Condensing baleful intent into astral qi, the three realms, and Mystic Profundity

"Huh, his eyes...!"

At some point, a man had appeared on the roof-a very young, handsome man. He was the same young man who had appeared at the inn in Green Ram Market. He had intended to enter the Vast Cang Mountains to gather medicinal herbs, but upon entering this little village on the mountains' outskirts, he had happened to discover a black bear coming down to forage and followed it.

Of course, he was not the sort to leap to the defense of others. He always acted according to his own whims. Following the bear had merely been a passing fancy; he wanted to see what trouble it could stir up and relieve the boredom of his journey. He had never expected this unexpected turn of events.

When Goudanzi charged at the black bear, the corners of his mouth had curled slightly, as though mocking the boy for overestimating himself. When Goudanzi forced himself back to his feet, however, he was greatly surprised. For a child of three or four to stand after suffering such grievous injuries meant, at the very least, that his willpower was exceptional. A measure of appreciation entered the young man's gaze, and he prepared to intervene. Then he saw Goudanzi's eyes.

Goudanzi roared, a deep blood-red color rising in his eyes. It was as rich as the crimson clouds that painted half the sky beneath the setting sun, yet as translucent as red jade. Within that blood-red hue, his dark pupils seemed even deeper. Around them, a faint, almost imperceptible ring of black markings carried an eerie, mysterious air.

Those seem to be the eyes from the legends. Wasn't that bloodline supposed to be extinct? How could it appear here? Hmm, this brat seems to know martial arts, too. His Internal Energy is shallow and impure, but he does have a little. Then let me see just how capable someone with those legendary eyes really is.

The young man gently lowered the right index finger he had already raised, watching with interest as Goudanzi swayed on his feet and the black bear lunged toward him.

"Boy, you'd better not disappoint me. Otherwise, I might just kill everyone here. Heh heh heh heh heh-!" The young man grinned, an icy menace gradually spreading from his smile.

The black bear was swift. In the blink of an eye, it reached Goudanzi, swung its enormous paw, and struck at him.

With such speed and so little distance between them, Zhou Hua and her parents-in-law all covered their eyes at the sight. None of them believed Goudanzi could escape this calamity.

Normally, Goudanzi certainly could not have escaped. But just as the bear's paw was about to strike his head, he twisted slightly and rolled along the ground, avoiding the fatal blow by a hair's breadth. A strange light flickered in his uncanny eyes.

At that moment, with his life hanging by a thread, he suddenly saw. Not only could he see, but the world he saw was utterly different from before.

Everything in his eyes slowed down, like slow motion on a television screen in his previous life. He could even see the bear's paw coming down toward his head with perfect clarity. It was so slow that he could easily dodge it.

So he twisted lightly, dodged, and rolled with the momentum. By some strange quirk of fate, that single roll brought him beside the woodcutting blade he had dropped. He reached out and snatched it up.

Its strike having missed, the black bear grew even more enraged. It roared and brought another paw down at Goudanzi.

An opening!

Watching the enormous paw sweep toward him, inspiration flashed through Goudanzi's mind. He curled up, rolled, and slipped beneath the paw again. As he rolled, the hand gripping the woodcutting blade thrust sharply forward.

The black bear was roaring with its mouth wide open. It never noticed Goudanzi suddenly thrusting the blade toward it, nor did it dodge. Just like that, Goudanzi drove the blade into its mouth.

Goudanzi put every ounce of strength in his body into that thrust. The woodcutting blade sank deep into the bear's throat.

With that successful thrust, all Goudanzi's strength drained away. He could manage only one more roll before collapsing unconscious to one side.

"Goudanzi...!" Zhou Hua cried out. Her cry was cut short as a sharp pain suddenly tore through her belly.

"Rotten luck, rotten luck! She's about to give birth!"

Seeing Zhou Hua's condition, the young man on the roof grimaced. His figure flickered, and he vanished from the rooftop. Almost simultaneously, a crowd rushed through the courtyard gate. They were villagers who had come after hearing the cries from inside-arriving fashionably late, like American police officers on television in later years.

Where is this? Why am I here?!

Goudanzi ached all over. He wanted to move, but could not budge, as though something had bound his hands and feet. Yet his mind felt perfectly clear-or at least, that was how it seemed to him.

Something seems wrong. This feeling... am I having sleep paralysis?!

Goudanzi soon realized something was amiss. He had often experienced this sensation in his previous life: sleep paralysis. Ordinary people might rarely encounter it, but it happened to him frequently. His heart had been weak in his previous life, so he often suffered sleep paralysis, especially during afternoon naps, when it felt as though a ghost were pinning him down.

Thus, rather than panicking, he thought glumly, Could my heart be weak in this life, too? Or did that bear's slap damage it, bringing back the sleep paralysis from my previous life?! Huh, what's this?... My meridians?

Soon, Goudanzi discovered how this bout of sleep paralysis differed from those in his previous life. Back then, although his awareness had been very "clear," what he saw and heard had been blurry. Now, everything he saw was extraordinarily distinct—so distinct that he could clearly make out every meridian, every bone, and the Internal Energy darting about inside his body.

This is the Great Strength Vajra Qigong!

Goudanzi thought silently. The route his Internal Energy followed was indeed that of the Great Strength Vajra Qigong. Previously, he had only felt a slender stream of warmth moving through his meridians and had thought nothing of it. Now, he could see all the meridians in his body and the Internal Energy flowing through them.

It was truly nothing like what he had imagined.

He had originally imagined that, although the Great Strength Vajra Qigong was merely the most rudimentary internal cultivation art taught throughout the army, any art capable of producing Internal Energy must have some substance to it. Now it seemed that substance did not run very deep.

The Internal Energy of the Great Strength Vajra Qigong was thin. After nearly half a year of practice, it was only about as thick as a baby's little finger. That was understandable; he had not practiced for long, so thin was thin. But besides being thin, it was also terribly uneven. It looked like a slender noodle kneaded into a wildly irregular shape, crawling through his meridians like a white worm. Of course, his meridians were nothing to praise, either.

Before he began cultivating Internal Energy, Wang Tianlei had told him with considerable envy that, because he was still young and his meridians had not fully closed, he would achieve twice the results with half the effort. His start would be much faster than that of someone already well into his teens, like Wang Tianlei. Goudanzi had been delighted at the time. Everyone liked hearing flattering words.

Only now, after truly seeing his meridians, did Goudanzi realize that Wang Tianlei had not been entirely correct. Apart from the few simple meridians through which the Great Strength Vajra Qigong's Internal Energy needed to circulate, his other meridians were blocked to varying degrees. They were not freely open as he had imagined.

Could this be the legendary inner sight?!

Goudanzi ignored the blocked state of his meridians. Even if he paid attention to it, he had no good way of changing it. The unobstructed meridians were all those through which the Great Strength Vajra Qigong's Internal Energy could flow. By comparison, the Flameheart Method's circulation route covered three to four times as many meridians, though he had yet to practice it. He believed that once he cultivated the Flameheart Method, those other meridians would open as well. Of course, that was a matter for later. His immediate priority was to figure out why he was in this state. How had he suddenly acquired inner sight?

Was this the final flare of life before death? Or was he dreaming?

"That brat probably won't die!" Within the Vast Cang Mountains, the young man who had appeared in Wang Tianlei's courtyard walked uphill, step by step, into the biting wind. Resentment tinged the smile on his face. "That thrust was good. The timing and speed were precise to the smallest fraction. Even a veteran with over a decade of blade training might not have managed it in those circumstances. At his age, even a flash of inspiration couldn't have enabled him to do that. With that tiny body, he could only have produced the force behind that thrust by perfectly combining his limited Internal Energy with all his muscular strength. That was the work of those eyes!"

Remembering Goudanzi's eyes, with their strange red gleam and black ripples, the muscles in the young man's face twitched. "An extinct bloodline, huh? What would those old fellows do if I brought him up the mountain? Would the old man die of joy? Hmm, probably not. Those old fellows from the three households might even secretly dispose of him, just as they wanted to dispose of Yun Shan back then. Heh, who knows? They seem to want to dispose of me, too!"

The cold wind grew stronger, howling like flying knives, yet it could not impede his steps. An invisible barrier seemed to exist a foot away from his body. Whenever the wind reached it, it was blocked and slid off to either side. Anyone with a discerning eye who witnessed this would surely have cried out in astonishment.

Protective astral qi!

This was protective astral qi. Only those whose cultivation had reached the seventh grade or higher could condense baleful intent into astral qi and cultivate this protective astral qi.

A seventh-grade expert?!

How many were there in the world?

Even throughout Great Jin, with its population of several billion, there were only a little over a hundred seventh-grade experts. Yet one had now appeared in these remote Vast Cang Mountains-and he was so young!

Judging by his appearance, he was only in his twenties. Although martial cultivation at advanced levels could greatly preserve one's looks, it could only preserve the appearance one had when attaining that level. If one achieved it at forty, one's appearance would remain forty; if one achieved it at fifty, one's appearance would remain fifty. No one had ever heard of someone attaining such mastery at forty and turning twenty overnight. That was impossible-unless one's strength surpassed the ninth grade and reached the legendary Mystic Profundity Realm.

The Mystic Profundity Realm.

The martial arts of this world emphasized cultivating both the internal and external aspects. They were divided into skin training, bone tempering, and Sinew Transformation, collectively called the three realms. Within those three realms were nine grades.

The lower three grades belonged to the Skin-Training Realm, the middle three to the Bone-Tempering Realm, and the Upper Three Ranks to the Sinew-Transforming Realm.

Upon reaching the Upper Three Ranks, one attained what people commonly called copper skin, steel sinews, and iron bones. Above those nine grades lay the Mystic Profundity Realm.

To step beyond the three realms was to enter the Mystic Profundity Realm.

It was said that among the elders of the world's greatest sects were old monsters of the Mystic Profundity Realm. But no one had ever seen them, so to the world, the Mystic Profundity Realm was merely a legend.

This young man looked only twenty-something, yet he could project protective astral qi a foot from his body. Protective astral qi was the hallmark of seventh-grade cultivation, meaning he was at least a seventh-grade expert. There were therefore only two possibilities: either he really was in his twenties and had already reached the seventh grade, or he was an old monster of Mystic Profundity whose vastly increased cellular vitality had restored his youth. Either possibility was enough to demonstrate how extraordinary he was.

"Hmm, what's that sound? Why is it so strange?!"

A faint mixture of fierce howls and sharp rebukes carried on the cold wind from afar, reaching the young man's ears.

"To the west... seems there's something fun going on!" The young man slowly pressed his lips together. With a slight movement, his body drifted up on the wind like a fallen leaf, floating toward West Mountain.