Minor Perfection, Three Refinements of a Martial Artist, a Spiritual Realm Forms on Its Own (3k)

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[First year, I began continuing to cultivate the Dense White Bone Contemplation, progressing slowly.]

A moment earlier.

In the shade of the trees.

The youth stood there, practicing the Tiger Roar Fist. His fist winds swept up dead branches and fallen leaves, shrouding the area.

He continued practicing his punches.

"Contract Book, add points for me!"

Zhang Fusheng understood that being able to dodge bullets was not because his reactions were so extraordinary. It was purely because his spirit was powerful enough for him to barely achieve "before the autumn wind stirred, the cicada had already sensed it."

But it was too dangerous. Every time, he only barely noticed them and barely evaded them.

He needed a stronger spirit.

The sixty years of visualization from Zhong Shan seeped into the depths of his soul like rain and mist, drop by drop, as though he had experienced them himself.

[Second year, I continued tempering the Dense White Bone Contemplation and seemed to gain some insight.]

[Third year.]

[Fourteenth year, I seemed to have reached another bottleneck, but this bottleneck was not limited by my talent.]

[I recalled what Master had said: ten years of cultivation could glimpse Great Accomplishment; only after a hundred years of accumulating spirit could one see Perfection. What I lacked was spiritual accumulation.]

[For a Visualization Method to reach Perfection, even merely Minor Perfection, it required a hundred years of spiritual accumulation.]

[Fifteenth year, I began silently building my foundation and polishing my spirit.]

[Thus, day after day, year after year.]

[Thirty-first year, I unlocked the second form of body and spirit: Newly Dead Form.]

[When I envisioned myself as a dead man, my body in reality truly began to decay. Its vitality was severed, its breath entirely gone, like a person who had just died.]

[In this form, I felt no pain, did not bleed, and was difficult to sense or detect. Was this suited for being an assassin?]

[Thirty-second year, I continued polishing my spirit, day after day, year after year.]

[Forty-ninth year, I finally reached a century-level accumulation of spirit. I could improve again. Though it was slow, it was real.]

[Fiftieth year, I contemplated the true meaning of "He Observes as I Should Be."]

[Fifty-first year, my progress was slight.]

[Fifty-second year, my progress was slight.]

[Fifty-third year, I seemed to have touched upon the true domain of spirit. I could see my own "soul."]

[Fifty-fourth year, through a hundred years of accumulation, I painstakingly constructed the rudiment of a spiritual realm. Though it soon collapsed, it still meant I had begun to truly touch the realm of Perfection.]

[Or rather, I had already reached "Minor Perfection."]

[Over the next four years, I gradually became familiar with how to construct a spiritual domain, how to construct a "spiritual realm."]

[I understood. A spiritual realm was the product of my spiritual world reflecting into reality. It was illusory, unreal, yet truly existed.]

[Fifty-ninth year, I could already construct a spiritual realm at will, but it could not give birth to beings like the skeletal creatures in Master's spiritual realm. My spiritual realm was empty.]

[Sixtieth year, I attempted to explore and seek knowledge in the realm of true "Perfection."]

Every bit of those sixty years had, in but a moment, all been added to this body.

The Tiger Roar Fist had not yet been fully practiced.

Zhang Fusheng had already opened his eyes. Clearly, he was still himself, yet heaven and earth seemed utterly different.

"No wonder Master said that a Visualization Method was even more important than actual cultivation."

He spread his hands, embracing the vast amount of invisible Mysterious Factors around him. They surged madly into his body, following the circulation route of Great Sun Illuminates Seventy-Two Snow Mountains and swiftly coursing throughout his body.

They still could not seep into the deepest layer of his skin and flesh, unable to complete the Third Refinement.

But his spirit could.

Zhang Fusheng used his spirit to interfere with reality, binding every Mysterious Factor in his body into a sharp sword and ruthlessly driving it into the deepest part of his skin and flesh!

Thus, the Third Refinement was achieved.

The Mysterious Factors thoroughly permeated his skin and flesh, adding five hundred jin of force. The strength throughout his body had reached two thousand seven hundred jin.

The next second.

Two thousand seven hundred jin of force sank into the soles of his feet, and he stomped down heavily!

Boom!

The forest floor cracked. The dead branches and fallen leaves filling the area were blasted apart in one breath. Under the immense recoil, Zhang Fusheng shot out like a cannonball, covering nearly a hundred meters in a single leap!

He landed, then stomped again!

One step carried him a hundred meters. After only several flashes, he had already crossed more than six hundred meters.

He raised his head and met the horrified gaze of the gunman on the rooftop.

That speed was too fast.

The gunman swallowed.

Second Refinement.

No, Third Refinement!!

The gunman's scalp went numb. He swung his gun around and aimed at the youth below.

Bang!

The youth lightly tilted his head, and the bullet grazed past his ear.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The gunman fired one shot after another, yet the youth did not even move his feet. He merely tilted his head, shifted sideways, and raised a hand.

Armor-piercing rounds capable of blasting through great trees, coated in blood-suppressing poison, grazed past him again and again.

They did not even touch a strand of his hair.

Coldness slowly crawled over his entire body. From hundreds of meters away, it could still be explained by the intelligence report's "Great Accomplishment Visualization Method"—keen spirit and danger perception.

But at this distance of barely over ten meters??

It could only mean that the instant he had the thought of pulling the trigger, the youth had already "sensed" it and begun to evade.

Sweat streamed down the gunman's forehead.

This was something the spiritual strength of a Great Accomplishment Visualization Method could absolutely not accomplish.

He tossed down two grenades, turned, and fled without hesitation.

Boom!!

Amid the fiery explosion, a figure shot into the sky before crashing heavily down. Without missing by an inch, he blocked the gunman's escape route.

The gunman trembled slightly, backing away as he stared at the youth before him, who looked frail and scholarly yet wore an excited expression.

That was right.

He was excited.

"Monster." The gunman drew a deep breath, his expression turning cold as he prepared to bite apart the capsule lodged in his teeth. His gaze met the youth's.

The next second.

The sky turned black.

Crack, crack, crack!

He bit down hard again and again, but the poison capsule in his teeth had vanished without a trace. The sky had turned a dense black, and beneath his feet was no longer the villa rooftop, but parched, cracked, scorched-black earth.

Desolation stretched in every direction. Here and there stood one or two withered trees, while at the end of the black sky, the setting sun was red as blood.

"This is... a spiritual realm?"

The gunman's heart pounded wildly as he stared at the youth before him. The youth was rotting, decaying, turning into a grim white skeleton.

"Mhm."

"My spiritual realm."

Zhang Fusheng said so, walking closer step by step until he stood before the gunman. Then he asked gently:

"Who sent you?"

"Was it Zhou Quan?"

The gunman gritted his teeth and said nothing.

Zhang Fusheng, in the form of white bones, stood in the spiritual illusion he had constructed and carefully studied the gunman's face.

He shook his head.

"No, not Zhou Quan. He is not that stupid. But if it was not him, then who could it be?"

The gunman remained silent.

Zhang Fusheng smiled.

"A spiritual realm is, in essence, my spiritual world. Everything here follows my will."

He snapped his fingers. The desolate, shattered earth vanished, replaced by seventy-two snow mountains, while above them hung a vast, blazing great sun.

The great sun scorched sweat from the gunman's forehead, yet the frost-cold seventy-two snow mountains froze his lower body stiff.

Scorching heat and bone-piercing cold existed within him at the same time.

"Of course, I can also do this."

The gunman saw the grim white skeleton speak. The next moment, the snow mountains vanished, the great sun dimmed, and in their place arose a massive mountain range. Flames burned upon the ground, and blades protruded from the mud.

Then, he felt himself walking uncontrollably toward that mountain range.

As he stepped down, blade tips pierced through his soles and flames scorched his skin. He wailed, but he could not control his body at all. Step after step, he trod a mountain of knives and crossed a sea of fire.

"Still unwilling to talk?"

Zhang Fusheng praised him.

"Such strong willpower. Oil cauldron."

The world turned into a massive cauldron of oil, and the gunman fell into it. Boiling oil poured into his body through his seven orifices. He wanted to howl, but submerged in the boiling oil, he could not even make a sound. Yet he could not die!

"Tongue-pulling, scissors, iron tree, steamer, copper pillar."

The spiritual realm changed with Zhang Fusheng's thoughts. The eighteen levels of hell appeared one after another, each punishment unfolding in turn.

He himself expanded into a colossal giant, holding layer after layer of hell in his hands as he watched the man suffer within.

This was his spiritual world. He could construct and manipulate it however he pleased.

Ten minutes.

In merely ten minutes, the gunman who had come to carry out this mission prepared to die had completely collapsed.

"I'll talk! I'll talk!!"

He wailed, tears and snot streaming down his face.

"I accepted a public mission at Bar No. 19. Right after I took the mission, someone kidnapped my entire family and sent me poison capsules and your information. I had no choice, I had no choice!"

The ten-thousand-foot-tall grim white skeleton silently watched the man drifting amid the spiritual hell, then let out a sigh.

"Is that so?"

The gunman saw that terrifying world collapse with a roar. Sunlight, a breeze, and the sound of police sirens in the distance returned.

He was back on the villa rooftop.

He knelt on the ground, trembling as he opened his phone and held it out.

"It's true, really!"

Zhang Fusheng took it and glanced through it. In the messaging app, someone had sent the gunman a video. In it were an elderly man, a wife, and a child bound up and pleading with him for help.

There was also a file containing information about Zhang Fusheng.

'Zhang Fusheng, peak First Refinement martial artist, Tiger Roar Fist at Perfection, Spring Thunder Technique at Minor Perfection, Visualization Method at Great Accomplishment.'

His gaze abruptly sharpened.

The police sirens drew closer and closer.

"Do what you need to do." Zhang Fusheng stared coldly at the gunman. The latter was visibly stunned, then gave a bitter smile.

He bit apart the poison capsule in his teeth. His face abruptly turned from white to green, and after only several breaths, he crumpled to the ground, twitching faintly. Foam and blood spilled from his mouth. Before he died, Zhang Fusheng pulled him into the Mental Spiritual Realm once more.

He wanted to verify something.

After the gunman in reality had completely died, the consciousness trapped in the Mental Spiritual Realm still existed. It had merely become dull and vacant.

Like a remnant soul with only obsession left.

But this was also the first "life" in his spiritual realm.

"Sure enough, whether the skeletons in the purgatory illusion or the ancient soldiers in Huang Qiuxian's spiritual realm, they had once been real people."

"No wonder I could never create similar lifeforms."

Zhang Fusheng muttered to himself, his expression grave as the police sirens drew closer and closer.

It was time to leave.

He glanced at the corpse and sighed softly.

The gunman could not be allowed to live. Whether it was his entry into the Third Refinement or his Visualization Method reaching Minor Perfection and gaining mastery over a spiritual realm, all of it had to remain secret.

After confirming the other man's death.

Zhang Fusheng put away the phone and vanished from the spot after several flashing leaps.