After soaking for an entire afternoon, Wang Lang rose from the oversized bath barrel and stretched his limbs.
The skin all over his body was smooth and taut. Let alone wrinkling, there was not even the slightest blanching from prolonged soaking.
After drying himself and changing into clean coarse cloth clothes, he did not hurry back to his room. Instead, he detoured to the Back Mountain behind the manor to take a look at Old Wang's grave.
Wang Lang examined it carefully. The grave mound was still as solidly built as ever. Good.
That meant the coffin worth fifty taels had not been stolen.
He then returned to his room and took Grandmaster Tianhai's letter from his breast.
Wang Lang pondered for a moment. Though recent twists of fate had allowed his Body Refinement to break through to the Bedrock Realm, and his qi cultivation to enter the Spirit Condensation Realm, causing his strength to soar by leaps and bounds—
He recalled the strange encounters he had suffered one after another on his way back from Creek Stone Village. The world outside truly was fraught with peril at every turn.
Steady. Staying steady comes first.
He muttered inwardly, thinking of the old man's letter and Grandmaster Tianhai's token.
There was no need to rush to deliver them right now, so he hid both the letter and the token away.
Only after finishing all this did Wang Lang truly relax.
He came to his bed and lay flat on his back, resting both hands beneath his head as he began his daily three examinations of himself.
His thoughts first settled on his breakthrough in cultivation.
Back then, in the Ten Thousand Souls Tomb, he had absorbed an enormous amount of Yin qi. His body had felt like it was stuffed beyond bursting.
Yet, without his realizing it, it had begun circulating according to the cultivation route of the Vajra Subduing Demons Sutra, then broken through two realms in succession.
At this moment, when he looked inward, he could clearly see two utterly different kinds of qi circulating within him.
One was the righteous qi cultivated through the Song of Righteous Qi, pure white in color, gentle and mellow.
The other was Vajra Qi derived from the Vajra Subduing Demons Sutra, pale gold in color, condensed and domineering.
These two qis of vastly different attributes had not clashed and torn apart his meridians as common sense would suggest.
Instead, like well water and river water keeping to their own courses, they each occupied different regions of his meridians without infringing upon one another.
Even more wondrously, with the effect of the Innate Qi trait making him stronger with every breath—
Wang Lang could clearly sense that both kinds of qi were growing in synchronized balance.
It had not resulted in Vajra Qi becoming the sole dominant force merely because he had relied on the Vajra Subduing Demons Sutra to break through into the Spirit Condensation Realm.
This change is quite an unexpected delight.
According to the common knowledge Wang Lang had learned from the Vajra Subduing Demons Sutra, Qi Refiners generally could only focus on cultivating one type of qi.
Whether it was the Five Elements qi cultivated by Daoist cultivators according to their respective inheritances, the Grand Righteous Qi of Confucian disciples, or some other qi with special attributes.
Trying to bite off more than one could chew was a minor matter. The key issue was that different types of qi coexisting within the body could easily trigger conflict.
At best, one's cultivation would be completely crippled. At worst, one would explode and die.
Of course, certain heaven-defying techniques or special physiques from legend might be able to break this rule, but those were all as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns.
The matter of qi is an unexpected delight. Then what about the changes to this physique...
Wang Lang's thoughts shifted, and his attention settled on the Indestructible Vajra Body after its advancement.
His physique had already advanced from an ordinary mortal body to an Indestructible Vajra Body.
According to the information provided by the system's personal panel, it had been triggered by the ultimate tempering of the Vajra Subduing Demons Sutra and the massive amount of Yin qi within the Ten Thousand Souls Tomb. The effects it brought were useful to Wang Lang, but not particularly significant.
Next came his Body Refinement breakthrough to the Bedrock Realm.
After entering this realm, the realm divisions of the Body Refinement path began to resemble those of the qi cultivation path. Though it too had nine levels—
It was no longer divided into minor realms through methods such as skin tempering, flesh tempering, and tendon tempering as it had been in the Body Tempering Realm.
The Bedrock Realm emphasized endurance and transformation.
Every breakthrough required one to draw upon the qi and blood within the body to continuously temper the flesh, making one's body truly as solid as bedrock and as steady as a great mountain.
Each level of advancement required a massive accumulation of qi and blood, as well as deeper control over one's fleshly body.
After reaching the peak of the ninth level of the Bedrock Realm, breaking through into the Myriad Manifestations Realm required one to use the power of the flesh to stir changes in the weather and phenomena.
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One could either temper the body with lightning or let earthly fire burn the body, breaking through the shackles of the flesh in extreme environments and giving the body the foundation to bear and evolve the power of all manifestations in the world.
This trial was extraordinarily perilous. Its tests of will and the physical body were inhuman. Those who failed would either die or be crippled, while those who successfully entered the Myriad Manifestations Realm were all outstanding figures among Body Refinement martial artists.
The Spirit Condensation Realm of the qi cultivation path was more or less the same, mainly involving the cultivation of the spirit and dharma manifestations.
Wang Lang carefully comprehended the information conveyed by the Vajra Subduing Demons Sutra, gaining a clearer understanding of the road ahead.
Qi cultivation and Body Refinement each had their own merits.
At the Qi Induction Realm stage, Qi Refiners could initially use spells and activate talismans, giving them flexible and varied methods.
They were generally more advantaged than Body Tempering Realm martial artists of the same stage, who were still hammering away at their bodies.
But once a Body Refinement practitioner entered the Bedrock Realm, their physical strength, power, speed, and close-range explosive force would far surpass Qi Refiners of the same rank.
Even Spirit Condensation Realm cultivators with dharma manifestations would not have it easy.
Of course, if a Qi Refiner could widen the distance and unleash powerful spells, the outcome would still be uncertain.
Overall, Wang Lang was satisfied with Grandmaster Tianhai's legacy.
The only flaw was that its accompanying offensive methods were mostly close-range fists and kicks, or techniques such as condensing Vajra Qi to protect the body.
As for long-range spells and the varied skills of a mage, there were pitifully few.
This dealt an initial blow to his dream of becoming an elegant backline artillery platform.
Looks like I can only charge headlong down the path of a berserker or an iron tank...
Wang Lang felt somewhat regretful, but soon accepted it.
At the end of his thoughts, they inevitably fell upon the heaviest part of Grandmaster Tianhai's letter.
The Yin God and Yang God would awaken a thousand years later. When that time came, yin and yang would fall into chaos, laws would collapse, and all things would return to the void.
Wang Lang had never even heard of the so-called Yin God and Yang God.
Put plainly, that portion of Grandmaster Tianhai's letter meant that the end of the world had been scheduled, with roughly a thousand years left on the countdown.
Wang Lang gazed at the ceiling beam and sighed.
"If heaven and earth are a chessboard, then all living beings are chess pieces."
"Even if chess pieces foresee the bleakness of the endgame, what can they do?"
"Without enough power to overturn the chessboard and establish new rules, they can only drift with the current in the end."
"Either wait in despair to be devoured, or turn to dust in unwillingness."
A sense of pressure suddenly descended upon Wang Lang, but it vanished in a flash.
Why think so far ahead? If the sky falls, there will always be tall people to hold it up.
He thought that even if he eventually discovered there were no tall people, or that even the tall people could not withstand it—
Did he not still have a full thousand years to grow?
With the Innate Qi, if he developed for several hundred years, he ought to be able to cultivate both major systems of Body Refinement in this world to their highest realms, right?
He calculated silently, then shook his head with a laugh. It seemed that even with a trait that made him stronger with every breath—
He still lacked confidence when facing those two gods capable of destroying the world.
He could only hope that the system would grant him several more powerful traits in the future, or allow him to synthesize a few.
After sorting through his many thoughts one by one, the distracting thoughts in his heart vanished completely.
Wang Lang let out a long breath and directly emptied his mind, closing his eyes.
No matter how great the matter, it could wait until he woke up.
Then, after closing his eyes for only a dozen breaths or so—
"Damn! I can't sleep at all!"
Helpless, Wang Lang could only get up and actively cultivate according to the methods of the Vajra Subduing Demons Sutra.
The world was going to be destroyed in a thousand years. He could not place all his hopes on system traits; he needed to work hard himself as well.
Even if he could not turn the tide when that time came, he at least had to ensure that he survived.
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