Several wagons arrived at the Hundred Lotus Manor, delivering Li Yuan’s goods—and among them, the three skill manuals he’d requested—
The first was a body tempering skill called Nine Locks Across the River.
The second was another body tempering manual titled Unbreakable Body.
The third was a more unusual internal cultivation skill known as One Breath to Forge the Organs.
In the small garden, Li Yuan flipped through the pages, musing to himself, “If I want to strengthen my blood pressure, I need a more resilient body and richer blood, complemented by breathing and anger-stoking skills.”
He turned to Nine Locks Across the River.
“This body-tempering skill circulates shadow blood around the surface of the body, creating a continuous flow of force. When I’m struck by something heavy or blunt, that force disperses the impact across my entire frame. Essentially, every part of my body shares the load. Once I master it, my defenses should increase significantly. It’s great against blunt-force trauma, but not so effective if faced with piercing or slashing weapons.”
Then he examined Unbreakable Body.
“This skill compensates for that weakness. Its core principle uses shadow blood to generate a burst of energy. Whenever I’m struck by a sharp weapon, that energy automatically activates, unleashing a sudden burst that counters the incoming thrust or slash.”
He closed the manual and let out a breath.
“Still, mastering this skill isn’t easy. Usually, only those who’ve given up on breaking through to sixth rank bother looping back to cultivate such defensive arts. Most martial artists focus on a specialized weapon skill and a good blade or spear. That’s typically enough for them.”
“One Breath to Forge the Organs is an internal method, and it seems loosely connected to the breathing patterns used in the Spirit-Release Technique—it focuses on tempering the five internal organs.”
After skimming through the three manuals—two for external body-tempering and one for internal refinement—Li Yuan decided to combine them with a steady intake of seventh rank demonic beast meat to test the results.
In the blink of an eye, two days flew by.
Li Yuan checked his status panel and noticed two new entries in his skills section.
NEW! Basic Body Tempering - Rank 9 (1/10)
NEW! Basic Breathing - Rank 9 (1/10)
These two skills corresponded to preliminary stages for the new manuals.
Body Tempering was the foundation for Nine Locks Across the River and Unbreakable Body, and Breathing served as the groundwork for One Breath to Forge the Organs.
Since all three were only ninth rank skills at this stage, Li Yuan felt it would be a waste to sink his precious stat points into them right away. Instead, he threw himself into rigorous training. Each day, beyond spending time with his wife and child and sending out the white finches to scout the vicinity, he devoted himself to cultivating these new skills.
The two skills had risen to Advanced Body Tempering (39/40) and Advanced Breathing (39/40).
To bypass the arduous enlightenment phase, Li Yuan invested a mere two stat points in each.
NEW! Expert Body Tempering - Rank 9 (1/80)
NEW! Expert Breathing - Rank 9 (1/80)
That was high enough for him to continue training toward the eighth rank, where he planned to apply the same approach—waiting until the bottleneck, then spending stat points to skip a process that might otherwise stall most people for months or even years.
A full four months had passed since Li Yuan first acquired the three skill manuals. In that span, he had already fulfilled the prerequisites—maxing out both eighth rank Body Tempering and eighth rank Breathing to the Master level.
Now, his progress had reached a new threshold. He had cultivated all three seventh rank skills to Advanced (39/40)
This time, he didn’t wait. He allocated 723 stat points in a single go, skipping through the Expert level entirely and maxing out all three skills at the Master level.
NEW! Master Nine Locks Across the River Rank 7 (160/160)
NEW! Master Unbreakable Body - Rank 7 (160/160)
NEW! Master One Breath to Forge the Organs - Rank 7 (160/160)
Upon maxing the skills out, Li Yuan tested his defenses with a blade. Only when he ramped his power to 100 did his skin even show the faintest white mark. If he deliberately circulated his blood to counter the force, he had to raise his power to 200 just to leave that same mark. And that wasn’t counting the explosive power from his numerous drops of shadow blood.
This test made one thing abundantly clear. So long as he was in peak condition—and without even detonating his shadow blood droplets—an ordinary eighth rank martial artist simply couldn’t harm him.
Yet, despite these impressive results, his overall combat power on paper hadn’t budged an inch.
It was clear that Body Tempering had come to be seen as a form of soft power, essentially another way to wield one’s blood energy. Yet in practice, having or lacking such training made a huge difference.
Now that he had completed his body tempering skills, Li Yuan increased his consumption of seventh rank demonic beast meat.
He combined this with breathing exercises, posture adjustments, and anger-stoking methods until his blood surged through his veins with terrifying force.
An ordinary person would have ruptured under such high internal pressure, bleeding from every orifice. But for Li Yuan, this extreme strain only furthered his cultivation.
Time passed, and July arrived.
The summer heat was relentless; Li Yuan felt as though he might burst from within. Only then did he finally pause his training.
He sat cross-legged, eyes closed in deep meditation, attuning himself to his body. He could feel how much denser his blood had grown. In certain places, it didn’t even feel like a liquid anymore—more like sand. It had begun to crystallize, taking on a strange new quality. Threads of shadow blood sand now coursed through him, weighty and full of latent power.
After three days of letting this transformation settle, Li Yuan checked his status again. The text was perfectly clear—Rank 7 (Bone Refinement).
He gave a wry smile. “So it still hasn’t changed.”
On the other hand, his overall combat power had skyrocketed, going from 305~705 all the way up to 505~905. Testing his defense, he found that if he channeled his shadow blood to shield himself, a blade had to reach a power of 340 just to leave a faint white mark. And that was without him even unleashing his full explosive power.
Yet, despite such gains, the life chronicle remained an enigma. It seemed Li Yuan’s plan had been half right, half wrong. Simply pushing his physical limits wasn’t enough. Cracking the sixth rank clearly required some missing key, a secret method he didn’t possess.
“I can’t just stand by while the world plunges into deeper chaos. If I don’t reach sixth rank soon, even hiding here in this backwater might not guarantee survival.”
“If I can’t get a life chronicle through normal channels...well, I’ll just have to go capture a living manual and force them to tell me.”
Leaping to his feet, Li Yuan pictured Zhao Xiantong and General Mammoth.
A year and a half ago, Zhao Xiantong’s strength was around 340~378, while General Mammoth's was 435~539. Who knew what level they had reached by now?
In the meantime, Gemhill County had stayed relatively stable. Small bands of marauders and wanderers from the Central Plains had occasionally passed through, only to be swiftly subdued by the Three-County Alliance—either absorbed into their forces or convinced to settle down and open businesses. Those with any malicious designs soon learned of the Blood Blade Patriarch, rumored to be a mysterious, powerful guardian. That reputation alone was enough to quell their ambitions, prompting them to live quietly in the county.
“Back then, Zhao Xiantong and General Mammoth both headed west. With their strength and the ragtag troops they commanded, they must have caused a stir somewhere. I’ll ask Tie Sha if he’s heard any news...”
Li Yuan set off at once for Silver Creek and soon got the answers he needed.
In the late winter of the year before last, right after leaving Antelope Pass, Zhao Xiantong led his forces straight into neighboring Bluepond County and Autumnlake County. He fought his way into both county seats, expending tremendous effort, and only recently managed to secure control.
However, there’d been no sign of General Mammoth; it was only Zhao Xiantong out in the open. Rumor had it, though, that a mysterious expert stood behind him, and most people believed that figure must be General Mammoth.
It was a sensible strategy. After all, the unknown was always the most frightening. People might gauge Zhao Xiantong’s power, but they couldn’t fathom the strength of the person working from the shadows. The mere thought left them feeling powerless, as though any resistance would be futile.
Back home, Li Yuan mulled over this news. He wanted to capture Zhao Xiantong, and possibly General Mammoth too, if he could. Both of them possessed living manuals, after all, and were unpredictable factors in the region. Better to act while times were still relatively stable than to face bigger problems later. Yet there was also real danger here. Though Li Yuan believed he now outmatched them by a fair margin, he still had no idea what sort of tricks a sixth rank fighter might have up his sleeve.
He studied the map spread across his table. Bluepond and Autumnlake were quite far from Gemhill; even on horseback, it would take three or four days to get there. As for his white finches, they were just ordinary birds, certainly incapable of making such a long flight for reconnaissance.
“I’ll have to travel there myself,” Li Yuan decided. “Aside from those two, I don’t have any other leads on the sixth rank or a life chronicle.”
That night, as he lay in bed with Xue Ning, he brought up the idea without mentioning his intention to capture Zhao Xiantong and General Mammoth.
“Xue Ning,” Li Yuan asked, “do you know if there’s a direct route to Bluepond?”
“I’ll look into it tomorrow,” she replied. “But I’ve heard Bluepond’s a mess right now.”
“Oh? And how did you find that out?”
Xue Ning covered her mouth with a laugh. “You’re so absorbed in your training that you hardly notice what’s going on. Haven’t you seen all the refugees arriving these days? Plenty of them fled from Bluepond and Autumnlake.”
“All right, let’s get more details tomorrow.”
“Sure. I’ll have Yan Yu watch over little Ping’an while I check around.”
She shifted closer, and Li Yuan settled in with his wife and child for the night.