Morning light streamed through the gaps in the window lattice, laying a slender golden ribbon across the room.
Fine dust drifted slowly in the beam, like stardust half-awake after being steeped by time.
Gu Linyuan sat cross-legged on the bed, his eyes slightly closed and his breathing long and steady.
The aura around him surged in an exceptionally restrained manner.
There was no blazing golden light, nor any earth-shaking tremor. Only the flow of blood and vitality beneath his skin grew ever deeper, like an underground river silently merging into a broader network of veins.
Then, he opened his eyes.
An exceedingly faint violet gleam flashed through their depths, vanishing in an instant like the final star fading before dawn.
He slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air. It remained condensed before him, circling for a moment before quietly dissolving into the air.
Level forty-nine.
He had broken through again.
He lowered his head and looked at his palm, slowly clenching and unclenching his fingers as he felt the increasingly profound power within him gradually settle.
The Soul Power flowing through his meridians was several degrees fuller than it had been yesterday, as though it had been carefully polished by an invisible hand—more refined, more docile, yet harboring an even more majestic force ready to erupt at the slightest touch.
He raised his brows slightly, a nearly imperceptible curve tugging at his lips.
This breakthrough had come faster than expected.
He had thought that bottleneck would hold him up for several more days. Yet after regulating his breathing and meditating last night, the barrier had loosened on its own, dissolving with the lightest touch.
Gu Linyuan rose to his feet and rolled his shoulders and neck, his joints giving off faint cracks. He could feel that he had taken another