Body Tempering (I)

After returning from the Star Dou Great Forest, Tang Xuan lay in his dormitory, carefully recalling his battle with the Great Strength Vajra Monkey. He had suffered minor injuries after taking one of its punches head-on, even with the help of his Dragon Wings. And when absorbing its Soul Ring, if the Godslayer Sword had not already devoured the monkey's soul energy, absorbing that twenty-thousand-year Soul Ring would probably still have posed some difficulty. Absorbing the Great Strength Vajra Monkey's Soul Ring brought my body to the second realm-immaculate flesh-and straight to minor attainment.

But now, it seemed that was still far from enough. Neither his physical strength nor the progress of his cultivation was sufficient.

The body-tempering method in the Nine-Turn God-Slaying Art had nine realms. From lowest to highest, they were: the first, cauldron-lifting strength; the second, immaculate flesh; the third, immune to all poisons; the fourth, indestructible golden body; the fifth, strength shatters myriad arts; the sixth, bone and blood rebirth; the seventh, flesh attains sainthood; the eighth, proving the Dao through strength; and the ninth, undying and imperishable. Tang Xuan had only just reached minor attainment in the second realm, barely crossing the threshold of body tempering. Rapid breakthroughs in his level were impossible, so if he wanted to keep increasing his combat strength, it seemed he would have to put more effort into training his physique.

After thinking it over carefully, Tang Xuan sprang to his feet and headed outside...

Tang San and Xiao Wu were training on the academy's field. With Tang Xuan's training and the assistance of medicinal pills, both of their physiques had improved to some extent. Tang San had improved the most. His foundation was better than Xiao Wu's, and he had persisted tirelessly in his training. Xiao Wu, on the other hand, had made little progress. She was always fishing for three days and drying her nets for two, slacking off whenever she could, so her improvement was limited. If Tang San had not kept dragging her along to train, she would have quit long ago. Recently, however, Tang Xuan and Tang San's progress had spurred her into working hard as well. She was already falling behind both of them. Tang Xuan had broken through to level thirty, and Xiao Wu no longer held out any hope of catching him. It was one thing for Tang Xuan to advance faster than her, but even Tang San was outpacing her. Tang San had already reached the peak of level twenty-nine and might break through soon, while Xiao Wu had only just reached level twenty-seven. Unwilling to lag behind, she had been training enthusiastically alongside Tang San these past few days.

As Tang San and Xiao Wu sweated buckets while circling the field, each wearing a hundred jin of weights and carrying a three-hundred-jin log together, Tang Xuan came running from the other side of the field with an enormous boulder on his back. He soon overtook them.

When Xiao Wu saw him, she let go of the log and stopped in her tracks. Her sudden release left the log unstable on Tang San's shoulder. His balance faltered, and the log dragged him down to the ground. Tang San lay there looking utterly bewildered, his little head filled with enormous questions.

"Xiao Wu, what are you doing?"

"Hey, Brother San, look! Isn't that Brother Xuan? He looks like he's running with a mountain on his back." Xiao Wu nudged Tang San and pointed at Tang Xuan across the field.

Tang San followed her finger with his gaze. The figure running as though he were carrying a mountain was indeed his brother. Before long, Tang Xuan reached the two of them.

"Hi! Little San, Xiao Wu, good morning!" Tang Xuan managed a smile on his sweat-covered face, greeted them as he passed, then continued running at a brisk pace.

Tang San and Xiao Wu stared blankly after him. Even the ground had visibly shaken when Tang Xuan passed them. Just how heavy was that enormous boulder, over three meters tall, on his back? From a distance, it truly looked like a small mountain.

Tang Xuan used no Soul Power, relying on his physical strength alone to bear the entire load. As he ran, he glanced back at the enormous boulder on his back. It was the ornamental rock from the academy garden, which he had just bought from the headmaster. It weighed over eight thousand jin and was secured to his body with iron chains. His weighted clothing, forged from special profound iron essence, weighed another three thousand jin. Together, they placed over ten thousand jin on Tang Xuan's body. His strength could still support that weight, but completing a series of high-intensity exercises with it remained difficult. Within an hour, Tang Xuan had already run sixty laps around the field, covering over thirty kilometers. He maintained his original pace throughout, never slowing in the slightest. After finishing his hundredth lap, Tang Xuan began doing push-ups, still wearing the weighted clothing and carrying the enormous boulder on his back.

Tang San and Xiao Wu were rather dazed by Tang Xuan's succession of exercises. Xiao Wu poked Tang San beside her. "Little San, do you think Brother Xuan is sick? What madness has gotten into him?"

Tang San turned toward her helplessly. "Xiao Wu, could you use your brain for a moment? Have you ever seen a sick person as lively as a dragon and vigorous as a tiger?"

Xiao Wu nodded in wholehearted agreement. "That does seem true." But after thinking about it, she realized something was wrong.

"You rotten Little San! How dare you say I don't use my brain! Just watch how I deal with you!" With that, she threw herself at Tang San, and the two began tussling. What Tang Xuan had said to Xiao Wu just now had merely been a perfunctory response; he did not know why Tang Xuan was suddenly acting this way either.

As they tussled, Tang San dodged while trying to explain. "Xiao Wu, that's not what I meant. Calm down!" Xiao Wu clung to him, grabbing and scratching.

"I don't care! That's exactly what you meant! You rotten Little San, you're dead!"

Tang Xuan ignored their horseplay and continued training. After completing two thousand push-ups, he began doing squats. Sweat slid down his cheeks drop by drop, and his stamina steadily drained away. His body's instinctive laziness tempted him to give up, but his heart was filled with the desire to persevere. Sweat soaked his clothes until they were sticky, clinging as though they had grown onto his body. Tang Xuan could now clearly feel every pore on his body opening and closing. He could feel his exhaustion, but what he wanted was to reach his limit.

Not enough. This is still nowhere near enough! Tang Xuan screamed inwardly, moving faster and increasing the range of his rises and falls.

To anyone watching, Tang Xuan's behavior was utterly insane. The intensity of his training was inhuman-hellish. After Tang San and Xiao Wu finished tussling, they lost all interest in training themselves and sat some distance away to watch him.

Unable to sit still, Xiao Wu prodded Tang San. "Little San, do you think Brother Xuan is a Soul Beast in human form? Is this something a human can do?" Having originated as a Soul Beast herself, Xiao Wu found it deeply astonishing. She knew very well how powerful a Soul Beast's physique was, yet she had never seen a human with a body as formidable as Tang Xuan's. In her eyes, his current physique was probably strong enough to contend with a ten-thousand-year Soul Beast. Xiao Wu wondered whether humans were progressing too quickly or Soul Beasts were regressing.

Tang San was pondering the matter too. We came from the same mother's womb, so how can the gap between us be this enormous?

By noon, Tang Xuan had completed three thousand squats, fifty laps of frog jumps, and one thousand burpees, followed by another twenty laps of running. Yet he remained half a step short of his body's limit.