Cloudmist Manor, at the waterfall in the rear mountains.
Rumble-
The enormous waterfall, hundreds of zhang high, plunged like the Milky Way pouring down from the heavens. With the force of ten thousand jun, it slammed into the deep pool below, sending mist billowing into the sky with a deafening roar.
Directly beneath the raging waterfall, a bare-chested youth sat cross-legged on a boulder that years of scouring water had polished smooth as a mirror.
It was Qin Yu.
At that moment, Qin Yu wore a refined-iron vest weighing several hundred jin, letting the torrent, powerful enough to pound an ordinary person into bloody pulp, batter his body.
His skin was an unnatural crimson, his muscles tensed to their limit. Every vein bulged like a coiling dragon, as though it might burst at any moment.
"Not enough... still not enough! Third Brother can blow an immortal apart with one punch. What does this little bit of suffering count for?"
Qin Yu gritted his teeth so hard that a trace of blood had already seeped from the corner of his mouth.
His eyes were bloodshot. His third brother Qin Chen's terrifying, godlike power and the vow he had made kept replaying in his mind.
He abruptly stood up and, facing the raging waterfall, began practicing the movements on the Tongtian Diagram.
The first Tongtian Diagram contained thirty-six movements. Every movement was extremely strange and contorted, completely defying the normal ways human bones and muscles exerted force.
If an ordinary person so much as forced themselves into one of those poses, their bones would break and their tendons would snap in an instant.
Yet Qin Yu was like a tireless machine, struggling to complete one movement after another beneath the crushing weight of the waterfall.
Crack-
The sound of tearing muscle was barely perceptible amid the rushing water. Qin Yu's body jolted, and intense pain engulfed his nerves like a surging tide.
This was the norm for practitioners of external cultivation: repeatedly tearing their muscles and allowing them to heal, making them tougher.
But the tyranny of the Tongtian Diagram lay in the fact that it tore not only muscles, but also fascia, bones, and even internal organs!
Just as Qin Yu was about to reach his limit and his vision began to blacken.
A strange silver current suddenly emerged from deep within his body.
This silver current was bone-chillingly cold, yet brimming with vitality. Like a living spirit snake, it swiftly coursed through Qin Yu's entire body, furiously nourishing and repairing his torn muscles and damaged meridians.
Under the silver current's restorative power, Qin Yu's body, which had been on the verge of collapse, instantly regained its vigor. His newly formed muscle fibers were thicker and tougher than before!
"Now! The second Tongtian Diagram!"
A brilliant gleam flared in Qin Yu's eyes. Without pausing for a moment, he twisted his body at an inconceivable angle and immediately began practicing the movements on the second Tongtian Diagram.
Thirty-seven, thirty-eight... forty-five...
As he progressed further through the movements, the silver current within Qin Yu grew increasingly dense. Gradually, a faint silver glow actually appeared over his skin. Even the raging waterfall was forcibly repelled an inch when it touched that silver light!
Beside the deep pool, an enormous black bird stood quietly on a rock. With dark-gold eyes and feathers like sharp swords, it was Little Black.
Little Black tilted its head as it watched the youth pushing himself desperately beneath the waterfall. A trace of almost human worry flashed through its eyes, but there was more pride than anything else.
It could sense an extraordinarily terrifying physical power brewing within its master's body.
Day after day, month after month.
In the blink of an eye, half a year passed.
Over those six months, the situation in the Chu State had stabilized completely.
Qin De officially changed the nation's name to Great Qin and established its capital in the former Chu State's imperial city.
Qin Feng was appointed Great General Who Guards the North, commanding the Fierce Tiger Army, now expanded to three hundred thousand troops, and guarding the frontiers; Qin Zheng was named crown prince and assisted Qin De in handling the affairs of the realm.
With the vast stockpile of resources Qin Chen had left behind, the cultivation of Qin De and his two sons also advanced a thousand li a day.
Not only had Qin De completely consolidated his cultivation at the late Golden Core stage, he had even faintly touched the threshold of the peak Golden Core stage; with the aid of medicinal pills, Qin Feng and Qin Zheng had also successfully broken through the shackles of Xiantian and entered the Golden Core Realm, becoming true cultivators.
The entire Qin Family was undergoing a magnificent transformation from a mortal royal house into a cultivation family.
Yet throughout those six months, the forbidden palace hall deep within the Imperial Palace remained tightly shut, without the slightest sound coming from within.
Had the surrounding formations not still been functioning normally, Qin De would almost have suspected that Qin Chen had secretly left.
In truth, an upheaval beyond an ordinary person's imagination was taking place inside the forbidden palace hall.
Within the spacious secret chamber, the hundred thousand top-grade spirit stones that had originally been piled like a mountain had now vanished completely. All that remained was a thick layer of grayish-white powder on the floor, drained of all spiritual energy.
Meanwhile, the thousand jin of star sand that had radiated dazzling starlight had become a miniature river of stars, slowly revolving around Qin Chen as he sat cross-legged in its center.
Qin Chen's eyes were tightly closed, his expression as solemn and majestic as a sacred image.
The circulation of the heavenly cycle star body had reached its most critical moment.
Condense!
Qin Chen unleashed a heaven-shaking roar in his heart. The true essence of the Ancestral Dragon Transformation Divine Art within him surged like wild horses breaking free of their reins, sweeping up the surrounding star sand and transforming into torrents of dazzling starlight that rushed furiously along his meridians toward the Purple Mansion between his brows.
Boom!
The instant the first wisp of star force rushed into his Purple Mansion, Qin Chen felt as though a massive hammer had slammed into his brain. The agonizing pain made even his rock-solid body tremble involuntarily.
But he held his mind steady, guiding the immense star force to compress and rotate continuously at the center of his Purple Mansion.
The vast spiritual energy contained in the hundred thousand top-grade spirit stones now became the finest fuel; the thousand jin of star sand became the foundation for constructing a star.
Compress! Compress again!
Within the originally insubstantial mental space of his Purple Mansion, an intensely bright point of light appeared.
As star force continued pouring in, the point of light grew increasingly dense, and its gravitational pull became increasingly terrifying. Even the mental power Qin Chen released was on the verge of being swallowed by it.
An unknown amount of time passed-perhaps an instant, perhaps several months.
Hum-
A strange fluctuation suddenly spread from between Qin Chen's brows, sweeping across the entire secret chamber in an instant. It even pierced through layer upon layer of formations and spread toward the sky above the imperial city.
Deep within his Purple Mansion, the eleventh micro star-dust finally ignited!
This star-dust was a deep purple-gold. It hovered quietly in the center of his sea of consciousness, slowly rotating.
With every rotation, it released a stream of exceptionally pure soul power bearing a terrifying pressure, feeding it back into Qin Chen's entire body.
Qin Chen slowly opened his eyes.
The instant he opened them, two streaks of cold lightning seemed to flash through the secret chamber. Even the air was torn apart by his tangible gaze, giving off hissing sounds.
"Phew..."
Qin Chen exhaled a breath of stale air. It shot out like a sharp sword, punching a bottomless hole straight into the secret chamber's hard stone wall.
He stood up and lightly clenched his fists.
Crack, crack, crack...
Before you continue