Inside the courtyard.
Jiang Ning rose to his feet.
"I'm heading out for a while!" he said to Lü Yi.
The next moment.
His figure vanished from the courtyard, leaving only a swirling current of air where he had stood.
One incense stick's time later.
Jiang Ning appeared amid a primeval mountain forest.
This place was already dozens of li away from Guangning City.
His divine sense spread outward, sweeping across several li in every direction.
He immediately nodded.
"This will do!"
From his brief scan, this forest was not especially remote, but it was already rarely visited by people, with scarcely any traces of human activity.
For him, it was just right.
Then.
He arrived at an open patch of ground.
The ground was lush with clustered greenery, while great trees formed a ring around it. Yet there was nothing overhead to block the sky, and the noonday sun poured down fiercely from above.
For him, this place was just right.
He would draw the spiritual essence of heaven and earth into his body, then replace his blood.
That required a sufficiently open environment.
The next moment.
He sat down cross-legged.
For most people—and for the overwhelming majority of Grandmasters—the blood replacement stage was no different from taking a trip through the gates of hell.
During the process, all the blood and vitality in one's body would run dry, the body would sink into silence, and the flame of life would nearly wither away.
For ordinary people, losing thirty percent of their blood would cause shock and clouded consciousness.
Once blood loss reached forty percent, the organs would fail, and death would become an irreversible outcome.
Even for a Grandmaster-level martial artist, once the blood had completely dried up, they could not sustain themselves for long.
At the same