Blood Qi

Biodata

Power Progression

Nature and Cultivation Role

Blood Qi is the foundational power of a Martial Artist, compared to oil in a lamp or charcoal in a furnace. Greater abundance directly raises physical force, while its refinement supports advancement into higher martial realms. 22

Body Tempering

• A Martial Artist may attempt to temper one aspect of the body for every ten wisps of Blood Qi gathered. 22
• The three Body Tempering stages are:
  • Skin Tempering — toughens the skin and membranes until ordinary blows are dispersed like impacts against cowhide. 22
  • Bone Tempering — strengthens the skeleton, allowing the body to fully bear and deliver force. 22
  • Sinew Tempering — makes the tendons resilient and elastic like drawn bowstrings, improving explosive and sustained power. 22
• At least thirty wisps are required to perfect all three stages, though the stages may be trained in different orders or simultaneously. 22
• Bone Tempering is generally the riskiest of the three stages, since an error can cripple the practitioner or cost their life; Martial Artists commonly leave it for last after stabilizing a deep Blood Qi foundation. 62
• During Sinew Tempering, Blood Qi is circulated through the sinews and tendons, repeatedly tightening and relaxing them until they resemble drawn bowstrings. 412
• Fang Han's own Sinew Tempering breakthrough uses ten wisps guided from his dantian through the meridians and into every sinew. Repeated washing produces warmth, soreness, numbness, swelling, and pain before improving his agility and bodily coordination. 54
• Excessive supplementation can overload the meridians. Fang Han stops Fang Ding from consuming further flood-dragon meat when his eight strands of Blood Qi reach saturation, warning that additional nourishment could burst his meridians and damage his foundation. 410
• Once Body Tempering is complete and Blood Qi is sufficiently abundant, it can be transformed into Internal Force and released at the Manifest Force realm. 22

Standing Post Skills

Standing Post Skills are the long-term method for producing, circulating, and refining Blood Qi rather than merely spending existing reserves. 74

• They open and temper the spine—the body's “dragon bone” and primary channel for Blood Qi circulation. 74
• Continued practice functions like digging a deeper well: the stronger the foundation, the more Blood Qi the body can store and generate. 74
• The Black Tortoise Stake Skill specializes in Blood Qi tempering, durable flesh, and long-term development. 73 74
• At higher proficiency, a Standing Post Skill can improve Blood Qi's quality as well as quantity, eventually generating Proto-Force. 80
• The fused Spirit Tortoise Stake Skill can simultaneously condense Force Qi and compress a user's aura deep into the dantian, making its concealment superior to merely restraining outward fluctuations. 168
• Synchronized practice by Fang Han's three Martial Soul Avatars accelerates the accumulation of both Blood Qi and Force Qi, initially exceeding ten times his physical body's cultivation speed. 168

Higher-Realm Support

• Abundant Blood Qi remains necessary beyond Body Tempering, supporting attempts at the Manifest Force, Dark Strength, and Transformed Force thresholds. Without it, further cultivation is compared to water without a source or a tree without roots. 74
• At the Manifest Force Threshold, Blood Qi is used to scour and connect the Twelve Primary Meridians. Repeated failures can reduce a practitioner's Blood Qi until they can no longer accumulate enough to attempt the threshold again. 169
• The Dark Strength Threshold instead uses Manifest Force Qi to strike and connect the Eight Extraordinary Meridians, establishing a separate circulation route. Its dangers are substantially greater than those of the Manifest Force Threshold. 169
• Grade Entry further strengthens Blood Qi and the meridians while unifying Manifest Force, Dark Strength, and Transformed Force into Internal Force. Fang Han's initial Ninth Grade Internal Force carries the Heartfire attribute as a faint crimson glow. 466

Sources and Replenishment

Detection and Concealment

Aura Observation

Blood Qi can be perceived as an aura and assessed to estimate another Martial Artist's cultivation.

• The Entry-level Qi Observation Art can discern Blood Qi fluctuations of Martial Artists below the Transformed Force realm. 160
• Dense, brighter Blood Qi generally indicates greater strength; Fang Han identifies Wang Long as far stronger than his apparent realm through the thickness and brightness of his aura. 160
• Blood Qi's solidity and stability also reveal the quality of a practitioner's foundation. Li Feng's aura appears like a blazing furnace under observation, yet remains unusually rounded and restrained despite his displayed Minor Dark Strength cultivation. 247
• During combat, observing Blood Qi circulation can reveal brief stagnations and openings in an opponent's movements. 240
• Qi Observation Art can also detect powerful Blood Qi signatures from distant fierce beasts and demon beasts. 388
• Blood Qi observation can reveal figures concealed by mist. Fang Han detects dark-red Martial Artist signatures ahead of the escort party near Black Dragon Pool. 206
• Strong Martial Artists may notice hostile observation through Martial Sense, making careless aura-gazing dangerous. 160
• At Transformation Realm Perfection, Fang Han's improved perception allows him to recognize Fang Ding's two newly condensed Blood Qi strands with a single glance. 401

Concealment

• The Empty Mountain Tortoise-Breath Technique restrains Blood Qi fluctuations to conceal a user's aura. 87
• Ordinarily, two conflicting breathing methods cannot be cultivated together without disrupting Blood Qi circulation or causing deviation. 87
• The Spirit Tortoise Stake Skill improves upon simple restraint by compressing aura into the dantian until it is concealed without a trace. 168
• Han Dengtian's Qi Observation Art sees through Fang Han's Tortoise-Breath concealment even though that concealment had previously hidden his cultivation from Transformed Force Martial Artists. 157
• The Mystic Sound Bell can detect Blood Qi fluctuations within thirty zhang, bypassing the Tortoise-Breath Technique's concealment. 298
• Fine control of Blood Qi can also falsify the appearance of a breakthrough. During his match against Ye Fan, Fang Han precisely regulates his circulation to imitate crossing the Dark Strength Threshold, although he has already surpassed that realm. 271 272

Known Characteristics

• Ordinary Martial Artists' Blood Qi is described as fiery crimson. 159
• Fang Han's Blood Qi is unusually gentle and contains faint golden light, giving each strand a denser, more solid impression than ordinary Blood Qi. Its cause is unknown. 159
• Blood Qi is warm and compatible with the physical body, making it safer for strengthening the senses than Force Qi. 159
• Filling the five senses with Blood Qi can sharpen hearing enough to discern hidden weapons' trajectories and improve vision in darkness. Fang Han also notices heightened senses after his first Body Tempering breakthrough. 40 159
• Force Qi is fiercer and sharper; improperly directing it through the senses can cause severe backlash, including blurred vision or bleeding from the seven orifices. 159
• The Bone-Tempering Pill's remodeling of Fang Han's physique increases the circulation speed of his Blood Qi by roughly thirty to forty percent while also making his meridians tougher and broader. 323
• External body-tempering arts also employ Blood Qi. The Indestructible Vajra Body coordinates movement and breathing so that Blood Qi repeatedly washes through the sinews and bones while external force tempers the body. 195
• Greater concentration can accompany a deepening color: Fang Ding's twelve streams change from pale red to dark crimson as they become denser and heavier. 468
• A mature Blood Dantian can continuously produce and replenish Blood Qi. At the Blood Core stage, its reserves are effectively inexhaustible in comparison with ordinary Martial Artists. 387 399
• This endurance is not an absolute absence of resource limits. Fang Han later describes his Blood Dantian as dried out and seeks demon blood to refill it; extreme combat expenditure can still leave his Blood Qi depleted and require recovery. 440 460

Demonic Applications

Blood God Remains

The Blood God's Severed Finger feeds directly on vital blood and can rapidly drain a victim's Blood Qi. Xiao Yan temporarily survives its pull by using the Meridian Locking Formula to seal his meridians and halt circulation. 299

Blood Dantian

The Blood God Rebirth Secret Art creates a false second dantian from essence blood, allowing it to circulate Force Qi alongside the user's original dantian. 314 318

• Its intended cultivation method requires drawing other Martial Artists' essence blood, making it a demonic practice punishable by the Great Qian Court. 318
• Fang Han resolves to use it only on enemies he must kill, rather than indiscriminately targeting innocents. 318
• After correction by the Panel, the technique can also extract and refine demon-beast essence blood, reducing its dependence on human victims. 328 330
• The Panel can purify spiritual contamination and cultivation deviations, but it cannot create the essence blood needed to nourish the Blood Dantian. 318
• Martial Soul Avatar practice can increase the Rebirth Secret Art's proficiency, but cannot by itself supply the essence blood required for the true body's Blood Dantian to grow. 318
• The uncorrected art carries accumulating spiritual contamination. Its manual states that only Upper Third Grade experts possess sufficient spiritual power to suppress it; weaker practitioners risk madness within months or a year and a half. Adding fresh human essence blood merely layers new contamination over the old, while withholding nourishment causes the Blood Dantian to wither. 314
• A Blood Dantian allows its owner to feign death by sealing their vitality within it, then restore the physical body after danger passes. 314
• Even before its major effects become usable, Fang Han's newly formed Blood Dantian increases his strength by approximately ten percent. 320
• At the third-stage Blood Core, the Blood Dantian may potentially serve as a blood-based bridge for merging the nine strands of Heaven-and-Earth Force required for the Grade-Entry Realm. 405
• This Blood-Bridge Grade-Entry Method is an offer from the Blood God rather than a demonstrated achievement by Fang Han. Fang Han remains suspicious and later pursues Grade Entry through the Netherworld Bone-Rending Claw's method instead. 405 461 466

Growth Stages

The Rebirth Secret Art describes five stages of Blood Dantian development. 387

1. Blood Seed — the initial bean-sized false dantian formed from essence blood. 318 387
2. Blood Cocoon — formed through the dangerous Blood Shedding process, in which the Blood Seed's outer shell is scoured away and Blood Qi is remade. 387
3. Blood Core — a hard core grows within the Blood Dantian, allowing Blood Qi to flow without end. 387 399
4. Blood Fusion — the Blood Core dissolves into and merges with the Blood Qi throughout the body, allowing every movement to drive Blood Power. 387
5. Blood God — the final known stage of the Blood Dantian. 387

Essence-Blood Burning

Burning essence blood converts vital reserves into a temporary increase in combat power rather than strengthening the cultivation foundation through ordinary refinement. 426 458

• The one-eyed Blood God Cult monk draws upon his entire body's Blood Qi and burns essence blood when cornered by Fang Han. His aura rises despite his injuries, but Fang Han defeats him and his Blood Qi subsequently collapses. 426
• The Xiao Family Patriarch's Blood-Burning Escape Art consumes at least thirty percent of his essence blood during his battle with Fang Han. 458
• Fang Han uses the Rebirth Secret Art to ignite the vast essence-blood reserves stored in his Blood Dantian when his other forces are nearly exhausted. This doubles his combat power again during the fifteenfold-strength battle, but the resulting backlash severely damages his meridians and depletes his Blood Qi. 458 460

God-Worship Body Induction

The God Worship Journal describes Divine Sense entering the body and forcibly accelerating Blood Qi circulation while tempering the tendons, bones, skin, and flesh. Huang Zhenjun's account portrays it as an agonizing process followed by boiling Blood Qi, swollen meridians, and a rapid surge in strength, claiming that even an inferior-talented practitioner can enter Dark Strength through a single induction. 314

Gu Zhiyi warns that borrowing the Blood God's remnant power can permanently damage or sever a Martial Artist's future path. The remnant is nourished through worship, flesh, and blood rather than representing a harmless source of cultivation assistance. 305