Xiang Yu inhaled deeply, trying to steady his nerves as he prepared for the inevitable agony. The bloodlines had strengthened significantly since his last session, but his body had also advanced to a higher layer of refinement. He reassured himself that with his physical power now at least three times greater than before, perhaps the pain wouldn't be as unbearable this time.
With resolute determination, he released his control over the dragon and phoenix bloodlines. True to their nature, they instantly surged toward each other like ancient enemies spotting their rival across a battlefield. The moment they collided, the brutal war within his body commenced.
To his momentary surprise, his skin didn't rupture instantly as it had during previous sessions. A fleeting sense of relief washed over him, but the reprieve was short-lived. Within seconds, the opposing forces began inflicting real damage to his internal organs. When the first rupture finally tore through his skin, others followed in rapid succession, each break occurring faster than the last.
Blood seeped from the widening cracks across his body as Xiang Yu gritted his teeth. Though still excruciating, he noticed something different—the pain seemed somewhat dulled compared to previous sessions. Not that it didn't hurt—it still felt like being torn apart from the inside—but his tolerance appeared to be building with each brutal training session.
With trembling fingers, he reached for a healing pill and swallowed it, consciously directing its restorative essence toward his most critical injuries. For hours, he endured this grueling cycle of devastation and recovery, his body becoming a continuous battlefield where the competing bloodlines raged against each other while his healing powers struggled to maintain the integrity of his physical form.
When the system reset screen finally materialized before his eyes, Xiang Yu realized his mind remained surprisingly lucid despite the ordeal. His capacity to withstand the torment was clearly improving with each session. Through the haze of lingering pain, he focused his attention on the results of his hard work:
[Body Refining: 12th Layer (1000/12,000) (+1000/12,000)]
[Qi Gathering: 7th Layer (300/700) (+300/700)]
[Mind: Level 5 (60/5000) (+60/5000)]
[Soul: Infant (20/100,000) (+20/100,000)]
[Spiritual Root: Medium-Grade Omni-Element (40/2000)]
[Transcendent Dao Body: Level 1 (550/1,000,000) (+10/1,000,000)]
[Chaos Body: Level 1 (350/10,000) (+50/10,000)]
[Bloodline: Dragon, Phoenix: Thin Blood (620/1000) (+100/1000)]
[Enlightenment: Superior (250/4000) (+30/4000)]
[Spirit Flame: Abyssal Void Flame: 5th Grade (30/50,000) (+10/50,000)]
[High-grade Lightning Strike & Palm: Minor Success (10/200)]
[High-grade Fire Palm: Minor Success (132/200)]
[High-grade Water, Wood, Earth, Metal Palm: Minor Success (36/200)]
[High-grade Ice, Wind, Light, Dark Palm: Beginner (56/100)]
[Cook: 3rd Grade (10/700) (+10/700)]
[Appraiser: 6th Grade (102/400) (+100/400)]
[Talisman Maker: 7th Grade (50/300) (+50/300)]
[Alchemist, Formation Master, Blacksmith: 8th Grade (150/200) (+50/200)]
[Experience Points Doubled]
[Alchemist, Formation Master, Blacksmith: 8th Grade (150/200) → 7th Grade (0/300)]
[Talisman Maker: 7th Grade (50/300) → 7th Grade (100/300)]
[Appraiser: 6th Grade (102/400) → 6th Grade (204/400)]
[Cook: 3rd Grade (10/700) → 3rd Grade (20/700)]
[High-grade Ice, Wind, Light, Dark Palm: Beginner (56/100) → Minor Success (0/200)]
[High-grade Water, Wood, Earth, Metal Palm: Minor Success (36/200) → Minor Success (72/200)]
[High-grade Fire Palm: Minor Success (132/200) → Intermediate (0/300)]
[High-grade Lightning Strike & Palm: Minor Success (10/200) → Minor Success (20/200)]
[Spirit Flame: Abyssal Void Flame: 5th Grade (30/50,000) → 5th Grade (60/50,000)]
[Enlightenment: Superior (250/4000) → Superior (500/4000)]
[Bloodline: Dragon, Phoenix: Thin Blood (620/1000) → Common Blood (0/2000)]
[Chaos Body: Level 1 (350/10,000) → Level 1 (700/10,000)]
[Transcendent Dao Body: Level 1 (550/1,000,000) → Level 1 (1100/1,000,000)]
[Spiritual Root: Medium-Grade Omni-Element (40/2000) → Medium (80/2000)]
[Soul: Infant (20/100,000) -> Infant (40/100,000)]
[Mind: Level 5 (60/5000) → Level 5 (120/5000)]
[Qi Gathering: 7th Layer (300/700) → 7th Layer (600/700)]
[Body Refining: 12th Layer (1000/12,000) → 12th Layer (2000/12,000)]
...
Xiang Yu felt an unsettling shift within his body. Despite having commanded the bloodlines to cease their conflict, he sensed movement continuing beneath his skin. Alarm surged through him—how could they still be active when he maintained control through the system? Had they somehow broken free after upgrading to the common blood level? If so, that would really be a disaster.
Focusing his awareness deeper into his internal landscape, he finally understood what was happening. The bloodlines weren't moving independently—they were expanding. When he had first acquired them, each bloodline had been merely a single drop of essence. Through the system's doubling process, they had gradually accumulated a few more drops over time. But now, something extraordinary was occurring.
The essences multiplied at an astonishing rate—one additional drop forming every second. Xiang Yu watched in fascination as the process continued, his internal senses tracking the rapid proliferation. Within moments, both the dragon and phoenix bloodlines had expanded to nearly a hundred drops each.
No sooner had the bloodlines stabilized in their new abundance than other transformations began happening throughout his body. The dragon bloodline's expansion triggered profound physical enhancements—his bones became denser, infused with the resilience of tempered steel. His skin toughened noticeably as well, enhancing his durability. With each breath, Xiang Yu felt raw power flowing through his muscles, his physical strength climbing to heights he'd never experienced before.
Simultaneously, the phoenix bloodline's growth manifested in different ways. His affinity for fire element energy deepened considerably, making the manipulation of flame techniques feel as natural as breathing. His regenerative capabilities accelerated dramatically—minor wounds now closed almost instantaneously. Even his enlightenment seemed to sharpen, granting clearer insights into cultivation concepts that had previously remained somewhat obscure.
As the transformations settled, Xiang Yu couldn't help but marvel at the bloodlines' substantial benefits. Despite the excruciating pain required to advance them, the rewards proved genuinely remarkable. If merely reaching the common blood level yielded such impressive enhancements, he could scarcely imagine the power awaiting at the progenitor stage.
Catching himself, he quickly tempered these thoughts. His imagination was running wild again—better to focus on the present rather than dream of distant possibilities.
Turning his attention to other changes following the system's doubling effect, he noted his body refining had gained another thousand points, matching yesterday's impressive progress. At this rate, it wouldn't be long before he triggered another breakthrough.
Most other stats didn't show much progress, but his three professions—alchemy, formations, and blacksmithing—had all broken through to the seventh grade. This advancement came with valuable insights: new alchemical recipes, formation blueprints, and weapon designs now resided in his mind, ready to be implemented. Most significantly, he could finally craft high-level magical weapons.1[1]
His appraiser profession had progressed past its halfway point and would reach fifth grade after the next reset, steadily catching up with his cooking skill. The cooking profession, however, had encountered a progress bottleneck. Since he could only prepare fourth-grade spirit food, which generated minimal experience points for his third-grade profession, advancement had slowed considerably.
Perhaps most exciting was seeing his Transcendent Dao Physique finally cross the thousand-point threshold. The pace of its development was clearly accelerating, filling him with anticipation for when it would finally advance to the next level.
For now, though, it was time to begin his mind cultivation session...
...
Xiang Yu's consciousness materialized within his spiritual sea. He glanced around, noting that the sea of qi had grown a little since his last visit, stretching a few meters further in each direction.
Without hesitation, he stepped into the sea. The moment his form made contact, a refreshing sensation washed over him—like plunging into a mountain spring after days of exhaustion. The qi-enriched currents swirled around him, dissolving his mental fatigue and clearing his mind.
Xiang Yu made his way toward the center where his soul infant floated peacefully. The miniature version of himself bobbed gently on the surface, eyes closed, completely oblivious to his presence. Studying the tiny being, Xiang Yu couldn't help but feel a twinge of disappointment.
"Hey, wake up. Time to pay the bills lil bro," he spoke.
The infant remained motionless. But after Xiang Yu shook it a little, its eyelids fluttered open momentarily. It gazed around with unfocused eyes until settling on Xiang Yu's face—then promptly closed again, returning to its slumber.
Xiang Yu sighed deeply, his expectations deflating. He had harbored such high hopes for this guy, imagining the extraordinary capabilities it might possess. But reality proved far more mundane—the infant did nothing but eat and sleep all day. Still, he reminded himself, its experience hadn't even reached one percent completion yet. Perhaps patience was required.
Accepting the current limitations, Xiang Yu left the soul alone and settled into his meditation position, focusing his mind.
As his concentration deepened, something unexpected occurred. The soul infant slowly awakened, its tiny eyes blinking open. It observed with interest as spiritual energy gathered around Xiang Yu's meditating form.
Slowly, the infant floated toward him, positioning itself directly before Xiang Yu's cross-legged figure. After studying his posture with childlike curiosity, it began mimicking his form—trying once, twice, three times before successfully assuming the lotus position. Not stopping there, it imitated Xiang Yu's qi circulation patterns, creating a matching energy flow around its diminutive body within seconds.
Hours passed in harmonious synchronization, until Xiang Yu's internal alarm prompted him to end his meditation. As his eyes opened, he found himself staring directly into the awakening gaze of his soul infant. The sight of qi circulating around the small being stunned him—it had been perfectly mirroring his cultivation technique!
A theory instantly formed in his mind. He summoned his system interface:
[Mind: Level 5 (240/5000)]
[Soul: Infant (80/100,000)]
The results shocked him. His experience points had doubled overnight! Normally, his solo practice yielded sixty mind experience and twenty soul experience, but with the infant's participation, these numbers had doubled. This unexpected synergy offered tremendous cultivation potential.
"Looks like you aren't so useless after all," he remarked with appreciation, only to discover the infant had already returned to its unresponsive state.
After tapping it several times without response, Xiang Yu realized the small being had completely exhausted itself. He gently lifted the tiny form and placed it back into the nourishing waters of the spiritual sea. Through their connection, he could sense its energy slowly recovering.
Once satisfied with its condition, Xiang Yu withdrew from his spiritual sea.
...
In the shimmering waters of the spirit spring, Xiang Yu opened his eyes, consciousness returning to his physical form. His first instinct was to check on his roommate—the wild boar still paddling aimlessly through the spiritual waters, completely oblivious to the extraordinary environment it inhabited. The creature seemed fundamentally unchanged despite days of exposure to concentrated spiritual energy.
"Still no signs of transformation," Xiang Yu murmured, observing the animal's mundane movements. "Perhaps not every creature has the potential to become a spirit beast."
He rose from the spring, water cascading off his body as he stepped onto the stone floor of the cavern. After quickly drying himself, he donned fresh robes. According to his planned schedule, it was time for pill and weapon refining—particularly crucial given yesterday's bloodline training had depleted his entire supply of eighth-grade healing pills.
His breakthrough to seventh-grade alchemy had bestowed him with several new pill recipes, including an improved version of the healing pill. However, he had decided not to refine seventh grade pills at the moment.
"The seventh-grade herbs are too precious to waste on experiments with such a low success rate," he reasoned, "especially when the eighth-grade pills work perfectly fine for my current needs." Xiang Yu nodded to himself. "If it ain't broken, don't fix it."
He traversed the spacious cavern, harvesting the herbs he needed to refine the eighth grade pills. After gathering what he needed for pill refining, he visited his personal garden.
Kneeling beside the plots, he irrigated them with water collected from the spirit spring, watching with satisfaction as the plants seemed to stretch toward the liquid, absorbing its energy. Each seedling displayed remarkable vitality, their leaves vibrant with qi.
Not forgetting his roommate, Xiang Yu gathered some low-level herbs and tossed them into the spring for the boar.
Returning to his workspace, Xiang Yu retrieved his alchemy furnace, positioning it carefully on a flat stone surface. Before committing to a full production session, he decided to test a few things that were nagging him.
He began by refining several ninth-grade pills, followed by eighth-grade pills, and despite his earlier reservations, even attempted a small batch of seventh-grade pills.
As the final pill cooled in his palm, Xiang Yu's lips curved into a satisfied smile. The experiment had confirmed his hypothesis about success rates in alchemy. Just as he had theorized, enlightenment and mind level established the base success rate—with his Superior Enlightenment and Level 5 Mind, his base rate was forty percent.
And with each breakthrough in alchemy proficiency, the success rate doubled for pills of lower grades, he concluded. At eighth-grade alchemy, the success rate for ninth-grade pills was eighty percent. Now at seventh-grade alchemy, it had reached one hundred percent.
Of course, this didn't guarantee absolute success. External interference or deliberate errors would still cause failure. But since his cultivation environment remained controlled and his technique disciplined, such failures seemed unlikely.
For eighth-grade pills, his success rate had improved to eighty percent. For the newly accessible seventh-grade pills, he calculated a forty percent chance of success—respectable, but still too wasteful for the rare ingredients they required.
The Abyssal Void Flame materialized at his command, its dark energy enveloping the furnace in perfectly controlled heat. Xiang Yu worked with unwavering focus, each movement precise, each ingredient measured exactly. After some time, he had successfully produced two hundred eighth-grade healing pills.
He thought to himself that they should be enough for two days of bloodline training, carefully storing them in jade containers within his spatial ring. By then, his alchemy would have advanced again, increasing his success rate further and reducing resource consumption.
Though the improvement from eighty to one hundred percent might seem marginal to some, Xiang Yu took such efficiencies seriously. The spirit vein's resources, while abundant, weren't infinite.
Although he hadn't spent much, he didn't want to go rogue before he figured out how to grow them at a faster rate. At the rate at which the young ones were growing, if he finished the mature ones, he would have to wait a long time before a new batch matured.
His gaze drifted to his garden again, evaluating the nearly mature herbs. He could harvest them immediately for low-level pill refining, but he decided to give them an extra day just to be safe.
With his personal supply secured, Xiang Yu turned his attention to ninth-grade pill production for the sect. He didn't do this because he was such a nice elder, in fact the sect was already being overloaded with pills, he did this mostly for the love of the game(farming exp)...
...
[1] Most other stats didn’t show much progress, but his three professions—alchemy, formations, and blacksmithing—had all broken through to the seventh grade. This advancement came with valuable insights: new alchemical recipes, formation blueprints, and weapon designs now resided in his mind, ready to be implemented. Most significantly, he could finally craft high-level magical weapons.