Three Parts Life Arts, Seven Parts Nature Study

The night was silent.

These days, whenever night fell, every household in the villages and towns outside the city shut their doors and windows, blew out their lamps, and extinguished their fires. No one wandered outside. The inn where Liu Huai's family stayed was no exception; it had long since fallen quiet.

Most of the inn's guests were merchants and travelers who had journeyed north and south. They hated unexpected trouble most of all and were always cautious in their dealings.

But during the fourth watch, a green gleam suddenly flashed outside the window. It came swiftly and blindingly, startling many light sleepers awake. They poked their heads out the windows, yet found no trace of anything unusual—

Outside remained a pitch-black expanse, with no light and no people.

"What was that? Could my eyes have been playing tricks on me?"

Having been jolted awake from sleep, they were already groggy. Seeing only darkness beyond the windows, most merely asked themselves this question before lying back down, though wariness had taken root in their hearts.

Liu Yue was among them. Yet unlike the others, Liu Yue had not slept at all. He had been forcing himself to stay alert, guarding a huge sum of silver he had never seen in his entire life. Even if he had tried to sleep, he would not have slept soundly.

When the green gleam flashed, Liu Yue was sitting cross-legged on the bed. A sudden burst of light flashed before his eyes, frightening him badly enough that he sprang from the bed.

But when he looked closely, where was there any light? The room was utterly still, while Liu Huai and Qiu Yan slept deeply.

Still, Liu Yue, unsettled and suspicious, did not dare lower his guard. He searched the room, then stuck his head out the window, but still discovered not the slightest abnormality.

"Could it have been an illusion?"

As Liu Yue puzzled over it, a sound suddenly came from beside him and startled him again. Turning around, he found that Qiu Yan had climbed out of bed.

"Brother Yan, what is it?"

"Nothing. I'm going out to relieve myself," Qiu Yan gave as his excuse, then changed the subject. "It's getting late. Cousin, you should sleep for a while. I'll keep watch for the rest of the night."

Liu Yue thought it over and nodded. Having forced himself to hold on until now, then suffered that fright just moments ago, he was indeed exhausted beyond measure.

"Go and come back quickly."

"Alright." After answering, Qiu Yan pushed open the door and went downstairs. Passing through the first-floor hall, he made not a sound as he walked. He did not even wake the sleepy attendant dozing over a table before smoothly leaving the inn.

After leaving, Qiu Yan identified his direction, then broke into a swift stride. In only a few breaths, he had left the village town and entered a small grove.

After looking around and confirming that no one was nearby, Qiu Yan stopped, sat cross-legged on the ground, and took a scroll from his robes.

Tremble!

The scroll shook on its own, its surface covered in a faint green glow.

Qiu Yan looked at the scroll and pondered for a moment before setting it aside. Then he raised his right hand, and a green gleam suddenly appeared in his palm. He held a small ball of radiance, within which three drops of scarlet blood could vaguely be seen.

Wolf Demon's Heart Blood!

"The Wolf Demon refined three corporeal souls, and its entire body was comparable to refined iron. Even if I cleansed and extracted it with divine power, the enormous amount of Blood Essence would not be something this avatar could endure. Better to discard the dross and retain the essence—three drops of Heart Blood will suffice. Besides, the wolf's body is enormous. Who knows how much divine power it would take to strip away all its Blood Essence? This avatar's Living Soul can bear at most one Divine Power Star; any more and it will collapse. Using flames formed from divine power to burn the wolf's entire body and blur cause and effect is already the limit."

In the earlier battle at the Pan Household, Qiu Yan had led the Wolf Demon in a surprise attack on the Pan Household, causing the two sides to fall into a chaotic melee and allowing him to fish the chestnut from the fire. In the end, he wiped out Tang Yi's group and the Wolf Demon in one stroke. Counting carefully, with the power of an avatar and Aperture-Opening Realm cultivation, he had successively destroyed four soul cultivators who had condensed Human Souls and a Wolf Demon that had refined three corporeal souls. Even Tang Yi, who held a strange treasure and had protection upon him, had met his end at Qiu Yan's hands. If such a record were spoken of, it would be enough to leave anyone utterly astonished!

But after doing such a thing, traces would inevitably remain. Anyone with the will could deduce what had happened. Yet Qiu Yan possessed divine power and could transform being into nonbeing. Divine power became flames to scorch the demon wolf; while it could not erase cause and effect, it could still blur them somewhat.

"Tang Yi's and the Wolf Demon's bodies are both left at the Pan Household. The local deity should take them away. Once the Divine Path intervenes, matters will become even more complicated, and deductions will require much more effort. Still, this does not sever cause and effect; it can only delay things. Eventually, it will be exposed. When that time comes, it will depend on this avatar's abilities—whether it is destroyed in a single blow or gains the power to protect itself. This can also be considered a kind of spur."

As he spoke, he lowered his head to look at the radiance in his hand, his gaze fixed on the three drops of blood.

"These three drops of blood are the key to my current advancement. Since Nature Cultivation has already achieved Aperture Opening, it is time to step onto the path of Life Cultivation. As the saying goes, 'Three parts life arts, seven parts nature study.' On the path of cultivation, nature and life cannot be separated. With these three drops of Heart Blood and the body-tempering methods in The Way of Nature and Life, I can temper flesh, blood, sinews, and bones. I wonder whether I can break through to the level of Foundation Establishment."

The first step of Nature Cultivation was Aperture Opening, while the first step of Life Cultivation was Foundation Establishment.

Qiu Yan's scholar avatar had absorbed the Crow Demon's Blood Essence. His constitution was far stronger than that of an ordinary person, and he could barely be considered to have reached the Foundation Establishment realm.

The Foundation Establishment realm mainly cultivated force. It was divided into three kinds: Bright, Dark, and Trembling, corresponding to skin and flesh, great sinews, and bones.

All of this was recorded in The Way of Nature and Life, and Qiu Yan had committed it all to memory, though he had never put it into practice.

Bright Force trained the strength of skin and flesh. The greater the force behind a punch, the more abundant one's Bright Force. Once one could achieve Force-Tensing and Breath-Locking, Bright Force was formally mastered. Force-Tensing and Breath-Locking meant sealing the pores so that sweat would not leak and strength would not dissipate. Both explosive power and endurance would increase severalfold over that of ordinary people.

To reach this stage, it was no longer simply a matter of having great strength. One had to train skin and flesh until they were thoroughly connected and could be controlled at will. Though Qiu Yan's strength had greatly increased after absorbing Blood Essence, he could not yet seal his pores. That meant his skin and flesh had not yet been fully tempered, and he needed to continue honing them.

"If I absorb the Wolf Demon Blood Essence and merge it throughout my body to temper myself, it will save me at least three to five years of bitter effort. Borrowing external aid may leave behind hidden dangers, but this avatar must read, write, and pursue its ambitions. Where would it find the time to temper its strength, sinews, and bones? This is more convenient. At the very least, it will swiftly grant me the power to protect myself. Otherwise, no matter how sound my principles are, they are useless if I can only speak of them."

With that thought, Qiu Yan did not act at once. Instead, he raised a finger and shot out a ray of divine light, which entered the radiance in his right hand. The light then turned, dragging three phantoms from within—three wolf heads howling fiercely.

"These three phantoms are similar to the two I stripped from the Crow Demon's Blood Essence. I did not understand them at the time, but thinking about it now, they should be the phantoms of the refined seven corporeal souls. They may prove useful if kept."

The two phantoms Qiu Yan had stripped away while absorbing the Crow Demon's Blood Essence were still suppressed within a talisman by his divine true body. He had not expected to obtain three more now.

Demonic energy surged within the phantoms. If they were not stripped away, the Heart Blood would not be pure and would still contain impurities. Consuming it would risk demonic transformation.

With a turn of Qiu Yan's thoughts, the divine radiance contracted. The three phantoms were compressed into a single point and floated to one side.

Having stripped away the phantoms, Qiu Yan wasted no more time. In three quick motions, he shed his clothes, then opened his mouth and inhaled, swallowing the three drops of Heart Blood into his belly.

The next moment, his body swelled. Every pore across his body suddenly burst open, and his entire form was immediately shrouded in a bloody mist.

Just then, the scroll beside him suddenly began to shake violently.

Crack!

The scroll unfurled on its own, and the wolf-head soul phantom broke free from within, lunging toward Qiu Yan, who was enveloped in the blood mist!