78: Chapter 78 Swallowing Molten Iron and Sharpen Bones

"Forbidden drugs?" Lin Qi raised an eyebrow, crushing the half-empty water bottle until it crackled. "Is the young master of the Li Family so desperate to beat me that he's willing to throw his life away?"

Old Mo capped his thermos, his murky old eyes filled with mockery.

"An S-rank Sword Master losing to a Blank Slate—that's enough to lose face all the way to the Pacific. Whether he takes pills or gets injections, as long as he wins, the Family will naturally help him sweep it under the rug. As for you, your bones are tough now, but if you run into a lunatic burning their blood essence, you'll need to add another lock."

"What kind of lock?"

"A Diamond Lock."

Old Mo reached into the lining of that paint-chipped red thermos and pulled out a crumpled slip of paper.

The paper looked like it had been torn from a cigarette box, covered in dense, scribbled handwriting that looked like mystical charms.

"An advanced version of the 'Dragon-Tiger Bone Forging Pill'—the 'Diamond Bone Quenching Soup'." Old Mo handed over the note.

"This isn't a standard Medicinal Pill; it's a potent drug used by suicide squads on the battlefield in the past. It can temporarily temper your bones until they're as hard as an alloy, but the price is that your pain nerves will be temporarily paralyzed, and the process... is very stimulating."

Lin Qi glanced at the recipe; the Materials listed were all contraband or highly toxic substances.

"I don't care about the stimulation, as long as it lets me take a beating." Lin Qi shoved the note into his pocket. "But do we have the Materials listed here?"

"We certainly don't have the proper Materials, but where are we? The largest junkyard in Longya Academy."

Old Mo pointed to the pile of scrap behind him.

"Use your brain to find substitutes. For example, for that 'Blazing Fire Grass', you can use a discarded Fire Source Crystal core; as for that 'Black Iron Wood', I think that mutated iron wood in the corner would be quite suitable."

Without a word, Lin Qi turned and dove into the mound of musty-smelling metal.

Ten minutes later.

Clang.

A fist-sized, cracked red crystal was tossed onto the ground, still steaming.

Then came a piece of pitch-black, rotten wood, so heavy it smashed a crater into the floor.

"This Fire Source Crystal core was salvaged from that scrapped furnace. The energy is extremely volatile; it'll probably burn right through the pot." Lin Qi brushed the dust off his hands. "As for this wood, it's harder than steel. It took me two saw blades just to get this piece off."

Old Mo kicked the Fire Source Crystal. "Potent enough. Get the pot started."

That battered Pill Furnace, which had been repaired countless times, was set up once again.

There were no complex rituals, no precision workstations.

It was as if Lin Qi were boiling pig slop; he poured the pulverized mutated iron wood into the pot, then tossed the Fire Source Crystal core into the bottom of the furnace.

Boom!

The flames weren't red at all; they were a blinding, brilliant white.

The furnace temperature soared at a terrifying speed, and the rust on the furnace walls instantly turned red and flaked off.

"Hold it down!" Old Mo barked. "Don't let the heat escape! Use your Penetrating Force to seal the furnace opening, or we'll be cooked before this soup is even ready."

Lin Qi took a deep breath and pressed both hands onto the scorching furnace lid.

Sizzle.

His palms sizzled and smoked, but he didn't even furrow his brow.

The Penetrating Force within him flowed continuously through his palms into the furnace, forcibly pressing the energy that was trying to explode back into the soup.

This wasn't Alchemy; it was a wrestling match with a bomb.

Two hours later.

Lin Qi was drenched in sweat, and the ground beneath his feet was soaked.

The commotion inside the furnace finally subsided, turning into a thick, bubbling sound.

"Open the pot."

Lin Qi slapped the furnace lid open with one palm.

A pungent smell of metallic corrosion assaulted his nose, mixed with the acrid scent of sulfur.

At the bottom of the pot remained only a bowl of dark golden liquid, as viscous as mercury, with several bright red bubbles rolling on the surface.

"It doesn't look great—it looks like industrial wastewater." Old Mo leaned in to sniff it, nodding in satisfaction. "But the medicinal properties have been activated. This is what you call Heavy Metal Punk Health Soup. Dare to drink it?"

Lin Qi picked up the coarse ceramic bowl; the bottom was shockingly hot.

If he drank this, he'd either die or lose a layer of skin.

But in his mind flashed Li Shaobai's faintly reddening eyes—the gaze of a bloodthirsty beast staring at its prey.

If you want to hunt a beast, you have to be fiercer than the beast.

"Why wouldn't I dare?"

Lin Qi tilted his head back and downed it in one gulp.

As the liquid hit his throat, there was no sensation of swallowing; it felt like he had just gulped down a mouthful of molten iron.

His esophagus instantly lost all feeling, and then it felt like an incendiary bomb had exploded in his stomach.

"Ugh..."

Lin Qi let out a muffled groan, curling up on the ground as his muscles spasmed uncontrollably.

Pain.

It wasn't the pain of skin and flesh, but the agonizing torment of his bones being melted and reorganized.

It felt as if countless tiny hammers were smashing every inch of his skeleton, then forging it anew with metallic powder mixed in.

Old Mo stood to the side, holding two silver needles in his hand, ready to perform emergency aid at any moment.

"Hold on. Guide the medicinal power into your bone marrow; don't let it run wild in your internal organs, or you'll have to go into the arena tomorrow wearing a urine bag."

Lin Qi gritted his teeth until they cracked, his mouth filled with the taste of rust.

He forcibly mobilized that faint trace of Martial Intent, herding the violent currents of heat into the bones of his limbs and body like a shepherd.

Crack, crack, crack.

A dense series of explosions erupted within his body.

Beneath his skin, which had previously taken on a jade-like hue due to his Major Achievement in Flesh Refining, a faint dark golden luster began to shine through.

That was the sign that his bone density had been elevated to the extreme.

This inhuman torture lasted until the second half of the night.

Lin Qi lay on the ground, motionless, the concrete floor beneath him soaked and discolored by his sweat.

Old Mo threw a wet towel onto his face.

"You still alive?"

Heavy, ragged breathing came from beneath the towel.

A hand slowly lifted, grabbing the towel.

Lin Qi sat up, his movements somewhat stiff, and his joints emitted sounds like grinding metal.

He clenched his fist.

There was no sense of bloated, muscular vanity; instead, his body felt much heavier, as if his bones had been filled with lead.

But he threw a casual punch.

The sonic boom was short and dull, as if the air had been directly compressed and shattered by that punch.

"This power..." Lin Qi looked at his fist, a ferocious grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I feel like I could punch right through that broken Gundam."

"Don't get cocky; this is just sharpening your spear right before the battle. The medicinal effect will only last three days, and the side effect is that you might be insensitive to pain during these three days. Don't think of that as a good thing; not feeling pain even when you have a broken bone is the most dangerous part."

Lin Qi stood up and worked his neck, which let out a crisp cracking sound.

The feeling of power surging within his body made him want to go find an S-rank monster to fight one-on-one right now.

"Not feeling pain is even better. As long as I can win, I'd accept it even if I had to take my bones apart and sell them as scrap metal."

Old Mo looked at the youth's back and shook his head.

"A bunch of lunatics."

He took a sip of tea that had long since gone cold and muttered to himself, "The Li Family kid is playing with fire, and you're playing with your life. This year's freshman competition is bound to see bloodshed."

Lin Qi walked to the door, turned his head, and grinned. "Bloodshed is good. A Dao without bloodshed is just a radio calisthenics routine."

The large iron door was pushed open, and the morning light spilled over him, casting a long shadow of the figure carrying a heavy sword.