As my strength wanes, I have no choice but to cultivate the Blood Path too. The Hongchen siblings have come for medicine!

Huo Yuhao stood at the entrance to the Body Sect, head tilted back, mouth gaping into an O.

It was big enough to fit the Supreme Hot Dog they sold in the city.

The Body Sect was nestled in a ring-shaped valley, surrounded by mountain peaks with a flat plain in the middle.

Looking up from the bottom of the valley, the sides of every peak facing the sect were completely bare.

No trees, no grass, no soil.

The sheer rock walls were studded with countless metal pegs, and grooves of varying depths crisscrossed them, like climbing walls blown up to an enormous scale.

A few bare-chested Soul Masters were climbing with gusto.

"I call it—solo climbing."

"Hey, you there... Yeah, you, whoever you are. Come here."

Xu Qing called out to a burly man pumping iron.

"This is a newcomer the old geezer brought in. Keep an eye on him."

With that, he flickered out of sight.

Huo Yuhao was left standing there, dumbfounded.

"Hahaha! The young master is just that amazing. Even when he's traveling, he moves that fast."

BOOM—!!!

Xu Qing drew back his fist, slowly exhaled, and looked at the high-tech device they had seized from the Sun Moon Empire.

In other words, a Soul Tool that measured a Soul Master's stats.

All you had to do was throw a punch with all your strength, and it would calculate your numbers based on the data entered beforehand.

Its accuracy was far better than estimating them yourself.

It looked like a stone pillar, but was thick enough for several people to wrap their arms around and stood as tall as two Xu Qings—about three meters and sixty centimeters.

Creak, creak—

The Soul Tool groaned under the strain. Its speaker crackled as it produced a broken, synthetic voice.

"Demon King Xu Qing... male... bone age: eleven... Soul Power fluctuation... fifty... sixty... forty levels."

"Height: one hundred and eighty centimeters. Weight... one hundred, two hundred... seventy-five kilograms. No Soul Bone fluctuations detected."

"...It's... it's frozen..."

"Uh, Brother Xu, this is the last Soul Tool left in the sect. The person in charge over at Mingde Hall won't even take Gold Soul Coins anymore."

Ano rubbed his bald head, at a loss as he looked at the smoking machine and Xu Qing, who didn't seem bothered in the slightest. He spoke cautiously.

"Brother Xu, they want our Protein Powder formula and first dibs on buying the injections."

"Elder Jin has been holding them off because all this stuff belongs to you, Brother Xu... What's that word again? I've forgotten."

"Intellectual property."

Xu Qing replied calmly. In his previous life, he had been a professional veterinarian. Researching this kind of stuff had been a piece of cake.

Those foreign bodybuilding athletes were injecting themselves with veterinary drugs, after all.

So in a low-martial world like this one, weren't these veterinary drugs basically cultivation aids with negligible side effects?

They were stronger than the Mystic Water Pill, cheaper, and although they were only seventy percent as effective, the amount you could use depended entirely on a Soul Master's constitution.

When you were weak, you could get an injection, let the toxins slowly metabolize, and then you'd grow stronger.

You could take more injections, your metabolism would improve, and you'd grow even stronger...

So, three years ago, when the Body Sect—a sect seen by outsiders as nothing but a bunch of brawny idiots—

suddenly announced that it had developed a new drug,

and the drug was proven effective, the shockwaves that swept through the outside world had been tremendous.

"Right! Intellectual property. All this stuff is your intellectual property, Brother Xu. You decide how it's sold, who it's sold to, and how much is sold."

As if remembering something, Ano's broad hand swept down his smooth scalp and smacked into his other palm.

"Mingde Hall told us a few days ago that they'd send people over to discuss things. Going by the time, they should be here soon."

Beep, beep, beep!

A string of chimes rang out. Ano took out a square Soul Tool and, after checking it, said quietly,

"They're here! Brother Xu, let's go over. Mingde Hall is one of the main buyers for this stuff, after all."

Xu Qing waved him off and left without looking back.

"You go talk to them. Sell them the most basic supplements and powders. You've all built up a tolerance to them anyway, so you might as well clear out the stockpile while you're at it."

"I'm not going. I've got things to do. Oh, right—tell them to send over a few Soul Tools that can take a beating."

As Xu Qing spoke, he thought:

My ordinary strength could probably kill a typical Soul Ancestor with one punch. And if I were possessed by my Self Martial Soul—

that would mean a twofold boost in combat power from a Silver-grade Second Awakening, on top of the tenfold boost in strength from Go All Out.

Add in my stubborn Willpower to control it,

and I could use Blood Path techniques against a Soul Emperor with a high-level Martial Soul.

One punch, and they'd burst into a cloud of blood mist.

Tsk... Too bad I can't use my two Martial Souls at the same time.

I'll have Elder Yi look into it another day.

Sigh, there's still a long road ahead. I'm far too weak.

Whoosh—!!

A green figure suddenly appeared!

Xu Qing's hair stood on end in fright. His back arched sharply, his toes dug into the ground, and he poured all his strength into his resolve. Then he twisted at the waist and threw a punch!

BOOM—!!

"Holy crap! You old geezer! Sneaking up on people like that could scare them to death! What if I punched you and killed you?"

"Hehe, ha-ha, I forgot, I forgot. You sure do startle easily, kid."

Du Bushi tucked away the palm that had taken the punch head-on, hiding it behind his back. It was faintly red, and his heart was churning like a stormy sea.

That kid's first Soul Skill definitely didn't just double his strength!

At least fourfold!!

Phew... In that case, my Body Sect might be able to enter the tournament early...

One year would be enough. Shrek's glory would be crushed to pieces by the Body Sect!

"Tsk. I can't shake the feeling you're up to something, old geezer."

Xu Qing looked at Du Busi, suspicion stirring in his mind.

Could that lovesick girl have come...?

"Come with me, my precious disciple!"

Du Busi's hand clamped down on Xu Qing's shoulder like an iron pincers. The mountain-like pressure couldn't even make him flinch.

Whoosh—!!

Space tore open, and the two of them vanished, leaving only Ano behind.

"Uh... No wonder Brother Xu is the sect's future leader..."

He looked at the spot where Xu Qing had been standing. The floor there was already cracked.

The rock had weathered a hundred years of storms without changing.

Now, two shoe prints had left their first marks on it.

The council hall.

The two people Xu Qing least wanted to see had still come.

A white-haired young man and woman.

One had mismatched blue and green eyes and a face seven-tenths as handsome as Xu Qing's. He stood with his chest out, looking straight ahead.

The other had icy blue eyes, bright and lively, but her cheeks were flushed as she stared without blinking at the young man following behind Du Busi.

"Wahahaha!! Heaven would be a night without end if I, Xiao Hongchen, had never been born! The path of refinement has endured through the ages!"

Xiao Hongchen was still hopelessly chuunibyou. He pointed at Xu Qing, his fighting spirit impossible to hide.

"Xu Qing, one of the only two opponents in this era who can keep up with me. It's been a while. You've gotten handsome enough to be three-tenths as handsome as I am."

"Stupid big brother! Could you stop blocking me?!"