Coming to His Door

"Heh, once your mental strength reached the mark, breaking through was only natural!" Zhang Tao said with a curl of his lip.

Li Zhen snorted. He didn't believe Zhang Tao's mental strength could have broken through out of nowhere. And it had only been a day—one day! There was no way he, Li Zhen, would believe that someone could gain so much mental strength in a single day. If Zhang Tao claimed he hadn't used some kind of cheat, Li Zhen would write his name backward.

"Did you keep all the good stuff for yourself?" Li Zhen snorted. It was the only explanation he could think of.

Zhang Tao chuckled. If he hadn't had the Kongtong Seal, he really would have kept it all to himself. Then he thought about how he hadn't used the Heavenly Gold Lotus. He might as well give it to Li Hanhan. He couldn't let Li Hanhan fall too far behind, after all. He'd be counting on Li Hanhan to take the hits for him later.

With that in mind, Zhang Tao went back and took out the remaining half of the Heavenly Gold Lotus. "Here, take it. Eat this, and you should be close to breaking through too."

The moment Li Zhen saw the Heavenly Gold Lotus, his eyes nearly popped out of his head. He'd known it! How could that good-for-nothing have broken through in a single day? Damn, he'd eaten a Heavenly Treasure—a Heavenly Gold Lotus, no less! Even Zhenxing City barely had any of those.

"Where did you get it?" Li Zhen asked suspiciously.

"Where else? The Chief Overseer gave it to me. Do you want it or not? If you don't, give it back!" Zhang Tao said at once, making as if to snatch it back.

Li Zhen immediately backed away several steps. As if! How could he return something that had already been given to him? Besides, Zhang Tao had already broken through, so he had to hurry and do the same. Otherwise, wouldn't Zhang Tao steal all the glory?

Zhang Tao had only been pretending. He also hoped Li Zhen would break through soon. They were both Rank 7 now, so they could go down to the Catacombs together.

After putting away the Heavenly Gold Lotus, Li Zhen said, "I'm heading out!"

He couldn't wait to get back and break through.

But just as he rushed outside, he crashed straight into Nan Yunyue. The impact knocked her flat on her back, and she immediately snapped, "Li Hanhan, do you never watch where you're going?"

Li Zhen was speechless. He couldn't be bothered to argue with Nan Yunyue, so he simply left. Nan Yunyue was furious. He'd run into her and couldn't even apologize? What a lack of manners.

Watching all this, Zhang Tao sighed. He was speechless, too. Why had Nan Yunyue come back again?

"Zhang Tao, you've definitely got a secret. How are you cultivating? How could you advance so fast?" Nan Yunyue stopped paying attention to Li Zhen and latched onto Zhang Tao instead. She hadn't wanted to get too close to him before, since most people who got close to Zhang Tao ended up dead.

Nan Yunyue didn't think she was lucky enough to escape that fate. And thinking back to when she'd gone to Magic City—good grief, she'd been ambushed outright. That hadn't even been in the Catacombs! Yet look at Zhang Tao: just a few days ago, he'd been Rank 5, just like her. No, to be precise, he'd been an injured Rank 5, weaker than her. But in just a few days, he'd not only sealed all Three Burner Gates in a single day, he'd become a Grandmaster.

Who knew how shocked she'd been when she heard the news yesterday? Could anyone imagine that someone who'd been just like her a few days ago had become a Grandmaster just like that?

It made Nan Yunyue so jealous she was practically coming apart at the seams.

And since Zhang Tao had advanced so quickly, he had to be hoarding something. So Nan Yunyue had shamelessly come over. She really didn't want Li Zhen and Zhang Tao to leave her too far behind. As a female martial artist, she wanted to become a leader among them and show everyone that women were no weaker than men.

But the gap was getting wider by the day, so Nan Yunyue had no choice but to cling to him. Even if there was danger, she couldn't afford to care anymore.

Hearing Nan Yunyue, Zhang Tao couldn't help rolling his eyes. Of course he had a secret. Did she think he'd tell her? In her dreams.

Seeing Zhang Tao roll his eyes, Nan Yunyue realized her words had probably been a little too much. She rolled her eyes, then cooed, "Zhang Tao, help me out!"

Zhang Tao instantly broke out in goose bumps. Just imagine it: a tough woman like Nan Yunyue acting coy. It was terrifying.

"Ugh..." Zhang Tao brushed Nan Yunyue's hand away in disgust.

Nan Yunyue's anger shot through the roof. But she was under his roof, so she had to bow her head. She decided that once she got stronger, she'd make that good-for-nothing pay.

"At Rank 5, cultivation is all about tempering your body. Unless you eat Heavenly Treasures, there's nothing I can do for you. I do have a way to help once you reach Rank 6. Come find me then," Zhang Tao said.

Nan Yunyue was overjoyed. To be honest, if she put in the effort, she could reach Rank 6 soon. But sealing the gates at Rank 6 and manifesting mental strength weren't easy. Many people got stuck at that stage, which was why she'd wanted to see whether Zhang Tao could help her. Now that she had a clear answer, Nan Yunyue left happily.

Watching Nan Yunyue leave, Zhang Tao rubbed his chin. As things stood, humanity had no method for cultivating mental strength. Most importantly, no one had identified the Brain Core.

Rank 7 cultivation was cultivation of mental strength. Once it reached three thousand hertz, one had reached the High-stage Rank 7. After tempering the skull, one would reach Rank 8.

For now, mental strength was cultivated by grinding away at it with vitality.

That was why the Indestructible Substance of Rank 8 Golden Body experts was so precious. Some Rank 8 experts couldn't recover after their Indestructible Substance was worn away, and could never advance again for the rest of their lives.

The root of all this lay in mental strength.

The Culture Building had conducted research, but they had no direction. People nowadays could only cultivate through the tempering method. Anyone who could reach Rank 9 that way was a prodigy.

Zhang Tao recalled that the original story had mentioned that the method of cultivating mental strength was to locate the Brain Core. Once it was located, things became easy.

To locate the Brain Core, the Bridge of Heaven and Earth had to be restored to a circle. At Rank 5, the Bridge of Heaven and Earth was circular. But later on, everyone thought it was an extension of one's power, so it became a straight line, with the Three Burner Gates arranged in a line along it.

That meant it couldn't truly form a closed loop. After all, only a circle was truly closed.

The Brain Core was actually a projection formed by the Three Burner Gates and the Bridge of Heaven and Earth. At first, it was extremely faint,

The true Brain Core lay within the Three Burner Gates. One had to return to the origin, restoring the extended Bridge of Heaven and Earth to the ring it had been at Rank 5.

Once the Bridge of Heaven and Earth took the shape of a ring, the Three Burner Gates would form a triangle. Power would flow through the circular Bridge of Heaven and Earth, passing through the Three Burner Gates again and again...

Then, by unleashing one's full power and making the Three Burner Gates tremble as they released their power, one could locate the Brain Core.