It took Li Xingkong more than half an hour to walk out through the outskirts of Freedom City.
For Li Xingkong, his walking speed was now comparable to that of an ordinary car. If he hadn't wanted to avoid being seen by others, he could have gone even faster.
With his current physique, he could stroll at nearly 40 miles per hour. Just by strolling, he could reach the speed limit on city streets.
He had to keep a low profile while traveling through the city, which also took some time. By the time Li Xingkong left the city, the area around him was desolate, with no sign of human life as far as the eye could see.
Li Xingkong could finally stretch his legs and start running.
His destination hadn't changed: he was headed for Nature City's airport, where he planned to catch a flight back home.
He had considered swimming straight back, but at his current level, swimming home across half an ocean would still be a tremendous challenge.
At the very least, he still couldn't withstand nature's raging winds and monstrous waves. Any change in the weather at sea would be quite dangerous.
Since he had walked out from a corner of the city, there wasn't even a road beneath his feet. Untouched nature stretched along the entire way, an endless wilderness as far as he could see.
Every half hour of running, Li Xingkong had to take out his phone to check his direction. In modern society, traveling without following a road was still quite difficult. The biggest problem was having no experience traveling through the wilderness.
Without navigation to guide him, he was certain to get lost.
After running for half a day, Li Xingkong finally spotted a road. That made things much easier; all he had to do from here was follow it.
As for pursuit from Freedom City, Li Xingkong didn't think they could catch him. After all, transportation had been shut down, most people were still searching the city, and the other side didn't know his true identity.
Most importantly, who could have guessed he could travel so fast on foot? Who could run 300 kilometers in half a day?
He could no longer be considered a little Dai Zong. Dai Zong ought to change his name to little Li Xingkong instead.
Even the Divine Traveler had to strap on a pair of magic talismans before setting out, while he only needed to put one foot in front of the other and run.
He continued along the road, where passing vehicles were still few and far between. After all, this was an ordinary road; most people took the expressway when traveling.
Li Xingkong could manage on an ordinary road, but on the expressway, he was still a little brother.
The long journey had taken quite a toll on Li Xingkong's legs. After all, he hadn't tempered them yet.
A black speck appeared ahead on the road. He stopped for a closer look and saw that it was a roadside inn.
It stood alone by the road, with no other homes nearby. Normally, Li Xingkong would never have gone into a place like this.
But this time, Li Xingkong decided to go in and rest for a while.
There was no other reason: his legs were too tired, and he also needed something to eat to replenish his energy.
At his current stage, having only just entered Qi Refining, his body's energy demands still exceeded its supply. Besides energy, the human body also needed a variety of substances to function normally; energy alone couldn't take care of everything.
Only Transformers could survive on energy alone. At the very least, he couldn't yet.
As he approached the inn, Li Xingkong examined it carefully.
The house was made entirely of wood, and its outer walls were covered in scars left by wind and rain. Much of the surface had aged and curled, and the walls were dotted with small holes. There weren't many, but they were conspicuous enough, looking like traces left by a gunfight.
The house wasn't large, appearing to be about two stories tall, and probably couldn't accommodate many guests. A faint wisp of smoke was still drifting from the chimney, so it looked as though someone still lived there.
When he reached the entrance, he saw two crooked electronic signs still flickering. Some of the letters on them were broken, making it impossible to tell what the full name was.
He pushed open the inn's partly closed door and saw a bar of a dozen or so square meters. Its solid wood tables and chairs gave off an air of desolation, and the floor beneath his feet was badly damaged. In some places, he could even see the sand that had been packed in during later repairs.
"Well, well, a rare guest."
Hearing the bell ring as the door opened, a burly man emerged from the small room behind the inn's bar.
He looked vicious at first glance, for no other reason than the great scar that ran across his face from one cheek to the other.
Paired with his bald head, so smooth it shone, he seemed to bring a brawl with him just by standing there.
"Give me something to eat and drink."
Although Li Xingkong had been startled by the man's appearance at first sight, he wasn't afraid. He only gave him a couple of glances before looking at the menu behind him.
"You're not afraid of me?"
The bald man was rather curious about Li Xingkong's reaction. After all, few people who came in for the first time could still stand there and order after seeing his ghastly appearance.
Eight out of ten could be considered brave just for standing their ground instead of running.
"People are born looking the way they do. Having a few scars is perfectly normal too."
After a cursory look at the menu, Li Xingkong chose a large piece of beef and ordered two or three bottles of beer as well.
"Hey, you've got sense. There aren't many people left who don't judge by appearances. Wait a bit, it'll be ready soon."
The bald man wrote down the order, rubbed his head and smiled, then took the ingredients into the kitchen.
The inn itself was remote, with nobody living nearby. Li Xingkong guessed it might not get customers more than a few times a month, and it was indeed hard to understand how it made money.
He found a seat by the window, tossed his luggage aside, adjusted his sitting position, and let out a long breath.
The long run had not only consumed energy, but the lactic acid produced by his muscles working for so long had also built up without being released. As soon as he sat down, Li Xingkong began regulating his body. He first expelled the waste gases produced inside him, then slowly excreted the impurities that had accumulated during this time through his sweat glands.
The human body's nutritional structure was stable. To expel impurities, corresponding substances had to be replenished; otherwise, it would simply damage the body.
Ordinary people absorbed and used nutrients slowly and without directing them: either the whole body ate together, or none of it ate. They couldn't command the process at will, like moving an arm.
But Li Xingkong could now do just that. If he ate a piece of protein, he could use it entirely to replenish the substances and energy in a specific part of his body.
Although he still needed to sit in meditation and regulate his breathing to do it, this would already be considered a miracle by modern medicine.
Li Xingkong opened a bottle of beer and began drinking as he regulated his body, continuing to temper the bones near his qi sea at the same time.
The qi sea was located near the lower abdomen, close to the dantian, so the tempering of his bones began with the spine. He manipulated Spiritual Qi to carry a portion of energy to the vicinity of his spine, then sent all of the Spiritual Qi penetrating into the bone marrow, where it began tempering the bones from the inside out.
Tempering bones was inherently very risky. Without sufficient theoretical support, nobody knew what form their bones should be tempered into. According to the system's description, there had been many immortal cultivation civilizations in the past, and while they were still exploring Qi Refining, each had its own distinctive method of tempering bones.
Across those civilizations, there were thousands upon thousands of schools devoted just to what structure bones should be tempered into.
Some favored the five elements, combining bones with metal, wood, water, fire, and earth to temper special physiques such as the keen metal physique and the rejuvenation physique, following the path of mastering a single discipline. Other schools favored the inherent properties of materials, tempering bones with stronger basic attributes, such as undying steel bones and fallen star bones. These bones leaned more toward defense, and their blows carried tremendous weight and power. The cultivators themselves leaned more toward head-on combat, like armored vehicles on the battlefield.
Others favored lightness and grace, constructing their bones with a lighter structure that could even transform between multiple states. Their tempered bones resembled an aerogel structure, making them like willows swaying in the wind, able to take flight whenever the wind blew.
But Li Xingkong no longer needed to consider any of that. With the extensive theoretical knowledge provided by the system, he could go straight to the finished result and enjoy the highest-level research achievements of countless immortal cultivation civilizations.
Put simply, the extent to which bones could be tempered depended on a civilization's progress in basic materials science. If bronze was the strongest material a civilization knew of, then copper bones were the strongest to that civilization. But if a civilization could already use materials on the level of a neutron star, then the strength of its tempered bones would have to be on the level of neutron star material as well.