Cultivating Five Hearts Towards Heaven

Elder Qian was stunned for a moment after hearing Shi Fen's confession. When he saw the objects around him suddenly floating in mid-air, he was so startled that he jumped up reflexively, retreating more than ten meters back.

From a distance, Elder Qian stared with wide eyes, stammering in shock: "You are a Spiritual Master?"

Suddenly, he realized what was happening. With a flash of movement, he returned to stand right in front of Shi Fen. Elder Qian's eyes were locked onto Shi Fen as he asked sternly: "How long have you been awakened? Who else knows about this?"

Elder Qian's reaction also gave Shi Fen a huge fright. He truly hadn't expected that revealing his identity as a Spiritual Master would cause such an intense reaction from his master.

Shi Fen hurriedly stood up, straightened his posture respectfully, and answered quickly: "I awakened about four months ago. You are the only one who knows about this right now."

Upon hearing Shi Fen's answer, Elder Qian immediately threw his head back and laughed heartily.

"Good! Good! Good!" After laughing for a few moments, Elder Qian shouted the word "good" several times in succession.

"I was wondering why the Youquan Blade you forged was so powerful. So, you have awakened Spiritual Force. With the assistance of Spiritual Force, it's no wonder you could achieve such astonishing results. To actually have a talent for Spiritual Force—hahaha, this is truly heaven helping me!"

Shi Fen looked blank, not knowing what to say.

Elder Qian suddenly reached out, grabbed Shi Fen by the collar as if he were a chick, and with a flash, carried him over to a piece of equipment.

Shi Fen felt his collar tighten and found himself lifted into the air. Before he could even make a sound, he was deposited in front of a device. Before Shi Fen could clearly see what it was, Elder Qian said impatiently: "Quick, use your full strength. Let me see your power right now."

Shi Fen realized that the device before him was a Punch Force Tester. He was a bit confused, not knowing why his master was so excited.

Under Elder Qian's anxious urging, Shi Fen immediately focused his mind, stood before the Punch Force Tester, adjusted his state slightly, and threw a punch with "full strength."

"2671KG."

Seeing this data, Shi Fen immediately thought, Oh no. He had used too much force!

He hadn't dared to use his entire body's strength, only about 30 percent of it, yet he hadn't expected that even 30 percent would yield such a high score.

Shi Fen had miscalculated.

For nearly four months, whenever he had free time, he would enter his Inner World to study and live under extreme gravity.

His daily training was also conducted under extreme gravity. Coupled with the 18 years of accumulated martial arts techniques he had converted, his body's force-exertion techniques were far superior to those of an ordinary person.

When throwing a punch, Shi Fen could utilize the power of his entire body! With the same physical fitness, Shi Fen could exert much greater power.

When Shi Fen threw the punch, Elder Qian's eyes lit up. He hadn't expected Shi Fen to be such an "expert" at exerting force; this wasn't a technique an average person would possess. When Elder Qian saw the value on the tester, he was dumbfounded.

Elder Qian wanted to exclaim, "Impossible!" But this was the most precise Punch Force Tester; it couldn't be wrong. Since that was impossible...

Then the only remaining explanation was "innate talent."

"Wonderful! I didn't expect you to be an all-around talent. Have you ever entered your Sea of Consciousness?" Elder Qian asked in amazement.

"I have entered it many times. I discovered nine small, solid, dark golden spheres inside," Shi Fen answered honestly.

Elder Qian was speechless for a moment, silently mocking himself in his heart: Is this what a genius is?

"It is already extremely difficult to know that you are a Spiritual Master; there is very little information about this on the internet. Those dark golden spheres of yours are solid Spiritual Force. Although they are a bit small, their advantage lies in their quantity. Your future is limitless." Elder Qian was filled with emotion, and at the same time, he felt envious of Shi Fen's talent.

Although he felt envious, Elder Qian was not jealous.

Shi Fen was already his disciple. Naturally, the more heaven-defying his disciple was, the better.

Shi Fen appeared slightly surprised and happy, but he still stood there honestly without speaking.

Seeing Shi Fen's demeanor, Elder Qian couldn't help but praise him: "We need to slightly modify our previous plan." After saying this, his figure dissipated in front of Shi Fen.

Shi Fen was at a loss, not knowing what this was all about.

Elder Qian exerted his full strength, moving with lightning speed to retrieve a file from his lounge, and appeared like a ghost to hand it to Shi Fen.

"Find a lounge first and try to practice the Five Hearts Towards Heaven. I'm going to find someone. If everything goes smoothly, you brat will reach the heavens in a single step!" After saying this, Elder Qian hurried away.

Shi Fen took the file and was just about to ask something, but Elder Qian's figure had already vanished from the training room.

"High-level War God, truly impressive. He's as fast as a ghost; I couldn't see him at all." Shi Fen scanned his surroundings, failing to spot his master's figure.

Only then did he look down at the file in his hand. On the cover, the words "Five Hearts Towards Heaven" were written in bold, sweeping calligraphy.

Shi Fen sighed inwardly and released his Spiritual Force to scan the area slightly.

The overall style of this Forging Room was a bit strange.

The interior space of the Forging Room looked like a section of a tunnel magnified more than ten times.

One end of the tunnel was the entrance, and the other end was a five-story "apartment building."

The ceiling was uniform concrete and steel frames, while the floor looked like a "patched" piece of cloth, pieced together from different materials in segmented slots. Wooden floors, stone floors, composite material floors, metal floors—all common flooring materials were present here.

Through his Spiritual Force, Shi Fen could sense that the lowest layer of the floor was an extremely thick metal foundation.

Scattered across the plaza were many simple, heavy wooden pieces of furniture, mostly tables and shelves. Shi Fen could tell at a glance that these pieces were made from top-tier "aged" wood; they were ancient and worth a fortune. Neatly arranged on them were various handmade forging tools, at least several thousand types.

In terms of quantity, these manual tools were even more numerous than those in the original Virtual Trial Space.

Primitive, wild anvils, massive forging hammers over a meter in diameter, various modern forging devices—items of all styles were mixed together casually, with no intention of being separated into slots.

At a glance, it had a unique charm.

There was order within the chaos.

Shi Fen glanced at the "apartment building" and found an unoccupied lounge on the first floor.

"Heh, what a luxurious two-bedroom, one-living-room suite." Shi Fen was stunned by the scene inside.

The decor and interior design were of a super five-star standard, featuring top-tier Small Leaf Rosewood and Huali Wood furniture. The combination of furniture and decor felt both modern and classical. The room was fully stocked with every daily necessity, much like a top-tier hotel, making it completely ready for one to "move in with just a suitcase."

Shi Fen tossed his backpack onto the table by the door, grabbed a bottle of chilled soda from the fridge, and took a refreshing gulp. Holding the soda and his files, he sat cross-legged on the living room carpet and began to study the Five Hearts Towards Heaven technique.

"Doesn't seem difficult."

Shi Fen tossed the files aside and mimicked the posture described within. With both soles facing upward and his hands resting on his legs, palms facing up, he hunched his back slightly to ensure his muscles were fully relaxed.

"Let me try. Just how hard can it be to sense cosmic energy for the first time!"

Shi Fen adjusted his breathing slightly, employing a meditative breathing technique to calm himself. "I meditate often; this part is no challenge for me." Shi Fen frequently entered his Sea of Consciousness, so this stage had already become a habit—it was far too simple.

Maintaining a state of complete physical and mental relaxation, Shi Fen held the Five Hearts Towards Heaven posture and attempted to sense the omnipresent cosmic energy described in the text.

Shi Fen felt this state was incredibly comfortable; the dual relaxation allowed him to temporarily forget the pressure of the Basic Secret Patterns, and he became fully immersed.

A few minutes later.

Shi Fen vaguely felt wisps of energy passing through the soles of his feet, the palms of his hands, and the Baihui Acupoint atop his head, gradually drilling into his body at an extremely slow pace.

"Hm? It worked this quickly?" Shi Fen dared not make any sudden movements, trying his best to maintain the state. His consciousness was entirely focused on the "five hearts," sensing those wisps of airflow. His consciousness naturally projected the thought of "absorbing cosmic energy with full force," and instantly, the speed at which his soles, palms, and Baihui Acupoint drew in cosmic energy surged.

The speed increased a hundredfold, then a thousandfold in an instant.

If it had only been a breeze at first, it was now a high-pressure water jet. Cosmic energy poured into Shi Fen's body like a high-pressure column of water, gushing madly from the "five hearts."

The accumulation Shi Fen had built up while training in his Inner World erupted like a dam breaking.

Shi Fen felt a tremor originating from the depths of his soul, causing his body to shake slightly. A massive amount of invisible, colorless cosmic energy poured into his body and was immediately carved up by the cells throughout his entire frame.

Countless cells, like ravenous ghosts, snatched at the energy. The cosmic energy Shi Fen absorbed was "hijacked mid-way" by the frantic cells; it could barely reach his elbows, knees, and cervical spine before it was unable to penetrate any further inward.

The other cells in his body subconsciously urged Shi Fen to increase the absorption speed.

The Black Mirror seemed to sense Shi Fen's "predicament" and spontaneously drew upon the mist of cosmic energy from his Inner World, pouring it directly into his body.

In an instant, a comprehensive evolution began across every part of Shi Fen's body!

As soon as the cosmic energy entered a cell, it was rapidly devoured by the mitochondria. Once the mitochondria were "full," they began to release a strange energy that was immediately snatched up by other parts of the cell. The cells became much more refined and slightly smaller in volume. Once solidified, the cells began to divide, splitting in two. The density of Shi Fen's body was slowly increasing, which meant his body weight was also slowly rising.

The cells began to undergo earth-shaking changes.

His DNA began to shift slightly. The double-helix structure of his DNA underwent small-scale fractures and recombinations internally.

Shi Fen was undergoing an essential transformation at the cellular level.

Shi Fen's skin, muscles, internal organs, bones, circulatory system, and nervous system all received an all-encompassing upgrade.

If there was one major consumer of this cosmic energy, it had to be Shi Fen's brain.

The vast majority of the massive cosmic energy channeled by the Eight Trigrams Reincarnation Mirror was swallowed whole by his brain. Deep within the brain region, the previously thin, pale-gold mist grew brighter as energy continued to pour in, and the golden mist also vaguely began to "solidify."

Compared to the change in brightness, the change in the density of the golden mist was negligible.

The nine dark-gold spheres in his mind, under the influx of massive energy, not only failed to dissolve but instead colluded with the golden mist, madly devouring cosmic energy together, with their absorption speed increasing rapidly.

Soon, a vortex resembling a "spatial black hole" appeared around the dark-gold spheres, constantly sucking in all surrounding energy. Some of the golden mist was "accidentally caught" and swallowed by the dark-gold spheres as well.

Having absorbed the golden currents, the dark-gold spheres began to change; golden spots appeared on their surfaces. As the golden mist continuously merged into the spheres, the golden spots on their surfaces grew larger and larger, gradually turning into bright patches. At this rate, it looked as though the dark-gold spheres would eventually turn into solid golden spheres.

As for why such a mutation was occurring, Shi Fen had no idea. Given his body's massive demand for energy, he had no time to think, only to continue madly absorbing cosmic energy.