430: Chapter 430 The Powerful on the Other Side of the World: A Review of Their Gains

"Ah?"

In the courtyard, Ma Jianguo was startled by the sudden shout, sat up from the recliner, and hurried over to pull open the courtyard gate.

Standing outside the gate was indeed Old Wang from next door, gesticulating noisily.

"What's all the fuss about? I think smoke is rising from your Family's ancestral graves."

Ma Jianguo had his peace disturbed, and his words carried displeasure.

Old Wang pointed toward the back mountain instead, winking and bantering:

"I'm serious, look quickly, that smoke is billowing even stronger than the stove fire for the village banquet!"

"What nonsense are you spouting..."

Ma Jianguo muttered ungraciously, looking in the direction of his finger, but his gaze suddenly froze.

He saw that near the top of the back mountain, a thick grayish-white smoke was rising straight from the ground.

Like a pillar supporting the heavens, it charged straight into the clouds, only slowly dispersing into a cloud cover high in the air due to the wind.

This sight was simply too bizarre.

He instinctively rubbed his eyes socket, looking closely again to confirm he wasn't seeing things.

That white smoke should be drilling out from the long, narrow crack at the top of the water prison.

"What is going on?"

Innumerable thoughts flashed through Ma Jianguo's mind instantly.

The scene before his eyes was clearly caused by True Qi projecting outward and massively evaporating the water in the deep pool.

Could Fang Cheng have already successfully established his intent, started operating the thunder-fire cauldron furnace, and attempted to shape the realm?

But isn't this momentum a bit too massive?

That kid was indeed a once-in-a-century martial arts prodigy, but his True Qi volume shouldn't be thick to such an exaggerated degree...

Or perhaps... something went wrong during Cultivate, leading to Qi Deviation?

His brows tightly locked, searching rapidly through his memories.

But even after flipping through all the ancient texts left by the Family, he couldn't find any records matching the scene before him.

Just as he was utterly baffled, the wind suddenly rose, bringing a hint of dampness from the soil.

A few raindrops drifted down accordingly, hitting his tightly knitted brow.

The sky had darkened at some unknown point.

Large swaths of dark clouds, like spilled ink, rapidly gathered over, precisely shrouding the village above and blocking the sun tightly.

The sky abruptly dimmed, as if entering evening early.

Neighbor Old Wang looked up at the sky and muttered:

"Hey, this weather is truly strange, changing the moment it's said; it was still clear just now, and now it's raining? I must hurry home to take in the laundry!"

Speaking thus, he could no longer care about watching the bizarre spectacle of the ancestral graves emitting smoke, and scampered towards his own courtyard in a flash.

At the courtyard gate, only Ma Jianguo remained standing in place, blankly gazing toward the back mountain direction.

Allowing the chilly drizzle to be swept by the wind and slantingly hit his body, soaking his clothes.

The expression on his face changed indeterminately, at times revealing wild joy, and at times shrouded by thick worry.

...

Another corner of the world.

The wind here seemed solid.

It crashed into the rugged black rock and was instantly torn apart, turning into countless screaming chaotic blades.

Ice crystals and gravel mixed into it, sweeping across this forbidden zone of life.

The air was incomparably thin, yet enough to scorch lungs.

Any flesh exposed outside would lose all temperature within a few breaths, freezing into a grayish-white statue.

This was the most mysterious place in the world, a permafrost land before which even gods would recoil.

Blizzards howled unceasingly year-round, ruling this dead and silent wasteland.

At this moment, a figure sat cross-legged on the mirror-smooth ice layer.

He wore an old dark mountaineering suit with worn zippers, revealing the brass base color.

His face was covered with a simple windproof goggle, blocking most of his features.

Looking at him, he was just like an unfortunately lost mountaineer.

However, within three feet around him, it was a bizarre tranquility.

That storm sufficient to tear flesh seemed to crash into an invisible barrier, turning into a docile airflow that couldn't blow a single corner of his clothes.

In front of him was an ice layer several meters thick, with a bowl-sized hole chiseled in the center.

A crude fishing rod ground from an unknown beast bone was held by him in one hand.

A wisp of nearly transparent silk thread hung down below, sinking into the bottomless dark lake beneath the ice.

Fishing in a polar ice lake thousands of meters above sea level already transcended common sense.

Yet this person was incomparably focused and tranquil, his whole body not moving a single bit.

As if he weren't resisting the world's most cruel nature, but rather enjoying a leisurely afternoon by the pond in his own backyard.

The entire person reached a bizarre harmony with this violent heaven and earth.

Not knowing how long had passed.

The hand holding the rod trembled extremely slightly.

It wasn't a fish taking the bait.

But a throbbing, originating from a deeper, more distant place.

To be more accurate, that was an extremely minute resonance.

As if someone on the other end of the earth used the entire planet as a drum, gently striking it once.

This vibration transcended physics, directly reaching the rule level of the Origin of heaven and earth, rippling out a circle of ripples.

To the vast majority of ability users in the world, this circle of ripples was like a breeze brushing the face.

But to him, it was no less than seeing a storm being generated.

He slowly raised his head.

The gaze behind the wind goggles seemed to pierce through the raging wind and snow, pierce through the heavy clouds, and look toward the endless Void Realm.

"Hmm?"

A soft exclamation came from his throat, not loud, but like gold and stone clashing, making the howling wind pause for it.

Afterwards, he closed his eyes.

In an instant, the external clamor and bitter cold all faded away.

In his perception, the entire planet transformed into a giant sphere composed of countless meridians and light spots.

The trend of the mountains, the rhythm of ocean currents, everything was clearly visible.

Right on that familiar Eastern continent, a dim node suddenly erupted with a light as blazing as the sun!

That light was pure and domineering, filled with the meaning of pioneering and Dominator.

At first it was just a spark, yet in a twinkling, it ignited itself in an almost tyrannical manner, illuminating a side of heaven and earth.

What surprised him even more was that deep within that blazing light, he also "smelled" a hint of a familiar "taste".

That was the Qi rhythm of the Ma Family Tai Chi: heavy, upright, and carrying a bit of stubbornness.

Only now, this Qi rhythm was thoroughly smelted and sublimated by that newborn sun, becoming grander and also more unfamiliar.

He slowly opened his eyes, the gaze under the wind goggles being as deep as the sea.

"Someone is in the Ma Family's water prison... comprehending the Dao and condensing their True Self?"

Within the low self-talk, there was a hint of rare surprise.

That place, he could not be more familiar with.

It was once a bitter ascetic place where he imprisoned himself and honed his Heart-Nature.

Never would he have thought that years later, someone would actually walk the same path there, and even... more tyrannically.

"Interesting."

Before the words fell, the fishing rod in his hand sharply pulled upward!

A streak of silver light broke through the ice, carrying ice chips all over the sky, and was accurately flicked in front of him.

That was a whole-body silver-white, scale-less strange fish, struggling violently on the ice surface, emitting a bone-chilling coldness.

The next moment, an invisible scorching airflow swept across his body.

The strange fish instantly stopped.

The moisture inside its body was evaporated in a flash, turning it in the blink of an eye into a dried fish that was charred on the outside and tender on the inside, even emitting a strange meaty fragrance.

He casually put away the dried fish and got up from the ice surface.

The violently howling wind and snow seemed to soften a bit because of this.

He took off the wind goggles, revealing a mediocre face.

It could even be said to be somewhat young, showing no trace of being eroded by the wind and snow at all.

However, when the line of sight fell on his pair of eyes, all perceptions were subverted.

That was a pair of eyes impossible to describe with words, bright, deep, and indifferent.

As if not belonging to this era, having seen through the alternation of the years and the Reincarnation of all things.

At this moment, he raised this pair of eyes, gazing far into the East, the corners of his mouth hooking into a meaningful arc.

"This stagnant water is finally going to stir up ripples..."

...

Inside the water prison, it was pitch black without seeing the sun.

Only the water droplets occasionally seeping from the cracks of the rock walls dripped into the shallow pool bottom, making crisp and lonely echoes.

A figure sat cross-legged on the stone platform in the center.

The bare muscular body outlined a vague silhouette in the dimness.

That originally smooth head was covered at this moment with a layer of dense black short hair.

Every single hair was as tough as a needle, gleaming with a healthy oily gloss under the weak light.

As if the land beneath the feet grew lush meadows anew, filled with tyrannical vitality.

The golden flame light burning around his body had long since converged and disappeared, and the surroundings no longer evaporated water vapor.

But this Physical Body possessed an even stronger sense of oppression than before the seclusion.

Every inch of muscle was like being through the most precise calculation and polishing, with smooth and distinct lines, implicitly conforming to the supreme principles of mechanics.

They clung closely to the bones, presenting a dense texture similar to bronze casting.

Beneath the seemingly calm texture, it seemed to harbor volcanic lava that could gush out at any time.

Even without moving a single bit, the entire person made the air in the water prison heavy by several points, resembling a sleeping Ares sculpture suppressing the surrounding darkness.

Not knowing how long had passed, this "sculpture" moved.

He abruptly opened his eyelids.

In an instant, two streaks of lightning-like substantive electric light burst forth from his pupils!

The dazzling light instantly tore apart the darkness, illuminating this cave of several meters radius as bright as day.

Wherever the light passed, the mottled carvings on the rock walls, the dried silt at the bottom of the pool, and even the suspended micro-dust in the air were all vividly displayed down to the finest detail.

Such a strange phenomenon was precisely one of the signs produced when Mental Energy overflowed and interfered with reality after achieving success in Qi Refining and Soul Transformation.

Electricity generated in an empty room!

The electric light flashed and vanished, and the cave returned to darkness.

But that pair of eyes was like lighting up two cold stars in the deepest night, shining brilliantly.

"Whew—"

Fang Cheng slowly exhaled a long breath.

This breath condensed and did not disperse, like a white arrow, shooting straight out for several meters before slowly dissipating in the damp air.

An unprecedented sense of Perfection and control filled his heart.

As if from this moment on, he truly became the Dominator of his own body and Soul.

Fang Cheng's gaze was blazing as he looked around.

At first glance, the scene inside the water prison was no different from when he entered.

It was still deep darkness, with only a beam of faint light leaking down from the long and narrow crack overhead, being the only light source in this space.

However, upon closer inspection, it was already completely different.

The originally slippery moss on the rock walls had long been roasted black and peeled off by the high temperature, fully revealing the densely packed carved words left by predecessors.

Fang Cheng slowly scanned those handwritings.

Suddenly, his gaze froze on a few lines of poetry that appeared quite complete.

That handwriting was flying dragons and dancing phoenixes, carved extremely deep into the rock wall, seeming not to be chopped by knives or chiseled by axes, but forcibly scratched out with fingers.

Between the lines, there was faintly a bit of familiarity, exuding a heroic spirit of looking down upon the world.

Fang Cheng gazed at those few lines of poetry, the corners of his mouth unconsciously lifting slightly as he chanted in a low voice:

"Alone in the midst of heaven and earth and all phenomena, running the primal art clearly from the very beginning."

"With grand scheming across the Big Dipper, and heroic courage overturning the Southern Dipper."

"Ghosts weep and spirits wail as the golden cauldron forms, chickens fly and dogs transform as the jade furnace empties."

"How can ordinary folks search for it casually? Without reaching the subtle and ethereal, it cannot be exhausted."

After chanting the poem, a heroic spirit could not help but well up naturally in his chest.

Predecessors sat dryly here, achieving success in comprehending the Dao, and left this poem to record their state of mind.

Now, he had also walked to this step, and even, perhaps walked even further!

Amidst the surging of his bosom, Fang Cheng couldn't help but stand up, exercising his muscles and bones that had sat for a long time.

As his limbs stretched out, his whole body's joints immediately made a series of crisp popping sounds, dense like roasted beans.

He spread his palms, then slowly clenched them.

His five fingers gathered, joints protruding one by one, and beneath the tight skin, every bundle of muscle was like a tightened steel cable, harboring a terrifying power that made one feel at ease.

Just how strong had his current self reached to?

This thought surfaced, causing the surging heroic spirit in Fang Cheng's chest to quickly settle down.

A light blue light screen slowly unfolded before his eyes.

Fang Cheng's gaze landed calmly on the panel, taking stock of the fruits of this bitter seclusion Cultivate.

First of all, it was the most direct purpose of this trip, and also the most crucial gain—the generation of the exclusive skill [Visualization].

This marked that he had completely mastered this special Meditation method that complemented Qigong.

"Establishing the intent" determined "True Sun Fire" as the absolute core.

"Shaping the realm" then opened up the "Inner Scene World", laying a solid Foundation.

From then on, his Soul would no longer be rootless duckweed, but would have a territory that could continuously grow and self-evolve.

This Inner Scene World was both the source of his power and his most solid mental fortress.

Secondly, it was the metamorphosis of the Physical Body.

Fang Cheng's mind stirred, and the attribute interface data clearly presented itself in his mind.

[Strength: 65]

[Agility: 64]

[Physique: 65]

[Mental Energy: 70]

After digesting the remaining flesh of the crimson eye, the various attributes of the body once again achieved a leap in improvement.

Among them, Strength and Agility each increased by 3 points and 2 points.

After breaking through the 60-point limit barrier, Physique continued to steadily climb upward, reaching 65 points.

And the enhancement magnitude of the Mental Energy attribute was the most exaggerated, skyrocketing by 10 points in one go, reaching a height of 70 points.

At this moment, Fang Cheng could clearly capture the entire process of all water droplets condensing and falling on the surrounding rock walls at the same time.

He could even distinguish the floating trajectory of a speck of micro-dust within that beam of light before his eyes.

The body's bone density, muscle toughness, cell activity, and recovery ability had all been elevated to a completely new level.

The entire person from inside out, resembling a thoroughly recast furnace, was filled with majestic life energy.

Corresponding to the Physical Body changes were the expansion of Dantian capacity and the purification of True Qi.

Originally, "Dantian Qi Sea" was just a metaphor.

At this moment, it had actually transformed into a truly meaningful, incomparably vast ocean.

The storage upper limit of True Qi was therefore expanded by more than several fold, and more importantly, the quality was enhanced.

Through the repeated tempering of the True Sun Fire, today's True Qi was even more condensed and pure, operating smoothly like an arm commanding fingers, and its power could not be mentioned in the same breath as before.

If he were to face an S-rank master like Minister Luo Lie again now, Fang Cheng was confident he could defeat him more easily.

He would definitely not repeat the same mistakes and be dragged by the other party into a bitter battle where True Qi faced exhaustion.

Nor would he be like when subsequently facing the encirclement of three Men in Black, forced to undergo Potential Activation, using the last bit of vital blood to trade for the power to fight a battle.

From then on, True Qi endurance would no longer be his weak point.

And the trump card of "Potential Activation" which overdraws life could finally be truly shelved.

Unless falling into a life-or-death situation, or encountering an unbeatable formidable enemy, it would never be utilized.