Breakthrough

Jia Nan Academy had been anything but peaceful lately. The Blazing Sky Qi Refining Tower was closed, devastating news for the students. They had grown restless, desperate to know what had happened and when the tower would reopen.

Would it ever reopen at all?

Yet none of the elders or instructors could give them a definite answer.

Inside the Sky Burning Qi Refining Tower, Su Qian and the others still sat cross-legged beside the dark opening. They had remained there for three straight months.

Deep in the endless magma, Xiao Meng sat motionless as a rock. Countless golden runes swirled around him, shifting from cauldrons to furnaces, bells, plants, trees, suns, moons, and rivers of stars... Their forms changed without cease. Every so often, a rune sank into his body and branded his flesh with a white pattern.

The patterns looked as though they had been there since birth, formed by nature itself. Ancient and unadorned, they faintly radiated the mysteries of the great Dao.

As more runes branded his flesh, Xiao Meng's body slowly transformed. A dozen days later, light blazed from him, and a vast surge of blood and vitality shot skyward, sweeping in every direction.

Several days after that, every rune had entered his body and become a pattern.

Suddenly, a thunderous boom rang out. He had finally broken through to the next great realm—the Spirit Transformation Realm, where the mortal became akin to a spirit.

At that moment, the force of his aura alone could have killed a Da Dou Shi expert. If he unleashed his full strength, it would be terrifying.

Now, even without an array, he could fight a Dou Wang expert. To possess such formidable strength at his age was unprecedented on the Dou Qi Continent. He could stand above his peers of