[Target: The Innate Realm]

The Sword Spirit Elder Sister appeared, ignoring the overjoyed Yue Yang as though he did not exist.

Her lily-white little hand held the Black Jade Necklace as she gazed at it with apparent curiosity... Before Yue Yang could pounce over, hug the Sword Spirit Elder Sister's thigh, and call her wife, she vanished in an instant.

After picking up the Black Jade Necklace, Yue Yang was astonished to discover that it contained a vast reserve of energy, as immense as a lake.

He immediately leaped three feet into the air in excitement. An inspired thought struck him—could the Sword Spirit Elder Sister have helped him break the seal on this Black Jade Necklace?

With the Black Jade Necklace, Yue Yang's cultivation in his dreams now yielded twice the result with half the effort. Wearing it, he could not only absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, but also draw in large quantities of the pure energy stored within the Black Jade Necklace.

Each time he entered a dream, he absorbed more than ten times the spiritual energy he had before.

Without realizing it, his second meridian, the Hand Lesser Yin Heart Meridian, had also been opened. Yue Yang roughly estimated that at this pace, he would not need even a month to open all twelve meridians throughout his body, cultivate the first level of the Innate Formless Body-Breaking Sword Aura, and truly enter the Innate Realm!

When Yue Yang woke from his sleep, he discovered something strange.

He took the Black Jade Necklace from around his neck and examined it, only to find that it was still as ordinary as ever. Its appearance remained dull and black, nothing like it had been in his dream, and he could not sense that lake-like, boundless pure energy at all... Could he only absorb its energy in dreams? Or did its hidden seal only cease to function within the Sword Spirit Elder Sister's dream space?

This thing was so mysterious that ordinary people could neither see through it nor make use of it. Why had the parents of that tragic fool left it to him?

Could the two diaries contain a detailed explanation?

What kind of treasure was this Black Jade Necklace? What was its true purpose?

Yue Yang was utterly baffled by the Black Jade Necklace.

But according to Yue Yang's way of thinking, if he could not figure something out, then he simply would not think about it anymore. After all, there were far too many things happening to him that he could not understand.

The days passed one by one.

Yue Yang himself did not feel that the changes were especially great, but in the eyes of the beautiful woman and Yue Bing, he changed every day.

At the beginning, when he was absorbing the Black Jade Necklace's energy, Yue Yang was full of spirit and seemed to have endless strength throughout his body. They assumed that, because he had successfully contracted the Contract Tome and was in such high spirits, he was unusually energetic. A few days later, Yue Yang began shedding skin all over his body—first his hands, then his legs and torso, and finally his face. A whole layer of skin peeled away. Beneath it was skin as smooth as jade, as fair and tender as little Yue Bing's, perhaps even more radiant with healthy vitality.

Yue Yang's eyes also grew more restrained and wise by the day, glimmering faintly like stars.

Had they not seen him every day, the beautiful woman would scarcely have believed that her third son could undergo such astonishing changes in less than half a month.

"Third son, you're not sick, are you? Why don't you rest for a few days? I'm afraid you're pushing your training too hard and your body won't be able to take it. If this keeps up, won't you wear yourself out?" When the beautiful woman first saw the skin peeling from Yue Yang's hands, she thought he had fallen ill, or that it was an adverse reaction from overtraining and draining his body too severely. Only after seeing him completely renewed after shedding his skin, as if reborn, did she relax somewhat and realize that it might not be a bad thing.

"It's fine, it's fine..." Yue Yang knew this was a normal reaction to stepping into the Innate Realm.

By absorbing such vast amounts of pure energy from the Black Jade Necklace, he was nearly done cultivating the first level of the Innate Formless Body-Breaking Sword Aura. In other words, he was about to truly step into the Innate Realm. That was why his body was undergoing this rebirth-like transformation, changing sinews and cleansing marrow, as though he had been born anew.

The shedding skin and overflowing vitality—these outward abnormalities were things the beautiful woman and Yue Bing could see every day.

But they could not see Yue Yang's body growing stronger, more powerful, and more perfect with every passing day.

Moreover, Yue Yang's muscles had not swollen explosively like those of a bodybuilding champion. They had merely become more balanced and perfect. His chest muscles rose slightly, his abdomen was taut, and there was not a trace of excess flesh anywhere on his body. His limbs remained as slender as before; only his strength continued to increase and grow more formidable. Yue Yang could see it himself when bathing. Ever since cultivating the Innate Formless Body-Breaking Sword Aura, his body had changed every day.

Every day, it became more perfect than the day before.

He possessed tremendous strength without turning into a muscleman. Yue Yang was not particularly surprised by this, because the Sword Spirit Elder Sister's delicate jade-like hands could wield power capable of destroying heaven and earth. Since he cultivated the same Innate Formless Body-Breaking Sword Aura, it was perfectly normal that he would not become a muscleman either.

The Innate Formless Body-Breaking Sword Aura was an innate cultivation art, not some crude third-rate combat skill learned by mercenaries.

Yue Yang had pleasant surprises every day, improving without pause.

Yet the boy secretly reveled in it alone and never revealed his secret to the beautiful woman and the others.

Time flew by. After one month, the Hand Greater Yin, Foot Greater Yin, Hand Greater Yang, Foot Greater Yang, Hand Lesser Yin, Foot Lesser Yin, and the other twelve meridians had all been opened. Yue Yang was about to complete the first level of the Innate Formless Body-Breaking Sword Aura. As long as he connected the twelve meridians together, he would cultivate the first level and truly enter the Innate Realm that all the powerful figures of the Dragon Soaring Continent dreamed of attaining.

Even the most gifted innate experts on the Dragon Soaring Continent would likely require a hundred years to truly enter the Innate Realm.

Yet for Yue Yang, who cultivated the Innate Formless Body-Breaking Sword Aura directly, less than three months had passed in total, and he had already approached the dream that innate experts pursued through a century of cultivation... This showed just how miraculous a cultivation art the Innate Formless Body-Breaking Sword Aura was!

To make an analogy, the Yue Family Spearmanship, already considered an exceptionally advanced combat skill on the Dragon Soaring Continent, now looked to Yue Yang like elementary school textbooks for fourth or fifth graders looked to a university graduate—utterly shallow. As for the third-rate combat skills cultivated by mercenaries outside, they were practically like kindergarten textbooks. Yue Yang estimated that even the innate cultivation arts of the Dragon Soaring Continent, if they had not been lost, were probably only at the level of middle or high school. They simply could not be mentioned in the same breath as the Innate Formless Body-Breaking Sword Aura he cultivated.

Now, Yue Yang suddenly felt a little curious about the Sword Spirit Elder Sister. Who exactly was she?

If she were compared to the powerful figures of this world, what level of existence would she be?

"Third Brother, I'm returning to Upper Capital Academy for exams. I'll leave tomorrow. You've already mastered the basics of summoning quite well, so enrolling directly in the academy's second year next year will not be a problem. Third Brother, the only regret now is that you still haven't been able to summon your Life Guardian Beast, 'Mist.' Raising a Life Guardian Beast that never betrays and can never be destroyed is the most important thing. After I leave, don't keep focusing on summoning Thorn Flower. Take some money and buy a better battle beast outside, preferably a beast or bird. Wind Wolves, Fire Lions, Thunder Eagles, Golden Falcons—any of those will do. Sigh, if that Beast-Spirit Enlightenment Pill hadn't been intercepted by Second Uncle and given to Little Nine, I believe you would definitely have been able to summon a Life Guardian Beast... They've bullied us like this. In next year's family competition, I definitely won't hold back. I'll teach them a harsh lesson, or else Grandfather and the clan elders will always look down on our Fourth Branch..."

Before black-clad Yue Bing left, she repeatedly reminded Yue Yang.

In her heart, she deeply regretted Yue Yang's situation, because she saw a genius much like herself being looked down upon by the family.

The Dragon Soaring Continent's belief that men were superior to women, combined with the fact that she had become a little widow before even marrying, had made her afraid to protest in the past. But now, Third Brother was the future of their family. If he had truly been useless, that would have been one thing, but he was clearly a genius, yet the family still treated him with such contempt. All these injustices had filled her heart with resentment.

Yue Yang gently stroked the top of black-clad Yue Bing's head without saying a word.

He knew his own situation. His Life Guardian Beast was not "Mist," but "Phantom." He was afraid that he would never be able to summon Mist in this lifetime.

However, Phantom was actually ten times better than Mist.

The shadow's summoning duration lasted as long as ten days. In other words, he could summon ten shadows and stack them onto himself, amounting to a five-hundred-percent boost... Combined with the Innate Realm he was about to attain, it was truly difficult to imagine just how far his combat power would rise!

After seeing black-clad Yue Bing off, Yue Yang was in no hurry to go outside and buy battle beasts such as Wind Wolves, Fire Lions, Thunder Eagles, or Golden Falcons.

In his eyes, even the Saliva-Spitting Thorn Flower was far more badass than Wind Wolves or Fire Lions.

Right now, the most important thing was to cultivate the first level of the Innate Formless Body-Breaking Sword Aura. He was only one final step away from entering the Innate Realm.