Fiery Temper?

Thunder Martial Hall.

A knock sounded at the door.

"Hall Master, the Feng Household has sent something over. They asked that you personally receive it."

"Now?"

Li Xiao furrowed his brow, but still made his way to the courtyard.

There, a black coffin had been placed in the open.

Li Xiao vaguely realized something and looked at the disciple beside him. "Did you open it and look?"

"No, this disciple did not dare."

"Fine. Get lost."

Without another word, the disciple immediately withdrew from the courtyard.

Li Xiao raised his hand and struck the coffin lid with his palm.

The next instant, what was inside rolled onto the ground.

It was the corpse of a bald man, his eyes wide open and his face frozen in despair.

"Gu De?"

"So, it really failed after all."

Gu De's death did not surprise him much.

The moment he saw Gu De's twisted right hand and caved-in chest, he understood at once.

Gu De had been defeated by someone in a single strike.

And in all of Chi City, there were only a handful of people with that kind of strength.

"Was it Zhang Yao, or did the Qin Household's Attendant make a move?"

"Forget it. It no longer matters."

"I have now stepped into Transformation Force."

"In all of Chi City, no one is my match!"

As Li Xiao spoke, a terrifying gleam flashed through his eyes. He aimed his right hand at Gu De's corpse in the distance and struck through the air.

The next instant, invisible force burst from his body and slammed directly into Gu De's corpse.

Gu De's body exploded on impact, turning into chunks of flesh that scattered in every direction. The entire courtyard filled with a thick stench of blood.

Standing amid the blood-soaked courtyard, Li Xiao looked at the pile of mangled flesh on the ground, no longer possible to piece back into human form, and expressionlessly flicked the blood foam from his hand.

"Someone, wash the courtyard clean."

Leaving those words behind, he turned and went back inside.

"Zhang Yao, at the banquet the day after tomorrow, I will repay you a hundredfold for the humiliation you once gave me."

"Then everyone will know who the strongest martial artist in Chi City is!!"

Inside the room.

Under the dim yellow lamplight, Lu Fan turned through the Tortoise Breath Formula he had just acquired, page by page.

The mnemonic verses were not long, barely more than a thousand words. They spoke of only one thing: pressing one's outwardly released qi and blood deep into the Dantian, forcing it down layer by layer until it sank beyond the point where others could sense it.

It was so simple that he even suspected his fifty taels of silver had bought him a fake.

Still, he followed the Tortoise Breath Formula's verses and continuously compressed the qi and blood surging through every part of his body.

Yet this was not such a simple matter.

That surging qi and blood was not so easily controlled.

And while controlling it, he also had to compress it.

More importantly, after compressing it, he had to sink the qi and blood into the Dantian before the concealment of his aura could truly be considered complete.

First, the qi and blood from his limbs and extremities flowed back. Next, the force within the main meridians contracted. Finally, it all sank into the Dantian, fused with the most blazing Dark Force Origin deep within it, and compressed further.

The entire process was like forcibly cramming an endlessly rushing river into a deep well. The well walls swelled faintly as though they were about to split apart.

After an unknown amount of time, the sensation of nearly bursting apart vanished.

Deep within his Dantian, that Dark Force Origin had been compressed into an almost solid core, quietly resting in the depths of his Qi Sea.

Lu Fan immediately opened his eyes, raised his hand, and examined it again and again beneath the lamp.

His hand was still gaunt, still callused, but the Dark Force faintly flowing beneath his skin had completely withdrawn. Nothing unusual could be seen with the naked eye.

Anyone looking at him would likely think he was merely an ordinary old man in reasonably good health.

Yet although his force had been completely concealed, when he tried to circulate a thread of Dark Force through his palm, the force condensed without dispersing.

He could wield and withdraw it entirely as he pleased.

In just one night, he had mastered the Tortoise Breath Formula.

And there was an unexpected delight as well: as his qi and blood compressed, his force became purer and more solid.

The Tortoise Breath Formula's essence was the compression and refinement of qi and blood. Concealing one's aura was merely its surface effect; its true effect was to raise the purity of one's force.

After pondering for a moment, Lu Fan picked up the jade bottle containing the Qi-Replenishing Pills from the table.

After pouring out the remaining Qi-Replenishing Pills, he circulated a thread of compressed and refined Dark Force and injected it into the jade bottle.

The next instant, the jade bottle silently shattered in his palm, collapsing into a pile of powder.

This left him stunned.

The compressed force was actually so terrifying.

Thinking of this, he swallowed all the remaining Qi-Replenishing Pills without hesitation, then alternated between the Everlasting Spring Formula and the Tortoise Breath Formula.

The growing qi and blood was continuously compressed and refined, merging into the Force Core within his Qi Sea.

That Force Core also grew larger and larger, while the force within it became increasingly solid and pure.

Moreover, throughout this process, his meridians became tougher, and the amount of qi and blood they could carry also increased.

His strength was advancing by leaps and bounds, a thousand miles in a single day.

When the sky began to glow with the pale white of a fish belly, Lu Fan awoke from meditation.

By then, every Qi-Replenishing Pill had been used up, while his strength had surged in one breath to Mid Dark Force. He was only one step away from entering Late Dark Force.

And with his refined force, his current combat strength was not the least bit inferior to that of an ordinary Late Dark Force expert.

The early morning sunlight was faintly cool as it shone over his somewhat aged face.

He could not help reaching up to touch his face. There were slightly fewer wrinkles on his gaunt features.

Moreover, he could clearly feel that the muscles of his face had become firmer.

This was the most direct and obvious benefit brought by increased strength.

It was said that martial artists of profound cultivation could live for more than a hundred years while retaining youthful faces.

And perhaps because his strength had risen, the masculine instinct that had lain dormant in him for decades had also completely revived.

His fire... was a little too strong.

"Phew..."

Lu Fan took a deep breath, suppressed the surging fire within him, then drew every trace of his aura into his Dantian. Only after returning to the appearance of that plain, unremarkable old cook did he head toward Blackstone Martial Hall.

Blackstone Martial Hall would probably not be very peaceful today.