Climbing the Stone Wall

After Yan Chihuo finished this hundredth round of the Body-Refining Fist, he employed inner sight and discovered a thread-thin stream of earthy yellow spiritual power flowing from his dantian into his Eight Extraordinary Meridians. Yet it could not even complete one major circulation before returning to his dantian. Still, for Yan Chihuo to be able to wield even a trace of spiritual power was already an unimaginable thing.

Yuan Tong walked over and said, "Elder Yuan, you may climb the cliff face now."

Yan Chihuo came to the foot of the cliff and looked up at the Divine Apes. All at once, he realized that their climbing postures precisely matched the Body-Refining Fist. He now understood: the Body-Refining Fist could draw upon a tiny amount of spiritual power, allowing one to scale the cliff. But how could such a paltry amount of spiritual power possibly support a climb to the summit?

However, all the Divine Apes above were climbing the cliff, so there had to be a reason. He drew a deep breath, moved his palms into an exceedingly strange posture, and pressed them against the cliff face. It was the first stance of the Body-Refining Fist.

This time, Yan Chihuo clung firmly to the cliff. Seeing that the method truly worked, he sprang upward, changed his palms into another posture, and pressed himself against the cliff again—this was the second stance of the Body-Refining Fist. In this manner, he executed one stance after another, while his body leaped upward zhang by zhang.

Yet even practicing the Body-Refining Fist on level ground took considerable effort, let alone climbing a cliff. In the first round, he climbed ten zhang; in the second, fifteen zhang; in the third, only nine zhang. He had completed just half of the fourth round and climbed