Shocking Appearance, Bizarre Blood Palm!

[Third Year, Seventh Month. You train bitterly, never forgetting to carve out time to study the Water Dragon Fist.]

[However, because the Water Dragon Fist is too profound, you find yourself at a loss for a starting point.]

[You want to visit Grandfather, but your father informs you that he is currently in seclusion healing his wounds, and it is best not to disturb him. So you give up.]

[You take time to visit Mu Xinger, but she is also quite busy. After a brief chat, you have no choice but to part ways.]

[You likewise go to see your mother. She gives you a bottle of Yellow Grade Mid Rank Qi Gathering Pills.]

[You accept them gladly and have a hearty conversation with her.]

[Your mother listens with a face full of smiles, making you feel as warm as a spring breeze.]

[Third Year, Eighth Month. You sense a thread of insight into the Water Dragon Fist and immediately begin practicing the fist technique.]

[You feel as if you have grasped something, a faint, elusive sensation like a wisp of silk that you can never quite seize.]

[Just as you are about to catch that thread of enlightenment, a sudden catastrophe strikes Muye Mountain!]

[A giant hand descends from the heavens, blotting out the sky in an instant. The enormous palm is a bloody red, like a Sky-Covering Blood Palm!]

[You hear a sharp crack, like an eggshell breaking—the sound of the Clan Protection Array being forcibly shattered!]

[In the next moment, your grandfather charges straight at the giant hand, unleashing a Water Dragon Fist in an instant, and roars: "Run! It's a Gold...!"]

[But before your grandfather can finish his words, he is firmly sucked in, unable even to make a sound, and is directly crushed into a mist of blood!]

[You want to roar in fury, but you find your body controlled, unable to move an inch!]

[You watch with your own eyes as your father, mother, and the elders throw themselves forward one after another, yet none can shake the blood palm in the slightest!]

[Your father, mother, and all the elders are crushed into blood mist!]

[You see the blood mist absorbed by the giant blood palm!]

[You try to self-destruct, but you find you cannot even do that—it is as if the blood in your body is forcibly controlled, solidifying it!]

[You see Seventh Brother Mu Xingluo, Fourth Brother Mu Xinghan, and Eighth Sister Mu Xingyu all ground to pieces by the blood palm!]

[Mu Xinger is also left with no remains!]

[The blood palm crushes your physical body. You feel your flesh instantly ground to dust, turning into blood mist, absorbed by that eerie blood palm!]

[You are dead!]

"Ah? No..." Mu Xingqi trails off.

He had just dodged the Wang Family's clan-extermination disaster, and now this eerie blood palm appears out of nowhere?

Could it be that someone has set up the Mu Family? That they are doomed to be wiped out in the third year?

Mu Xingqi is somewhat distressed. He thought he had seen a way out, but it turns out to be another dead end.

Now he has even more puzzling doubts.

What exactly is that eerie blood palm? Is it a person, a demon, or some monster? Is it connected to the Wang Family? Or does the Mu Family possess something that attracts it? His grandfather clearly knew something, but before he died, he only revealed a single word: "Gold."

"Gold what?" Mu Xingqi still has no clue. There is simply too little information to go on.

"And that eerie blood palm can solidify the blood in my body, and after crushing me into blood mist, it absorbs it. That blood palm must be inseparable from blood—this could be a breakthrough point."

Mu Xingqi grits his teeth. He never expected so many variables in the future.

It seems he still has a long road ahead.

"First, I need to claim the reward!"

With that thought, Mu Xingqi looks at the Simulator panel.

[Simulation ended. You may choose one of the following rewards.]

[Qi Refining Seventh Layer Cultivation: With the help of the pills your mother gave you, you broke through half of your bottlenecks. Later, with the Spirit Replenishing Pill gifted by your grandfather, you successfully broke through five bottlenecks in one go, stepping into Late Stage Qi Refining. You displayed champion-level talent in the Clan Competition. After taking the rewarded Yellow Grade High Rank Qi Gathering Pill and years of cultivation, you have already traveled a considerable distance even within the Qi Refining Seventh Layer realm.]

[Yellow Grade High Rank Spirit Replenishing Pill: Taking it helps you instantly break through five bottlenecks. Its medicinal power is as violent as a mad bull and requires a long time to refine. You feel it must have other benefits you do not yet know, beyond just its bottleneck-breaking ability.]

[Water Dragon Fist Half-Entry Experience: As a Spirit Grade Technique, even a low-grade one, the Water Dragon Fist is not something a Qi Cultivation Realm cultivator can easily master. To cultivate a technique across realms requires great fortune and great destiny. Your accidental flash of insight pushed it to a half-entry state. If your enlightenment had not been interrupted, you might have glimpsed full entry. Even at half-entry, it can unleash one-tenth of the technique's power, which is already formidable at the Qi Cultivation Realm.]

All three rewards this time are good, making him hesitate.

The Qi Refining Seventh Layer cultivation goes without saying.

The Spirit Replenishing Pill definitely has effects he does not yet know—this is confirmed by the system, so it cannot be false.

The half-entry state of the Water Dragon Fist is also excellent. After all, for a Qi Cultivation Realm cultivator to successfully cultivate a Spirit Grade Technique, as the system says, it is difficult without great fortune and great destiny. That flash of insight in this simulation was extremely rare, and he might not get it again.

Moreover, a half-entry Water Dragon Fist would absolutely allow him to run rampant in the Qi Cultivation Realm.

In the end, after careful consideration, Mu Xingqi chooses... Qi Refining Seventh Layer Cultivation!

After all, he knows exactly how hard it is to break through to Qi Refining Seventh Layer—he has experienced it firsthand.

He himself has a Five Spirit Root aptitude, and those ten layers of bottlenecks are no joke.

With his own lousy talent, how could he break through ten bottlenecks in just a few years?

"The Spirit Replenishing Pill is still with Grandfather, so it's not going anywhere. As for the Water Dragon Fist, I'll have plenty of chances to practice it later. If it's hard to cultivate across realms at the Qi Cultivation Realm, then I'll just cultivate it after I reach the Foundation Establishment Realm."

He is not stupid—why hang himself from one tree?

A familiar surge of spiritual energy roiled through him, but Mu Xingqi felt that this breakthrough was different from the previous ones.

A quarter of an hour later, pain twisted Mu Xingqi's face. This time, breaking through the bottleneck felt as if a massive hand of spiritual force had forcibly torn it open.

It hurt so much he wanted to scream, but he gritted his teeth and endured.

Another quarter of an hour passed, and all his bottlenecks were shattered. Along with them, a great torrent of spiritual energy poured into Mu Xingqi's body like a flood.

He felt as if he had been filled to the brim with spiritual energy, with no room left for even a single drop more.

This was a sensation he had never experienced before.

Mu Xingqi hurriedly activated his cultivation technique to refine the spiritual energy within him. He felt that if he didn't refine it soon, he would be "burst" apart by this force.

Although his Wood Spirit Body Cultivation Technique was not yet at the level of complete mastery, he could still manage the simple task of refining the spiritual energy inside him.

As Mu Xingqi fully refined the spiritual energy within his body, his cultivation base smoothly advanced to the Qi Refining Seventh Layer, and he sensed that he was at the mid-range of that stage.

"Indeed, having strength is what brings true peace of mind!" The rise in cultivation filled him with an inexplicable sense of security.

"Now, my spiritual energy flows endlessly. Even if I frantically unleash techniques, I can sustain them for about an hour!"

The most direct change he felt from the cultivation increase was the larger mana pool—of course, the intensity and purity of the spiritual energy had also improved, significantly boosting the power of his techniques.

In other words, his attack power had increased as well.

Mu Xingqi stretched his limbs, then stood up...