Time passed second by second, and less than an hour later...
Ye Wudao watched as his experience points slowly climbed.
When they passed 1,000, a warm current spread from his dantian through his limbs.
Immediately afterward, his muscles began to tremble faintly.
It wasn't a spasm, but a rhythmic vibration.
"Thump, thump, thump..."
His heart began pounding violently, as if it were about to leap out of his chest.
The next second, his body started to heat up. Sweat seeped from his skin, quickly soaking the gauze wrapped around him.
At the same time, the injured parts of his skin began to itch.
He could even feel something slowly growing around his broken bones.
"Ha... ha..."
His body was burning up, and he began panting heavily, trying to release the heat inside him that way.
His movements caught Hu Lianfeng's attention.
Hu Lianfeng had been lying on the bed, but the moment he heard Ye Wudao, he sat up.
He looked at Ye Wudao and asked in a grave voice, "Disciple, what's wrong? Are you all right?"
He thought Ye Wudao's injuries had worsened. After all, they'd only given him a simple examination in the Rift World.
If he'd fallen and suffered internal injuries, the medical equipment in the Rift World might not have detected them.
But after watching Ye Wudao for a little while, he froze.
"Y-you've advanced to the Body Forging Realm?"
He was a Houtian Great Accomplishment martial artist, and he'd experienced the Body Forging Realm himself. It only took a glance for him to realize Ye Wudao was advancing to the Body Forging Realm.
Although gauze covered Ye Wudao's body, his trembling muscles and sweating were signs of the "body refinement" that came with the Body Forging Realm.
The muscle tremors weren't just simple twitching. They used high-frequency vibrations to mobilize the flesh, skin, and fascia, making them resonate together.
Still, after cultivating the Martial Path for decades, this was the first time he'd seen someone advance to the Body Forging Realm while lying down.
The Northern Dark Divine Art didn't explicitly require you to sit while cultivating, but cultivating while lying down seemed a little too outrageous.
He also realized the predicament Ye Wudao was in: advancing to the Body Forging Realm had generated so much heat that his body couldn't release it.
He took three strides in quick succession, reached Ye Wudao in an instant, grabbed the gauze wrapped around him, and tore it off.
When he saw Ye Wudao's chest rising and falling, he placed a hand against it and felt his heart beating with vigorous strength.
He knew Ye Wudao really had advanced to the Body Forging Realm.
Hu Lianfeng stood there, looking at Ye Wudao, stunned.
He'd taught Ye Wudao the Northern Dark Divine Art only four hours ago, at most.
And that didn't even include the time Ye Wudao had spent comprehending the technique!
In other words, Ye Wudao had gone from an ordinary person to the Body Forging Realm in just three or four hours.
He'd never seen anyone advance that quickly.
Back when he'd gone from an ordinary person to the Body Forging Realm, it had taken him a full month.
Even then, his master had praised his Martial Path talent!
If that counted as good talent, what did Ye Wudao's count as?
A Martial Path prodigy?
He'd seen Martial Path prodigies before. With their clans piling resources on them, disciples from great lineages could advance to the Body Forging Realm in just a few days.
But he'd never seen a prodigy advance to the Body Forging Realm in three or four hours.
"Could it be... I really did stumble across a treasure?"
Hu Lianfeng muttered softly. As he watched the redness on Ye Wudao's skin slowly fade, he knew Ye Wudao's advancement in body tempering was over.
Ye Wudao slowly opened his eyes and raised his left hand to look at it.
His left forearm had broken when he'd fallen in the Rift World, and it had been his most serious fracture.
When he'd first returned, the fracture had hurt so badly that he couldn't raise his arm at all.
But now he could lift it, and it only hurt a little.
He glanced at the gauze that had been torn away. The scraped areas had already scabbed over.
Looking at Hu Lianfeng beside him, he asked quietly, "Master, are my injuries healed?"
Hu Lianfeng smiled faintly. "Do you know what just happened to you?"
Ye Wudao nodded. "I think I advanced to the Body Forging Realm!"
Hu Lianfeng looked surprised. He hadn't expected Ye Wudao to know what had happened.
That meant Ye Wudao was aware of his own progress in cultivation.
For someone who had only just started learning the Martial Path, that was rare.
Knowing what realm you were in, when you were about to break through, and whether you'd run into a bottleneck—
Looking at Ye Wudao, he said softly, "You did enter the Body Forging Realm. Your body has been strengthened considerably, and your injuries were healed in the process."
Ye Wudao nodded, braced his hand lightly against the bed, and slowly sat up.
He still felt some pain. The scabs hadn't completely fallen off, and moving tugged at them.
His fractures had not fully healed either, though his ribs no longer bothered him.
He could still feel noticeable pain in his right shin and left forearm, but both were much better than before.
Watching Ye Wudao slowly sit up, Hu Lianfeng pursed his lips and asked, "Disciple, did you feel anything while cultivating?"
Ye Wudao paused, looked at Hu Lianfeng, and shook his head. "Nothing in particular!"
Hu Lianfeng's mouth twitched slightly as he muttered, "That's strange. How could you advance to the Body Forging Realm so quickly?"
"It doesn't make sense!"
Looking at the puzzled Hu Lianfeng, Ye Wudao asked, "Master, what do you mean by 'feel anything'?"
"I don't understand what you mean."
Hu Lianfeng sat on the bed beside Ye Wudao and spoke softly. "Do you know how long it takes an ordinary person to cultivate to the Body Forging Realm?"
Ye Wudao shook his head. He really had no idea.
But he knew his own cultivation speed was definitely fast.
He didn't need to cultivate himself. The technique ran on its own, automatically cultivating and continuously giving him experience points.
To him, having good or bad Martial Path talent made no difference.
All he needed to do was keep encouraging the technique to strengthen itself.
So he wouldn't run into any bottlenecks either!
Hu Lianfeng shook his head helplessly and continued, "It took me a month to go from an ordinary person to the entry level of the Body Forging Realm."
"My master said my Martial Path talent was pretty good!"
"But compared to you, I feel like my talent is nothing."
"That's why I asked whether you felt anything special while cultivating."
"My master once told me that Blue Star is full of strange people and strange happenings, and there are plenty of Martial Path prodigies, too."
"Some people have a Martial Saint Body and are naturally sensitive to the Martial Path."
"Cultivating the Martial Path is as easy for them as eating or drinking. A little cultivation can equal an ordinary person's lifetime of effort."
"I've traveled the martial world for many years, and the most impressive Martial Path prodigy I ever encountered still took three days to advance to the early stage of the Body Forging Realm."
"But you took only three hours!"
"So I suspect you might be the legendary Martial Saint Body."
Ye Wudao paused. He'd come to realize Hu Lianfeng really loved imagining all sorts of things that weren't there.
Still, that was a good thing. It saved him a lot of trouble.
As long as everyone thought of him as a Martial Path prodigy, no matter how quickly he cultivated, it would seem only natural.
He shook his head and said, "I don't know. I didn't feel anything special. It all felt pretty easy."
"Once I understood the technique you taught me, I mastered it naturally."
"Every so often, a warm current flows through my body, as if I'm cultivating automatically."
To make his identity as a Martial Path prodigy more convincing, he described the system's function in different words.
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