104: Chapter 104 Challenge

"It feels like a day has already passed."

Chen Moxuan stood within the now extremely weak Spirit Tide Storm, murmuring to himself.

The broken weapons and shattered blades all around continued to hum incessantly, and the pressure left behind by the Qitian Stone still acted upon him.

However, with the improvement in his cultivation, this pressure that had once nearly suffocated him now felt as light as nothing, merely like the weight of carrying a backpack.

He could walk out of this pressure at any time, but since there was still ample spiritual energy at hand, it would be a pity not to absorb it all before leaving.

However, unless he needed to actively increase the speed of energy absorption, his Cultivation Technique could Cultivate automatically, requiring no mental effort.

Taking advantage of this rare cultivation time, Chen Moxuan naturally settled his mind to study his Martial Skills.

In the previous battle, he had absorbed much of the True Qi left behind by the Earth-grade Martial Technique unleashed by Wang Jianshan, and at the time, he had only used the [All-Things Calculation] to record its circulation trajectory.

Now that he had stepped into the Tiangang Realm, he could fully understand the rules of its application.

Using the Earth-grade Martial Technique as a template and fusing it with several profound-grade Advanced Martial Skills he had cultivated in the past, he continuously deduced and reorganized them in his mind, drawing inferences and deriving several brand-new embryonic forms of Earth-grade Martial Techniques.

Subsequently, Chen Moxuan did not stop there; he turned his gaze toward the nebulous force of Spiritual Sense deep within his Sea of Consciousness.

He began to deduce the possibility of fusing Spiritual Sense with his Martial Skills.

A flash of inspiration during the previous battle with the Snow Shadow Tiger led him to discover that Spiritual Sense could not only enhance the lethality of Martial Skills but also serve as an extension of perception and control.

When Spiritual Sense combined with Martial Skills, his Moves were no longer limited to physical actions but could form an invisible network of offensives within the coverage area of his Spiritual Sense.

Just as he was immersed in his deduction of Martial Skills, the concentration of energy in the air was also continuously dropping.

"Hmm, it's dissipating?"

Chen Moxuan opened his eyes abruptly to see the Spirit Tide Storm, which had been raging for a long time, rapidly dissipating like a receding tide, and the energy field that had just filled the heavens and earth returned to calm in an instant.

It seemed that the concentration of energy in this place was no longer enough to sustain the Spirit Tide Storm.

He closed his eyes and used his Spiritual Sense to look inward at his Dantian.

He saw the liquid True Qi winding like a long river, already occupying half the space of his Dantian.

In the system of Martial Artist Realms, the Breakthrough to the Tiangang Realm was marked by the liquefaction of True Qi, and only when the Dantian was completely filled with pure liquid True Qi could one be considered to have truly reached the Perfection of the Tiangang Realm.

The ratio of liquid True Qi to gaseous True Qi within his body now indicated that he had firmly stepped into the Fifth Stage of the Tiangang Realm.

He was already a powerhouse at the Middle Stage of the Tiangang Realm.

"The efficiency of continuing to absorb here is far inferior to before; it is time to leave."

Chen Moxuan slowly raised his foot, a burst of True Qi erupted from his toe, and ripples suddenly spread through the Void Realm.

Unlike the True Qi footrests condensed with clever force in the past, the steps rising beneath his feet this time were thick, steady, and visibly solid.

This was the concrete manifestation of liquid True Qi after solidification; without the need for any technique enhancement, relying solely on the shape-forming characteristics inherent to the True Qi of the Tiangang Realm, it steadily supported his figure.

Stepping on the stairs formed by True Qi, Chen Moxuan climbed upward steadily, walking out of the five-meter-deep pit created by the continuous pressure.

And as he walked out, the roaring sound of the broken weapons and shattered blades ceased abruptly.

The pressure left behind by the Qitian Stone also receded like a tide, and the entire space instantly cleared.

A pitch-black crack tore through the Void Realm without warning, appearing before him.

Through the crack, a bone-chilling cold wrapped in a sky full of wind and snow surged out.

Clearly, this was the exit of the Land of Inheritance.

"I don't know what day it is now."

What Chen Moxuan knew was that a day had passed since he began absorbing the Spirit Tide Storm.

But as for how much real time was spent during that period of indistinguishable reality and illusion within the Heart Refining Array, it was still unknown.

But since the Secret Realm had not yet closed, and he had not been pulled back to the Superpower World by the otherworldly gravitational force.

It shouldn't have been too long.

Chen Moxuan stepped forward and instantly vanished into that crack.

A bone-chilling cold rushed toward him, and when his vision cleared, he was already in a world of ice and snow, dressed in silver.

However, two figures suddenly appeared in his field of vision.

One was dressed in white as pure as snow, sitting cross-legged on a snow-covered bluestone, with a long sword lying across his knees emitting a cold, chilling light; his Aura was restrained, yet sharp edges were hidden within.

The other stood holding a long halberd, with sword-like eyebrows slanting into his temples, and a biting Aura interweaving with the sky full of wind and snow.

It was none other than Zhong Haoran and Xiang Tian.

They had previously fainted under the influence of Chen Moxuan's Mental Energy pressure, but because Chen Moxuan had quelled the beast tide, they had managed to survive and were not eliminated.

Detecting the abrupt spatial fluctuation in the air, the two people who had been meditating with closed eyes opened them almost simultaneously.

Xiang Tian's knuckles gripping the halberd turned slightly white; he stared at Chen Moxuan and said in a deep voice:

"We have been waiting for you for a long time."

"Waiting for me?" Chen Moxuan's expression was slightly stunned.

He did vaguely remember these two.

At the time when his Spiritual Sense was detecting the situation of the beast tide on Poyun Peak, Xiang Tian and Zhong Haoran were naturally captured by him.

But in his perception, he had no interaction with these two.

However, he did have a question he could ask.

"How long have you been waiting for me?"

"Two days," Xiang Tian said slowly.

Two days...

Counting the time he had spent in the Library Pavilion, as well as the time it took to enter the Secret Realm and arrive at the Strange Beast Forest.

The time before he was pulled back to the Superpower World was probably less than a day.

It was almost time to go back and prepare.

Chen Moxuan's Spiritual Sense surged, condensing an escape light around his body once again, and he was just about to soar into the sky and fly away from this world.

Suddenly, a biting sound of breaking through the air tore through the wind and snow, and a long halberd wrapped in blazing red light shot toward him like a meteor falling to the ground.

Chen Moxuan tilted his body slightly, dodging the strike.

The long halberd smashed heavily into the ice rock behind him, and the crimson Protective Aura exploded like a volcanic eruption, instantly turning the mountain rocks within a radius of ten zhang into powder.

Ice shards and gravel flew everywhere, and the snow peak that had originally stood there was forcibly torn open into a bottomless gully, with scorching heat steaming from the crack.

After shattering the mountain, the long halberd, carrying the unspent red light, curled back and landed in Xiang Tian's palm again.

Chen Moxuan looked sideways at Xiang Tian, the biting gale lifting the corner of his clothes.

Xiang Tian gripped the long halberd tightly and took half a step forward, the tip of the halberd pointing directly at Chen Moxuan.

"You must be the top of the leaderboard."

"State your name!"

"Xiang Family's Xiang Tian, here on the peak of Poyun Peak, officially challenges you!"