Sexy Jiang Chen, Fishing Online

With safety involved, Jiang Chen did not dare let his guard down.

He deliberately carried out a few suicidal little experiments to make sure this woman's Sword-Qi Domain was effective.

He could not even kill himself. The moment the sword tip touched the skin of his lower abdomen, it was instantly knocked away by sword qi.

Not that he truly wanted to kill himself.

"Stop trying to die. Now I have to draw another circle."

Li Lingzhou impatiently waved her sword and drew another circle.

"How many spirit stones do you have on you now?"

"Five hundred and twenty-eight spirit stones and five Spirit-Healing Pills."

"The trial tests endurance, patience, and hunting. Don't touch those five hundred spirit stones. When I come to see you, not one had better be missing."

"Alright."

Jiang Chen's attention was entirely on her Sword-Qi Domain.

Upon close observation, he discovered that traces of sword qi only appeared when the formation was first laid and when it took effect.

Normally, even standing right beside it with his exceptionally keen Five-Element Divine Sense, Jiang Chen could not detect a trace of sword qi.

Jiang Chen secretly marveled at it.

In the blink of an eye, Li Lingzhou had vanished into the boundless desert, leaving behind only a faint scent of wine.

The trial had officially begun.

There was nothing to eat or drink on Flame Mountain. Spiritual energy was depleted, heat waves rolled endlessly, and one could not even sit or lie down to rest. An ordinary person would not last even two hours.

Cultivators could preserve their spiritual and physical strength by consuming spirit stones and pills, but the expenditure was enormous.

At present, apart from the five hundred spirit stones Li Lingzhou had given him, Jiang Chen had only twenty-eight spirit stones and five Rapid Spirit-Healing Pills.

Even if he spent the entire time floating in meditation and did nothing else, he could last at most seven or eight days.

Going out to hunt Sandworms carried a certain degree of danger.

He could only try to lure Sandworms into attacking him.

These past few days, while his cultivation had surged continuously through the Demi-Immortal's Book, Jiang Chen's physique had also undergone earth-shaking changes.

To Sandworms, he was surely especially delicious.

He took off his shirt and decided to begin with Body Tempering.

His physique was up to par, but his skills had yet to reach full level. This was the perfect chance to train them.

[Skill] Eight-Step Mad Blade: Minor Accomplishment.

Eight-Step Mad Blade meant using wild power and momentum, along with nimble, lightning-fast footwork, to kill an enemy within eight steps and end the battle quickly.

It required not only great strength and speed, but also extremely superb technique. Among mortals, it counted as a high-grade cultivation art.

Jiang Chen had trained bitterly for one year in the mortal world, then another two years at Azure Mist Sect, yet he had only reached Minor Accomplishment.

He concealed his aura, then stripped off the rest of his clothes, revealing his lean, muscular body. Under the blazing heat, it gleamed with oil, giving off the delectable scent of roasted hormones and protein.

He had already sold his ordinary blade, so he wielded his spirit sword and repeatedly performed Eight-Step Mad Blade with mortal strength.

Huff, huff...

Whoosh, whoosh...

Swish, swish...

Now that his physique had improved, the footwork and sword forms Jiang Chen had once found difficult came to him with ease.

[Your Eight-Step Mad Blade has advanced to: Masterful Technique!]

After less than half a day, Jiang Chen was drenched in sweat.

He considered himself quite delicious. Holding a spirit sword in a mortal body made him a man innocent of wrongdoing yet in possession of treasure. Why were these Sandworms being so polite?

If you don't come eat me soon, my Eight-Step Mad Blade is going to reach perfection!

A lone plume of smoke rose straight from the desert; the setting sun hung round over the long river.

A day passed just like that.

Night fell.

The temperature changed abruptly, dropping step by step from a daytime oven of forty or fifty degrees to a freezer-like state near subzero.

Jiang Chen put his clothes back on. To attract Sandworms, he did not use spiritual power and instead buried half his body in the sand to keep warm.

Soon, he sensed it.

A Qi Refining Sandworm was slowly approaching.

He pretended to be asleep, his breathing even and his snoring pleasant.

Suddenly!

The Sandworm burrowed deep underground, then turned and charged upward, opening its bloody maw to swallow the snoring Jiang Chen whole.

Jiang Chen had been prepared. He immediately used Qi Refining spiritual power and employed Earth-Element Spirit Control to suppress the Sandworm.

Then, with a strike of Eight-Step Mad Sword, he slit open the Sandworm's belly and went straight for its worm core, all in one fluid motion.

[Your Eight-Step Mad Blade has advanced to: Consummate Mastery!]

A Qi Refining Sandworm was over ten feet long. Its enormous body was mostly sand solidified by mucus and had little nutritional value. Yellowish-brown blood vessels ran through it, functioning as spirit veins that could replenish both water and spiritual energy.

A Qi Refining Sandworm's worm core contained roughly as much spiritual energy as one spirit stone. It looked like a fist-sized pebble and had to be split open with force before one could suck out the delicious contents.

To Jiang Chen, the sense of accomplishment from hunting was even more delicious.

He had lived too low-key and too miserably these past years.

Over the following days, Jiang Chen relied on this mortal-style fishing tactic to slay dozens of Qi Refining Sandworms.

The worm cores and worm veins were basically enough to sustain him for a month.

Foundation Establishment or stronger Sand Monsters generally would not care for such a tiny morsel as him, so this tactic was clearly sustainable.

Five days later.

[Your Eight-Step Mad Blade has advanced to: Peak Perfection!]

At last, he had a skill at Peak Perfection. Though it was only a mortal skill, Jiang Chen was still thrilled.

His body arts rose along with Eight-Step Mad Blade.

[Your Basic Body Arts have synchronized to: Peak Perfection!]

Jiang Chen suddenly felt an unprecedented sense of ease. Standing atop a sand dune, he stood tall between heaven and earth, with body, mind, and spiritual power perfectly united.

This symbolized a mortal's strength, speed, and technique all reaching their peak at once.

Body arts were easy to learn but difficult to master. For cultivators, even mastering body arts made it difficult to bridge the combat gap caused by differences in cultivation.

The cost-effectiveness of Body Tempering was not high for cultivators. The time would be better spent advancing another stage of cultivation.

Thus, most cultivators retained whatever level of Body Tempering they had before Qi Refining. The speed and strength bonuses brought by cultivation were enough to make up for a lack of technique.

But precisely because most cultivators did not value body arts, if one was especially proficient in them, one could very likely land an unexpected blow and seize victory when a battle reached a stalemate.

[Skills]

Basic Body Arts: Peak Perfection.

Eight-Step Mad Blade: Peak Perfection.

Basic Spirit Control: Masterful Technique.

Demi-Immortal's Book: Initial Glimpse.

Jiang Chen tried using the Abyss condensed within his sea of qi by the Demi-Immortal's Book to absorb a Sandworm's spiritual energy.

The result... was a failure!

He could only use the ordinary sea of qi from his Five-Element Endowment to directly absorb these unrefined beast spirits. The efficiency was low, and using this method to improve his cultivation was nearly impossible.

Of course, even without cultivating the Demi-Immortal's Book, it would have been nearly impossible for him to reach Qi Refining with his talent. The Demi-Immortal's Book was not to blame.

The Demi-Immortal's Book could only absorb the power of humans, demons, and devils. In other words, it had to be connected to people in order to improve his cultivation.

Perhaps he could absorb the sword qi Li Lingzhou had left behind.

But that was for saving his life. He would not recklessly seek death.

For now, he had no way to cultivate the Demi-Immortal's Book.

That left only Basic Spirit Control in the skill list that he could still cultivate.

Since he had nothing better to do, Jiang Chen planned to raise Basic Spirit Control by one or two levels.

The first thing he attempted was completely concealing his aura beneath the sand and pretending to be a lump of sand.

This required not only absolute control over one's aura and spirit pressure, but also sufficient mental attributes—the ability to truly regard oneself as sand and merge with the surrounding environment.

Fortunately, Jiang Chen had talent in all three areas.

His max-level body arts granted him control over his aura, Five-Element Spirit Control granted him control over spirit pressure, and his personality was even more capable of enduring loneliness.

Back at Stubborn Stone Peak of Azure Mist Sect, in order to reach Qi Refining, he had gone through the three realms of seeing mountains as mountains, seeing mountains as not mountains, and seeing mountains as mountains once more. He had nearly attained Buddhahood on the spot. Unfortunately, his innate physique was too poor and his body could not keep up, leaving him unable to reach Qi Refining.

Now, Jiang Chen burrowed underground and concealed his aura.

During the day, he had to consume spiritual power to resist the baking sand.

At night, he had to consume spiritual power to resist the bitter cold.

This added further difficulty to concealing his aura.

Jiang Chen trained for five days before he could completely conceal his aura. The surrounding Sandworms and Sand Monsters could no longer see him either.

With aura concealment as a foundation, Jiang Chen attempted a second exercise: moving swiftly underground.

After several attempts, Jiang Chen discovered that despite his fairly advanced Earth-Element Spirit Control, his speed moving through sand and earth was still inferior to that of a Qi Refining Sandworm.

So, using principles of bionics, he used earth-element spiritual power to create a Qi Refining Sandworm around himself, wrapping himself inside it before moving through the sand in the Sandworm's body.

It was much faster!

Another five days passed.

[Your Basic Spirit Control has advanced to: Consummate Mastery!]

Jiang Chen let out a long breath, satisfaction welling up within him.

He calculated the time. Half a month had already passed.

The main storyline still had not arrived!

Fortunately, his Basic Body Arts and Eight-Step Mad Blade had both reached full level, while Basic Spirit Control had advanced one stage to Consummate Mastery.

Spirit Control, like body arts, was a foundational method that was easy to learn but difficult to master. Jiang Chen felt that if he wanted to bring Spirit Control to Peak Perfection, he would at least need to learn the highest-tier hidden Spirit Control method—

Myriad Phenomena Resonance.

Thinking this, Jiang Chen subconsciously opened the jade slip Chen Gongxing had given him.

His divine sense turned to the final page.

Myriad Phenomena Resonance had already been unlocked, and the full text of the cultivation method appeared before Jiang Chen!