The subterranean silence of the Sub-Zero Chamber was absolute, broken only by the faint, crystalline tinkling of moisture freezing in mid-air. Yin Shen sat at the center of the frost-etched floor, the soul-wood box open before him. In the dim, azure light reflecting off the ice walls, the Celestial Marrow Pill glowed with a predatory radiance. It was a deep, bruised purple, pulsing like a tiny, organic heart.
In the world of Chinxong, the path from the 6th to the 9th stage of Body Tempering was often referred to as the "Marrow Bridge."
At the 7th and 8th stages, a cultivator had to temper their bones until they were as dense as ironwood; at the 9th, they had to refine their internal organs to withstand the eventual pressure of condensed Qi. Most spent years on this bridge. Yin Shen had one night.
He picked up the pill. Its surface was cold—colder than the ice he sat upon—but as he swallowed it, the cold transformed into a jagged, explosive heat.
"Guh!"
Yin Shen's back arched as the pill dissolved, sending a torrent of medicinal essence straight into his skeletal structure. It felt as if a swarm of molten needles had been injected into his spine, burrowing deep into the marrow to scrub away mortal impurities.
He immediately activated the Star-King Breathing Technique. The ambient starlight Qi of the chamber, intensified by the glacial formations, rushed into his pores to meet the pill's fire. The Chaos Meridian acted as the forge, hammering the two opposing forces together within his bones.
Hour after hour, Yin Shen endured a surge of agony. Every bone in his body seemed to break and reset, becoming whiter, denser, and infused with a faint silver luster. By midnight, he had crossed the 7th stage. By the time the moon began to wane, his bones were singing with a metallic resonance—the hallmark of the 8th stage.
But the Chaos Meridian did not stop. Driven by the Divine-tier breathing technique, it pushed the remaining medicinal dregs into his heart, lungs, and stomach.
His organs began to pulse with a new, rhythmic strength, shedding years of accumulated toxins from the "expired" pills he had been forced to eat in his past.
When the sun reached its zenith, the heavy ice doors of the chamber slid open. Yin Xue stepped inside, her white robes trailing over the frost. She had come expecting to find her brother in a state of collapse—perhaps stuck at the entry of the 7th stage, with his body rejecting the violent acceleration of the Celestial Marrow Pill.
Instead, she found Yin Shen standing in the center of the room. He was performing a slow, deliberate set of martial techniques. Each movement was accompanied by a low, heavy hum—the sound of air being displaced by a body that had reached a terrifying density.
Yin Xue stopped in her tracks. Her eyes swept over him, and for the first time in her life, the "Ice Queen" felt her heart skip a beat out of pure, unadulterated shock.
"Your breath..." she whispered, her voice echoing in the cavern. "It's heavy. Your skin has a matte finish like polished jade."
She stepped closer, her blue eyes wide. "Shen... you aren't at the 7th stage. You've bypassed the 8th entirely. You are... you are at the early 9th Stage of Body Tempering."
Yin Shen stopped his form and exhaled a long plume of white mist. His golden eyes were clear, devoid of the exhaustion she expected.
"The pill was effective, Sister. But the chamber's density was the true catalyst."
Yin Xue stared at him, her usual mask of indifference struggling to stay in place. Reaching the 9th stage from the 6th in less than twelve hours was not just a breakthrough; it was a feat that bordered on the mythological.
She had given him the resources as a test of survival, but he had used them to rewrite the laws of cultivation.
"I have seen geniuses in the Royal Capital," she said softly, her voice carrying a rare, genuine tremor. "I have seen those born with Eternal Veins reach Qi Condensation in their early teens. But I have never seen a mortal body adapt to such a violent influx of energy without shattering."
She looked at him, and for the first time, her gaze held something that wasn't curiosity or calculation. It was respect.
"You did well, Yin Shen," she said, the words feeling heavy in the cold air. "I... I am impressed. Perhaps there is a reason the Heavens chose you to survive that courtyard."
It was the first time she had ever praised him. Yin Shen felt a strange flicker of warmth in his chest—not from the pill, but from the recognition of a peer. He nodded slowly. "I told you, I didn't return to die."
---
The afternoon brought a shift in the atmosphere. While Yin Shen remained in the subterranean training area, refining his 9th-stage foundation, the sounds of a commotion drifted down from the residence above.
The Glacial Moon Residence was a fortress of silence, but the voice now echoing through its gates was shrill, entitled, and all too familiar.
"I don't care if she's meditating! I am the Fourth Young Master!" Yin Jian's voice boomed, muffled by the layers of ice but still perfectly audible to Yin Shen's enhanced senses.
"Tell her I need to see her! My arm isn't healing correctly, and I need the Grand Restoration Elixir from her collection!"
Yin Shen sat in the shadows of the training hall, his back against a pillar of ice. He could hear the heavy thud of boots as Yin Jian barged past the guards at the entrance.
"Third Sister! Xue!" Jian's voice grew louder as he entered the main office area directly above the chamber. "The Elders are being stingy because of that trash Shen! They say I used too many resources last month. But you... you have plenty! Give me what I want, and I'll make sure Mother hears about how 'helpful' you were when I regain my position."
Yin Shen listened, a cold sneer forming on his lips. Yin Jian was acting like a spoiled brat, using his status to demand resources he hadn't earned.
Upstairs, the temperature began to drop. Yin Shen could practically feel Yin Xue's patience evaporating into thin air.
"Jian," Yin Xue's voice was like the crack of a whip. "You are shouting in a residence where I have forbidden loud speech. Why are you here?"
"I told you! I need the Elixir!" Jian replied, his voice full of feigned injury. "I am your capable younger brother, the one who actually carries the Yin family's glory into the sparring pits. Unlike that silver-haired freak, I am worth the investment! Help me, and I'll help you when I become an Elder."
"Help you?" Yin Xue asked, her voice dripping with icy sarcasm. "I have 'helped' you twice before, Jian. Three months ago, I gave you the Twin-Spirit Pill to stabilize your 6th stage. You took it, sold half for gold, and spent the rest of the week gambling in the high-end brothels of the North District. Last year, I gave you a manual for the Glacial Step, and you traded it to a branch family cousin for a crate of wine."
"That—that was an investment in relationships!" Jian stammered, his excuses becoming more unreasonable by the second. "You can't hold that against me now! I was wounded! By him! I need the Elixir to ensure I can watch him be executed at the ceremony! It's for the family's dignity!"
The silence that followed was heavy. Yin Shen could imagine Yin Xue staring at Jian with that predatory, Snow Tiger gaze.
"You speak of dignity," Yin Xue said, her voice vibrating with a suppressed, lethal intensity. "Yet you stand here whining like a kicked cur for a handout you will only waste on your vices. You have a High-Grade vein, yet you are still stuck at the peak of the 6th stage. You have every resource of the Main Estate, and you remain a mediocre bully."
"How dare you!" Jian yelled, the sound of a chair being overturned echoing through the floorboards. "I am your brother! You should be supporting me, not that trash who ruined my arm!"
"Supporting you?" Yin Xue's voice turned deadly. "Yin Jian, I have reached the end of my tolerance for your bullshit. You are a pampered dog who has never known a day of true struggle. You want to know why I won't help you? It is because while you were out gambling and drinking, the 'trash' you despise so much was sitting in a pool of his own blood, refusing to die."
Xue continued, her spiritual pressure beginning to flare. "In one night, Yin Shen has achieved more than you have in three years. He has more willpower in his little finger than you have in your entire, pathetic soul."
"You... you're defending him?!" Jian's voice was high-pitched with disbelief. "He's a freak! A demon!"
"He is a cultivator," Xue countered. "And you are a parasite. Now, get out of my residence before I decide that your other arm needs to match the first one. Yin Shen is thousand times better than you. Fuck off, Jian."
A massive shockwave of frost-Qi slammed through the upper floor, as Yin Shen heard the sound of the office windows shattering and a heavy thud as Yin Jian was literally blown out of the room by the sheer force of Yin Xue's dismissal.
"Y-You'll regret this!" Jian's voice faded as he scrambled away from the gates, his spirit broken and his pride in tatters. "When he dies at the stone, I'll make sure you're dragged down with him!"
Silence returned to the Glacial Moon Residence, but it was a different kind of silence. It was the silence after a storm.
Yin Shen sat in the Sub-Zero Chamber, his eyes closed. He had heard it all. He had heard her defend him. He had heard her call Jian a parasite. But the words that resonated the most were her final blow.
'Yin Shen is thousand times better than you.'
The Chaos Meridian inside him pulsed with a strange, dark satisfaction. But he knew this was just the beginning. Jian's tantrum would likely reach the Matriarch's ears, and the pressure on Yin Xue would increase.
---
A few minutes later, the ice doors slid open. Yin Xue walked in, her face pale, her breathing slightly ragged from the emotional outburst. She looked at me, who was still sitting by the pillar.
"You heard," she stated. It wasn't a question.
"I heard," I replied, looking up at her.
She walked to the center of the room and threw another box onto the floor. This one was made of cold-iron. "Then you know the stakes have changed. Jian will go to the Elders. They will be here soon to 'inspect' my residence. We no longer have three days."
She looked at me, her blue eyes filled with a desperate, icy fire. "You have until sunset tonight. If you don't reach Qi Condensation by the time the first star rises, I won't be able to protect you from the Council's 'inspection'."
I looked at the cold-iron box, then at the sky visible through a small ventilation shaft in the ceiling. The sun was already beginning to dip.
"Sunset," I whispered.
I stood up, my 9th-stage Body Tempering physique humming with power, yet I knew the hardest part was still to come. Crossing the realm boundary was the true test.
"Then we'd better get started," I said, reaching for the box. "I don't plan on making you a liar, Sister."
---