[Tutor: Ji Xiu]
[Current Cultivation: Bone Tempering Realm (Force in the Marrow)]
[Martial Arts & Skill Dao: Great Success in Horse Riding, Celestial River Saber Technique, Turtle and Snake Grand Foundation Stake, Ninth Grade Alchemy Skill, Mortal Transformation: Soaring Dragon Gate, Sword Mountain and Fire Sea Stance, Arrow Skill: Dusk Crows...]
[Traits: Waist and Horse Unity, Ten Steps One Kill, Calm Mind and Concentration, Profound Blood Flood Dragon Tendons, Bosatsu Prison Break!]
[Current Advance: Mortal Transformation: Soaring Dragon Gate—True Flood Dragon Transformation (2/24)]
[Arrow Stance ’Dusk Crows’: (233/1000)]
Ji Xiu looked at the generous gifts delivered by Gu Baichuan’s Imperial Guard Cavalry, and by Elder Liang—an old servant from the County Magistrate’s Mansion whose Skin Refining Fire was quite profound.
After welcoming the visitors with a smile and politely seeing them off,
he turned his gaze to the small, exquisitely crafted, seamless vial of Spirit Wine: ’Dragon Liver and Phoenix Marrow’.
And there was also the ’Jade Dew Medicinal Powder’—a Seventh Grade medicine crafted by a ’Qi Dao Pill Master’, capable of targeted Foundation Establishment, able to focus its quenching on Bone Marrow, Bone Tempering, or Skin Refining...
Just by taking a single sniff,
Ji Xiu felt faint wisps of medicinal power flow into his internal organs.
It caused his magnificent skeleton, which was in the process of transforming into ’True Flood Dragon Golden Bone’, to uncontrollably develop a deep craving:
’A Sixth Grade Spirit Wine, even if it’s just a small vial sealed with a thin, transparent film, but...’
’This is a luxury for the high officials of the Prefecture City! According to rumors, it’s the kind of wine that great experts, the Qi Cultivation Grandmasters, only drink when hosting banquets and exchanging toasts!’
’Just one sniff can nourish my Qi and Blood and moisten my internal organs. If the ingredients in this small vial were used to forge my Flood Dragon Bones...’
’I imagine the effect would be no less than if I went hunting in the mountains and obtained two or three Demon Pills!’
’And this Medicinal Powder is even more incredible. It’s a Seventh Grade Foundation Establishment Secret Medicine, countless times better than an ordinary Eighth Grade Bone Tempering Pill.’
’What’s more crucial is... because I’ve built such a strong foundation, ordinary Bone Tempering Pills and medicinal baths—I’ve already tried them at Old Huang’s place—now have a minuscule effect on my progress.’
Ji Xiu knew in his heart that the Bone Tempering Technique he cultivated was extraordinary.
Ordinary Bone Tempering Skills merely quenched bone and blood, a step-by-step process for advancing to Skin Refining. It wasn’t truly ’driving External Skills into one’s very bones’!
But he.
He used the True Flood Dragon Transformation to hammer his Spinal Dragon for a second time. Each time a ’vertebra’ was forged, the effects would extend throughout his limbs, bones, and internal organs.
Before even touching upon ’Skin Refining,’ he had truly and genuinely ventured into everything that lay beneath the Skin Membrane!
Sinew, blood, bone, organs, flesh!
Beneath a single Skin Membrane, the treasures of the physical body were far more than just muscles and bones.
But human strength was finite.
An ordinary Martial Artist would focus only on muscles and bones, with blood and flesh as secondary concerns. Even so, this required an immeasurable amount of time and tempering.
Once their muscles and bones were cultivated and they had forged a Jade Skin, they would boast of achieving Perfection in ’Flesh, Bone, Skin, and Membrane,’ believing they had found the way through the Power Barrier.
But in reality, with only that level of accomplishment, they were far from the true path. They would have no hope in this lifetime of breaking the second Body Great Limit and opening the way to ’Mercury Blood Silver Marrow,’ making the body like a Dragon Elephant, where a single drop of blood could dissolve gold.
Only someone like Ji Xiu, who used muscles and bones as a foundation to forge his internal organs, limbs, and entire skeleton, could hope to break the Three Great Limits. Then, upon ascending to the rank of ’Qi Cultivation Grandmaster’...
...he could cultivate a ’Treasure Body’ unique to himself and dominate his generation!
Unsealing the vial of Spirit Wine, Ji Xiu looked at the crystal-clear liquid inside, rippling with fine beads.
His eyes burning with desire, Ji Xiu hesitated no longer and downed it all in one gulp!
In an instant, the cup fell with a CLATTER. The world began to spin before his eyes, and he swayed unsteadily.
At that moment, only a single thought remained in his mind:
’What potent wine!’
Ji Xiu’s vision blurred. He could only feel faint, ethereal ’Qi’ from all directions gathering toward the pores all over his body.
The next moment, a RUMBLING sound rose from his internal organs, followed by a loud THUMP-THUMP.
The so-called ’Dragon Liver and Phoenix Marrow’ Spirit Wine, having poured into his stomach, began to work in tandem with the instinctive activation of his ’True Flood Dragon Transformation,’
continuously infusing spiritual energy into his Flesh, Bone, Skin, and Membrane to be absorbed and then dispersed!
Dragon Liver and Phoenix Marrow wine, naturally, could not have been brewed with actual dragon liver and phoenix marrow.
Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a mere Sixth Grade Spirit Wine meant for Qi Dao Grandmasters to drink.
There’s marketing in everything, and this wine was no exception. A nice-sounding name could naturally fetch a thirty percent higher price.
But leaving aside the fact that this small vial of ’Sixth Grade Spirit Wine’ was worth ten taels of Red Gold,
its medicinal effects alone were worthy of the price. It was made from the heart, liver, and blood of a three-hundred-year-old Black Tiger Python and brewed with the marrow of a three-hundred-year-old Feathered Crane—the height of extravagance.
The ’Wine Shop’ guild, one of the Thirty-Six Professions of Jiangyin Prefecture, had even rated it as one of its ten tribute wines. The annual output was extremely scarce, as it was used to curry favor with Prefecture Officials, sold to Schools and True Sects, and used as a fine gift to please the Noble Clans.
What kind of luck would a mere Bone Tempering Martial Artist need to use this for ’Bone Tempering’? It was never meant for Bone Tempering Martial Artists to drink in the first place, so of course it was potent.
But its potency also...
..AllNovelF(ull).Comant it was highly effective.
Early the next morning, Ji Xiu could be seen sitting cross-legged in the open, his spine arched and his chest booming like a beating drum.
As a fine sheen of sweat appeared on his skin, a white mist began to slowly steam from within him—from the flesh, blood, and organs connected to his bones, just beneath his skin—emerging from the inside out like a wolf-smoke signal.
Aside from the ’two Flood Dragon Bones’ extending into his arms, which had greatly increased the strength of his Flood Dragon Arms, even Ji Xiu himself no longer knew how many-stone a power bow he could now draw.
And now...
In just a single day!
Of the twenty-four great silver marrow bones of his spine, several more had begun to emit a golden glow, driving his internal organs through a distinct transformation!
All at once, he felt his breathing become long and deep. It seemed his Blood Marrow, stamina, and all the other energies that could be wrung from his body’s potential had begun to surge dramatically!