The night sky was clear, with only a few stars. The huge passenger ship sailed steadily down the river, parting the heavy waves with a dull, monotonous rush of water.
Now and then, the wash from the bow startled a roosting waterbird into flight. It beat its wings and vanished into the black night.
No lamp burned in the first-class cabin.
Faint moonlight slipped through the gaps in the shutters, cut into several silver-white bands that slanted across the polished floor.
Li Xiang sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed, his eyes half closed, his breathing so faint it seemed to come and go.
No energy radiated visibly from him. Even the heat of surging blood qi common to Martial Cultivators had vanished without a trace.
The Leakless Body trait he had just gained by unlocking the Warrior Profession sealed the terrifying blood qi within his thirty-six thousand pores, letting not a trace escape.
At that moment, he resembled a clay statue or wooden carving weathered by centuries, perfectly at one with the silent cabin, the rocking river, and even the cool moonlight beyond the window.
Yet deep within Li Xiang's Sea of Consciousness, a heaven- and earth-reversing transformation was underway.
In the Bagua Furnace Terrain, he had tempered his body with the Five-Colored Divine Fire and used Green Apple's Omniscience to comprehend his own Martial Principle. At last, he had broken free of his cocoon and emerged as a Warrior.
The experience had struck like enlightenment poured into his mind, forcing his understanding of heaven and earth to an entirely new height.
Riding the lingering insight, Li Xiang sank his consciousness into his Inner Landscape and once more read the Yellow Court Inner Landscape Scripture left by True Person Lingxu.
Before, when he had read this supreme Daoist