Over the next few days, Loa seemed to temporarily "vanish" from the forest of endless slaughter, falling utterly silent.
He no longer ventured into dangerous territory to hunt magical beasts. Like a wounded predator, he retreated to his temporary den to lick his wounds and gather strength. He confined his movements to a few miles around the rocky hollow. Apart from fetching water and keeping watch, he caught only level-one magical beasts or fat fish from the stream to fill his stomach each day. He devoted more of his time to sitting in meditation and thinking.
He lit a campfire cautiously, and only when necessary, extinguishing it as soon as he had cooked his food. Most of the time, he chewed raw meat or fish slices with a faint fishy tang, washing them down with cool, clear stream water. His stomach had long since adapted to this crude sustenance, greedily absorbing every scrap of energy and turning it into nourishment to heal his wounds, strengthen his muscles and bones, and build his battle-qi.
He stopped actively seeking magical beasts to hunt, and his movements became more elusive and secretive.
The secluded hollow backed by a massive boulder became his temporary shelter. He carefully erased every trace of his activities, like a stone blending into its surroundings.
Under the continuous nourishment of his battle-qi and the effects of medicinal herbs, his wounds rapidly healed, scabbed over, and shed their scabs, leaving faintly pink new flesh. More important, however, was the settling and ordering of his mind.
His life-and-death battle with the Shadow Cat, particularly the breakthrough in his footwork that let him "flow with the wind" at the final moment and that experience of intensely focused perception, was like a pebble dropped into the lake of his mind, its ripples lingering long afterward. He began consciously comparing and pondering his fleeting insights from battle alongside his regular practice of Wild Wind Guidance and the Thunderbolt Art, and his understanding of the Gentle Breeze Caressing Willow footwork.
Sitting cross-legged on the moss with his eyes closed in concentration, his awareness seemed to leave his body, wandering between the invisible air currents and the dantian he observed within.
What are the characteristics of wind? he asked himself.
Flowing, penetrating every gap, nimble and ever-changing. Just like the Gentle Breeze Caressing Willow footwork: rather than resisting force head-on, it yielded, borrowed strength, and threaded through the gaps between power and danger. This faintly aligned with the swift, continuous, all-penetrating offensive he pursued when wielding the Wild Wind and Sudden Rain Sword.
And what is the essence of thunder?
Ferocity, speed, penetration, and the utmost in explosive force and destruction. Like the battle-qi cultivated through the Thunderbolt Art-that restless, fierce power that seemed ready to burst from his body at any moment-and the concept behind Thunder Collapse, which concentrated everything into a single point before erupting with a roar. In his memories from a previous life, thunder had often been regarded in ancient times as the might of heaven and earth: supremely hard and yang, upright and radiant, yet carrying the dual meanings of punishment and new life.
Fragments of ancient wisdom from another world could not help surfacing in his mind. Wind was Xun; thunder was Zhen. Wind was yielding and penetrating by nature; thunder stirred and startled. Their trigrams interlocked, their yin and yang stood opposed, yet they were not utterly incompatible. In "Wind and Thunder Pressing Together," pressing meant drawing close and striking against one another; it could also be understood as stirring and intermingling. Wind bolstered thunder's force, thunder borrowed wind's might, hardness and softness complemented one another, changing in an instant.
"Wind and Thunder Pressing Together..." Loa murmured the phrase, and something like lightning flashed through his mind.
He had long struggled with how distinctly separate his wind and lightning battle-qi remained within his body, unable to truly fuse and produce an effect greater than the sum of their parts. Forcing them together would only cause conflict and backlash. But now an entirely new approach gradually became clear.
Perhaps there is no need to "forcibly merge" two kinds of battle-qi with completely different attributes at all? They are like yin and yang, naturally coexisting in opposition. The key is not to turn them into the same thing, but to build a higher-level "system" that coordinates, controls, and guides these two powers, allowing them to separate or combine, turn hard or soft, and display different characteristics and strengths according to my will whenever needed.
And the core of this "system"... Loa looked within his dantian. That mass of Weapon Combat Battle-qi, always steady and accommodating, harmonizing his Wind-Thunder Battle-qi like a foundation, was circulating slowly.
Weapon Combat Battle-qi itself seemed to have no fixed attribute, yet possessed tremendous adaptability and "malleability." It was more like an "intent," a "Way," a bridge unifying the mind, the will, physical strength, and external energy-battle-qi.
"Like taiji..." Inspiration struck Loa as he recalled the image of the interdependent yin-yang fish circulating without end. Weapon Combat Battle-qi would be the "pivot," and Wind-Thunder Battle-qi the "two aspects." It was not about mixing yin and yang into gray, but allowing them to circulate naturally under the pivot's guidance, generating and restraining one another, evolving without limit.
Drawing wind's nimbleness into the meridians and nine apertures could make my footwork more elusive and unpredictable, my Sword Force denser and more seamless; breathing like the explosive crash of thunder could intimidate an enemy's soul, while releasing power could become more concentrated and explosive, even allowing wind and thunder to accompany each other. Could I even... imitate the frequency of thunder's vibrations, using internal stimulation and outward oscillation to temper my internal organs, sinews, bones, skin, and membranes on a deeper level? That would be far more sophisticated than simply nourishing them with battle-qi or striking them with external force!
Ideas poured forth like a spring, becoming clearer and more exciting. Loa could barely suppress the urge to try them immediately, and the Wind-Thunder Battle-qi in his dantian seemed to stir faintly in response.
But he took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed that eagerness to experiment. Clarity and calm returned to his eyes.
No... my breakthrough is imminent. I cannot divide my attention any further. These ideas may be wonderful, but they involve circulation through the meridians and harmonizing powers. The slightest carelessness could send my cultivation awry. I must return to Fenlai and have a safe environment before I can slowly test and verify them.
He knew well that biting off too much meant being unable to chew it, and understood even more clearly the dangers of an unstable foundation. Once he thought this through, the agitation and urgency born of those novel ideas rapidly cooled and settled, as though doused with clear spring water. In their place came a clarity and resolve born of sudden understanding. With a clearer direction for the road ahead, the barrier before him was no longer merely an obstacle, but a necessary step toward a new world.
His mind was utterly clear. The exhaustion of days of fierce battles, the tension of hovering on the edge of death, and his uncertainty about the road ahead all seemed to have been washed away by this realization. His mind was more focused and lucid than ever. The ripples stirred by his thoughts gradually subsided, replaced by a clearer, more transparent "stillness." It was as though he had parted the last veil of mist before his eyes and could see both the path beneath his feet and the road in the distance.
His mind had never been so clear.
The battle-qi that had been circulating slowly on its own within his body seemed driven by some invisible command, abruptly accelerating! His wind battle-qi spun like a vortex, his lightning battle-qi surged like silver serpents, and his Weapon Combat Battle-qi served as a steady riverbed, guiding them as they rushed through his increasingly broad and resilient meridians.
Crack...
A faint shattering sound rang out, seemingly from the depths of his soul, yet also seeming to echo through every bone in his body. It was not violent, but exceptionally clear.
Loa felt as though something inside him had broken with a quiet crack. It was not anything physical, but the invisible membrane that had long blocked his passage to a higher realm.
Immediately afterward, a greater, purer, more condensed power erupted from his dantian like a flood bursting through a dam, instantly rushing into every meridian throughout his body! Intense pain struck alongside an indescribable sense of fullness. His muscles, bones, fascia, and even the cells deeper within seemed to sing with joy under the scouring of this newborn power, becoming tougher and brimming with vitality.
A level-five warrior!
The "quality" of his battle-qi had undergone a distinct leap. Its mist grew denser, even showing faint signs of turning liquid. Its total volume had nearly doubled, its circulation was faster, and its recovery stronger. His control over his body had also reached a new level: with the slightest thought, his strength could reach the very tips of his fingers.
Loa slowly released a long breath of stale air. It was extraordinarily prolonged, clearly audible in the silent rocky hollow, carrying a few impurities expelled from his body along with the vigorous vitality of his breakthrough.
He had broken through!
A level-five warrior!
Loa abruptly opened his eyes. A brilliant gleam shone within them like lightning streaking through the night, then sank deep within once more. Slowly, he released a long breath of stale air. The breath was prolonged and powerful, blowing the tiny grains of gravel on the ground before him into a brief roll.
With a slight thought, the newly formed, higher-quality Weapon Combat Battle-qi in his dantian flowed out in response. A faint, almost transparent halo of energy silently appeared over his body, hugging his skin as though he had donned an invisible gauze robe. The halo was extremely thin, yet noticeably resilient. When he pressed a finger against it, he felt a slight resistance and rebound. This was one of the hallmarks of a level-five warrior-the battle-qi gauze robe! It could already effectively deflect and weaken slashes from ordinary blades and attacks from the claws and fangs of low-level magical beasts.
He picked up the longsword beside his knee and directed his thoughts again. Wind battle-qi and Weapon Combat Battle-qi surged into the blade together. A shifting pale-green glow immediately covered its edge, making the already sharp blade gleam with an even more menacing chill. When he infused it with the more explosive lightning battle-qi, threads of silver-white electricity danced within the sword's glow, its aura sharp and oppressive.
"Applied to the body, it becomes a 'battle-qi gauze robe'; applied to a weapon, it grants unmatched sharpness..." The description in General Principles of Battle-qi was now tangibly manifesting in him. Feeling the higher-quality battle-qi surging within him, nearly doubled in volume, along with this finer control over his strength, Loa felt a solid joy well up in his heart. (The earlier setting has already been changed; there is a "revised" marker after the chapter title.)
Level five was a new starting point. It meant both his accumulated battle-qi and his physical strength had reached the threshold of an intermediate warrior. He recalled what the book had said: upon reaching level seven, battle-qi would fully transform from mist into liquid droplets, undergoing a qualitative change. Only then would true "external release of battle-qi" become possible, producing ranged attacks such as sword qi and saber radiance, making his offensive and defensive capabilities more layered and varied.
The road was still long, but every step was firm.
He stood and stretched his body. His joints gave a series of soft cracks, and he felt full of strength.
On this trip into the Magical Beast Mountain Range, he had hunted, suffered wounds, gained insights, and broken through... He had long since exceeded his original goal of survival. But it was still early, and now that he was a level-five warrior, surely he ought to venture somewhere deeper and test the waters.
He thoroughly erased the remaining traces, shouldered his pack, and gripped the longsword that now seemed a little lighter. Loa set off toward the deeper forest.
Before you continue