Six Years Later

After the New Year.

Lord Si An returned to Snow Stone Castle.

"Mission accomplished," Lord Si An said with a smile. "The Alchemy Master at the Dongxiang Lake Alchemy Workshop has accepted a hundred thousand gold coins. According to our inquiries, your father, Dongbo Lie, has been summoned to the Mage Tower to do some work. It's still quite strenuous, but as a Heaven-Rank Knight, your father can handle it easily. After all, the Moyang Clan's decree sentenced him to a hundred years of hard labor. The Alchemy Master was only willing to guarantee his life; he didn't want to defy the decree by making things too easy for your father."

"That's fine. As long as his life is safe, that's the best outcome." Dongbo Xueying quickly asked, "Is my father safe inside the Mage Tower? Could anything happen to him?"

"You can rest assured," Lord Si An replied. "An Alchemy Master's Mage Tower is absolutely forbidden territory! Even the Moyang Clan's Pseudo-Transcendence would need the Alchemy Master's permission to enter, and would have to show him due respect. Besides, the Mage Tower is full of mechanisms and dangers. It holds a lifetime of the Alchemy Master's research, and no one would dare go in and cause trouble. What kind of status does Moyang Chenbai have? Forget the people he might send—even he wouldn't dare enter! Your father is absolutely safe!"

"Thank you, Lord Si An." A weight lifted from Dongbo Xueying's heart, and he thanked him sincerely.

To him, money was just an external thing.

The most important thing was that his father's life was safe.

"Thank goodness for Lord Si An. Otherwise, the Dongbo family would have been in trouble this time," Zong Ling said with a sigh. He and Tong San also felt a little relieved.

"Haha, it was nothing," Lord Si An replied. "Dongbo Lie is one of Yi Water City's own, so of course I'd do everything I could to save him."

Dongbo Xueying felt a little more at ease.

But he was still dissatisfied with his parents' current situation.

His mother was condemned to spend her days alone in confinement in one place. It was a long prison sentence, and prisoners usually had companions to help pass the time. But she was all alone.

His father was also stuck doing exhausting labor.

"My strength is still too weak."

"I haven't even reached Title-level!"

"I can't even get my father an Honorary Marquis title. I need to hurry. Since my Primordial Bloodline awakened, my body has improved a lot. But more training will make it stronger still," Dongbo Xueying thought to himself.

It was like the legendary dragons.

They were Transcendent life-forms, and every dragon became Transcendent upon reaching adulthood! But those who knew how to cultivate and study their abilities became far stronger than the rest.

It was the same principle!

Even among those who awakened the Strength Bloodline, those who trained hard would naturally become much stronger than those who slept all day.

Dongbo Xueying wanted to make himself as strong as possible!

In a clearing beside a bamboo house on the back mountain, two Alchemy Dummies stood fixed in place. Each was worth five thousand gold coins, and anyone below Title-level couldn't harm them at all! Even attacks from Title-level fighters would generally only leave minor damage, which the dummies could repair on their own. That was why great mages often used them for experiments.

They had been specially purchased in Yi Water City and fixed in place by a mage! They were so hard to move that even Dongbo Xueying's spear couldn't budge them, which showed just how firmly they stood.

"Thump."

"Thump."

His spear moved like rolling thunder. He swept, struck, chopped, and thrust, each move immensely powerful as Dongbo Xueying moved through his forms.

Although he had already reached the level of Spear Technique Master and practicing his spear technique did almost nothing to improve his skill, it did a great deal to push his body to its limits. On one hand, his body recovered at an astonishing rate after his Strength Bloodline awakened, and each recovery brought a tiny improvement to his muscles and bones. After countless such improvements, his strength would rise enormously. On the other hand, exhausting so much energy as his body recovered meant that when he practiced the Flame Three-Stage Method, he could absorb more of the surrounding fire energy into his body.

And besides...

He could also test insights he had gained from contemplating nature and Heaven and Earth as he practiced his spear technique.

"Huff, huff..." Sweat soaked his clothes. Dongbo Xueying's strength flowed as one, allowing him to sense the fatigue in every muscle and bone. The parts of his body that hadn't been trained enough would naturally receive more work.

Under this constant strain, he continued to draw out the potential of his Strength Bloodline.

******

The grass on Snow Stone Mountain withered and flourished, year after year, again and again...

Before long, six years had passed.

The once-green girl Kong Youyue, the mischievous Dongbo Qingshi, and the young Dongbo Xueying, who had only just begun to show his promise... had all grown up!

"Splash, splash..."

The mountain spring poured into the pool, its sound echoing through the still surroundings.

A young man dressed in black sat cross-legged on a boulder, his eyes closed. His face looked as if it had been carved with a knife and chisel. He had inherited his father's looks and was rather plain, not particularly handsome. But his reserved, mountain-like presence made it clear he was no ordinary man. His breathing was so faint it could barely be noticed, and his heartbeat was extraordinarily slow—perhaps only once a minute. His blood flowed just as sluggishly.

"In... out..."

His eyes suddenly opened. As he breathed, his spine rose and fell like a great dragon. His abdomen swelled slightly as he inhaled, as if he were drawing in countless streams of air.

Whoosh!

When he exhaled, a fierce blast of force burst from his mouth and slammed into the pool ahead. The water, still until then, erupted with a roar. Its surface caved in, sending a great spray of water into the air.

With that single breath, his blood began to surge after its extreme stillness, and his heartbeat quickly returned to its normal pace.

He stood up, Battle Qi surging across his body. Fiery red Battle Qi formed a protective layer over him, making him look like a god of war wreathed in flames. He began practicing the Flame Three-Stage Method, which he had repeated countless times over the years. It was only a mid-grade Battle Qi method, but in his hands it was both gentle and forceful, with a strange, captivating quality.

Sometimes his movements were slow, but at other times his speed suddenly exploded.

Boom! His palm swept out in a sudden chop. The edge of his hand crushed the air, forming a high-pressure current. A white arc of air whooshed through the sky and struck a boulder in the distance. Crack! A huge fissure instantly appeared in the rock, sending fragments flying and tumbling down into the ravine.

Dongbo Xueying practiced his fist techniques.

Every move and every form.

The high-pressure currents produced by his punches and palms alone could easily tear apart boulders when he unleashed his full strength.

"Enough." As he finished, everything gradually settled, and the Battle Qi around his body completely receded.

"My growth has begun to slow," Dongbo Xueying thought. "I'll only be able to make rapid progress again once my Battle Qi reaches Silver Moon Rank."

"But this is enough!"

Through hard training and the constant cultivation of his Strength Bloodline's potential, Dongbo Xueying had gained astonishing strength.

Because his power flowed as one, his Battle Qi had encountered no bottleneck when advancing from Heaven-Rank to Meteor Rank. Once he had accumulated enough, he broke through naturally! Battle Qi in liquid form did even more to help his body evolve. Over the past six months, Dongbo Xueying's body had continued to improve, though its progress had slowed recently.

"My Battle Qi is only at Meteor Rank. But after awakening the Strength Bloodline, my body is what's truly powerful."

"When I first awakened it six years ago, my strength was already at the peak of Meteor Rank. Now, according to tests with the Alchemy Dummies, my body's strength should normally be at the peak of Title-level," Dongbo Xueying thought to himself. "Though I still haven't achieved Unity of Heaven and Man—that's what separates me from a Title Knight—my body is powerful enough, and when my Strength Bloodline erupts, my strength can double again."

With sheer strength alone,

he could definitely rank among the strongest at Title-level. It was just a pity that he still hadn't reached the state of Unity of Heaven and Man.

"It's time to take a mission," Dongbo Xueying knew.

"Brother Xueying! Brother Xueying!"

A warm, pleasant girl's voice suddenly called from far away.