101: Chapter 101: Dispersive Exercises

Inside the cultivation room of Immortal Cave No. 17, Jiang Yan embedded a Spirit Stone into the groove of the newly refined High Grade Spirit Gathering Array Formation Plate.

The Formation Plate was placed in the center of the cultivation room; it was three feet in diameter, octagonal in shape, and the edges were inscribed with a circle of extremely fine Spirit Gathering Array patterns.

Over a dozen pieces of spirit jade were embedded along the edge of the Formation Plate to act as a buffer for the spiritual power, while the core eye was a fist-sized Spirit Gathering Jade, which emitted a warm, milky-white halo under the eerie green light of the night-luminescent pearl.

He activated the Formation Plate.

The array patterns lit up layer by layer from the center outward, and the Spiritual Qi within the spirit jade was drawn out by the array eye, transforming into a pale white beam of light that rose from the center of the Formation Plate. Upon touching the ceiling, the light beam diffused outwards, enveloping the entire cultivation room in a layer of extremely thin spiritual light.

The concentration of Spiritual Qi within the room rose at a rate visible to the naked eye—from thin to dense, from dense to viscous, and a faint, sweet scent filled the air.

He then activated the defensive Formation Plate on the outer layer of the Immortal Cave.

Ten defensive array patterns activated simultaneously, and an earthen-yellow spiritual energy barrier, one zhang thick, rose from around the courtyard walls, tightly sealing off the entire small courtyard along with the sky above it.

Faint, hexagonal, net-like patterns flowed across the surface of the barrier; this was the core structure of the defensive Restriction.

He set up the Small Five Elements Sword Array in the four corners of the cultivation room—the five Flying Swords representing Sharp Metal, Azure Wood, Profound Water, Li Fire, and Thick Earth were suspended in the southeast, west, north, and center positions respectively, with their tips pointing inward, forming a circular sword array blockade.

Should any external force attempt to break in, he would trigger all five swords simultaneously in an instant.

The Meteor Shield shrunk to the size of his palm and was placed on the right side of his knee.

He sat cross-legged in the center of the Spirit Gathering Array, not starting immediately, but instead closing his eyes.

In his Sea of Consciousness, the retrograde method of the Bloodthirsty Demon Scripture was deduced point by point—from the stripping sequence of the spiritual power on the periphery of the vortex, to the limit threshold of his Meridians' tolerance, to the contraction rhythm of the Dantian during the process of dispersing his cultivation, every step had been simulated repeatedly in his Sea of Consciousness no fewer than dozens of times.

This was the homework he had started doing since returning from Black Wind Cliff; over the past half year, every detail of the retrograde method had become deeply ingrained in his mind.

He opened his eyes.

He took a deep breath. The inhalation was very slow, his chest slowly expanding, and then he exhaled slowly.

The breath condensed into a straight white line in the air, extending three feet away before slowly dissipating.

Then, he reversed his Cultivation Technique.

The pitch-black vortex in his Dantian, representing his Qi Refining Stage 7 cultivation, suddenly jolted.

When operating normally, the vortex rotated clockwise, drawing in Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi into the Dantian to be refined for his own use.

After reversing it, the vortex began to rotate counter-clockwise—at first slowly and sluggishly, like a rusted waterwheel being forcibly pushed in reverse, emitting a creaking sound that only he could hear.

Then, the speed became faster and faster.

A wisp of the purest pitch-black spiritual power from the outer edge of the vortex was flung out by centrifugal force.

As soon as this wisp of spiritual power broke free from the constraints of the Dantian, it immediately turned into a violent force of destruction, rushing along his Meridians toward his limbs and bones.

Pain.

It was not ordinary pain; it was the pain of the inner walls of his Meridians being torn apart alive.

It felt like someone was scraping along the inner walls of his blood vessels inch by inch with a red-hot iron wire, scraping from the Dantian to his chest, from his chest to his shoulders, from his shoulders to his fingertips, and then scraping back from his fingertips.

He gritted his teeth tightly, the muscles of his cheeks bulging in ridges.

The veins on his forehead protruded from beneath his skin, throbbing rhythmically with the impact of the torrent of spiritual power.

Beads of sweat seeped from his temples; before the first one could reach his chin, the second one had already caught up, and the third and fourth formed a line, dripping onto the collar of his robe and staining it with a dark, damp mark.

He guided this force of destruction along the Body Refining route of the "Star Saint Body," fiercely impacting his entire skeletal structure.

The first week was the most difficult to endure.

The sensation brought by the torrent of spiritual power rushing through his Meridians was not a single type of pain, but a composite torture.

The stinging pain of torn Meridians, the soreness and swelling of bones being forcibly tempered, and the uncontrollable spasms of muscles under the scouring of spiritual power—these three sensations layered together, from morning to night and night to morning, without a moment of respite.

Fine, black beads of blood began to seep from the surface of his skin.

That was not blood, but Impurities from within his body crushed by the spiritual power, mixed with the exudate from ruptured capillaries.

The blood beads squeezed out from his pores, congealing into a thin layer of black scabs on the surface of his skin, and then new blood beads seeped out from beneath the scabs, layer upon layer.

He looked as if he had been fished out of ink.

But he could feel the results.

The silver-white star patterns that originally covered his entire skeletal structure began to glow under the infusion of the Demonic Technique's spiritual power—not passive reflected light, but active, pulsating light that breathed like a living creature.

The edges of the star patterns began to extend outwards; what were originally scattered star points now began to connect to one another, as if someone were drawing lines on his bones with an extremely fine silver pen, connecting the isolated stars into constellations.

A month later, the pain subsided slightly.

It was not that the pain had actually lessened, but that his body had adapted to this intensity of tempering.

The inner walls of his Meridians became more resilient through repeated tearing and repairing, and his bones became denser under continuous forging.

He clearly sensed that the silver-white star patterns on his entire skeletal structure had connected into sheets—no longer scattered star points, but complete, expansive nebulae.

There was one on his skull, one on his spine, one on his sternum, and one on each of his limb bones.

The connections between the nebulae faintly glowed inside the bones, like a miniature reflection of the Milky Way in the night sky.

Although the spiritual power of the Bloodthirsty Demon Scripture was tyrannical, it had an unexpectedly miraculous effect when used for Body Tempering.

Its destructive power could maximize the stimulation of the "Star Saint Body"'s repair and enhancement mechanism—every time a spiritual power impact caused minute cracks in the bones, the star patterns would automatically repair these cracks, and the repaired bone tissue was denser and harder than before.

This was a cycle of destruction-repair-enhancement, with each cycle pushing the strength of his bones up a level.

Two months later, the pitch-black vortex in his Dantian had shrunk by two-thirds.

The vortex, which was originally the size of a fist, was now only the size of a pigeon's egg, its color had faded from pitch-black to dark grey, and the speed of its rotation had also slowed down.

However, the spiritual power impact brought about by each of its rotations was more condensed and more precise than before.

His entire skeletal structure seemed to have been reshaped.

Using his Divine Sense to look inward, every bone presented a near-metallic silver-white luster, and the bone density had reached an unimaginable level.

He estimated that even without circulating spiritual power to protect his body, relying solely on this skeletal structure to withstand a direct strike from a First Rank High Grade Magical Artifact, at most, it would only leave a white mark.

Of course, that refers to a strike without inputting spiritual power.

The final stage.

The remaining vortex core rotated slowly in the center of the Dantian, the dark grey spiritual power having become so thick it was almost solid.

This was the final Foundation of the Bloodthirsty Demon Scripture within his body, and also the most dangerous step—to detonate the entire vortex core at once, using this final force of destruction to impact the Bottleneck of the sixth level of Body Refining.

He was silent for a moment.

Then, he wrapped his Divine Sense around the entire vortex core and detonated it without hesitation.