Translator: CinderTL
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Upon receiving Master Qing's command, Shi Fuhu and Shi Jiang Long stepped aside.
They opened the door and let Li Chunjun enter alone.
The two of them stood guard at the entrance, not following him in, ensuring that no one would enter during this time.
Li Chunjun entered the room, where an image of Master Qing appeared on the screen in front of him.
"Go straight, turn, and then follow the corridor," Master Qing instructed.
He seemed to be busy with something.
Li Chunjun walked forward, passing through a building area of about four to five hundred square meters, and arrived at the end of the house.
Here...
There was a hidden door, already open.
Li Chunjun entered the hidden door, turned a corner...
And found another corridor.
The corridor was deep, about twenty to thirty meters long.
Li Chunjun estimated that he had now entered the mountain against which the courtyard was built.
After passing through the corridor, a large hall came into view.
The hall was quite spacious, covering three to four hundred square meters.
Master Qing had somehow managed to carve out such a large cavity inside the mountain.
In the hall, the most eye-catching feature was a large alchemical furnace, nearly two meters tall and over a meter in diameter.
However, there was no combustible material beneath the furnace. Instead, it was engraved with numerous formation patterns.
At many of the formation nodes, there were embedded translucent gemstones.
These gemstones...
'Spirit stones?'
"You're here."
Master Qing was in the process of tossing various materials into the furnace. Upon seeing Li Chunjun's arrival, he smiled warmly. "It's almost ready. Just wait a moment."
Li Chunjun didn't respond. Instead, he walked over to the spirit stones.
He didn't try to pry them out.
But even standing nearby, he could feel every pore in his body cheering, as if he could draw the spiritual energy from the stones into his body at any moment to refine his energy.
'The two preliminary steps to becoming a Qi Refinement cultivator are sensing and drawing energy. At level 11, I already had the ability to "sense" the energy of heaven and earth. By level 12, this ability had strengthened. By level 13, I had spontaneously gained a power similar to "drawing energy,"' Li Chunjun realized.
"It's just that I don't have a cultivation technique, so I rely entirely on instinct to draw energy into my body. That's why it would take me a year to fully become a cultivator."
Relying on instinct alone, it would still only take a year to draw energy into his body!
Compared to so-called spiritual root cultivators, this was far faster.
After all, Jin Zhiya had spent four to five years at the Chiyang Academy just to complete the stages of sensing and drawing energy, finally cultivating true qi.
"Alright, everything's ready."
Master Qing tossed the last of the materials into the furnace and relaxed.
He turned his gaze to Li Chunjun, his eyes filled with delight. 'What a flawless piece of uncut jade!'
"Are you ready?" Li Chunjun asked.
"I'm ready."
Master Qing nodded. "Tell me, what kind of fortuitous encounter did you have a month or two ago? Did you refine some rare treasure, or did you consume some miraculous elixir?"
Seeing Li Chunjun's indifferent expression, he chuckled. "Never mind, it seems you won't tell me. But the vitality brimming within your body is almost overflowing. Even without the formation's detection, I can tell how immense the benefits of your encounter were to your body! This level of vitality makes you a top-tier treasure for any cultivator!"
He pointed to the furnace. "Now, jump into the furnace yourself. It's about to start. Be good, or else it'll get messy, and I'll have a hard time cleaning up."
"I thought you'd kill me first before tossing me in," Li Chunjun said.
At this point, neither side needed to pretend anymore.
Master Qing wasn't bothered by Li Chunjun's awareness of his fate.
He even took the time to explain.
"It's different. After death, many nutrients in the human body are lost at an extremely rapid rate, which would affect the efficacy of the medicine."
He smiled. "There are two ways to perform energy infusion. The first is to use an immortal-grade spirit-gathering formation to draw dense energy from heaven and earth, forcibly breaking the barrier between the human body's internal cycle and the external cycle. This achieves unity between man and nature, working from the outside in. However, some exceptionally gifted individuals can rely on top-grade medicinal treasures to break through the barrier from the inside out, merging their internal cycle with the natural flow of heaven and earth."
He looked at Li Chunjun. "I've chosen the second method for you! The furnace contains a vast amount of rare treasures. How about it? Have I, Zhang Qing, kept my word? If you can successfully break through and ascend to become a cultivator, you might even have a chance at survival."
"Fine."
Li Chunjun nodded, then drew his sword. "Kill me, and everything will be yours."
"Heh."
Master Qing chuckled lightly. "It seems I haven't made a move in too long, and I've spent too much time and energy on energy infusion. Some people are starting to wonder if there's something wrong with my cultivation. Even a mere peak martial artist like you dares to speak to me like this now."
As soon as he finished speaking, a golden light, radiating a chilling sharpness, appeared in front of him.
Spell—Sharp Metal Technique!
"You dare to boast so arrogantly in front of a Dao Foundation cultivator like me!"
In the next moment, the golden light flashed.
Fast!
Unbelievably fast!
When Li Chunjun entered this room, he had already guessed that what awaited him would be a moment of truth, so he had prepared himself with utmost vigilance.
With his current mental and sensory acuity, he could not only track the sword techniques of others and the trajectory of arrows but even catch glimpses of bullet paths.
Yet, even so, when this golden light streaked past, he could only catch a fleeting glimpse.
There was no time to block, no time to dodge.
He barely managed to shift his body slightly, but his shoulder was already struck.
With his keen perception, he instantly realized that his shoulder had been pierced by the golden light.
However, the speed of the light was so fast that even though it had already pierced his arm, the pain had yet to register.
"Fast!"
With such acute perception, he could only catch the afterimage of the spell. Against a peak martial artist, this kind of spell...
Would undoubtedly kill with a single strike.
No wonder it was said that when a peak martial artist faced a Qi Refinement cultivator who had mastered spells and cultivated mana, it was a life-and-death situation.
Once the cultivator formed a combat system and solidified their Dao Foundation, no matter how many peak martial artists, martial artists, or even Body Refinement cultivators charged in, they would only be walking to their deaths—until the cultivator's mana was exhausted.
However...
"Your physical body is still not at the peak!"
Li Chunjun's heart pounded violently.
The blood and energy within his body surged, spreading to every corner of his being.
His near-perfect control over his body allowed him to rapidly stimulate the release of adrenaline, minimizing the effects of pain and instinctive reactions.
With these two factors combined, and the battlefield being a room less than four hundred square meters in diameter, cluttered with various items, the moment he erupted into action, he lunged at Master Qing with ferocious speed.
"Whoosh!"
His sword swept out, creating a visible white shockwave, like a streak of light cutting through the air. With the force of a thunderbolt, it thrust toward Master Qing.
This strike was the pinnacle of his Nine Heavens Thunder Sword Technique since he had mastered it.
This strike also pushed the physical strength he had gained through repeated enhancements to its absolute limit.
This...
Was a killing blow even for a Body Refinement cultivator!
Yet, despite being the absolute limit of what Li Chunjun could achieve in his current state, when the sword reached within a foot of Master Qing, it suddenly froze.
Ripples, like flowing water, spread out in all directions.
These watery ripples formed a shield, dissipating the immense force behind Li Chunjun's sword with each ripple. After just a few impacts...
The power behind the sword was completely neutralized.
In the end, the sword stopped less than half a foot from Master Qing, unable to advance any further.
Spell—Water Mirror Technique.
"So, who told you that a peak martial artist could threaten a Dao Foundation cultivator just by getting close?"
(End of the Chapter)
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