"So fast?"
Wei Sheng was somewhat surprised too.
Then he felt somewhat reassured.
He had now mastered two Skin Refinement Methods. His understanding of skin refinement far surpassed martial artists of the same level; even ordinary Flesh Refinement Realm martial artists probably could not compare to him.
More importantly.
His blood and qi were abundant, and he had extensive skin refinement experience... getting started was naturally effortless.
[Dao Origin: 14 points]
Seeing that he had enough Dao Origin Points, Wei Sheng immediately began training.
A moment later.
[Black Jade Skin Refinement Method (Third Refinement)]
After consuming three Dao Origin Points, Wei Sheng had brought this Skin Refinement Method to the Third Refinement level as well.
But he still had not condensed copper skin.
And...
"The increase in blood and qi is only thirty percent of what it was before. Even my strength only increased by six hundred jin, reaching four thousand one hundred jin..."
All the signs indicated one thing.
His skin refinement was nearing its limit.
"At most, two more Skin Refinement Methods should let me break through to Skin Refinement Perfection and condense copper skin... but is copper skin really this hard to achieve?"
Wei Sheng could not help feeling doubtful.
He had spent a total of thirty-eight years practicing three Skin Refinement Methods.
Moreover, those were thirty-eight years of wholehearted training for twenty-four hours a day, equivalent to over a century of arduous training for an ordinary person.
Even then, he still had not developed copper skin.
Of course, that might have something to do with his terrible aptitude...
But according to Che Zhenzhong, there were some geniuses in the commandery city who had condensed copper skin, and those people had only practiced two or three Skin Refinement Methods.
Could terrible aptitude also affect his progress toward developing copper skin?
Or was he practicing the wrong way?!
Unfortunately, there were no geniuses who had condensed copper skin around him to offer practical advice. He could only take things one step at a time.
Still, Wei Sheng did not dwell on it.
In any case, once he got the remaining two Skin Refinement Methods in two days and trained them to Perfection, everything would become clear.
Two days later.
Wei Sheng met Lao Xu at his home again.
Lao Xu looked at Wei Sheng apologetically. "Of the two Skin Refinement Methods this old man promised you, there was one I couldn't obtain."
As he spoke, Lao Xu took out a blue cloth bundle.
Once he opened it, a small black booklet could be seen inside, bearing the large characters-Black Snake Skin Refinement Method!
"One is fine too..."
Wei Sheng was reassuring Lao Xu when, before he could finish, Lao Xu picked up the Black Snake Skin Refinement Method booklet, revealing another black training manual underneath.
"??"
Wei Sheng swallowed the words on the tip of his tongue and looked at Lao Xu in confusion.
"This Force-Discharging Skin Refinement Method wasn't originally among the Skin Refinement Methods I was looking for..."
According to Lao Xu, the Force-Discharging Skin Refinement Method was relatively obscure, few people practiced it, and it focused on discharging force, making it damn near useless for improving strength.
What he had actually wanted was the Skin Refinement Method of a friend who had once reached the Fifth Refinement.
That Skin Refinement Method had greater potential than the Force-Discharging Skin Refinement Method, and it came with the training experience and insights of a Fifth Refinement expert, which could have helped Wei Sheng avoid many detours.
As compensation, Lao Xu gave Wei Sheng an additional palm technique-the Heart-Breaking Palm!
After hearing all this.
Wei Sheng wore a complicated expression.
He had never expected Lao Xu to be so considerate of him.
Hong Chengdu, you really deserve to die!!!
"Brother, two strange fellows kept hanging around outside our door today."
After returning from Lao Xu's place, Wei Sheng had intended to start training immediately, but Wei He's words made his eyelid twitch.
"Strange how?"
"Those two kept asking about someone along the street, and they even knocked on our door. Luckily, I hid at Brother Fire Ox's place beforehand... oh, right, one of them wore red. From the way he acted, he looked like a steward. He stared through the crack in the door for ages..."
The Hong Family!
Wei Sheng's heart sank.
Of those he had offended, there was only the Hong Family.
Could his killing of the Hong Family steward have been exposed?
Probably not yet.
Otherwise, they would have sent more than just those people.
An inexplicable irritation stirred in his heart.
This time, Xiao He had spotted the danger early and run to Fire Ox's home to escape it. But what about next time?
Or rather, without Fire Ox, would something already have happened to Xiao He?
"Brother, how much longer will this go on?" Wei He's face was pale. He had clearly been frightened too.
"Don't worry. It'll be over soon!" Wei Sheng patted Wei He's shoulder, then turned and went inside.
[Black Snake Skin Refinement Method (Entry)] [Force-Discharging Skin Refinement Method (Entry)]
Like the Black Jade Skin Refinement Method, he reached the Entry level in both after practicing them once.
[Dao Origin: 13 points]
He had originally had fourteen points and consumed three practicing the Black Jade Flesh Refinement Method. Two days had now passed, adding another two points.
"This should be enough."
[In the first year, you began practicing the Black Snake Skin Refinement Method.] [Relying on the accumulated foundation and training insights from the Ox Demon Skin Refinement Method and the other two Skin Refinement Methods, you successfully brought the Black Snake Skin Refinement Method to the Third Refinement in two and a half years.] [You then spent another two years bringing the Force-Discharging Skin Refinement Method to the Third Refinement. By this point, you had brought five Skin Refinement Methods to the Third Refinement level and gained deeper insights into skin refinement.] [In the fifth year, using the Ox Demon Skin Refinement Method as your foundation, you began incorporating the other four Skin Refinement Methods into it, discarding the chaff and preserving the essence, fusing them into one.] [In the sixth year, you successfully fused two Skin Refinement Methods.] [In the seventh year, you successfully fused three Skin Refinement Methods.] [In the eighth year... the ninth year... the eleventh year, the five Skin Refinement Methods fused into one. The skin membranes across your entire body transformed, reaching Skin Refinement Perfection and condensing the Skin Abyss.]
The instant Wei Sheng finished training, his cultivation rose straight from late Third Refinement to Third Refinement Perfection, and his strength soared along with it...
Four thousand two hundred, four thousand three hundred, four thousand...
All the way to five thousand jin!!
"Third Refinement Perfection, with five thousand jin of strength?!"
Wei Sheng stretched his body, feeling the abundant blood and qi within him and the powerful strength brought by his strengthened skin membranes. He could not help grinning.
In terms of strength alone, he was probably no weaker than an ordinary Fifth Refinement expert now.
And that was not all.
"Hum-"
At a thought from Wei Sheng, the blood and qi inside him rushed like a stream. His skin membranes took on a bronze hue, and as his blood and qi flowed faster, their color gradually deepened, until they turned completely...
"Black?"
At that moment, Wei Sheng's entire body seemed to have been coated in a black membrane, or clad in black armor, indestructible and impregnable!
"So this is the Skin Abyss, which surpasses copper skin and can only be condensed at the limit of skin refinement?"
Wei Sheng took out a small knife and drew it across his arm. The moment the blade touched his black skin membrane, it encountered powerful resistance.
When he increased the force to three thousand jin, his skin membrane became slick. The blade slid across it, leaving only an extremely faint white mark that vanished in the blink of an eye.
This was the defining feature of the Skin Abyss-
His skin membranes were like a heavenly abyss, impossible to cross. Any Jin Force that landed on them was as though plunging into an abyss, discharged, dissipated, and redirected!
What delighted him even more was...
Deep within his blood and qi, a peculiar warm current had formed, stronger and purer than blood and qi!
"Jin Force!"
Wei Sheng was overjoyed.
This was a power only Fourth Refinement martial artists possessed. He had not yet broken through to the Fourth Refinement, yet he had condensed it ahead of time!
"The key to producing Jin Force is blood and qi. The stronger the blood and qi, the faster it condenses!"
Wei Sheng activated his Jin Force and pressed lightly against the wooden table before him.
With a "pfft," it was like pressing his palm into soft, fluffy snow. When he lifted his hand, a palm print over an inch deep was left in the wooden table, its palm lines clearly visible!
"With my current attainments in skin refinement, five thousand jin of strength, and this strand of Jin Force, what would my chances be against someone at the Fourth Refinement?"
Although his numerical attributes were already no weaker than those of the Fourth Refinement, and his strength was even somewhat greater, Wei Sheng could not be certain without actually fighting one.
But there was one thing he could be sure of.
-Someone at the Fourth Refinement could not kill him!
[Name: Wei Sheng] [Talent: Nine-Breath Qi Ingestion] [Dao Origin: 2 points] [Martial arts mastered: Savage Bull Fist (Perfection, trait: Ox Demon), Golden Goose Art (Perfection), Nameless Skin Refinement Method (Perfection, trait: Skin Abyss)]
After fusing, the original five Skin Refinement Methods had formed an entirely new Skin Refinement Method.
"Since it can reach Skin Refinement Perfection, and activating the skin membranes makes them look like black skin, I'll call it the Black-Membrane Skin Refinement Method."
As his words fell, the Nameless Skin Refinement Method on the panel instantly changed to the Black-Membrane Skin Refinement Method.
He glanced at the dusk, which was only just growing dim.
"It's not time yet."
Wei Sheng shook his head and took a small booklet from inside his robe. It was the Heart-Breaking Palm that Lao Xu had given him.
"Use the heart's fire as fuel; strike with the palm to break the heart, sweeping through like withered wood and rotten timber... the palm technique is savage and domineering... the more abundant one's blood and qi, the faster one can train it, and the greater the power of the Heart-Breaking Palm..."
In terms of blood and qi alone, there was probably no Skin Refinement Realm martial artist stronger than him. He was the ideal candidate to practice the Heart-Breaking Palm.
Wei Sheng immediately went into the courtyard, assumed his stance, and began practicing the Heart-Breaking Palm, his strikes whooshing through the air.
Through the window, Wei He watched his second brother practice in the courtyard like a man possessed, worry in his eyes. He watched for over two hours before his eyelids finally gave out and he drifted off to sleep.
Only when the night had grown deep.
[Heart-Breaking Palm (Entry)]
After four hours of arduous practice, Wei Sheng had finally gained an initial grasp of the technique that had once made Lao Xu famous.
Without hesitation.
He immediately invested his remaining two Dao Origin Points into it.
"Hum-"
A vast quantity of experience and memories of practicing the Heart-Breaking Palm instantly flooded Wei Sheng's mind, and he involuntarily struck out with his palm.
"Heart-Breaking!"
Abundant blood and qi gathered in his palm, turning it crimson, like a flame. As he struck, the blazing palm wind seemed to burn away the empty space before him. The aftershock of the descending palm shattered a head-sized rock several meters away into countless fragments.
"It's done!"
A smile appeared on Wei Sheng's face.
[Name: Wei Sheng] [Talent: Nine-Breath Qi Ingestion] [Dao Origin: 0] [Martial arts mastered: Savage Bull Fist (Perfection, trait: Ox Demon), Black-Membrane Skin Refinement Method (Perfection, trait: Skin Abyss), Golden Goose Art (Perfection), Heart-Breaking Palm (Major Accomplishment)]
"Just about ready! It's time to meet Hong Chengdu!"
Wei Sheng changed into Night Clothes for moving at night. His figure like a wisp of smoke, he sped toward the Hong Family's location in Black Glory Ward!
Before you continue