The peach grove, inside a field tent.
Lu Guan sat cross-legged. A single dim oil lamp lit the tent, its flame dancing over his half-lit profile.
He lowered his head to look at the abundant cultivation years on his panel and rubbed his hands together, anticipation filling his eyes.
A full hundred and ten years of cultivation!
With practiced ease, he poured those cultivation years into the Demon-Exterminating Heart Scripture.
There were no longer any barriers to the True Qi Realm. Lu Guan wanted to know just how far these hundred and ten years of cultivation could raise his realm.
Where, exactly, was his limit?
"Add points!"
[Year one: you look at the brand-new Demon-Exterminating Heart Scripture, filled with anticipation. You turn to the first page, then freeze... you cannot understand it.]
Lu Guan: "..."
The feeling was exceedingly strange. He recognized every word, yet strung together, they might as well have been a heavenly script.
[Since your aptitude is mediocre, diligence is your only option. Fortunately, time is something you do not lack.] [Year three: you finally gain some insight and successfully condense your first wisp of True Qi. Your True Qi seed takes shape, allowing you to circulate a Lesser Celestial Circuit. You can clearly sense your Qi.] [You attain entry-level mastery of the Demon-Exterminating Heart Scripture and break through to the early True Qi Realm.] [Year ten: you convert all the surging Qi and Blood throughout your body into True Qi. Your True Qi seed grows stronger, and you open one primary meridian.] [You attain minor mastery of the Demon-Exterminating Heart Scripture and break through to the mid True Qi Realm. Your True Qi becomes a stream, which you can project outward to injure enemies.] [Year twenty-one: through diligent effort, you have opened more than half of your twelve primary meridians. However, you find it increasingly difficult, as though you have encountered a bottleneck.]
Year after year of experiences drifted before his eyes.
Although he did not personally experience the passage of those years, Lu Guan's gaze grew increasingly detached, until it was finally filled with exhaustion.
The text on the panel kept scrolling, line after densely packed line.
It recorded his cultivation day after day, like a mechanical puppet programmed to act, tireless and inflexible, knowing only how to repeat itself over and over.
He shuddered and hurriedly closed the panel for the moment, no longer looking at it.
Even having the panel cultivate for him was already this painful.
If he had to personally experience those long years instead, all alone, sitting in barren meditation for decades, making one attempt after another to break through with an empty Dantian...
Failing and starting again, only to fail once more-he feared the endless emptiness would torment him into madness.
What he felt now was more like another version of himself had been locked in a dark room by the panel, cultivating tirelessly.
While he sat outside, reaping all the fruits of that cultivation.
Yet a horrifying possibility suddenly occurred to Lu Guan...
What if, one day, he was locked inside the panel, while the "him" inside it took his place in the real world?
What would that "him" do?
Lu Guan shook his head sharply.
Once he had calmed down, he smiled self-mockingly.
Wasn't I just scaring myself?
He opened the panel again.
[Year forty: through astonishing perseverance, you finally open all twelve primary meridians in your body.] [You attain major mastery of the Demon-Exterminating Heart Scripture and break through to the late True Qi Realm. Your True Qi becomes a river, comprehensively enhancing your explosive power.]
With all twelve primary meridians open, the True Qi within his body had grown from a small stream into a great river, surging and roaring.
When he struck, True Qi could coat his blade, and the blade Qi he unleashed was enough to cleave through a rock face several zhang away.
[Year forty-one: not content with this, you begin attempting to open the eight extraordinary meridians.] [Year forty-five: you spend a full five years opening the first, the Governing Vessel.] [Year fifty-two: you open another of the eight extraordinary meridians. You discover that it has taken you even longer. Fortunately, time is something you do not lack.] [Year eighty: you have opened more than half of your eight extraordinary meridians. An ordinary person would already be old and decrepit, with no strength left to break through, but the passage of time does not seem to affect your cultivation speed.] [The only thing that can affect your cultivation speed is your own aptitude.]
Reading this, Lu Guan gave a long inward sigh.
Aptitude. Aptitude again.
The panel had proven time and again that he was merely an ordinary person.
An ordinary person might spend his entire life without so much as touching the threshold of the True Qi Realm.
Yet through the panel, he had forcibly piled up enough cultivation to reach this realm that should never have been his.
[You seem to have discovered the subtleties of cultivation years. They do more than simply provide you with a period of cultivation time.] [Year one hundred and seven: you successfully open all eight extraordinary meridians.] [You perfect the Demon-Exterminating Heart Scripture and successfully break through to the perfected True Qi Realm. The Greater Celestial Circuit circulates automatically within your body. Your True Qi becomes a sea, endlessly replenishing itself.] [Remaining cultivation years: three] True Qi · Demon-Exterminating Heart Scripture (perfected)
Lu Guan closed his eyes, sensing this entirely new realm.
Within his Dantian, his True Qi was like a sea.
It was a vast ocean, bottomless and boundless.
His twelve primary meridians were twelve rivers, and his eight extraordinary meridians were eight long waterways, all flowing into this ocean.
The Greater Celestial Circuit revolved ceaselessly, True Qi circulating back and forth between his meridians and Dantian, without end.
He did not need to deliberately practice his cultivation method. True Qi circulated through his body on its own, growing stronger with every circuit, flowing endlessly.
The perfected True Qi Realm!
If he remembered correctly, Zhou Kaishan had served for years as commandant of the Demon Suppression Bureau in Qianqiu County, drawing an imperial salary, supported by an entire county, and enjoying the finest cultivation resources.
Even now, he was only in the mid True Qi Realm.
As for the four great demonic powers near Qianqiu County-White Bone Mountain, Yellow Flower Ridge, Weasel Grave, and Wild Boar Ridge...
The strongest among them, the tiger demon of Yellow Flower Ridge, was reportedly only comparable to the late True Qi Realm.
In other words...
"I'm now the strongest person in Qianqiu County."
Lu Guan raised his hand, his five fingers slightly curled.
A layer of white mist rose from his fingertips, changing into various shapes in his palm. One moment it resembled a saber, the next a sword, and then it poured between his fingers like flowing water.
This was True Qi, a power one level higher than Qi and Blood.
The power contained in just these thin, mist-like wisps of True Qi in his palm was enough to kill a martial artist in the perfected Qi and Blood Realm on the spot.
Now, even a casual palm strike from Lu Guan could easily kill the person he had been earlier that night.
This was a qualitative transformation in the level of his power.
And that was not all. His twelve primary meridians and eight extraordinary meridians were all open, his Greater Celestial Circuit revolved on its own, and his True Qi was as vast as a sea, practically inexhaustible-and it could replenish itself!
As long as his True Qi did not run out, he could keep fighting!
The night passed without sleep.
Dawn broke, a sliver of fish-belly white appearing on the horizon.
The torches in the peach grove had long since gone out, and crystal-clear dewdrops clung to the petals.
Lu Guan rose and walked out of the tent, drawing a deep breath of the cold morning air. His whole body felt light, his mind vigorous, and his strength inexhaustible.
"I wonder if that demon king of White Bone Mountain... can withstand a single strike of my saber?"
Of the four great demons, the demon king of White Bone Mountain was said to be the weakest.
His hands itched for action. After all, these were all gleaming cultivation years.
With a keen weapon in hand, the urge to kill arose of its own accord!
Of course, the most important reason was still that he had only one year of life left, leaving him with no sense of security whatsoever.
"I wonder what realm I have to reach before my lifespan increases."
As he pondered this, rustling came from the tent behind him. The officers emerged, bleary-eyed and yawning.
"Plague take that pile of bones! What was it howling for in the middle of the night?"