External Furnace

The Soul Severing Saber remained still, yet Lu Chen sent the two black-robed cultivators flying with just the palm wind from his hand.

"Where did this rogue cultivator come from, meddling in other people's business!" the masked man snarled, and a Formation Disk unleashed Wind and Thunder energy towards Lu Chen.

Lu Chen neither dodged nor weaved. He cupped his right palm in the air, and the Myriad Manifestations Furnace floated out from within him.

A dark light swept from the furnace's opening, and the Wind and Thunder energy dissolved like ice and snow, vanishing entirely into the furnace.

"Here you go!" he said, flicking his wrist. The furnace vibrated, and the refined pure energy transformed into blades and swords that shot out.

The masked man hurriedly raised his Formation Disk to block. The moment the blades and swords collided with the Formation Disk, the Wind and Thunder runes flared brightly, actually neutralizing the projectiles.

"Good stuff!" Lu Chen's eyes lit up. He activated the Wind and Thunder Steps to their extreme, closing the distance to the masked man in an instant.

Blade energy like lightning sliced across the opponent's wrist!

Pfft!

The Formation Disk slipped from his grasp, and Lu Chen snatched it out of the air.

The masked man wailed and retreated, while the remaining black-robed cultivators, seeing the unfavorable turn of events, grabbed their leader and fled into the sandstorm.

The caravan members, having narrowly escaped death, watched as the guard captain stumbled forward and clasped his fists.

"Many thanks for your help, fellow Daoist! I am Chen Mo, a steward of the Great Yan's 'Changfeng Trading Company.' If not for you, I fear we would have perished here today..."

Lu Chen waved his hand, interrupting him. "Tell me about the Prison of Heaven Cave."

Chen Mo's expression turned grim. "They are extremely arrogant. Half a month ago, they slaughtered three villages and even dared to rob the Great Yan's patrol forces."

"Rumor has it that the three leaders of the Prison of Heaven Cave are all Golden Core experts. Even King Yanbei has tacitly allowed them to occupy the buffer zone."

He glanced at Lu Chen playing with the Formation Disk and hesitated before saying, "Although this 'Wind and Thunder Formation Disk' is incomplete, I've heard it originates from some ancient ruin."

Lu Chen swept it with his divine sense and detected a connection between its runes and his Wind and Thunder Steps.

After bidding them farewell, he found a spot on the leeward side of a sand dune.

The incomplete Formation Disk hovered in his palm, while the Myriad Manifestations Furnace slowly rotated.

As the furnace's flames flickered, the rust on the Formation Disk's surface peeled away, revealing intricate runes underneath.

"Wind and thunder give birth to each other, instantaneous shadow without a trace..." he murmured, reading the small ancient script at the edge of the runes. Suddenly, he felt a tremor in the Qi and Blood Furnace within his dantian.

The Wind and Thunder energy refined within the furnace actually flowed into the meridians of his legs, perfectly integrating with the circulation of the Wind and Thunder Steps' Blood Essence.

Screech!

He instinctively took a step, and his figure vanished into thin air, reappearing ten meters away.

"Short-range teleportation?!" Lu Chen's pupils contracted sharply.

"Besides refining items, the furnace can also feed back into cultivation techniques..."

Lu Chen's spirit surged.

After the Myriad Manifestations Furnace devoured the Wind and Thunder origin of the Formation Disk, it imprinted and integrated it into his own Blood Essence, thereby forcefully elevating the realm of his Wind and Thunder Steps.

He tested it repeatedly. Although the teleportation was limited to a ten-meter range and required half a quarter-hour of rest after every three uses, it was enough to gain the upper hand in life-or-death combat.

The night wind swept across the sand plains. Lu Chen put the Formation Disk away and turned his gaze towards the northeast.

The Prison of Heaven Cave in Black Territory; should he go and meet these "Kings of the Buffer Zone"?

A hundred miles northeast of the Barren Wind Plains, an oasis was nestled within the sea of sand, like a piece of jade.

Lu Chen, treading the Wind and Thunder Steps, glided over the sand dunes and saw several Ironclad Sand Lizards crawling by a pool of water in the distance.

These high-grade mortal beasts had scales as hard as profound iron, often stripped by cultivators to make armor. They were excellent targets for Lu Chen to improve his strength.

"Just right, let's test the limits of teleportation."

He tapped his toes, and his figure suddenly vanished. When he reappeared, he was already standing on the back of a sand lizard.

The Soul Severing Saber's blade energy surged, breaking through the scales like cutting through rotten bamboo. Before the sand lizard could even wail, it was pinned to the sand.

The remaining lizards, enraged, lunged at him, but Lu Chen vanished like a phantom.

When he reappeared, another Ironclad Sand Lizard lay dead on the ground, wailing.

He collected the two corpses and, enduring the backlash, vanished once more.

"As expected, three times is the limit!"

Hiding behind a sand dune, Lu Chen panted heavily, but his eyes burned with flames.

As waves of pure energy flowed from the Myriad Manifestations Furnace, the backlash quickly disappeared.

There was still remaining energy in the furnace, enough to support him in using the Wind and Thunder Steps ten times.

But how many Ironclad Sand Lizards could he kill with ten uses?

Fight to sustain the fight!

Half a day later, after eliminating thirty Ironclad Sand Lizards, Lu Chen found a hidden spot. The Myriad Manifestations Furnace roared, and waves of energy poured into the Qi and Blood Furnace within his dantian and sea of qi.

Compared to other Martial Dao Cultivators, who only had a sea of qi vortex within them, the Qi and Blood Furnace was unique to Lu Chen.

It would allow him to improve his strength faster.

The first level of the Qi Surge Realm is Qi and Blood Liquefaction.

The second level is Qi and Blood Crystallization, which covers the entire body's muscles and bones.

The third level is Qi and Blood Detachment, where it can remain ten meters away without dissipating, acting as an extension of the user's will, and can attack multiple targets simultaneously.

The fourth level is even more terrifying, allowing the user to unleash a Qi and Blood Domain that suppresses opponents within its bounds.

He was currently breaking through from the third to the fourth level of the Qi Surge Realm.

If possible, he wanted to use the demonic beasts here to advance to the fifth level and refine a Qi and Blood Clone.

By then, dealing with the villains in the Prison of Heaven Cave's black territory would become much easier.

Rumble, rumble, rumble...

The sea of qi furnace roared, devouring the vast energy that flowed in. Lu Chen's aura gradually increased, and at a certain moment, with a boom, his Qi and Blood erupted.

A terrifying vortex was stirred up, spreading outwards in all directions.

A Qi and Blood Domain expanded three meters from him as the center.

Fourth level of the Qi Surge Realm.

At its peak, it could reach ten meters.

It was entirely capable of suppressing the escape techniques of the Prison of Heaven Cave's bandits.

After exhausting all the energy in the Myriad Manifestations Furnace, the Qi and Blood Domain expanded to a five-meter radius.

He had thoroughly stabilized this realm.

Then, he continued hunting.

This time, he was not afraid of being surrounded by Ironclad Sand Lizards.

After killing one, the other few pounced. The suppression of the Qi and Blood Domain caused their movements to be restricted, and their realms even dropped by one or two levels.

He didn't need to use teleportation; using ordinary Wind and Thunder Steps, he killed them one by one with his saber and collected them.

For three consecutive days, the Ironclad Sand Lizards in this area were wiped out by him.

Even their king was forcefully killed by him.

The third-tier Ironclad Sand Lizard King was equivalent to a Golden Core Realm cultivator or a True Martial Realm Martial Dao Cultivator.

Lu Chen sat cross-legged in the center of the oasis, the Myriad Manifestations Furnace floating out from within him.

The furnace's mouth glowed with a dim light, swallowing all the sand lizard corpses.

As the furnace fire churned, scales and armor melted into molten iron, flesh and blood were refined into pure energy, and bones condensed into three drops of bone marrow.

Lu Chen pointed his fingers together, and the Blood Essence fused with the molten iron, gradually shaping into a small furnace the size of his palm.

"External refining of a vessel, using beasts as material, blood as a contract, a body outside the furnace—condense!"

He bit his tongue, and a mouthful of vital blood sprayed onto the furnace's body.

The bronze furnace trembled, and the surface revealed the scale patterns of the sand lizard. Within the furnace's belly, a space of its own was formed.

Although it wasn't as monstrous as the Myriad Manifestations Furnace, it could refine items below Lu Chen's level.

Of course, it could also be detonated.

However, there would be a powerful backlash.

He refined it to prepare for his upcoming actions.

It was also a grand gift for the black territory of the Prison of Heaven Cave.

"I'll call you 'Barren Lizard Furnace'." He flicked his finger against the furnace wall, and the roar of an Ironclad Sand Lizard seemed to emanate from it.

Half a day later, a roar echoed from the edge of the oasis.

More than ten black-robed cultivators arrived, riding wolves. Their wolf eyes were scarlet; they were Blood Wolves domesticated by the Prison of Heaven Cave.

The one in the lead held a bone whip, with a shriveled skull tied to its tip—the remains of a caravan guard from the previous day.

"The Cave Master has ordered that all demonic beast corpses in the oasis be brought back!" With a flick of the whip, the skull was thrown into the water, scattering the fish.

As the Blood Wolves stepped into the oasis, a figure burst out of the sand, accompanied by an astonishing Qi and Blood suppression.

The Blood Wolves howled in unison, their limbs going weak, and they all collapsed on the ground, throwing off the black-robed cultivators on their backs.