The Limits of the Human Body (Seeking Monthly Votes, Seeking Follow-up Reads)

Lu Lin sprang to his feet and retreated five or six meters, taking up a defensive stance as his sharp gaze swept toward a large tree off to the front and side.

On the branches of that great tree, a young man had appeared at some unknown point.

He looked to be in his twenties, dressed in a black mage robe embroidered with black cloud patterns, and was looking down at him from above with cold indifference.

A cultivator of the Blood Baleful Demon Sect!

"Your reaction is fairly sharp."

The young man's tone was indifferent. He took one step forward and drifted lightly to the ground like a falling leaf.

"May I ask, Immortal Master, why you attacked me?"

Lu Lin cupped his fists and asked, feigning confusion.

"Too many questions! Do I need to explain myself to you?"

The young man barked coldly. A chill glint flashed through his eyes as he said, "I'm asking you—did you just come from that mountain peak over there? Don't deny it. I saw it with my own eyes."

Lu Lin's eyes narrowed slightly.

Since the other party had seen him come from the direction of the mountain peak, then this man... absolutely could not be left alive.

If, after the two great Foundation Establishment cultivators dealt with the Underworld Blood Beast King, they discovered that the Skull Underworld Flower had vanished into thin air, and then learned that he had once approached the beast king's lair, what would they think?

The Blood Baleful Demon Sect had the Soul Searching Technique, after all.

However, he had never truly fought a cultivator before. He did not know the other party's exact cultivation level, nor did he know what strange methods the man might possess, so he did not have complete confidence.

"I have to keep raising my strength to make sure nothing goes wrong... I can only risk it!"

Thoughts flashed through Lu Lin's mind like lightning. He made his decision in an instant and immediately attacked the seventh level of Body Tempering!

Should he raise the Iron Elephant Body first, or the Spirit Cat Art?

Almost without hesitation, he chose the Spirit Cat Art.

The power gained from raising these two martial arts was roughly similar, but the Iron Elephant Body leaned toward defense, while the Spirit Cat Art pushed speed to the extreme.

In the complicated mountain-forest environment at this moment, speed undoubtedly held the greater advantage.

With a thought, a vast amount of cultivation time poured like a flood through an opened sluice, madly flooding into his comprehension of the Spirit Cat Art.

[First year: Lacking the aid of Tendon Refining Pills, you could only cultivate by relying on food and the thin energy between heaven and earth. Your progress was slow.]

[Second year: Progress remained slow...]

Previously, Lu Lin had only raised the Spirit Cat Art to the sixth level before stopping. He was still a great deal of accumulated time away from the peak of the sixth level, the threshold from which he could attack the seventh.

Without hesitation, he continued investing time.

It took a full thirty years of bitter cultivation before he pushed the Spirit Cat Art to the peak of the sixth level and officially began attacking the seventh level.

[Seventh level of Body Tempering: the Bone Forging realm. You must draw qi and blood into the bones and temper the skeleton. The process is extraordinarily dangerous; without the protection of Bone-Protecting Pills, the slightest carelessness will shatter your bones completely.]

[Lacking pills, you could only divide your qi and blood into countless fine threads and slowly inject them strand by strand, carefully grinding and tempering your bones. Your progress was many times slower than normal. In the thirty-first year, qi and blood began with the bones of the hand, slowly grinding and tempering them. Progress was slow.]

[Thirty-second year: Progress was slow...]

[Thirty-fifth year: Progress was slow...]

Cultivation time flew by. All of this happened only in the space of a spark from flint, and the young cultivator sensed nothing at all.

Lu Lin's killing intent was already set, but on the surface he remained calm. He even deliberately showed a respectful manner, bowing as he said, "Reporting to Immortal Master, this subordinate did indeed come from that mountain peak just now, and... entered the belly of the mountain."

"What? You went in? What did you see?" the young man immediately pressed, his gaze sharp.

"A flower. Its shape... was like a skull." Lu Lin described it truthfully.

A scorching light instantly burst from the young man's eyes!

"It's the Skull Underworld Flower! That's right!" He could not suppress his excitement. Then his eyes turned cold, and he stared hard at Lu Lin. "You... didn't touch it, did you?"

"That flower was clearly an immortal treasure at a single glance. How would this subordinate dare act rashly? I only looked once and immediately withdrew, and was just thinking of finding an Immortal Master to report it to." Lu Lin answered half truthfully, half falsely.

"Good! Very good!" The young man's tone eased slightly, and he ordered, "Now, lead the way. We will enter that mountain peak together."

Clearly, he had not fully believed Lu Lin. By making him lead the way, if there was any danger, he could immediately abandon Lu Lin, or even kill him.

Lu Lin needed time to stall, so of course he agreed, nodding repeatedly as he turned and pretended to lead the way.

The instant he turned, the young man patted his storage pouch, and a White Bone Spike gleaming with black light quietly slid into his palm.

If there was the slightest abnormal movement, he would strike at once.

[One hundred and fiftieth year: Lacking Bone-Protecting Pills, you used supreme patience and persistence to turn your qi and blood into countless fine threads, slowly tempering your bones and doing all you could to reduce the burden on your skeleton. After long years of bitter cultivation and grinding effort, heaven did not fail the painstaking; you finally succeeded, completed the qi-and-blood bone tempering, and officially stepped into the seventh level of Body Tempering!]

A warm current swept through his entire body in an instant. The qi and blood inside him surged like rivers, increasing by a large margin. His muscles and tendons became even tougher, his bones as hard as iron and stone, and his strength rose sharply along with them.

"One hundred and twenty years... I didn't think that without Bone-Protecting Pills, going from the peak of the sixth level to breaking through to the seventh would actually cost one hundred and twenty years of bitter cultivation." Lu Lin smiled bitterly inwardly.

It seemed that without Bone-Protecting Pills, ordinary people had no chance whatsoever of breaking through to the seventh level of Body Tempering.

Even if they knew this method, they would not have such a long lifespan to endure and temper themselves.

"Hmm? The increase in strength seems a little off."

Lu Lin's thoughts suddenly stirred, and he sensed it carefully.

He discovered that the strength he had gained this time was roughly more than seventeen hundred jin.

Cultivating the Demonic Ape Blood Qi Art from the sixth level to the seventh should have increased his strength by two thousand jin. Although the Spirit Cat Art was slightly inferior, it should still have brought an increase of eighteen hundred jin.

Yet now, it was short by nearly sixty jin.

"Could this be a phenomenon that appears after strength breaks through the ten-thousand-jin threshold? Is the Strength of an Elephant some kind of boundary for the human body? After breaking through this limit, does the strength gained from further cultivation begin to diminish?"

Lu Lin's thoughts raced as he made guesses in secret.

In fact, the last time the Demonic Ape Blood Qi Art had broken through from the fifth level to the sixth, he had already noticed something. It should originally have increased his strength by a thousand jin, but in the end, it had fallen slightly short.

At that time, his strength had just broken past ten thousand jin.

"If my guess is true, then the human body really does have a limit, and it's impossible for strength to grow infinitely. After ten thousand jin, every martial arts breakthrough will bring a reduced increase in strength."

"By that logic, if my strength keeps rising to twenty thousand, thirty thousand jin... when I break through in martial arts again, the increase will drop even further, until it reaches some ultimate point and can no longer improve by even the slightest bit."

Many thoughts flashed through his mind, and Lu Lin could not help feeling somewhat disappointed.

He had originally imagined that even without a martial arts technique at the Innate Blood Aura level, he could still infinitely stack strength by cultivating many kinds of body-tempering techniques, even wildly dreaming of shaking a Golden Core with one punch while only at the Body Tempering Realm...

Now it seemed that it truly had been a wild dream.

"There's still time. Keep improving!"

Lu Lin gathered his mind and continued pouring cultivation time into the Spirit Cat Art.

[After breaking through to the seventh level of Body Tempering, you continued bitter cultivation. In the first year, lacking Bone Refining Pills, you could only rely on food and the meager energy of heaven and earth, so your progress was slow.]

[In the second year, progress was slow!]

[After fifty years of bitter cultivation, you finally made another breakthrough. The Spirit Cat Art was trained to the eighth level, and your cultivation also stepped into the eighth level of Body Tempering!]

"Fifty years. Still acceptable."

Lu Lin was fairly satisfied with this progress.

Without medicinal pills to assist him, his cultivation speed was more than ten times slower than when he had pills.

"Bone Refining Pills... Looks like they're the key medicinal pills needed to raise cultivation after the seventh level of Body Tempering." Lu Lin understood in his heart.

Bone-Protecting Pills were used to break through bottlenecks, while Bone Refining Pills were used for ordinary cultivation and improvement.

P.S. Please vote monthly tickets and keep following the updates. It's Monday, and the new book rankings reset every Monday. This week I want to make a push for the new book rankings. Monthly tickets and follow-up reads are the two most important factors, and these two days still have double monthly tickets—one vote counts as two. Everyone, throw your monthly tickets over here. Old Mu thanks you!!!