The quiet room within the cave was silent, the air thick with gathered spiritual energy.
Lü Yang sat cross-legged, a pill dissolving into a warm river of power in his dantian. Combined with the steady stream of energy drawn from Yun Miaoqing over the past half-month, his cultivation pressed against a familiar ceiling.
Boom.
A silent detonation within. True Qi, once a steady stream, surged into a roaring torrent, crashing through new pathways. His spirit sharpened, his senses expanding.
Qi Refining, Level Two. Done.
Level Four was never the real wall, he thought, the afterglow of the breakthrough fading into cold calculation. Just a matter of grinding resources. But time… time is the resource I don't have.
Fairy Qingchen's covetous eyes were a warning flare. If Liu Xin could burst into his cave in a past life, why not her? The cave's walls offered no real safety.
Only strength did.
"No more patience," he muttered to the empty air. With a decisive flick of his wrist, he swallowed the remaining Yuan Qi Pills in one gulp—a wasteful, brutal method that burned away a third of their efficacy for one thing alone: speed.
Then, he summoned Yun Miaoqing. Her energy, pure and potent, flowed into him.
Three days and nights blurred. He didn't eat, didn't sleep. He pushed himself and his captive spirit to their absolute limits, feeling a thin, taut barrier form within him—the frontier between early and mid-stage Qi Refining.
He had reached the peak of Level Three. The bottleneck was here.
Without a moment's hesitation, he drew out the wisp of pristine white Primordial Qi. It hovered, pulsing with latent, boundless potential.
"Now."
He guided his True Qi to engulf it. The effect was instantaneous. The Primordial Qi vanished into his system, and the mountainous, immovable bottleneck began to… melt. Like ice under a forge, it thinned, weakened, and finally—
Crack.
It shattered.
Lü Yang's eyes snapped open in the darkness. A tangible light, sharp as a blade's edge, seemed to flash within them.
Mid-Stage Qi Refining.
A gulf wider than any previous level. If early-stage Qi was a river, this was a lake—vast, deep, and thrumming with power. Spells that once drained him could now be cast with a thought. He was no longer a novice cautiously rationing energy; he was a cultivator.
"Hah!" The exhilaration burst out of him. He strode from the quiet room, summoning his White Bone Flying Sword.
With a thought, the sword multiplied. Ten identical sword-lights filled the cave, weaving a net of lethal gleams. He merged his consciousness with them, executing the Divine Firmament Sword Control Art. The swords danced, a chorus of deadly whistles echoing off the stone. Freedom. Power.
I have to thank you, Liu Xin, he thought, a cold smile touching his lips. Without this Primordial Qi you so kindly 'donated,' this bottleneck would have trapped me for years.
No wonder you abandoned the orthodox path for that evil tome. Using people as medicine… what a ruthless, efficient method.
A dark, greedy thought bloomed: Such a technique… it should be mine.
Not yet, he cautioned himself. Patience. There's always the next life.
His triumphant reverie shattered.
One of his extended sword-lights, stationed like a sentry at the cave's periphery, had been triggered.
Someone was here.
His relief was instant and cold. Good thing I broke through. If I'd been in deep meditation…
He became a shadow, his newly-advanced aura suppressed to a faint whisper. The hunter in the dark, waiting.
Click.
A soft, professional sound. The cave door's simple wards were expertly bypassed. Three figures, clad in night-black and masked, slipped inside like smoke. Their auras were sealed tight—to anyone at the early stage, they would be invisible.
The leader gestured in silent code: Search. Eliminate.
They fanned out.
"Whoosh—!"
The first man in black only saw a blur before a sword-light, brighter than anything an early-stage disciple should wield, was at his throat.
"Wha—?!" His dodge was pure instinct. It wasn't enough.
Schlick.
A fountain of crimson painted the cave floor.
"Mid-Stage Qi Refining?!" the leader gasped, his voice strangled with shock and rage. Damn Qingchen! This is her 'easy mark'?!
And this Lü Yang—a mid-stage expert—was ambushing them? The sheer, dishonorable cunning of it!
"Misunderstanding! This is a—" the leader cried, hands flying up in a defensive seal.
Lü Yang gave him no time. The sword-light arced, shattering the glowing barrier like glass. Simultaneously, from the darkness beside another intruder, a massive, translucent hand of condensed Qi—the Innate Qi Great Handprint—materialized and clenched.
Crunch.
The sound was wet and final. The second assassin was reduced to a pulped ruin.
The leader's eyes bulged with terror.
Lü Yang felt a surge of fierce satisfaction. This technique is perfect. Overwhelming force against the weak.
The remaining sword-lights converged. The bone-flying sword teleported in flashes, a lethal dance. The leader, overwhelmed and outclassed, lasted only a few desperate breaths.
A final slash. Another spray of blood.
Silence returned, thicker now, stained with iron and death.
"Haaah…" Lü Yang let out a long, shaky breath, the adrenaline receding. He looked at the carnage. His first kills.
His analysis was cold, clinical. Their combat experience was better. In a fair fight at the same level, I'd lose. But why fight fair? Ambush. Seize the initiative. Crush them with superior cultivation.
A fundamental truth of this cruel world crystallized in his mind:
Fighting with technique is inferior to fighting with supernatural power.
And fighting with supernatural power is inferior to fighting with raw, overwhelming cultivation.
He stored the lesson away, a cornerstone for his next life.