The following night, between nine and eleven, darkness lay deep.
After an entire day of intense training, Tang Feng dragged his exhausted body after an elder in charge of the medicinal baths, entering the place set aside for them.
The bathing chamber lay deep within the mountain, converted from a hot spring. Seven or eight wooden tubs of various sizes stood inside, their liquid a deep, inky green, with a faint layer of silver light floating on the surface.
Even the steam rising from the water carried a strong briny smell mingled with medicinal fragrance. The medicinal ingredients reacted with one another as they boiled, the inky green color resulting from their combined medicinal properties.
Like the other disciples, Tang Feng stripped naked and sat down in a wooden tub.
The instant his skin touched the medicinal liquid, Tang Feng let out a low growl. This was not the scalding pain of hot water, but the torture of countless red-hot steel needles piercing through his pores into his marrow, ravaging his meridians.
Tang Feng gritted his teeth, then began cultivating with his meditation method, guiding this power along the circulation path of his Soul Power.
With every full circulation, Tang Feng could clearly feel his physique transforming: his muscles grew denser, his bones tougher, and his meridians broader, as though his entire body were slowly being reshaped.
Tang Feng distinctly felt his Soul Power circulating thirty percent faster. A full circulation of his meditation method that had once taken forty-five minutes now took only thirty.
Four hours later, when Tang Feng climbed out of the medicinal bath, the water had changed from inky green to pale gray, its medicinal potency almost entirely absorbed.
A layer of dark brown filth covered Tang Feng's body-the impurities the medicine had forced out of him-and it stank unbearably. After he rinsed himself clean, his skin actually had a jade-like texture.
At this rate, he could probably gain more than three levels of Soul Power a year, a cultivation speed on par with a genius whose innate Soul Power was level eight.
With medicinal effects this potent, a single bath surely cost a considerable sum. No wonder the sect had imposed such stringent selection requirements. Even mountains of gold and silver could not support every disciple in the clan.
It was already late at night. Tang Feng dressed, returned to his little house, and slowly drifted off to sleep.
Day after day, month after month, Tang Feng once again buried himself in arduous cultivation. Every day was hellish torment, but every day was also a prelude to transformation. Even missing a single day made Tang Feng feel he was wasting his life, wasting this hard-won opportunity.
The atmosphere throughout the Clear Sky Sect changed as well, competition igniting the entire sect's enthusiasm for cultivation.
Meanwhile, far away on the outskirts of Nuoding City, in Holy Soul Village.
Inside the old blacksmith's shop at the village entrance, the forge fire danced all year without ever going out, yet its orange-red glow could never illuminate the gloom in its owner's heart.
Only five years old, Tang San stood on a raised wooden stool, struggling onto his tiptoes just to reach the edge of the stove. With practiced movements, he carefully ladled thin wild vegetable porridge from the iron pot into a rough earthenware bowl.
Tang San was noticeably smaller and thinner than other children his age. Yet his clear black-and-white eyes were far too deep and calm for a child, holding a maturity and composure utterly at odds with his years.
"Dad, it's time to eat," Tang San called in his still-childish voice, carrying the bowl of porridge into the inner room.
Tang Hao lay sprawled like a puddle of mud on the plank bed, his loose black hair hiding most of his face. The pungent reek of cheap liquor filled the cramped room.
He still unconsciously clutched a wine jar that had long since been emptied. Seemingly deaf to Tang San's call, he did not even lift his eyelids.
Apparently long accustomed to this, Tang San gently set the warm bowl of porridge on the wooden table beside the bed.
"Eat the porridge while it's hot," Tang San reminded him quietly once more. Then he nimbly climbed down from the bed and ran out of the blacksmith's shop without looking back, heading toward the familiar low hills behind the village.
That was Tang San's secret base, where he practiced all sorts of techniques that did not belong to this world: the Mysterious Heaven Skill, Mysterious Jade Hand, Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track, and various hidden weapon techniques.
What Tang San did not know was that in the distant ancestral grounds of the Clear Sky Sect, there was another soul who had been reborn just like him.
Years later, these two souls, bearing memories of their previous lives, would eventually meet at some juncture.
When that time came, would they be friends or enemies? Would they walk side by side or part ways? And who would become the true player moving the pieces and stirring the winds and clouds of this continent?
All of this remained a mystery buried deep beneath the dust of time.
At least for now, Tang San was still only that child in Holy Soul Village who had shouldered life's burdens far too early with his young shoulders, quietly caring for his dispirited father.
A Soul Ring mom, a drunken dad, and a reincarnated him.
Inside the blacksmith's shop, the instant Tang San turned to leave, the drunken, bleary-eyed Tang Hao opened his murky eyes just a sliver for the briefest moment, glancing at his son's retreating figure.
Time slipped away, the years flying like a shuttle, and another two and a half years quietly passed in the blink of an eye.
On the Clear Sky Sect's training grounds, nearly five hundred disciples from throughout the sect had been spurred on by competition for resources, bringing a tremendous improvement in the sect's overall strength.
Sect Master Tang Xiao had successfully broken through to level ninety-four, only a hair's breadth from becoming a level ninety-five Super Douluo. That was the dividing line among Titled Douluo; once crossed, their strength would change as dramatically as heaven and earth overturning.
Third Elder Tang Ming and Fourth Elder Tang Ran had also successively emerged from seclusion the previous year, breaking through level ninety and obtaining Soul Rings to become the sect's newest Titled Douluo.
Thus, counting Sect Master Tang Xiao and Second Elder Tang Zhen, the Clear Sky Sect now had four Titled Douluo.
Meanwhile, Fifth Elder Tang Rui's Soul Power had reached level eighty-nine, and Grandpa Tang Lie had steadily advanced to level eighty-eight. Both had hope of becoming Titled Douluo.
The explosive growth in the strength of the sect's upper ranks let every clan member see the dawn of a revival.
At the edge of the training grounds, Tang Jian was bare-chested, sweating like rain.
More than two years of arduous cultivation had tempered the once somewhat callow youth into someone as steady as a rock.
Tang Jian's Soul Power had laboriously climbed from the peak of level thirteen to the peak of level eighteen. Though this speed was hardly dazzling, it was very good progress for someone with his talent.
Without the support of medicinal baths, Tang Jian's physical strengthening and Soul Power cultivation always proceeded far more slowly than those of true geniuses.
Gaining two levels a year barely brought him to the sect's average, but his perseverance, unbroken day and night, moved many of his elders.
Tang Feng had only just turned ten, yet he had already shot up to one meter seventy, standing like a crane among chickens beside others his age.
His body was not excessively bulky, but possessed a cheetah's lean strength and coordination.
His skin had a healthy wheat-colored hue, and every inch of muscle was smoothly defined and brimming with explosive strength-a battle physique forged through countless hammer swings and medicinal baths.
His face had lost its childish roundness, becoming sharply defined, with sword-like brows sweeping toward his temples and black eyes as deep as an abyss.
He had a high, straight nose and firmly set lips, with not a trace of childishness left in his movements. His long hair was casually tied behind his head with a black cloth strip, a few stray strands hanging over his forehead and dancing gently in the wind, adding a touch of unruliness.
One strike, two strikes... thirty strikes... fifty strikes... sixty-three strikes... sixty-four strikes!
When the sixty-fourth hammer strike crashed out, its force was nearly twenty times greater than the first. The air compressed into a wave visible to the naked eye, rolling outward along the ground.
A flash of amazement and gratification crossed Grandpa Tang Lie's eyes. "Good! Good! Being able to reliably execute sixty-four strikes means you've reached the pinnacle of the hammer technique. As long as your Soul Power keeps up, nine times nine-eighty-one strikes-will be within reach!"
Tang Feng drew back his hammer and stood, breathing slightly hard, but his eyes shone with astonishing brightness.
After the sixty-fourth strike, faint stabbing pains ran through the meridians in his arms, and his bones groaned beneath the burden. Tang Feng knew that if he wanted to attempt eighty-one strikes, he would have to raise his physique another notch. Otherwise, his flesh could not withstand the impact of such tremendous force.
It looks like I need to get my second Soul Ring right away...
Three months earlier, Tang Feng had already broken through the level-twenty barrier. He had gained seven levels in two years-four in a rapid leap during the first year, but only three in the second. The medicinal baths were losing their effectiveness.
Tang Feng's body seemed to have developed resistance to the medicine. Although his natural aptitude had already risen to the equivalent of innate level eight, he still had to find a new way to temper his body. Otherwise, however solid his foundation, his cultivation speed would not keep pace with those geniuses who had innate level nine or innate full Soul Power.
Tang Feng clenched his fists, clearly feeling the surging strength within him.
After more than two years of medicinal baths, Tang Feng's bodily strength and the resilience of his meridians had more than tripled, reaching the level of an ordinary Soul Elder. Even against an ordinary Soul Grandmaster's full-strength attack, Tang Feng could withstand it head-on with his flesh alone and remain uninjured.
With Tang Feng's current strength, even the sect's lower-level Soul Elders dared not take him lightly.
However, Tang Feng did not know what Soul Masters in the outside world were like, because from birth until now, apart from his previous Soul Hunting trip, he had never taken so much as half a step beyond the sect.
Soul Master cultivation grew harder the further one progressed. His innate Soul Power had been level seven and was now level eight. If he wanted to catch up with those geniuses, he had to push his Soul Rings, Soul Skills, and physique to their limits.
Tang Feng rose to face Tang Lie, a trace of eagerness flashing in his eyes. "Grandpa, when is the sect's Soul Hunting team planning to set out?"
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