Using Dragon Blood, Power Surges

"Is this what it's like to reach the peak the moment I debut?"

Shi Fen stroked his chin, his eyes scanning the manuals repeatedly, unable to decide which one to look at first.

"Forget it, I should focus on improving my strength first. I'm in no rush to go find monsters to fight." Shi Fen crouched in front of the chest containing the treasures and picked up the test tube filled with "Dragon Blood."

The test tube contained one-third of a golden liquid, which looked exceptionally dazzling under the light. Without the slightest hesitation, Shi Fen rolled up his sleeves and carefully applied the golden blood onto his forearms.

The golden blood was incredibly viscous. As Shi Fen carefully smeared it onto his skin, a wave of heat quickly radiated from the points of contact, rapidly melting into his arms. Once the heat entered his body, it surged through every part of him—his hands, torso, legs, head, internal organs, and skin were all visited by this wave of heat.

Shi Fen could clearly feel his strength increasing rapidly.

The strange energy of the Dragon Blood, following the flow of heat, continuously merged into every part of his body. The cells throughout his entire body were competing to devour this strange energy, undergoing a fierce transformation.

As the heat intensified, the Dragon Blood visibly vanished, rapidly absorbing into Shi Fen's skin. When his body began to ache faintly, Shi Fen shifted the vast majority of his consciousness into the Image World. Because only a tiny fraction of his consciousness remained in his body, the sensation of pain dropped instantly, and Shi Fen allowed the energy of the Dragon Blood to run wild within him.

Even so, Shi Fen still trembled all over from the pain. It felt as if countless ants had burrowed into his body, gnawing at everything inside him. This hair-raising agony caused the color to drain from Shi Fen's face, turning it deathly pale.

Shi Fen clenched his fists tightly; the pain was intensifying rapidly, becoming difficult to endure. The agony layered itself in maddening ways, escalating from the internal gnawing to a burning sensation from the heat. Once the heat reached its peak, a numbing itch suddenly erupted all over his body.

The sudden itch made one want to scratch themselves to death; the deep, bone-marrow-piercing pain and burning now felt less unbearable by comparison.

Shi Fen's muscles began to twitch uncontrollably, and his pores acted like "fountains," with massive amounts of sweat surging out. His breathing became uncontrollable, growing increasingly heavy and rapid, while his heart hammered against his chest like a "war drum" beating the rhythm of battle. His body was gradually reaching its absolute limit.

Shi Fen's vision began to blacken—a sign that he was on the verge of losing consciousness.

Shi Fen hardened his heart, pulling his full consciousness back to face this inhuman torture head-on.

As his consciousness returned, Shi Fen gave a violent jerk. He squeezed his fists with all his might, his nails digging directly into his palms. A low, beast-like growl escaped his throat, as if he were a wounded animal. At this moment, the pain was so intense that his vision went dark, and he nearly blacked out.

"I refuse to believe I can't handle this!" Shi Fen gritted his teeth, tensing every muscle in his body to fight back against the terrifying physical torment. Beneath his reddened skin, his blood vessels and muscles struggled violently, looking like earthworms threatened with death.

Under this hellish torture, Shi Fen's muscles, skin, bones, ligaments, and connective tissues were undergoing astonishing changes, rapidly growing stronger.

The genes within the nuclei of his cells were likewise undergoing incredible changes, rapidly optimizing themselves.

Impurities within his body's cells were being squeezed out in a brutal fashion. Under the influence of the heat, these cellular impurities, along with discarded cells and other waste, were expelled from his body. A layer of black, foul-smelling grime coated Shi Fen's skin.

Shi Fen looked absolutely hideous at this moment. Covered in filth, his reddened skin leaked foul impurities from countless pores. The bulging veins and muscles, writhing like struggling earthworms and loaches, made him look like a terrifying demon.

Shi Fen no longer looked human.

Even if Hong were to see such a scene, it would give him a fright.

Shi Fen was not enduring this torture out of a desire to show off or to train his willpower. During the process of refining the Dragon Blood, he had noticed an unusual change in his mind.

As a massive amount of the Dragon Blood's strange energy entered his brain along with the heat, the vast golden sea of consciousness in his mind seemed to be ignited by something. The sea began to churn wildly, as if caught in a massive storm.

The nine dark golden spheres, which were suspended and rotating in his sea of consciousness with golden light spots, were activated once again. They began to greedily devour the strange energy, creating a vortex that sucked in vast amounts of golden mist. The strange energy provided by the Dragon Blood was far from enough to satisfy the appetites of the nine greedy spheres; the golden mist around them was instantly devoured, and the surrounding mist rushed in to fill the void.

For a time, Shi Fen's sea of consciousness began to consume itself.

The Black Mirror detected the anomaly and instantly dove into Shi Fen's mind, releasing cosmic energy mist to help him convert large quantities of golden mist for the dark golden spheres to consume.

The dark golden spheres seemed to find the golden mist the most useful and immediately became picky, consuming only the golden mist and rejecting all other forms of energy.

Even with the massive amount of cosmic energy released by the Black Mirror, Shi Fen only needed to bring the golden mist near it for the cosmic energy to instantly convert into golden mist. The conversion rate was extremely high, yet it still wasn't enough to satisfy the spheres.

Deep in the center of the vast sea of consciousness, the nine spheres acted like nine black holes, devouring the golden mist with an endless, insatiable hunger. Even with the help of the Black Mirror, the golden mist was being consumed rapidly.

Shi Fen hardened his heart and pulled his entire consciousness back into his sea of consciousness. Although the pain he had to endure was even greater, the cosmic energy released by the Black Mirror, bolstered by his full consciousness, became even stronger.

The Black Mirror erupted, and Shi Fen, who had been on the verge of fainting, suddenly felt a surge of spirit. He was no longer groggy, and his vision cleared. The Black Mirror was like an adrenaline shot; Shi Fen felt extremely stimulated.

Although the pain was many times stronger, it was worth it.

Enduring the astonishing torture, Shi Fen was surprised to find that the replenishment rate of the golden mist now exceeded the consumption rate of the nine spheres. In just over ten minutes, the previous deficit had been fully replenished.

Caught up in the excitement of the discovery, Shi Fen almost forgot the pain in his body, focusing all his efforts on converting the golden mist and expanding the concentration of the mist in his sea of consciousness.

Once the golden mist filled his mind, a small portion of it drifted from the edges of his mind, leaving the mental realm to merge into Shi Fen's body. With the help of the golden mist, his body worked in tandem with the Dragon Blood to strengthen his physical form.

Several hours passed...

Shi Fen's body gradually returned to calm, and his physical evolution was complete. The evolution of his sea of consciousness also reached its end.

At this moment, his sea of consciousness had become a viscous golden ocean. The original nine dark golden spheres were now almost entirely golden on the surface, with only a tiny dark golden crack remaining that had not yet been fully assimilated.

The Black Mirror stopped releasing energy and returned to silence.

The spheres continued to devour the golden mist, and with one final, violent surge of consumption, they turned completely into a dazzling gold. Compared to before, the size of the spheres hadn't changed much, but their color was now incredibly brilliant.

Looking closely, one could see that these golden spheres were somewhat translucent, much like transparent "eggs."

The moment the nine golden spheres took shape, they abandoned their previous docile behavior. The nine golden spheres linked together into a circle, rotating rhythmically around the center of the golden ocean. The golden spheres actually set the entire sea of consciousness into motion, and the ocean began to rotate rhythmically, much like a galaxy.

The scene now felt a tiny bit familiar.

"Hoo." Shi Fen opened his weary eyes and took a deep breath. He felt as though he had no strength left in his body, his head felt swollen, and waves of dizziness washed over him.

These past few hours were truly not something a human could endure. If it weren't for the changes in his sea of consciousness, Shi Fen would definitely have chosen to shift his entire consciousness into the Image World to study the Basic Secret Patterns, letting his body enter a "comatose" state to suffer less.

But this suffering was not in vain.

Not only had his physical fitness improved significantly, but his sea of consciousness had also undergone a transformation. Although he didn't understand what the golden spheres were, his strength as a spirit reader had undeniably increased, though Shi Fen couldn't say by exactly how much.

Shi Fen was simply too tired now.

These few hours had completely exhausted his energy.

Shi Fen's body swayed as he struggled to stand up. At this moment, his entire body was covered in a layer of pitch-black grime; it coated the skin beneath his clothes, his exposed skin, and even his face. The grime also emitted a strange, foul odor.

Shi Fen forced himself not to touch the filth, truly afraid that if he were careless and let the room become tainted with this stench, living in it afterward would be an experience he didn't even want to imagine.

"Whoosh..."

Shi Fen rushed into the bathroom and used hot water to wash away all the stains. As the hot water rinsed him clean, the bronze skin he had earned from years of blacksmithing and being scorched by flames was fully revealed.

At a glance, Shi Fen's physique was not that of a hulking brute with exaggerated muscles. His build was extremely lean, with muscle lines that looked as perfectly proportioned as if they had been sculpted. Shi Fen's body fat percentage was incredibly low, his muscle definition was exceptionally fluid, and his eight-pack abs looked like neat blocks of chocolate.

Possessing such musculature, Shi Fen resembled a leopard coiled and ready to spring, capable of erupting with astonishing power at any moment.

Shi Fen dried his body with a bath towel, threw on a bathrobe, and sauntered lazily toward the bedroom.

Shi Fen walked to the side of the bed and, stiff as a chopstick, flopped straight down onto the mattress. Lying on the soft bed, he "wriggled" slightly to find a comfortable position, and soon, he drifted into a deep sleep.

Refining the Dragon Blood just now had tortured him to the brink. Having endured hours of excruciating pain, he felt as though his head were about to split open.

After a nap of several hours, Shi Fen finally rose.

From the wardrobe, Shi Fen selected a set of comfortable, custom-fitted forging loungewear that had been prepared in the lounge. After changing into the new clothes, Shi Fen walked out of the lounge and arrived at the punch force testing machine outside.

Shi Fen stood before the punching target and gently clenched his fist. He did not use any technique, relying purely on his own raw strength. His brute force erupted like a volcanic surge; his fist, like a boulder ejected from a volcano, struck the target with a thunderous sonic boom.

"Bang!" The target vibrated violently, the heavy, percussive sound echoing throughout the underground plaza.

Shi Fen looked at the display screen of the punch force testing machine, where a line of numbers appeared.

"53,210kg."

"Without relying on force-generating techniques, my punch force has already exceeded the threshold of a high-level War General. Not bad." Shi Fen was quite satisfied with this result.

The 13,082kg recorded in his last test was not Shi Fen's true raw strength; by relying on the Extreme Yang Fist of Taiji, he could amplify his power by roughly twenty to thirty percent. Therefore, in reality, his previous raw strength had been around 10,000 kilograms or so.

Using the Dragon Blood, combined with the help of the Black Mirror, had increased Shi Fen's strength by nearly 43,000 kilograms—a massive surge in power!

During this transformation, the Golden Light Sphere in his mind had initially absorbed too much of the Dragon Blood's energy. Had the Black Mirror not suddenly erupted, he likely would have ended up with nothing to show for it, and his progress would have been minimal, nowhere near his current level.

Fortunately, the Black Mirror had erupted in time to replenish the energy consumed in his sea of consciousness, and the golden mist had later fed back into his body. Without the Black Mirror, Shi Fen would likely have been in a miserable state this time.