Breaking the Shackles

The path of cultivation was, in itself, already an act of defying the heavens. Heaven and earth would naturally send down tribulations and shackles to restrict the development of cultivators. Yet of the Great Dao's fifty, forty-nine were used; heaven and earth would always leave behind a single thread of life.

In this world, there were always beings who obtained all manner of fortuitous encounters and broke through the restrictions imposed by the heavens. Especially when a great calamity of heaven and earth was about to arrive, all kinds of "peerless geniuses," "monstrous talents," "children of fortune," and "supreme heroes" would appear. Most of these people were tide-riders who led their eras. After the great calamity arrived, they would contend with one another, and by then, the true person destined to answer the calamity would be decided.

Now, Wang Ding had also obtained a fortuitous encounter and was beginning to advance toward the ranks of peerless geniuses.

A quarter of an hour after Wang Ding swallowed the Pure Yang Creation Fruit, nine fire dragons rose from his abdomen and began flowing along his limbs, torso, and internal organs. Wherever the fire dragons passed, a heart-boring agony surged in. Being flayed, having his tendons drawn out, his bones hammered, and his marrow sucked dry would be no worse than this. Wang Ding only felt as if every inch of muscle and every bone had been torn into fragments, his internal organs scorched, his entire body thrown into a furnace and burned.

At this moment, inside the room, Wang Ding's body was fiery red all over, turning as transparent as crystal. Even his internal organs, bones, blood, and flesh were clearly visible. The nine fire dragons were now swimming through his body according to a strange pattern. Every place they passed, the muscles, bones, skin, blood vessels, and meridians there all turned into a lump of red **. As time passed, Wang Ding's entire body had already transformed into red **. Strangely, however, his whole body still maintained a human shape and had not become a lump of rotten mud just because it had turned into **.

By now, Wang Ding could no longer feel pain at all. He only felt boundless heat filling his body, as if it were about to steam him dry.

Wang Ding's will was firm. He knew that at this moment, he absolutely could not faint, or he would immediately end up with both body and soul destroyed.

Suddenly, one of the nine fire dragons that had been swimming through Wang Ding's body abruptly burst apart, transforming into surging streams that flowed to every part of his body. Under the nourishment of these torrents, the body that had already turned into ** actually grew flesh, meridians, bones, and skin anew.

At the same time, Wang Ding felt overwhelming numbness, itching, soreness, and pain surge in from every part of his body, completely drowning him. Wang Ding struggled to maintain that one point of clarity on his spiritual platform.

More than half an hour passed before the numb and itchy sensation finally vanished, and Wang Ding once again returned to the feeling of being inside a furnace.

At this moment, Wang Ding's body had transformed into a piece of red crystal jade, exquisite and translucent, like a work of art.

Before Wang Ding could even come back to himself, another wave of heart-rending pain came crashing in. His newly restored body gradually turned into ** once more, but this time, the ** his body melted into was no longer red. Instead, it contained a faint layer of golden radiance.

Wang Ding's body was melted again and again, then reconstructed again and again, until the final reconstruction was complete. At this moment, the marrow inside Wang Ding's body was no longer blood-red, but had turned golden. The blood flowing through him had also become golden, and his fleshly body gave off a faint golden light, as if a deity had descended. Wang Ding only felt indescribably comfortable from head to toe; all thirty-six thousand pores of his body opened, more comfortable than eating a ginseng fruit.

But everything was not yet over. In the dantian inside Wang Ding's body, there were still only eighty-one drops of Essence. Wang Ding knew the crucial moment had arrived. He guided the remaining medicinal power of the Pure Yang Creation Fruit into his meridians and began condensing Essence, but at this moment, the medicinal power flowed through his meridians with incomparable slowness. An unseen, tremendous force obstructed the medicinal power from transforming into Essence.

Wang Ding sensed the resistance, but he was not discouraged in the slightest. He steadfastly circulated the pure medicinal power within his meridians. Finally, supported by the precious body remolded by the Pure Yang Creation Fruit, Wang Ding transported the medicinal power to the ninth circulation. However, the medicinal power that had already transformed into a battle-bowl-sized mass of vital energy was stuck at the Yellow Court, and no matter what, it would not fall into the dantian.

At this moment, Wang Ding knew he could no longer advance or retreat. More and more vital energy had entered the Yellow Court; if it did not fall into the dantian soon, he feared he would explode and die.

Wang Ding calmed down, took a deep breath, and shouted, "Shackles of heaven and earth, Pure Yang Creation, Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, aid me in reaching the divine. Break, break, break."

With supreme will, he pressed all the vital energy accumulated in the Yellow Court into the dantian in one stroke. In an instant, Wang Ding heard a series of "crack, crack" sounds echo from the unseen, as the shackles of heaven and earth were broken. The vital energy in the Yellow Court was like a river whose dam had burst, pouring down toward the dantian and transforming into drop after drop of Essence.

At the same time Wang Ding broke through the shackles, dark clouds instantly covered the sky above Sand City, and a thunderstorm appeared overhead, as if the heavens were furious. The sudden change in the celestial phenomenon drew the attention of the powerful cultivators in the city. One divine sense after another swept across the entirety of Sand City, but found nothing. Whenever they swept over the place where Wang Ding was, it was empty, and no one discovered him or saw him. After gaining nothing for a long time, the owners of those divine senses each withdrew them.

Inside Wang Ding's dantian, one hundred and eight drops of Essence had already gathered. Suddenly, the Essence began moving on its own, transforming into a three-dimensional pattern. Wang Ding was still unable to look inward at his own body, or else he would certainly have been astonished to discover that the three-dimensional pattern formed by the Essence was clearly the star chart of the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches.

After the Essence spontaneously transformed into the star chart, it emitted waves of strange suction. At this moment, there was still an hour before dawn, and the stars in the sky had not yet disappeared, casting down waves of starlight. Under the suction of the star chart in Wang Ding's dantian, the starlight transformed into strands of star power and was absorbed into the Essence.

As more and more star power was drawn into the Essence, the Essence gradually began to change. After the star power entered the Essence, it did not merge with it. Instead, it condensed into a mass within the Essence, and moreover, it spontaneously formed a strange structure—or rather, a three-dimensional pattern composed of certain runes.

The reason this situation appeared was that all things in this heaven and earth were transformed from the Three Thousand Great Daos, and all were born under the guidance of rules. Every life and every object contained runes, just like Earth's atoms and molecules. When countless runes gathered together, changes would form.

At this moment, Wang Ding also felt the star power entering his body. Strands of cool star power entered through his pores and flowed directly toward his dantian. Wang Ding was extremely astonished. One had to know that absorbing large amounts of primordial energy from the outside world was an ability possessed only by those at the Qi Gathering Stage or above within the Qi Training Realm. Yet now, while still in the Qi Refining Realm, he already possessed this ability, leaving him unable to help feeling deeply shocked. This is most likely the effect of the Pure Yang Creation Fruit. As expected of a rare treasure of heaven and earth, the effects recorded in Qi-Huang Gate's Rare Treasures Manual were not wrong in the slightest. Next, the star power should accumulate to its limit and transform into star flame, tempering all the Essence and refining out a wisp of Innate Qi.

At this moment, Wang Ding's strength had already undergone a heaven-flipping, earth-overturning change. The power of his fleshly body had reached the limit of a cultivator in the Qi Transformation Stage: the strength of five flying dragons. It was enough for him to battle an Innate-stage cultivator, and he could break ordinary low-grade Magic Tools. His combat power could be called heaven-shaking. His fleshly body had even transformed to be like vajra, and ordinary low-grade offensive Magic Tools could not leave a mark on him.