the purest golden fist force.

The force soundlessly pierced the curtain of rain like a golden bolt of lightning, striking the first tree in an instant.

"Pfft—"

The sound of the fist force piercing the trunk was as soft as a knife slicing tofu.

A hole the size of a fist appeared in the thick tree, its cut perfectly smooth, as if the sharpest blade had pierced straight through in one stroke, leaving not a single splinter.

But the power of that punch went far beyond this.

Jiang Tian walked up to the tree and peered through the hole.

Every tree aligned with it had been pierced.

Some had a round hole straight through the trunk. Others had been clipped at the edge, leaving a ragged, savage gash.

From the tree before him to the one at the very back, the straight-line distance was at least fifty meters.

He had punched straight through more than fifty meters of forest.