Pan Long returned to his secluded cultivation in the mountains.
He traveled constantly between the mountaintop and its foot, gathering Heavenly Stellar Force above before returning to the camp below to practice Body Tempering. After each session, he rested for a day, then climbed back to the summit. Round and round he went, living between those two points.
He lost track of the days. Snow fell thick and fast until the mountains were blanketed in white. Then the ice and snow gradually melted, the runoff gathering into streams that surged down the slopes as floods more than once.
Pan Long kept cultivating, and even his thoughts gradually grew still.
One day, he gathered Heavenly Stellar Force and returned to camp as usual. But when he began Body Tempering, the floating sense of comfort he had always felt was gone. All that remained was pain: his organs felt as though knives were cutting through them, while needles seemed to pierce every meridian, bone, and muscle.
It was not that he could not endure the pain. He simply had no warning. When it struck, he had been ready to enjoy another pleasant rush of Primordial Qi pouring into him.
The contrast nearly drove him mad. He screamed, spraying blood more than ten feet away—and with it, more than half the Heavenly Stellar Force he had worked so hard to gather.
The violent force burst from his mouth, nose, eyes, and ears, badly injuring every opening it passed through. In an instant, he could neither see nor hear. His nose and mouth registered nothing but pain and numbness.
Of his five senses, only touch still worked normally.
That made the pain all the more vivid. It was a long time before he could barely calm himself.
When his healing ability had finally restored