Hurricane Body Tempering, Talent Unleashed

"Uh... Elder Feng... what are you doing? Be normal, you're scaring me."

Rubbing his arms, Xue Mingqing instinctively shivered. He took a half-step back, sensing that whatever Feng Qingyang was about to do would likely be far from pleasant.

Seeing this, Feng Qingyang flashed a wild, unrestrained grin.

"Hahaha, it's nothing much. I'm simply going to channel my power into your body to cleanse your meridians, purge all the impurities within you, and maximize your innate potential."

"If it succeeds, your talent will reach the level of Innate Full Spirit Power, and your spirit power cultivation will jump straight to level 10."

"However, the price is that it will be excruciatingly painful."

After a moment of silence, Xue Mingqing looked up at Feng Qingyang.

"Is there a chance of failure? What are the odds, and what are the consequences?"

Feng Qingyang raised an eyebrow, shook his head, and clasped his hands behind his back.

"As long as you can endure it, there is no possibility of failure. Even if you can't stand it and stop halfway, the worst that happens is the tempering effect is diminished; it won't endanger your life or your talent."

Having weighed the pros and cons, Xue Mingqing lowered his head to ponder.

Seeing this, Feng Qingyang did not disturb his thoughts, letting him stand in the drifting snow to contemplate.

To grow, to become strong—pain is the finest whetstone.

This has been an eternal law. If Xue Mingqing couldn't endure this, then no matter how formidable Feng Qingyang was, he could only help him through minor hurdles.

If that were the case, Xue Mingqing would never achieve greatness, nor could he fulfill his grand ambition of purging all evil from the world.

Isn't that so?

After a brief silence, Xue Mingqing raised his head. He looked at Feng Qingyang, who had closed his eyes to rest, his gaze filled with nothing but a persistent and firm obsession with strength.

"Have you made up your mind?"

Sensing Xue Mingqing's gaze, Feng Qingyang opened his eyes and met his stare.

Xue Mingqing nodded. "I have. Elder Feng, please help me temper my body. I want to become strong. I want to possess the kind of power that forces everyone to listen to reason!"

This is the worst of eras: darkness is heavy, nobles exploit, and for ordinary people, merely surviving is the greatest achievement.

At the same time—

This is the best of eras: as long as you possess power, as long as your fist is harder than everyone else's, then whatever you say is the truth.

Xue Mingqing was never a saint who took world peace as his personal mission.

He was just an ordinary man, but...

The blood feud of the Evil Soul Master slaughtering his village was a debt he had to collect.

Even if only for revenge, he had to obtain great power. To reach that goal, a little pain was nothing more than the falling snow...

It could not block his determination, nor could it stop his will.

Seeing the tenacity and unyielding spirit in Xue Mingqing's eyes, Feng Qingyang shook his head and chuckled softly.

"It is precisely this temperament that makes me value you—a man who repays every grievance and fears no obstacle."

"Heh, you are becoming more and more to my liking."

"Come, prepare yourself. Just get a tub filled with water; leave the rest to me."

Xue Mingqing nodded and turned to prepare the water-filled tub.

Once everything was ready.

"Elder Feng, what now?"

Glancing at Xue Mingqing, Feng Qingyang raised his hand, and a silk handkerchief slapped onto Xue Mingqing's face.

"Wrap it around a wooden stick and bite down on it. Don't go breaking your teeth from the pain later."

Hearing this, Xue Mingqing's body trembled, but he found a wooden stick, wrapped it in the handkerchief, and shoved it into his mouth.

Pointing at the tub, Feng Qingyang's voice was cold and sharp.

"Strip off your clothes and jump in."

Since both were men, Xue Mingqing had nothing to hide; he immediately stripped and jumped into the tub.

Immersed in water that would be bone-chilling to an ordinary person, Xue Mingqing felt no discomfort at all; instead, he felt a sense of lightness.

After all, his spirit was of the ice-snow type; a cold environment could not harm him.

"Are you ready?"

Feng Qingyang's wicked voice echoed from behind.

Closing his eyes and biting down hard on the wooden stick, Xue Mingqing nodded.

"Heh... then, let's begin!"

With a low shout, Feng Qingyang pressed his hand against Xue Mingqing's back.

In an instant, a dense, majestic surge of soul power transformed into a cyan-green gale, pouring through Feng Qingyang's hand and flooding into Xue Mingqing's body!

"Cough—ngh?!"

Xue Mingqing threw his head back, his eyes wide as saucers!

His entire body, every inch of skin, and even every strand of hair had turned a verdant green under the infusion of that cyan hurricane.

Sitting cross-legged in the wooden tub, Xue Mingqing felt as though he had become a kite trapped in the heart of a storm.

He could only passively endure the gale, sharp as blades, as it coursed through every meridian and every inch of his flesh and blood.

Imagine a freezing wind that stings the cheeks, poured directly into your body without any protection, swirling and slicing wildly through your internal organs.

He couldn't die, yet the pain was relentless; this was the torment Xue Mingqing was currently enduring.

"Urgh...!"

With a pained groan, Xue Mingqing's eyes became bloodshot. His once gentle and elegant face was now nothing but bulging veins and a ferocious, twisted expression.

The agony was too intense, far exceeding his expectations; he was already on the verge of breaking.

"Steady your heart and focus your mind; use your soul power to protect your consciousness."

Feng Qingyang's voice rang out at the perfect moment.

Feng Qingyang's reminder allowed Xue Mingqing's nearly shattered consciousness to regain a sliver of clarity.

He closed his eyes, bit down hard on the wooden stick in his mouth, and gripped the edge of the tub with hands where the veins stood out like cords.

He began to circulate his soul power to stabilize his mind, forcibly resisting the agony of the body tempering.

Seeing this, Feng Qingyang raised an eyebrow. The hand he had lifted to help alleviate Xue Mingqing's pain was silently pulled back behind his own back.

He was growing increasingly fond of this child.

At the same time, he was curious to see if the boy could endure this wave of suffering on his own.

After all...

An opportunity is only truly an opportunity if you seize it yourself; if it can be obtained without any pain or difficulty, that isn't an opportunity—that's being spoon-fed.

Steadying his own focus, the hand Feng Qingyang rested against Xue Mingqing's back glowed a deeper shade of green.

He had abruptly intensified the hurricane tempering process!

"Kuh-ugh?!"

Xue Mingqing's pupils constricted. Feeling the sudden surge of pain within his body, he desperately wanted to turn around and look at Feng Qingyang.

But—

He was in too much pain to even turn his head.

And as for Feng Qingyang?

As he increased the intensity of the tempering from behind, a wicked curve tugged at the corner of his mouth.

It was true that he cherished talent, but the more he appreciated and admired someone, the less he would show mercy.

Because—

Only the heaviest suffering could forge the sharpest blade; he, too, had come through such trials in the past.

Time ticked by second by second, and a layer of fine, filthy grime gradually surfaced on Xue Mingqing's skin.

These were the impurities that had been clogging his meridians and hindering his cultivation speed.

As these impurities were expelled, Xue Mingqing's soul power climbed steadily, level by level.

From level eight to nine, and from nine to ten.

Finally, it came to a complete halt right before the bottleneck of level ten.

Yet, both Feng Qingyang and Xue Mingqing could feel that the total volume of soul power within Xue Mingqing was still increasing.

It was merely unable to rise in rank due to the lack of a soul ring.

With a deathly pale complexion, Xue Mingqing spoke in a hoarse voice.

"Elder Feng... I have a theory..."

Because the most critical impurities had been purged, the pain had subsided significantly, and Xue Mingqing was now able to endure it, and even speak.

Feng Qingyang raised an eyebrow: "Let's hear it?"

At this moment, his soul form had become slightly more transparent, as a vast amount of his soul energy had been converted into the power of the hurricane.

Xue Mingqing did not notice the change in Feng Qingyang, for he had not even turned his head.

With a parched throat, Xue Mingqing continued.

"I'm curious... in this world, could it be that everyone starts out with innate full soul power?"