His First Breakthrough

"Marvelous Spring Hall."

Wang Yu stood outside an apothecary, gazing at the sign hanging above its entrance as he murmured the name.

He had deliberately chosen this shop from the dozen or so apothecaries in Yellowstone City. Too large a shop might have ties to the city lord's estate, while too small a shop might not stock what he needed.

Its storefront was not particularly large, but a steady stream of customers came and went, suggesting that it carried a decent variety of medicinal herbs.

Wearing his cloak, Wang Yu entered the apothecary.

Before long, he emerged carrying medicinal bundles of various sizes, then headed straight for a second apothecary...

Several hours later, Wang Yu had visited no fewer than three apothecaries and spent a small gold ingot. Not only had he gathered all the ingredients for the Blood-Refining Soup, he had even bought enough materials for one batch of Bone-Corroding Water.

There was still a month until the Hundred Treasures Pavilion's magical ship arrived. Naturally, he would not spend all that time at the inn. For safety's sake, he did not even intend to remain in Yellowstone City, but planned to find a secure spot outside the city where he could devote himself to cultivation.

Now, he had just one last matter to attend to.

With this thought, Wang Yu shouldered a large bundle and headed straight for another street in Yellowstone City.

"Iron essence!"

Inside a smithy in Yellowstone City, a dark-skinned, muscular man stared wide-eyed at the small black fragment in his hand, his face brimming with delighted surprise.

"You know this material is called iron essence?" Wang Yu asked in a low, disguised voice, his head covered by his cloak.

"Yes. How could a blacksmith not know this material? Ordinary iron becomes ten-fold forged iron after ten rounds of forging, and hundred-fold forged iron after a hundred. Only thousand-fold forged iron, forged more than a thousand times and then refined with earthfire by an immortal master, can become iron essence. But even the most ordinary piece of thousand-fold forged iron takes a skilled blacksmith over a year to make. As for iron essence, adding even a fingernail-sized piece to an ordinary blade lets it slice through iron like mud. Sir, however much iron essence you have, our shop will buy it all. I guarantee you'll be satisfied with the price!" The dark-skinned man looked at Wang Yu eagerly.

"I came across this piece of iron essence by chance, and I intend to use it to forge a long saber. How much would you charge, master smith?" Wang Yu replied calmly. He was not particularly surprised that the blacksmith knew of Immortal Cultivators, but he felt that he might have underestimated the true value of iron essence.

This small piece of iron essence was a fragment that had flown off when the white sword light pierced his small iron shield Magical Artifact that day. He had picked it up afterward.

After the Hundred Treasures Pavilion bought the iron essence box at a "high price," he had realized it was valuable. That was why he had come to a smithy to sound things out.

"You have no more? What a shame. For a long saber, this piece will certainly be enough to mix in. However, this material is difficult to melt, and it must be fused with at least hundred-fold forged iron. I'll also have to hammer it day and night for three days straight. The fee will therefore be a hundred taels of fine silver, with half paid in advance." The dark-skinned blacksmith sounded regretful, but promptly quoted his price for forging the saber.

"No problem. Will this cover the deposit? I'll come back for the saber in three days." Wang Yu readily agreed. After rummaging inside his robe for a moment, he took out a little under half a gold ingot and handed it over.

Over the past day or two in Yellowstone City, he had roughly worked out the exchange rate between gold and silver. One tael of gold could be exchanged for twelve or thirteen taels of silver.

"More than enough. Please come back for it in three days, sir." The dark-skinned blacksmith accepted the gold. Glancing down, he noticed clear fingerprints on its surface, as though it had been torn off by hand. His heart jolted, and his reply became respectful.

Wang Yu nodded, then turned and left the smithy, intending to return to the inn.

But he had not gone far when a commotion broke out on the street ahead. Many pedestrians swarmed toward a butcher shop, apparently gathering around something and talking excitedly.

"What a huge one!"

"This is the first time I've seen such an intact Demon Beast carcass."

"Move aside, move aside! Let me see."

A Demon Beast!

Wang Yu froze at the words, then hurried over and squeezed into the crowd.

Outside a butcher shop with a large storefront lay a filthy, tattered cloth. On it rested the stiff carcass of a strange beast, its four limbs pointing skyward. It looked like a rat enlarged more than tenfold. Its belly was a bloody mess, but two yellow horns about a foot long protruded from its head. Its four enormous claws were as sharp as sickles, and several extraordinarily long fangs jutted from its mouth.

So this was a Demon Beast? Even dead, its hideous appearance sent a chill through Wang Yu's heart.

Could ordinary hunters really kill something like this?

"I heard this wasn't an ordinary Demon Beast, but a genuine ranked one. Not only could blades barely hurt it, it could burrow underground and disappear. They say an entire squad of hunters died trying to catch it. In the end, an immortal master from the city lord's estate had to act before this brute was finally killed." Someone in the crowd seemed to know something and shared it with the others in a boastful tone.

"A ranked Demon Beast! That explains it. I was wondering why it looked so different from ordinary Demon Beasts, with such a strange shape. I wonder whether it formed a Demon Core. Those things are incredibly valuable."

"What are you thinking? Didn't you see that huge hole cut into its belly? If it had a Demon Core, the immortal master would have taken it long ago."

"Tsk, tsk. The Li Family Butcher Shop really struck it rich, getting its hands on a ranked Demon Beast's carcass."

The crowd buzzed with discussion.

At the words "immortal master from the city lord's estate," Wang Yu's pupils contracted slightly. He decided to return to the inn and stay indoors, then leave Yellowstone City immediately once he collected his custom-made iron essence saber.

Just then, four people emerged from the butcher shop. Two burly assistants parted the crowd, lifted the beast's carcass, and carried it inside.

The other two were a fat man and a fat boy. The man looked to be in his forties, with several folds of flesh beneath his chin that quivered as he walked. Beaming, he cupped his hands toward the crowd and exchanged a few casual pleasantries, then pulled the miserable-looking boy back into the shop with him.

With a clang, the butcher shop's doors shut tight.

Standing among the crowd, Wang Yu felt a surge of delight when he saw the fat boy. Who else could he be but Dongyue?

They had fled separately from the mountain behind the White Cloud Abbey that day, and he had remained somewhat worried that Dongyue had met with disaster. Now, it seemed his fears had been unnecessary.

Not only was Dongyue unharmed, he had escaped back to his home in Yellowstone City. Since he dared to appear so openly now, his family evidently did have enough influence to shelter a mortal young Daoist attendant from the White Cloud Abbey.

Naturally, Wang Yu would not approach Dongyue and reveal himself. After taking a long look at the butcher shop's doors, he quietly left the area with the others.

Three days later, Wang Yu drove a small donkey-drawn cart out of Yellowstone City, mingling with the stream of people leaving.

He headed west and soon reached a stretch of scattered rocks less than twenty li from Yellowstone City. There, he found several long-abandoned stone houses and settled in.

Half a day later, he had built a simple stove inside one of the stone houses and placed a small iron pot on top.

Following the Blood-Refining Soup recipe in Daoist Chongyun's notes, he first filled the pot halfway with water, then poured in packets of prepared herbal powder in the prescribed quantities. Finally, he fed plenty of wood into the stove and began slowly simmering the mixture.

Before long, the familiar medicinal fragrance drifted from the iron pot.

Wang Yu, who had been somewhat worried, breathed a sigh of relief. He poured a little into a bowl he had prepared and tasted it, only then putting his mind fully at ease.

The Blood-Refining Soup he brewed was almost no different from what Daoist Chongyun had given him before. Preparing this medicinal soup was surprisingly simple.

In the days that followed, Wang Yu used spirit stones to aid his cultivation of the Yin Water Art every day. When his divine sense and spiritual perception were exhausted, he switched to practicing the four forms of the Wolf-Running Diagram. Every few days, he also cultivated with yin spirit energy, drank a dose of Blood-Refining Soup, and practiced the Draw-Cutting Art and Wind-Splitting Sword Technique.

With the aid of spirit stones, Wang Yu's progress in the Yin Water Art advanced a thousand li a day. More than twenty days later, when the spiritual energy in his last spirit stone ran dry, he vaguely sensed the first layer's bottleneck, and his cultivation immediately slowed.

Daoist Chongyun had once explained cultivation bottlenecks to him. When a breathing technique reached a certain stage, the Dharma Power within the body could no longer be smoothly converted. A barrier-like obstruction had to be forcibly broken through by various means. If the breakthrough succeeded, one's cultivation would surge, and the road ahead would become smooth again until the next bottleneck.

Almost all breathing techniques divided their layers according to these cultivation bottlenecks. The Yin Water Art had twelve layers in total, which meant Wang Yu would have to break through twelve bottlenecks to master the entire art.

Daoist Chongyun had once said that the first six layers of the Yin Water Art were easy to break through. Unless someone was utterly foolish, as long as they had sufficient cultivation resources, a breakthrough would come sooner or later even if they relied solely on honing their own Dharma Power. The latter six layers, however, depended on individual talent. Those with good talent could continue advancing triumphantly, while those with poor talent might fail to break through a single layer for years, or even more than a decade.

Thus, Wang Yu was in no hurry. He continued practicing the Yin Water Art every day, slowly honing the tiny amount of Dharma Power within his body.

One morning several days later, Wang Yu sat cross-legged on the bed in his stone room, cultivating with the small bottle of yin spirit energy before him. Suddenly, his body trembled slightly. With a hum, a ring of pale-blue energy rippled out of him, disappearing about a foot from his body.

He had broken through!

Although Wang Yu had never experienced anything like this before, he knew what had happened, and delight filled his heart. With a shift of his thoughts, the first layer of the Yin Water Art he had been circulating flowed naturally into the second layer's meridian pathways, without the slightest obstruction or pause.

At the same time, he felt wisps of cool energy continually emerging from the Spirit Seed in his dantian, transforming into threads of Dharma Power that merged into his body.

Only after the time it took to drink a cup of tea did the Spirit Seed return to normal. By then, however, the Dharma Power within his body had more than doubled.

So this was the second layer of the Qi Refining Realm!

Breaking through a bottleneck could increase his Dharma Power this much. No wonder Daoist Chongyun had said he could only learn the Parlor Trick Arts after reaching the Yin Water Art Second Layer.

Feeling the "abundant" Dharma Power within him, Wang Yu carefully checked the rest of his body, but found nothing unusual. When he circulated the Yin Water Art Second Layer again, he could clearly sense that he absorbed spiritual energy from his surroundings a little faster, and his divine sense had strengthened somewhat as well.

Divine sense was mental power.

If that was true, didn't it mean that every future breakthrough would let him cultivate through breathing exercises for longer, and maintain Overclocked Synchronization Mode longer too?

After all, both depended on mental power.

Overjoyed, Wang Yu recalled how Daoist Chongyun had raised a hand in the Cavern that day and sent a swirl of white, freezing mist flying out. He immediately put the Yin Water Art Second Layer's formula into practice, channeled Dharma Power into his palm, and thrust it into the empty air before him.