Naked Provocation

After some conversation, the two sides grew familiar with each other and left the residence together.

To quickly integrate and get to know one another, the best methods are grueling training and life-or-death combat.

Aside from those they already knew or were friends with, the group was not very familiar with the rest of the team.

Consequently, Lin Chuan devised a two-month devilish training regimen for them.

Xie Yue, Yan, and the others naturally joined the tempering process, with all seven training together on the tasks assigned by Lin Chuan.

With specialized iron blocks strapped to their bodies, they ran outside a large village near Martial Soul City.

Five laps in the morning, three in the afternoon.

Each iron block weighed ten jin; they strapped three to each leg and five to their torsos.

The total weight was over a hundred jin, but since it was distributed, it was a burden for them rather than something that rendered them immobile.

Hu Liena and Bai He, the two women, had their weight reduced slightly, with two blocks on each leg and four on their torsos.

They had no complaints and trained just as diligently.

The reason the group could train so obediently was that they had seen Lin Chuan's own insane training and were inspired to work hard.

The weather was clear, and the seven-member team led by Xie Yue was running around the perimeter of the large village.

They were forbidden from using soul power, relying solely on physical conditioning.

After finishing the three laps in the afternoon, they began to cultivate in the prepared medicinal baths.

These medicinal baths were personally concocted by Chrysanthemum Pass, who was a master of studying flora.

Seeing Lin Chuan use such primitive training methods, he said nothing.

After all, it resulted in improvement.

It also allowed his own skills to be put to use; the medicinal baths were not only effective but also subtly enhanced physical strength when paired with the training.

Lin Chuan would occasionally run to train his explosive speed.

Most of the time, however, he spent horse-stancing on a nearby cliff edge.

He held a hundred-and-fifty-jin weight in each hand, with fifty-jin iron blocks strapped to each leg.

Even as his arms grew numb, sore, and trembled uncontrollably, and his legs shook like chaff, he did not stop.

The expression on his face never changed; it was one of cold, unwavering determination.

A cool breeze blew up from the bottom of the cliff, carrying a chilling aura that pierced through his clothes and washed over his sweat-drenched body, bringing waves of cold.

From this position, he could clearly see the figures of Xie Yue and the others running around the village.

He ensured their safety and kept track of their movements.

Amidst this repetitive training, the bonds between them warmed rapidly.

Sometimes they would support each other when exhausted, and when they truly couldn't walk anymore, they would laugh and collapse onto the ground.

They didn't care if it was dirty; after resting on the ground for a while, they would return to soak in Elder Chrysanthemum's medicinal bath, wash up, and begin meditation at night.

In these days filled to the brim, the group underwent training that ordinary people would find unbearable.

They had reasons they could not give up!

They had endured the usual, numb, and boring cultivation until now.

Why then could they not persist through this difficult and painful training?

Day after day, sunrise to sunset.

In the blink of an eye, two months had passed.

Having finished the final day of devilish training with the group, everyone returned to their respective dwellings, exhausted.

Watching them all return indoors, Lin Chuan tapped his toes lightly, utilizing condensed soul power to appear swiftly on the roof.

"Senior, could you come out and talk?"

The two months were up.

He considered the integration between him and the others to be quite successful.

He had not forgotten his objective, but he truly had no way to deal with the expert lurking in the shadows.

The other party would not stay hidden forever; their occasional vocalizations felt like they were specifically reminding him that they were still watching from the dark.

Under normal circumstances, Lin Chuan had no way to initiate a conversation with them.

This was a blatant provocation!

But to speak up proactively or attempt to probe them would be like "burying three hundred taels of silver here."

The night wind arrived with the twilight, causing his robes to ripple.

After waiting for a while and receiving no reply, Lin Chuan had grown accustomed to this.

The other party would not show themselves, and over these two months, he had worked hard to obscure their presence from his mind.

Otherwise, what else could he do? The mere thought of a pair of eyes watching him from behind made his back feel cold.

Glancing at the sunset glow, he pushed off lightly with his feet and headed outside.

At a remote farmhouse ridge.

Lin Chuan sat on a large rock as the figure of Giratina appeared behind his right side.

It poked its head out, watching as he took the Evil God Bead out of his Soul Tool once again.

It had been two months; the last attempt was interrupted by some accidents.

This time, he was fully prepared, and the absorption was as good as guaranteed.

This bead focused on soul and energy; the soul origin and energy origin it contained would allow his mental power and soul power to undergo a qualitative leap once absorbed.

"With this lord here, you can rest assured and absorb it."

"I will block the soul attacks of the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger; you only need to focus on absorbing the energy within your body."

This was the benefit of having a professional expert around.

Lin Chuan handed the fist-sized bead directly to Giratina, who opened its mouth and swallowed it whole.

Giratina acted as an accelerated decomposer; the moment it was swallowed, energy began to dissipate.

Lin Chuan felt it viscerally. In that instant, it was as if his entire body had fallen into icy water, chilling him to the bone and leaving him frozen in place.

"Cross your legs and start absorbing."

Giratina's reminder brought him back to his senses.

Suppressing the cold that made his body tremble, he sat cross-legged with his palms facing upward, circulating his soul power through his meridians to dispel the chill within.

The Evil God Bead was not as difficult as he had imagined.

Before the Evil God Bead disintegrated, it released a powerful force of evil, accompanied by spatial energy, attempting to break through the space inside Giratina's belly.

Even without its peak strength, Giratina's innate abilities were not something a mere bead possessing the power of an evil god could challenge.

The evil power was suppressed, and the spatial energy was imprisoned.

This energy was being eroded and absorbed bit by bit.

The soul origin of the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger trembled in the innermost, yet-to-be-dissolved space of the Evil God Bead.

Giratina's scarlet eyes manifested within this space, achieving an effect of internal vision.

It stared at the glass-like orb that had transformed before the innermost layer of the Evil God Bead had melted, scrutinizing it.

It moved its eye socket close and then pulled it away.

This terrified the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger inside, causing it to tremble so violently that it couldn't even muster a shred of will to resist.

This immense fear vanished without a trace in the next moment.

The Evil God Bead completely disintegrated, and the soul origin of the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger was refined in an instant.

Outside, the moon was bright and the stars were sparse; the night sky was cloudless for ten thousand miles.

Lin Chuan maintained his meditative posture, mist rising from his body.

This was the result of his rising body temperature colliding with the cold within.

His black robe was soaked through, clinging to his body which still retained a low temperature, though the fabric over his heart was slowly being dried.

His violently beating heart was filled with hot blood, rapidly warming his body.

Lin Chuan's consciousness had arrived at his sea of consciousness at some unknown point.

It was hazy with gray mist, yet the situation inside was visible to the naked eye; his mental sea was like the new spring after the dawn of chaos.

Tiny yet vast.

Lin Chuan's mental sea was calm and waveless at this moment.

But in the next instant, a drop of pure, ink-colored soul energy dripped into the mental sea, like a giant boulder crashing into water, splashing up a massive spray.