He felt somewhat helpless. Great clans were full of filth; all their fly-swarming, dog-skulking schemes were enough to give anyone a headache.
Shi Qingyun returned to the little courtyard. Taking his opening stance, he began practicing his boxing. As his fists and feet moved in concert, wisps of black-and-white qi wound around his body.
As time passed, the entire world turned black and white in Shi Qingyun's eyes. Looking beyond his little courtyard, he saw a boundless white earth, vast and brimming with unceasing vitality.
The black sky pressed down overhead, profound and distant, filled with a lifeless gloom. That ink-black expanse teemed with danger and deathly silence.
Between that black and white, Shi Qingyun slowly practiced his boxing. Every punch, palm strike, and kick drew the two colors of qi toward his body.
As Shi Qingyun's movements quickened, the Yin-Yang Qi entering him began circulating slowly through his body, filling his limbs and bones.
It slowly tempered his blood and bones. Cracking sounds came from Shi Qingyun's body as his bones grew crystalline and stronger under its refinement.
Shi Qingyun's blood burned like a furnace. In this stretch of heaven and earth, the radiance spilling from his body rivaled the blazing sun.
Shi Qingyun could clearly feel both his body's resilience and its strength improving.
The power of his blood was also steadily increasing. Shi Qingyun was delighted. He had achieved this without any cultivation resources, relying solely on the Yin-Yang Qi drifting between heaven and earth.
What Shi Qingyun did not yet know was that Yin-Yang Qi was not something one could casually use for cultivation. Not only was it rare, but how many people dared use it to temper their bodies?
Especially at lower cultivation realms, a single misstep could leave one dead, their path to the Dao extinguished.
Moreover, after entering Shi Qingyun's body, much of that Yin-Yang Qi was slowly nourishing him rather than entering his blood to temper it.
Shi Qingyun had not noticed any of this. Ever since he had first become able to draw in Yin-Yang Qi to temper his body, he had long since grown accustomed to it.
In his mind, Yin-Yang Qi was merely a last resort, something he used because he lacked cultivation resources.
He still had no clear understanding of how precious it was.
Time flowed like water, slipping away through Shi Qingyun's day-after-day cultivation. Just like that, a month passed.
In the little courtyard, Shi Qingyun sat cross-legged on a meditation cushion. The Yin-Yang Dao Diagram beneath him slowly rotated, and the Yin-Yang Qi drifting between heaven and earth gradually entered his body.
Shi Qingyun slowly opened his eyes, awakening from his cultivation. A trace of Yin-Yang Qi flashed through his eyes.
His eyes shone brightly, and a gentle smile rested on his little face. His bearing made others feel as though they were basking in a spring breeze.
"A single swing of my arm should have seven thousand jin of strength now. My strength has hit a bottleneck. To advance any further, I'll have to break through to the Blood Moving Realm!"
Possessing nearly ten thousand jin of strength before even reaching the Blood Moving Realm was already a remarkable achievement!
"But my chance to enter the Blood Moving Realm is coming!"
"I've been waiting for so long!"
A sharp gleam flashed in Shi Qingyun's eyes. The baptism was a vital part of his plan.
After the baptism, he could enter the Dao and set foot on the path of cultivation. For someone who had come from an age without spiritual energy, embarking on such a transcendent path was something he eagerly anticipated.
He looked forward to soaring into the heavens in a single flight, and the blood-moving baptism was indispensable to achieving that goal.
Especially whenever he saw cultivators flying through the sky and burrowing through the earth, he wished he could take their place.
Chapter 8: Baptism
Early that morning, Shi Qingyun tidied himself up and headed out. To prepare for this day, he had spent the past few days adjusting his condition, all so he could absorb more divine essence.
He wanted his strength to undergo a qualitative leap, allowing him to enter the Blood Moving Realm in one stroke and begin his cultivation journey.
Not long after leaving home, Shi Qingyun encountered several children his age along the road. They were all heading in the same direction.
Compared to those accompanied by their parents, Shi Qingyun looked rather solitary on his own.
Shi Qingyun did not particularly mind, though. His parents had died long ago.
They had been killed by a Primordial Ancient Species while escorting a shipment away from home.
Although that Primordial Ancient Species had eventually been slain, Shi Qingyun's parents had never returned.
Besides, as someone who had transmigrated here, he would have been in trouble if his parents had noticed anything unusual.
Moreover, Shi Qingyun had almost no memories of his parents in this world, so he had not dwelled on it.
Following the others, Shi Qingyun soon reached a large plaza. Several enormous cauldrons stood there, with fierce flames burning beneath them, heating the vessels.
Gurgling sounds came from within the cauldrons, clear enough for Shi Qingyun to hear even from some distance away.
A refreshing medicinal fragrance drifted from the cauldrons and slowly wafted into the surrounding children's noses, making them swallow involuntarily.
Shi Qingyun was no exception. Standing among the crowd, he could clearly feel his body's craving for whatever was simmering inside the cauldrons.
The "hunger" rising from his body made Shi Qingyun want to leap into a cauldron immediately and absorb its contents to his heart's content.
Shi Qingyun could see strands of golden light intertwining within the cauldrons, forming something like mist that slowly drifted inside them.
A thin layer covered the tops of the cauldrons like a lid.
"Is this divine essence?"
"It's this concentrated?"
Shi Qingyun was slightly startled by the divine essence, so dense that it had become mist. He had not expected the Martial King Manor to be so generous.
But after considering the Martial King Manor's power, he supposed this little expenditure hardly amounted to anything for them!
Shi Qingyun looked around. Only children and their parents had come, and he did not recognize a single one of them.
He was not surprised. The children with status and influence had completed their baptisms several days earlier and had already broken through to the Blood Moving Realm.
As for how Shi Qingyun knew, it was because that little girl Shi Feier had come running over to tell him she had already broken through to the Blood Moving Realm, and her physical strength had increased to thirty thousand jin.
The little girl had thoroughly shown off in front of him.
She had also wondered why he had not been given a separate baptism when the ancestor supposedly thought so highly of him.
To be honest, Shi Qingyun had been fiercely envious at the time. After working himself to the bone for a month, he had only reached seven thousand jin of physical strength with a single swing of his arm.
Had Shi Feier known what Shi Qingyun was thinking, she would surely have scolded him for not knowing how good he had it. How many treasures of heaven and earth had they needed to gain such strength after their baptisms?
Shi Qingyun had used nothing at all. Relying solely on himself, he had already gained such strength, and he was improving so quickly. They should have been the ones envying him.
The little girl's question had indeed stumped him. He knew his own circumstances best. The ancestor had merely compensated him enough to ensure he lived comfortably. As for cultivation, he dared not expect much.
Shi Qingyun was already deeply grateful that he had made it through these past few years without being bullied.
Still, he was somewhat puzzled. With his talent, surely someone should have come to invest in him.
Since he could not work it out, Shi Qingyun stopped dwelling on it.
The children who had come here all lacked any significant backing. They were all hoping to use this opportunity to soar into the heavens in a single flight.
They rubbed their fists and palms in anticipation, crowding into the front row so they could go up first.
Fall behind by one step, and one would fall behind at every step. This was exactly why Shi Long and the others had injured people.
Shi Qingyun was in no hurry. Judging by the number of large cauldrons lined up there, there should be enough for everyone to have one. There was no need to fight over them.
As everyone waited, a middle-aged man dressed in white, his long hair streaming and gathered into a topknot, flew down from somewhere. In the blink of an eye, he arrived beside the cauldrons.
He seemed to have appeared out of thin air. A slight cough was all it took to draw everyone's attention.
When everyone present saw him arrive, the children who had been chatting immediately fell silent.
The middle-aged man paid no attention to the crowd. He swept his sleeve toward the cauldrons, and the flames burning beneath them instantly vanished. The medicinal liquid inside slowly stopped boiling.
Yet the divine essence within the cauldrons grew even denser, as though it were about to break free of their confines and drift outside.
With that sweep of the middle-aged man's sleeve, runes also lit up on the cauldrons. The runes engraved into their surfaces sparkled against the pitch-black vessels.
Shi Qingyun was very curious. He had noticed those runes earlier, but had not expected them to suddenly glow with a sweep of the man's sleeve.
The white-robed man ignored everyone's curiosity. With practiced ease, he organized the crowd and had them approach the cauldrons in order.
Shi Qingyun also approached the cauldron assigned to him. Standing before it, he was not even as tall as one of its legs.
He had been too far away to see clearly earlier. Now that he was close, he saw all manner of strange beasts engraved on the cauldron's surface, baring their fangs and brandishing their claws as though alive.
The illumination of the runes added an even greater air of mystery.
All sorts of runes covered the cauldron. Up close, they were not as dazzling as he had imagined; instead, they gave off a gentle warmth.
Shi Qingyun carefully examined the enormous cauldron before him. From the ancient aura washing over him, it was not hard to guess how far back its history stretched.
And that rich medicinal fragrance seemed to push straight into his pores.
It looks like even though this is meant for ordinary clan children, it's still extremely valuable. With such a rich medicinal fragrance, the ingredients must be extraordinary.
Great clans truly were wealthy. If they put this much effort into the baptisms of ordinary children, how much better must the treatment of their talented disciples be? He suddenly understood why Shi Feier's strength had increased so much.
Although great clans had their share of fly-swarming, dog-skulking intrigue, they still treated the children beneath them quite well. At the very least, they could help them grow during the early stages.
No wonder these great clans kept growing stronger.
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Chapter 9: Entering the Blood Moving Realm
The children gazed curiously at the enormous vessels before them, looking this way and that from time to time.
The middle-aged man in white seemed long accustomed to this. Rather than interfere, he simply ordered the children to take off their clothes and jump straight in.
Feeling the heat coming from the cauldrons before them and smelling the medicinal fragrance spilling out, the children swallowed. Then they obediently did as instructed. Shi Qingyun also swiftly took off his clothes.
After setting his clothes aside, he made a light leap and landed inside the cauldron.
A string of splashes rang out as all the children entered their cauldrons.
Upon entering, he found it was not as hot as he had imagined. Having felt the cauldron's temperature from outside, he had thought it would be scorching inside as well.
To his surprise, the moment Shi Qingyun entered the medicinal liquid, an immensely comfortable sensation washed over him, as though he had returned to his mother's womb.
His body absorbed the essence in the medicinal liquid to its heart's content. The sensation was so comfortable that Shi Qingyun could not help closing his eyes to savor it.
Every pore on his body greedily swallowed the surrounding divine essence, like a whale gulping and an ox drinking.
He felt his strength increasing. Rich energy flowed through his body, slowly entering his bones and meridians.
Gradually, that comfortable sensation faded. In its place, waves of pain struck Shi Qingyun, so intense that he nearly cried out. His bones and meridians seemed to be shattering and rebuilding themselves.
Crack, crack.
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