Half an hour later, Qin Tiexin opened the lid of the tripod.
A strong and almost substantial aroma of meat surged out from the mouth of the tripod, instantly filling the entire camp under the stone platform.
The four bear paws had been stewed soft in the boiling soup. The thick skin on the palms showed a translucent amber color and swayed tremblingly at the slightest touch. The tendons had been thoroughly cooked and were slightly separated from the joints, revealing the cartilage as white as jade inside. The bone marrow seeped out from the fracture of the metacarpal bones and mixed with the soup, dyeing the whole pot of soup milky white. There was a layer of fine oil flowers floating on the surface of the soup, which glowed golden under the light.
Duan Xuan stopped Qin Tiexin who was about to reach out and let the soup continue to collect in the cauldron for a while. When the soup became thicker, Duan Xuan took out the one containing Golden Needle Bee from Storage Bag Remove the stopper from the small bottle of honey, and pour the dark golden syrup evenly on the four bears' paws. The honey immediately melts when it touches the hot palms, mixes with the meat juice and oil, and forms a shiny thin shell on the palms. The sweet fragrance mixed with the aroma of meat permeates the air, and the smell makes people's stomachs start to twitch just by smelling it.
"Okay." Duan Xuan licked the corner of his mouth and put the bottle away.
The two were no longer polite. Qin Tiexin grabbed a bear paw and took the first bite. The thick skin on the palm had been stewed to the critical point - it melted into the mouth with a slight sip with the teeth, like a mouthful of hot aspic. The tendons under the skin were soft and sticky., it has a very weak elasticity when chewed, and with every bite, rich and sweet meat juice oozes out from the fiber. The moment the bone marrow melts on the tongue, a warm feeling rushes from the throat to the lower abdomen. It is pure flesh and blood essence, which is more direct than any elixir.
Duan Xuan ate just as slowly as he did. She held a bear paw in both hands and gnawed down the skin, flesh and bones. She didn't even notice a small piece of oil on her cheek. She only occasionally raised her head and exhaled a long breath of hot white breath. After eating the whole bear, she put down the bone, licked her lips with lingering interest, then crossed her legs and closed her eyes, and started running Cultivation Method.
Qin Tiexin stood beside her, watching her refine the huge essence contained in the bear's paw one by one. Duan Xuan's Qi and Blood, which was already stuck in Body Tempering Eighth Layer Peak's body, was rushed away by this essence and accelerated in the meridians. Her skin A faint ruddy color appeared on the surface of her skin, and beads of sweat seeped out from her forehead and quickly evaporated. After about a stick of incense, a very subtle muffled sound came from her Dantian, as if some kind of barrier had been opened. She opened her eyes, and lightly pressed her fingertips on the stone slab beside her, and a shallow pit was silently sunk into the stone slab.
"Body Tempering Ninth Layer." Duan Xuan looked down at his palm, slowly clenched and unclenched his fingers, then looked at the two remaining bear paws in the cauldron, "I'll lend you a cauldron of bear paws to break the bottleneck."
Qin Tiexin nodded, finished the second bear paw, and left the remaining one for Duan Xuan. He dragged out the bear carcass from Storage Bag, removed the bear bile, tenderloin, and the whole liver, added water, and stewed it again in the cauldron.
Duan Xuan knew how much he ate, so it wasn't surprising. He grabbed the second bear paw and continued eating, but at a much slower pace than before. Qin Tiexin cut the bear meat into pieces and filled the cauldron, added the medicinal herbs and water, and started Spirit Rune to stew again.
Qin Tiexin doesn't have high requirements for food, just eat it, so he doesn't add too many seasonings, and the soup left over from the stewed bear paws is also very delicious.
Duan Xuan leaned against the stone wall, watching Qin Tiexin eat the two large cauldrons of meat, bones, and offal one after another, leaving not a mouthful of soup. Her eyes moved from his face to his slightly bulging abdomen, and then back to his face, and found that he had begun to practice Qigong with his eyes closed, and the bulging in his abdomen was disappearing at a speed visible to the naked eye. What followed was that the sense of oppression emanating from his whole body was heavier than before.
Qin Tiexin felt the changes in his body. The essence in the bear meat and bear marrow was wrapped, refined, and absorbed by Cauldron Eating Art, turning into the purest Qi and Blood and integrating into the limbs and bones. But he could clearly feel that these Qi and Blood were only temporarily contained in the flesh and blood, and could not truly be condensed into strength.
It seems that the synergistic effect of "Cauldron Eating Art" is close to reaching the limit of the Body Refining Realm.
He lacks a Qi and Blood Realm and Cultivation Method, so he cannot further transform these huge Qi and Blood essences. He can only watch them accumulate more and more in his body, but he can never reach the bottleneck. Cauldron Eating Art is a food supplement method, not a major Cultivation Method. It allows him to refine what he eats into Qi and Blood, but it cannot tell him how to use these Qi and Blood to reach a higher realm.
He looked down at the back of his hand. The blood vessels under the skin were thicker than before, and when the pulse beat, he could see the faint ups and downs of blood rushing in the blood vessels. He felt that his shoulders seemed to be a little wider, and the muscle lines on his forearms were clearer.
The upper limit of an ordinary Body Refining monk Body Tempering Peak is 10,000 kilograms, but his current maximum strength with one hand is estimated to be close to 19,000 kilograms.
This number is the power of an ordinary Qi and Blood Realm Early Stage monk. But he is still at the Body Refining Realm, and he has not yet made a breakthrough.
He didn't think any more, placed Edgeless on his knees, closed his eyes and adjusted his breath.
It was past midnight. Duan Xuan finished watching the first half of the night and changed to Qin Tiexin. She sat down cross-legged by the stone wall, and her breathing gradually became even. Qin Tiexin sat in front of the stone platform, her eyes sweeping over the moonlit ruins outside, maintaining a motionless posture.
Just before dawn, there was suddenly a burst of noisy movement in the distance. It was not Demon Beast, nor was it fighting, but the sound of a group of people running and talking, mixed with the sound of footsteps, the sound of weapons clashing and the sound of low-pitched urging. Qin Tiexin opened his eyes, and Duan Xuan was also awake, with his hand on the hilt of the sword at his waist.
The two people walked out from under the stone platform and saw seven or eight monks rushing forward in the dim morning light, towards the east side of the core area of the building complex. Qin Tiexin quickly stepped forward and stopped one person - Body Tempering Ninth Layer's cultivation, with a pair of short knives hanging on his waist.
"What happened?"
The man was not annoyed after being stopped, and his tone was urgent but cheerful. "Don't you know? Someone in front opened the trial hall of the Iron Spine Sect! He took out a Upper-Grade Law Artifact sword embryo from inside, the sword embryo alone can cut Middle-Grade Law Artifact just like cutting tofu! As the news spread, most of the people rushed there." After he finished speaking, without waiting for Qin Tiexin to ask again, he turned around and ran away with the crowd.
It was the third day since the two of them entered the ruins. They climbed over the ruins, climbed over the abandoned side halls, and climbed over empty houses that had been quickly visited. This was probably the first place in three days that could be called a complete building.
They looked at each other, said nothing, and rushed towards the direction of the crowd.
In less than a stick of incense, the two of them saw the outline of the building. According to what they had seen from the high tower of Cultivation Method Pavilion, this place was already at the center of the ruins.
Different from the previous ruins, this building is still intact as a whole. The arc-shaped dome lies on the ground, like half a giant egg buried in the earth. The whole building is about eight feet high and occupies a huge area, but the outermost wall has been peeled off in large parts, revealing the dark blue stone structure below. There are vague carvings on the wall, and the strokes have been weathered to the point of being unrecognizable. There are debris blown by the wind and dry vines at the base of the wall.
When the two arrived, fifty or sixty monks had gathered around the building, scattered in twos and threes, but the building itself was too big, and it didn't seem crowded even with fifty or sixty people surrounding it.
There is a corridor extending inward in every direction of the building. The entrance to the corridor is not wide, about one person high, and can only accommodate one person. Looking inside is a deep darkness, and the internal structure cannot be seen clearly. Qin Tiexin noticed that every once in a while, someone chooses a corridor to go in, and occasionally someone comes out of the corridor on the other side - some people walk out on their own, and some are violently ejected by an invisible force.
He and Duan Xuan were not in a hurry to go in. The two of them walked around the outside and pieced together a rough idea of the rules of this trial hall from the few words of the monks around them.
This corridor should be the trial threshold of this hall. Only through this corridor can one reach the center of the hall. Most of those who were ejected in embarrassment have not even passed the trial in the corridor.
Only those who enter the hall will have the opportunity to obtain rewards from the hall.
Some people said that he saw with his own eyes the monk who had obtained the sword embryo walking out of the east corridor. The man's breath was a little unstable, and he was obviously very exhausted, but his expression was excited. After coming out, he quickly left without saying a word. There were also several people who had been ejected and sat cross-legged by the corridor to regain their breath. Some of them were as pale as paper, and their arms were still shaking uncontrollably.
After waiting for another quarter of an hour, three monks were ejected from the corridor from different directions. After they landed on the ground, they turned over, patted the dust on their bodies, and looked at each other with a bitter smile. "No, it's too difficult inside." One of them shook his head to his companion, "Don't wait, it's useless to waste any more time." The three of them quickly left the place together.
Qin Tiexin watched them leave. The cultivation level of these three people was between Body Tempering Eighth Layer and the ninth level. Their aura was solid and their steps were steady. They did not look like they were vulnerable. A trial that could make such a person give up on his own initiative must be quite difficult.
At this moment, a flickering light lit up at the entrance of the corridor due north. A figure walked out of it, walking heavily, as if he was dragging a mountain with each step. The man had an extremely generous figure and a defensive physique. He was over eight feet tall but his width could almost accommodate two Qin Tiexin. He had a six-foot-square heavy shield slung across his back. He was the one Qin Tiexin had paid attention to before the audition.
But his condition was extremely poor. He was sweating profusely, his clothes were stuck to his flesh, his face was pale, and his lips were dry, as if all the Spiritual Qi in his body had been drained out by something. However, his expression was completely opposite to his condition - he was full of energy, and he could not hold back the corners of his mouth. He held a round shield half a man's height in his left hand, and the shield surface glowed in the morning light. A faint purple glow, Spirit Rune, appeared to be at least a middle-grade or above Law Artifact. After he came out, he glanced at the surrounding monks, his steps suddenly quickened, and he walked towards the distance without looking back. Three or four monks whispered to each other, exchanged glances, and followed him quietly.
Duan Xuan whispered, "The finished product is not bad. The buckler, which is half a person's height, should be a reward after passing the trial. It is in at least medium quality."
Qin Tiexin nodded, his eyes fell on the man's leaving figure, and then he glanced at the figures following him without comment.
He turned to Duan Xuan: "Go in and try?"
Duan Xuan adjusted the position of the sword hilt and moved his neck. "Let's go, find two adjacent ones, and each goes his own way. Come out later and see who gets the best thing." Qin Tiexin did not accept this casual ridicule, but just held the hilt of the sword and walked towards a corridor on the north side where there was no queue.
Duan Xuan chose the other one next to him.
The two paused for a moment at the entrance, then stepped in each.