Three days later.
"Mm, nice weather."
Chen Qingyuan walked out through the courtyard gate and stretched contentedly.
Over the past few days, he had cultivated bitterly day and night, even growing a little thinner from hunger. His father had finally allowed him to go out for an hour.
I finally get to come out. Let me think, what should I do?
Walking along the broad street, he scratched his head.
How about going to make trouble for that hateful Chen Qingyu?
The thought had barely arisen before he hurriedly shook his head and rejected it.
No, he has nine-star talent. He's probably already stronger than me now.
If I go looking for him, I'll most likely get beaten up. That wouldn't be worth it.
He hesitated, a trace of distress appearing on his little face.
Suddenly, he seemed to notice something out of the corner of his eye. He instinctively looked up and was struck dumb.
High in the sky, a misty white cloud was continuing to fly downward.
A small figure he knew all too well stood atop the cloud, hands behind his back, brimming with high spirits.
Is that Chen Qingyu?
His little eyes went perfectly round.
No way! He's flying in the sky?!
He instinctively rubbed his eyes and looked back and forth three times before finally confirming that it really was Chen Qingyu.
Chen Qingyu was flying in the sky!
What was going on?
They had both only just started cultivating. He had only just opened his fourth martial meridian and was still far from the Second Heaven of the Meridian Opening Realm.
Yet Chen Qingyu could already fly?!
"Yo!"
Chen Qingyu noticed him too. Chuckling, he swiftly turned his cloud around and flew above his head.
"Well, if it isn't Chen Qingyuan!"
"It's only been a few days, and you're already this pathetic? How did you get so much thinner?"
Chen Qingyuan stared blankly up at Chen Qingyu standing atop the cloud, then abruptly let out a strange cry.
"Mommy!"
He turned and ran all the way back to his own courtyard, shouting as he went.
"Dad! Listen to me! Chen Qingyu can fly!"
"Hm?"
The burly man's puzzled voice came from the courtyard.
He instinctively extended his divine sense, but discovered nothing.
Soon, cries that shook heaven and earth rang out, mixed with Chen Qingyuan's screams.
"Dad, stop hitting me! Stop! I really wasn't lying!"
"Hehe."
Chen Qingyu chuckled, rubbing the jade thumb ring on his thumb as he praised it.
"What a treasure!"
After exploring the thumb ring for several days, he had discovered many astonishing uses. For example, within Divine Capital Changluo, it could conceal him from the divine sense and eyes of almost every member of the Chen Clan.
It could even make them unconsciously forget about him, diminishing his presence.
"Time to scram."
Riding his cloud, he swiftly flew back to his own courtyard.
Over the past three days:
He had checked in at the Floating Heavenly Palace three times in succession and obtained three brand-new great divine abilities.
[Soaring on Clouds and Riding the Mist], [Flying Sand and Moving Stones], and [Drawing Out Primordial Yang].
Of these, [Soaring on Clouds and Riding the Mist] had directly granted him the ability to fly through the skies. In some respects, it was even more powerful than a Golden Bridge Realm grandmaster.
Cultivated to its pinnacle, this divine ability would let him roam the northern sea in the morning and roost at Cangwu by dusk. Traveling tens of millions of li in a day would be nothing difficult.
As for the other two divine abilities:
[Flying Sand and Moving Stones] was a purely offensive divine ability of immense power, making up for his lack of attacking methods.
Although its name sounded a little lame, like some third-rate martial arts move.
In reality, however, it was also a great divine ability.
Once the Yellow Wind Demon unleashed his Samadhi Divine Wind, a yellow sandstorm blotted out the sky and covered the earth. Its might was so great that even Sun Wukong, Great Sage Equal to Heaven, struggled to withstand it and had to borrow the Wind-Stilling Pearl to counter it.
Yet Samadhi Divine Wind was merely an incomplete, weakened version of [Flying Sand and Moving Stones].
Cultivated to its pinnacle, the true great divine ability [Flying Sand and Moving Stones] could unleash a world-destroying sandstorm, blowing mountains, rivers, land, the sun, the moon, and the stars into powder, turning heaven and earth into a dead realm of sand and dust.
As for the last one, [Drawing Out Primordial Yang]...
This divine ability was rather abstruse, and he had yet to work out exactly how to use it.
"You're back."
In the courtyard, Chen Zhengxing watched Chen Qingyu descend from his cloud and clicked his tongue in wonder.
"That really is miraculous."
Although this was not his first time seeing it, he still could not help marveling inwardly.
Now, the ancestor in the Floating Heavenly Palace, Chen Yaoguang, and all the elders unanimously believed that Chen Qingyu had awakened an extraordinarily formidable constitution.
This constitution not only allowed his cultivation to soar at tremendous speed, but could even awaken some inexplicable abilities.
For example, the ability to fly while only in the Aperture Opening Realm.
"Dad."
Chen Qingyu called out, then hurried toward the secluded cultivation chamber in the rear courtyard.
"See you later! I'm going into seclusion!"
"Seclusion?"
Chen Zhengxing froze, utterly astonished.
"Are you serious?"
Over these past few days, when had he ever seen Chen Qingyu cultivate seriously?
Yet now, for the first time ever, Chen Qingyu actually wanted to enter seclusion of his own accord?
What was going on?
"Yes!"
Running farther and farther away, Chen Qingyu called out:
"I'm about to break through to the Blood Sea Realm. I need to go into seclusion."
As his words fell:
Chen Zhengxing stiffened, a trace of bewilderment appearing on his face.
"The Blood Sea Realm?!"
How much time had passed?
Three days, or four?
His son, Chen Qingyu, was about to go from a little boy with no cultivation whatsoever to a powerful martial artist in the Blood Sea Realm?
He fell silent, unable to suppress the profound sense of absurdity rising within him.
How long had it taken him to break through to the Blood Sea Realm back then?
Three whole years!
Only by cultivating bitterly day and night, tempering himself, and relying on his formidable talent had he finally made it in time for the cultivation assessment at age nine.
But when he recalled those hardships, then looked at Chen Qingyu...
"Ah!"
He sighed deeply, shaking his head with a bitter smile.
"I really am getting old."
Inside the secluded cultivation chamber.
Chen Qingyu sat cross-legged, took several deep breaths, and examined the inside of his body.
The deep space within was no longer pitch-black.
One hundred and eight martial meridians crisscrossed it. Where the many martial meridians intersected, brilliant stars glittered in dense profusion.
A full one thousand two hundred and ninety!
He was only six final earthly acupoints away from the great perfection of the Aperture Opening Realm.
Chen Qingyu began waiting patiently.
In no more than a brief moment:
As stars condensed into being one after another, the one thousand two hundred and ninety-sixth earthly acupoint was finally awakened.
The perfection of the Ninth Heaven of the Aperture Opening Realm!
At that instant, Chen Qingyu shuddered all over. He felt his consciousness abruptly sink deep down, as though falling into an unknown place.
That unknown place had originally been a murky chaos, but now a thread of light appeared.
Like a tide, that light surged wildly in an instant, filling heaven and earth and opening up an entirely new domain.
Heaven and earth joined, giving birth to a Blood Sea.
This was the Blood Sea Realm!
A glimmer of understanding arose in Chen Qingyu's heart.
Examining the inside of his body, he could clearly see that behind the heavenly martial meridians and earthly acupoints, in an area like a backdrop, a strange domain of void had opened up.
This is the Blood Sea. It can also be called the Qi Sea!
The moment the Blood Sea formed, all the deep-blue Star True Qi throughout Chen Qingyu's body surged wildly into it, rapidly undergoing a transformation...