Setting Out

"Chirp, chirp."

At dawn, the sparrows on the branches had just awakened. A thin mist blanketed the entire forest, and the rising sun cast patches of light through the dense canopy, filling the woods with life.

At the mountaintop, on a broad, flat slab of blue-gray rock, a slight youth in a coarse brown hemp robe sat cross-legged, his hands raised toward the sky. From the looks of it, he was practicing breathing and meditation.

The youth appeared to be around twelve or thirteen. He had red lips and white teeth, regular features, a high nose, and thin lips. Most striking were his long, sharply arched brows, which swept into the few strands of black hair falling at his temples, making his face all the more flawless.

To be so handsome at such a young age, he would surely grow up to be even more dashing and extraordinary.

"Phew."

He breathed out a fine, steady stream of air from his chest, feeling the faint thread of energy moving through his body.

Lin Yiqing couldn't help feeling delighted. Nothing was more satisfying than directly sensing himself grow stronger.

The path of martial arts was like rowing upstream. The hardships one endured while pressing forward against the current could plunge one into a deep, irresistible intoxication.

The Body Tempering Realm was the beginning of martial arts. Unlike others, who focused solely on training their bodies, Lin Yiqing also had a method of internal cultivation. That knowledge came from a very distant memory.

To regulate the breath, expel the stale and draw in the fresh—that was all one needed for longevity.

Combining inner and outer training could temper the body more thoroughly, with more obvious benefits. His strength and physique were both greater than those of his peers.

"Commencing posture, Grasp the Sparrow's Tail, Single Whip..."

Following the moves he remembered, Lin Yiqing slowly stretched his body. His movements were unhurried, yet well-practiced. As he moved, his muscles, tendons, and bones were all brought into action. It seemed the routine could temper his entire body.

Once he finished the set, he switched to other forms. The martial arts he had picked up in his spare time were proving immensely useful here.

"Haha, everyone in the clan knows your father's a good-for-nothing! You're the only one who still won't believe it!"

Suddenly, a mocking shout drifted faintly through the dense forest. A burst of jeering laughter followed.

Lin Yiqing couldn't help furrowing his brow. This was the Lin Family Back Mountain, usually a quiet place with few visitors. That was why he had chosen to practice his breathing here.

But for some reason, a crowd of the Lin family's younger generation had gathered at the foot of the mountain today. The distant arguing was making him restless.

"You still dare to fight back? Beat him!"

"Brother Lin Dong, run! Don't hit my brother!" The little girl's sobs and bursts of wild laughter continued in the distance.

Hearing that, Lin Yiqing understood. It was those people from the family head's branch picking a fight again.

The Lin Clan of Qingyang Town was one of the town's four major powers, entrenched there for many years.

Although it couldn't be called the most powerful force in Qingyang Town, its background was terrifying enough to make people's jaws drop.

It was a branch of the Lin Clan, one of the Great Yan Dynasty's four great clans!

The Lin Clan of Qingyang Town had once been part of the Lin Clan's Inner Clan.

Unfortunately, decades ago, a major mission undertaken by the family head, Lin Zhentian, had ended in failure, dealing the Lin Clan a tremendous blow. They were then banished to Qingyang Town to establish the Qingyang Lin Family.

Lin Yiqing's branch had been banished here as well, simply because its bloodline was closely related to the family head's.

Sadly, after Lin Zhentian established the Lin Family, they became collateral relatives.

As time passed, the unfair distribution of benefits and the constant, overt and covert suppression piled up. Then, a few years ago, his parents died in an accident while carrying out an escort mission, leaving Lin Yiqing as the sole survivor of his branch.

A cool breeze swept down from the mountaintop. Lin Yiqing stood quietly on the great rock, watching the commotion at the foot of the mountain. Without a doubt, this was where that youth's rise had begun.

"Martial arts at their peak can move heaven and earth."

He murmured the words, and suddenly it seemed as if a blazing fire had kindled in his eyes, ready to set the firmament aflame.

No matter how he had ended up here, now that he was here, he would never allow himself to remain mediocre! In a world where martial arts could reach the divine, how could he be content to live as an ant?

When the great roc caught the wind, it soared straight up ninety thousand miles!

Lin Yiqing glanced at the sky, then turned and headed deeper into the forest.

The few people making a racket today were all from the Lin family's younger generation. Most were just beginners in the early stages of the Body Tempering Realm. There was nothing to be learned from a fight like that.

In this world, cultivation began with body training. Everything started with oneself.

Put simply, body tempering meant training one's body, gradually strengthening it from the outside in.

Once the tendons and bones inside the body had been strengthened to a certain degree, a trace of an Origin Power Seed would emerge. Only when an Origin Power Seed appeared naturally within the body could one be called a cultivator!

The Body Tempering Realm had nine levels. The first three were for building a strong physique. The benefits of cultivation began to show gradually upon reaching the fourth level. At that stage, a cultivator's skin became as hard as wood or stone, and both physical strength and reaction speed increased dramatically.

Lin Yiqing was currently at the fourth level of the Body Tempering Realm, Skin Refinement! Among his peers in Qingyang Town, he could be considered above average.

He had to thank the martial arts forms he had learned before. Opening the meridians and training the bones had proved astonishingly effective in the early stages of the Body Tempering Realm. Without them, someone of his branch's standing could never have made such progress.

During the Body Tempering Realm, a person's talent was often not especially apparent. One could even say that anyone could cultivate during this stage. But how far they could go depended on their opportunities and the resources they obtained.

People from the various branches generally had very scarce resources, since the best were given to the direct-line descendants. This made it a hundred times harder for collateral relatives to distinguish themselves.

Many things others could get with a wave of the hand might require collateral relatives to pay an enormous price for even the slimmest chance of obtaining them.

In the Lin Family, for instance, branch members could hardly obtain spiritual medicines or higher-level martial arts without making a major contribution.

Thus, many branch members had no choice but to enter the mountains and search for medicinal herbs to support their cultivation.

Resources were a considerable challenge for Lin Yiqing, too.

Following a rugged forest path, he searched for old medicinal herbs and spiritual medicines. Thanks to the medical and medicinal knowledge he had once studied day and night, he had a wealth of experience.

Before long, his cloth sack was bulging. Spiritual medicines were rare, but many ordinary herbs could be useful too. The key was knowing how to use them.

What was more, he had something special of his own. Ever since he had awoken in this world, he had possessed a strange ability: he could see changes in the energy of heaven and earth for a brief moment.

At his current level, he could only make out a blurry image for an instant, but even that had benefited him greatly.

Metal, wood, water, fire, and earth—he could directly perceive the nature of the energy belonging to each element.

It was utterly miraculous, almost impossible to imagine!

He could discern yin and yang and divide the energy into the five elements. He had been born with the ability to distinguish the qi of all things!

By understanding the qi within objects, he could combine energies of different attributes. Once swallowed, they could help transform the yin essence within him into yang.

The potential was beyond imagination. If he didn't become an alchemist, he'd be wasting a heaven-given talent!

All things under heaven were born from qi.

At that moment, he could see clusters of colorful energy surrounding the spiritual medicines growing in the mountains, each one strikingly clear. Of them all, a small crimson herb was the most eye-catching.

"A first-grade spiritual medicine, Red Sun Grass!"

Lin Yiqing couldn't help beaming with delight. This was one of the main ingredients he had been searching for a long time. He couldn't believe he had found it today.

"Red Sun Grass, Gold Jade Branch, White Frost Vine—not bad. With these herbs, I might be able to try refining a batch of auxiliary medicine for the Body Tempering Realm!"

Looking at the herbs in his sack, Lin Yiqing couldn't help smiling.

The herbs he had gathered today were the ingredients for the Body Tempering Pill he had been planning for days. Now he only needed to try it once to see how it turned out.

He remembered that when he'd read those legendary stories, he'd complained: why didn't those big shots who wrote about this world practice alchemy?

They simply refined all sorts of spiritual medicines and rare treasures directly. Pills were condensed by hand only after reaching the proper cultivation level, and more often than not, they were formed by gathering Origin Power.

The culture of pills was a world behind that of another world.

Still, that might have had something to do with the overall environment. In a world like this, people fought at every turn, and countless powerful cultivators fell. Where would anyone find the time to study and develop such things?

Besides, pills in this world had their own unique qualities.

But Lin Yiqing had broad horizons, an imaginative mind, and an understanding of alchemy gleaned from all those great experts he had read about. If he didn't try to develop alchemy, he would be wasting his talents!

With that thought, Lin Yiqing hurried home.

A modest little courtyard of gray brick stood alone on the outskirts of the Lin Family. This was Lin Yiqing's home.

His grandfather's generation had followed Lin Zhentian here. After enduring countless hardships, the family fortune they had built back then had fallen into ruin.

The empty courtyard looked rather dilapidated, but that was all the better. No one would come to disturb him, and he could do whatever he wanted without worrying about being discovered.

His current strength was too limited to extract the essence of spiritual medicines using a cultivator's methods. He didn't have a proper pill furnace to help him form pills, either. So, he had to make do with some clever tricks.

He remembered seeing a video in his previous life of a great cultivator refining a body-tempering medicinal liquid on an induction stove when he was young. He could certainly give it a try himself!

A fierce fire roared beneath the stove, heating a large, soot-blackened iron pot. Once the water boiled, it would be time to add the herbs.

"The Red Sun Grass is hot by nature. Then I'll add Gold Jade Branch to balance it..."

Lin Yiqing stared intently at the medicinal soup bubbling in the pot, watching its every change.

Deep in his sea of consciousness, a point of hazy green light high above flickered on and off. The scene before him suddenly transformed into multicolored clouds of energy.

In that instant, he saw the energy surging within them, and how thoroughly the different energies had blended together.

Orange and apricot-colored energies churned at first, completely at odds with one another, like oil and water, distinct and incompatible.

But when he added a new spiritual medicine, the Gold Jade Branch, they melted rapidly, like butter over high heat, and mixed with the new energy. In the end, they collapsed into an ocher-colored clump of energy.

"Haha, it worked!"

Watching the yellowish medicinal liquid in the pot slowly turn into a black paste, Lin Yiqing's tense expression finally relaxed. He couldn't help grinning.

If the great experts could do it, then so could he. Who wasn't a genius alchemist?

A pot for refining medicine was an indispensable tool for every beginner!

Once it had cooled a little, Lin Yiqing hurriedly took the half-solidified black paste from the pot and placed it in a long wooden mold. The mold was carved with rows of cylindrical grooves. By sliding its two halves together, he quickly shaped the paste into pills.

But even though the medicine had been refined, he didn't swallow it right away.

After all, he had come up with the formula himself. He needed to test it once before he could confirm the pills had no side effects and could aid body tempering.

With that thought, he turned and caught a scrawny wild rabbit from the cage in the kitchen corner. He stuffed a pill into its mouth and watched it swallow. A hazy glow shimmered in Lin Yiqing's eyes.

Through his miraculous vision, he saw the ocher-colored energy in the pill seep like mist into the rabbit's flesh.

Its tendons and bones greedily absorbed the energy, like sponges. The medicinal power rapidly replenished the rabbit's withered muscles, like spring rain nourishing the earth, and even its bones began to glimmer faintly.

A moment later, seeing that the rabbit looked livelier, Lin Yiqing finally broke into a delighted smile. His attempt at preparing and refining the medicine had undoubtedly succeeded.