Winter gave way to summer, and each day brought new changes. Another half year passed.
Lin Fan was only a hair's breadth from what was commonly considered the Extreme Realm of Blood Shifting. He could already lift more than ninety thousand jin with one arm and was almost there, on par with the young of primordial fierce beasts.
For humans, who were naturally frailer than other races, this was no easy feat.
To strengthen their small, fragile bodies step by step through acquired cultivation demanded enormous, unimaginable effort, unlike other races, which could accomplish it with ease.
Yet Lin Fan seemed to have discovered that he was different. His path toward the Extreme Realm of Blood Shifting had been smooth, hardly difficult at all. He even felt that the so-called Extreme Realm was simple to reach, as long as he followed the steps.
His body was like a treasure vault, and cultivation was the key. Once it opened, its contents poured forth, his blood and vital energy surging with thunderous rumbles, constantly growing stronger like a True Dragon emerging from the sea.
Moreover, he felt that even after reaching the Extreme Realm, he could continue growing and break through it easily. He felt none of that resistance or helpless exhaustion.
"Could this body of mine have some special constitution or bloodline?" Lin Fan murmured as he soaked comfortably in the Immortal Pool. It felt a little unreal; this pace was rather too fast.
He had started later than others. Even soaking in the Tribulation-Transcending Divine Lotus Pool every day should not have brought him this far in just over a year. His speed was astonishing, more than a year ahead of the Milk Baby he remembered.
That was the protagonist chosen by destiny, whose cultivation speed was like someone using cheats, advancing steadily while also breaking past the Extreme Realm. Comparing himself with Milk Baby, Lin Fan was now only a little over five.
Leaving distant examples aside, even Feng Wu, the First Generation at the Heavenly Immortal Academy right here, was considerably slower than him. He had heard that she had only recently reached the Extreme Realm of Blood Shifting. She was almost two years older than him, yet many already considered her progress very fast.
The Blood Moving Realm differed from other realms. As the first realm of cultivation, it involved many factors: a young age, blood and vital energy that had yet to reach the lifetime peak of a living creature's flesh, and so on. Reaching the Extreme Realm in early childhood took a great deal of time.
Most outstanding talents only attained the strength to lift a hundred thousand jin with one arm at eight or nine. Some took even longer and still could not achieve it. Apart from a few races with innate gifts, this was true of them all.
"I wonder who my parents are. Otherwise, how did they give me such a powerful, precious body? Could it really be like Ye Qingxian said-that I sprang out of a rock?" Lin Fan was puzzled.
Generally speaking, the birth of a First Generation and a creature's innate strength were tied to its ancestral bloodline.
This was especially true of humans. Without powerful ancestors, their descendants would be no different from ordinary people.
Take Milk Baby and the double-pupiled Shi Yi, for instance. They could become First Generations because their bloodlines had reverted to their ancestral state; they were descendants of the Seven Kings of the Border Pass. The same was essentially true of other First Generations, unless they were beings born of nature.
"Not a single reliable word ever comes out of Ye Qingxian's mouth. She teases me all day long, and to think I initially believed she was my mother."
Lin Fan was indignant. He was certain he was human, not some other creature that had assumed human form or a piece of immortal metal that had gained sentience.
He was quite curious about his origins. He had been an orphan in his previous life, with no home, so he could not help harboring a little hope.
But the first person he had seen after transmigrating was Ye Qingxian, and she claimed to have picked him up from a rubbish dump. Not a word of truth.
"Achoo!"
"Is someone talking about me?" Deep within the Uninhabited Zone, Ye Qingxian rubbed her delicate, upturned nose.
She was not speaking without reason. Once a person's cultivation reached a certain level, they developed a mysterious sense for such things.
The Immortal Pool shimmered, its green waters rippling amid curling mist and rosy haze. A small figure suddenly appeared before Lin Fan.
She was a delicate little girl who looked about seven or eight. Her figure was unremarkable, a young lotus only just showing its pointed bud, but one could already tell she would grow into a beauty.
"Oh? There's actually a little sister younger than me in the academy? How adorable! What's your name?" the little girl asked in a childish voice filled with surprise, as though she had discovered something new. Her large eyes were clear and lively.
"Hello, big sister. My name is Ye Xian," Lin Fan answered brightly and quite naturally. Clearly, this was not his first time.
However, after just one glance, he lost interest. He had no interest in little girls. Even if she would someday become an exquisite beauty, that was a matter for the future.
He was an admirer of Cao Wei, not a member of Eastern Wu.
"Ye Xian, what a lovely name! Are you from Elder Ye's family?"
The little girl smiled brilliantly. Carefree and unreserved around strangers, she actually reached out and pinched Lin Fan's face, leaving him both astonished and speechless.
Where did this little girl come from, getting handsy the moment she arrived? Helpless, Lin Fan reminded her, "Big sister, please don't pinch my face. It's very rude."
"Oh, sorry, little sister Ye Xian!" The girl apologized, but her hands did not stop. An expression of enjoyment even appeared on her face.
"So soft, so springy! No wonder my senior sisters like kneading my face. This really is addictive."
The little girl became engrossed, pinching and kneading until she stretched out Lin Fan's boyish face.
"Big sister, stop! You'll knead it out of shape!"
Lin Fan pulled away those little white hands. He really could not stand this girl. Why had she suddenly started pawing at him for no reason?
Had she been a mature beauty, he could have let it pass, but he did not like little girls who had not even grown their body hair yet.
"Don't be stingy! Just let me knead it a little longer!" The girl beamed, as though she had found a treasure, still hungry for more.
Usually, she was the one whose face her senior sisters kneaded. Now that she had finally met someone younger than herself and discovered a whole new continent, she naturally could not resist.
"Hmph! Big sister, I don't think we know each other that well. I don't even know your name." Lin Fan turned his head away coldly, pretending to be angry. He did not particularly want to entertain this little girl.
At the same time, if not for her unmistakably noble bearing, and the fact that he would have to come here often and did not want to attract attention, he would have punched her until she whimpered.
"Oh, that's true!" The girl also realized this was their first meeting, but immediately acted familiar again. "My name is Feng Wu. Now we know each other, don't we?"
As lovely as carved jade, the adorable Feng Wu stretched out her wicked claws to torment Lin Fan's cheeks again, only to have them mercilessly slapped away.
Had Lin Fan not been a First Generation, he might have taken a little interest in Feng Wu and spared her another glance. As it was, he had none at all. She was too young, her figure straight as a board, and not yet worth lingering over.
With that time to spare, wouldn't it be better to admire a few big white rabbits?
"Hehe, little sister, you've got quite a temper. But you won't escape today. Since you've run into me, be good and let me rub your face a couple of times!" Feng Wu's eyes gleamed with cunning. She was confident and stubborn.
For some reason, the more he resisted, the more excited she became, and the more she wanted to knead that smooth, tender face. The feel of it was simply sublime.
"Oh, really? Then give it a try, big sister. If you can touch my face again, I'll let you rub it to your heart's content today!" Rather than becoming angry at her almost perverse hobby, Lin Fan smiled. He also wanted to test himself against another First Generation.
Even if he could only fight with his physical body and could not use Precious Arts to attack, he still wanted to see how far his flesh alone could take him.
Moreover, he had recently gained a deeper understanding of his Supreme Bone and developed its abilities further. It could not only convert the Precious Arts he cast into healing arts, but also convert his opponents' arts.
In other words, when an opponent's rune-powered Precious Art struck him, it would merely be a healing art.
From now on, anyone who fought him could only rely on their physical body. Who would be afraid of whom, then? It was effectively an unconventional form of immunity to magic.
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