Furnace Beyond the Body

The Soul Severing Saber remained still. With nothing but the wind from his palm, Lu Chen sent the two black-robed cultivators flying.

"Where did this wild cultivator come from, meddling in others' business?!" the masked man barked. The formation disk spat wind and lightning toward Lu Chen.

Lu Chen neither dodged nor evaded. His right hand closed in an empty grasp, and the Myriad Manifestations Furnace emerged from within his body.

A sweep of dim light from the furnace mouth swallowed the wind and lightning as snow and ice melting away, drawing it all into the furnace.

"Take it back!" With a backhanded wave, the furnace trembled, and the refined, pure energy transformed into blades and swords that shot forth.

The masked man hastily raised the formation disk to block. The instant the blades struck the disk, its wind and lightning runes flared brightly, forcibly canceling out the attack.

"Good stuff!" Lu Chen's eyes lit up. He pushed the Wind and Thunder Steps to the limit and closed in on the masked man in the blink of an eye.

Blade qi flashed across the other man's wrist like lightning!

Pfft!

The formation disk flew from his hand and was drawn through the air into Lu Chen's grasp.

The masked man howled miserably and staggered back. Seeing that the situation had turned against them, the remaining black-robed cultivators hurriedly carried their leader and fled into the sandstorm.

The caravan had narrowly escaped disaster. Their guard captain staggered forward and cupped his fists.

"Thank you for your aid, fellow cultivator! I am Chen Mo, a steward of Great Yan's Changfeng Trading Company. If not for you, we would surely have fallen here today..."

Lu Chen waved him off. "Tell me about the Black Collar Prison Heaven Cave."

Chen Mo's expression turned grave. "They are extremely rampant. Half a month ago, they slaughtered three villages. They even dare to rob Great Yan's patrol army."

"It is said that the three cave masters of the Prison of Heaven Cave are all Golden Core Realm experts. Even King Yanbei tacitly permits them to occupy the buffer zone."

Seeing Lu Chen idly turning the formation disk in his hand, Chen Mo hesitated before saying, "Though this Wind and Thunder Formation Disk is incomplete, I have heard it came from some ancient ruin."

Lu Chen swept it with his divine sense and discovered that its runes were somewhat connected to the Wind and Thunder Steps.

After parting with them, he found a sheltered spot behind a sand dune.

The incomplete formation disk hovered over his palm as the Myriad Manifestations Furnace slowly turned.

As the furnace flames pulsed, the rust on the disk's surface peeled away, revealing intricate runes beneath.

"Wind and lightning give birth to one another, fleeting shadows leave no trace..." he murmured, reading the ancient seal-script characters along the edge of the runes. Suddenly, the Qi and Blood Furnace in his dantian shook.

The refined wind and lightning energy within the furnace flowed of its own accord into the meridians of his legs, fitting perfectly with the circulation of the Wind and Thunder Steps' qi and blood.

Sizzle!

He instinctively took a step. His figure vanished into thin air, and when he reappeared, he was already ten meters away.

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

"The furnace can not only refine artifacts—it can also feed back into cultivation techniques..."

Lu Chen's spirits surged.

After the Myriad Manifestations Furnace devoured the wind and lightning origin within the formation disk, it branded that power into his own qi and blood, forcibly raising the realm of his Wind and Thunder Steps.

After testing it repeatedly, he found that the teleportation was limited to ten meters, and after every three uses, he needed to regulate his breath for half a quarter-hour. Yet that was already enough to seize the initiative in a life-and-death battle.

The night wind swept across the sandy plain. Lu Chen tucked the formation disk into his robes and turned his gaze northeast.

Black Collar Prison Heaven Cave... should he go meet these "kings of the buffer zone"?

A hundred li northeast of the Barren Wind Plain, an oasis lay embedded in the sea of sand like a piece of emerald jade.

Using the Wind and Thunder Steps, Lu Chen skimmed over the dunes and spotted several Ironclad Sand Lizards lying beside a pool in the distance.

The scales of these high-grade ordinary demon beasts were as hard as dark iron. Cultivators often skinned them to make armor, making them ideal targets for Lu Chen to increase his strength.

"Perfect. I can test the limits of teleportation."

With a tap of his toes, his body abruptly vanished. When he reappeared, he was standing atop a sand lizard's back.

The Soul Severing Saber's blade qi surged, slicing through the scales as easily as cutting rotten bamboo. Before the sand lizard could even cry out, it was nailed into the sand.

The remaining lizards lunged at him in fury and alarm, but Lu Chen disappeared like a ghost.

When he appeared again, another Ironclad Sand Lizard wailed and collapsed.

After storing away the two corpses, he endured the backlash and vanished once more.

"Three times really is the limit!"

Hidden behind a sand dune, Lu Chen panted heavily, yet blazing fire burned in his eyes.

As wave after wave of pure energy came from the Myriad Manifestations Furnace, the backlash quickly faded.

There was still energy left in the furnace, enough to support ten uses of the Wind and Thunder Steps.

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

Nourish war through war!

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

Unlike other Martial Dao Cultivators, who possessed only a vortex in their sea of qi, the Qi and Blood Furnace was unique to Lu Chen.

It could raise his strength faster.

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

The second level was Qi and Blood Crystallization, spreading through and covering the sinews and bones of the entire body.

The third level was Qi and Blood Detachment—qi and blood could leave the body for ten meters without dispersing, moving as easily as one's own arm, and could attack multiple targets at once.

The fourth level was even more terrifying. One could deploy a Qi and Blood Domain and suppress opponents within it.

He was now breaking from the third level of the Qi Surge Realm into the fourth.

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

At that point, dealing with the villains of the Black Collar Prison Heaven Cave would become much easier.

Rumble, rumble, rumble...

The Qi and Blood Furnace rumbled as it devoured the vast amount of transferred energy. Lu Chen's aura rose bit by bit until, at a certain moment, it exploded with a boom, and his qi and blood erupted violently.

A terrifying cyclone burst forth and spread in every direction.

A Qi and Blood Domain expanded three meters around him.

Fourth level of the Qi Surge Realm.

At its peak, it could reach ten meters.

It would be more than enough to suppress the escape techniques of the Prison of Heaven Cave's bandits.

Once he exhausted all the energy in the Myriad Manifestations Furnace, his Qi and Blood Domain expanded to a range of five meters.

His realm was now completely stabilized.

Then he continued the hunt.

This time, he no longer feared being surrounded by Ironclad Sand Lizards.

After he killed one, several others would pounce on him. Once his Qi and Blood Domain suppressed them, their movements became restricted, and their realms fell by one or two levels.

There was no need to use teleportation either. With the ordinary Wind and Thunder Steps, he cut them all down one by one and stored the corpses away.

For three straight days, he slaughtered every Ironclad Sand Lizard in this area.

Even their king was forcefully slain by him.

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

Lu Chen sat cross-legged in the middle of the oasis as the Myriad Manifestations Furnace emerged from his body.

A sweep of dim light from the furnace mouth swallowed all the sand lizard corpses.

Amid the surging furnace flames, the scales melted into molten iron, the flesh and blood refined into pure energy, and the bones condensed into three drops of marrow.

Lu Chen brought two fingers together and pointed. Essence Blood merged with the molten iron, gradually forming a small furnace the size of his palm.

"Refine an artifact outside the body, use beasts as materials, use blood as the covenant. Furnace beyond the body—condense!"

He bit the tip of his tongue and sprayed a mouthful of Essence Blood onto the furnace.

The bronze furnace trembled. Sand lizard scale patterns surfaced across it, while a space formed within its belly.

It was not as monstrous as the Myriad Manifestations Furnace, but it could refine any item below Lu Chen's own level.

Naturally, it could also be detonated.

But the backlash would be severe.

He had refined it in preparation for what came next.

It was also a grand gift for the Black Collar Prison Heaven Cave.

"I'll call you the Barren Lizard Furnace." He flicked the furnace wall with his finger, and it seemed as though the roar of an Ironclad Sand Lizard came from within.

Half a day later, rumbling sounded from the edge of the oasis.

More than ten black-robed cultivators rode in on wolves. Their eyes were crimson—the Blood Wolves tamed by the Prison of Heaven Cave.

The leader held a bone whip, and a shriveled head was tied to its tip. It was the remains of a caravan guard from the day before yesterday.

"By order of the cave master, take all the demon beast corpses from the oasis back!" With a crack of his whip, he sent the head smashing into the water, scattering the fish.

The moment the Blood Wolves stepped into the oasis, a figure burst from the sand, accompanied by astonishing qi and blood suppression.

The Blood Wolves howled in unison. Their limbs went weak, and they all collapsed onto the ground, throwing the black-robed cultivators from their backs.