Free Web NovelChapter 45: Chapter 45: Flesh Secret Treasure, Profound Blood Flood Dragon Tendons
Huang Xuan rubbed his eyes, his face etched with disbelief.
"You..."
"You actually managed to reach the rudimentary form of *that*!?"
He watched as the mystical phenomenon gradually faded, concealing itself within the young man’s Physical Body Treasure Vault.
Even though Ji Xiu had only just brushed against it and had yet to truly master it.
The sight still made him gulp.
Golden Muscle and Jade Veins.
The first Grand Treasure Vault of a Martial Artist’s body!
Although it was common in refined circles to refer to the first stage of the Power Barrier, the Bone Marrow Refining Realm, as "Golden Muscle and Jade Veins"...
...the two were on completely different levels!
Not just anyone who refined their muscles could reach such a state.
It required a Superior Pile Skill, Great Enlightenment, relentless training through the harshest winters and hottest summers, and the consumption of massive resources to achieve it!
Even just the rudimentary form.
It wasn’t something a baseless kid from a mere county town gang should ever be able to attain!
’This kid...’
’This kid...’
’What in the world is the Pile Skill he’s practicing!?’
A storm raged in Huang Xuan’s heart.
But Ji Xiu himself looked perfectly calm. He even let out a long sigh under the old man’s horrified gaze, groaning involuntarily.
"Incredible!"
He looked completely oblivious to what he had just accomplished.
This made Huang Xuan’s eyes go wide.
"Kid, don’t tell me you’re a Mountain Hermit apprenticed to some Qi Cultivation Grandmaster, or maybe the long-lost illegitimate son of some Great Clan from the prefecture!?"
"There’s no other explanation!"
"My medicinal bath can’t be *this* incredible, can it?"
The medicinal bath had seeped through his skin, nourishing his muscles, bones, and flesh, with not a single drop wasted.
Ji Xiu glanced down and saw that the once vibrant green medicinal bath was completely transformed.
He had absorbed all of its essence, leaving behind only floating black grime, dead skin, and residual dregs.
SPLASH!
He waded out of the water.
Ji Xiu grabbed a towel from the side. A single light wipe was like peeling off a layer of old skin, revealing a faint golden sheen.
He watched the golden glint quickly vanish, leaving behind only skin as smooth as jade.
Seeing this, Ji Xiu couldn’t help but marvel.
"A Grand Treasure Medicine bath that costs three or four hundred Silver a batch is truly something else."
"With results like this, forget making two or three batches a day. Old man, even if you worked me like an animal, making ten or even eight batches from dawn till dusk, I’d do it gladly as long as you let me soak in this two or three times a month!"
"And don’t be so humble. This stuff is amazing. A single session is worth more than a dozen of my Pile Skill practices!"
"But what were you saying earlier? A hermit’s disciple? A Nobles’ Son...?"
Ji Xiu raised his palm, looking at the thick calluses he had developed from practicing his saber and doing manual labor. After just one soak, they had all peeled away, leaving his skin smooth and almost translucent.
As he put on his outer clothes, he couldn’t help but shake his head and chuckle.
"If I had that kind of background," he said,
"do you really think I would have spent a month as a Horse Slave at the Lin Residence?"
"What young prodigy or scion of the Nobles could endure the hardship of being treated as inferior?"
"Besides... this so-called ’Golden Muscle and Jade Veins’... isn’t that just a pretentious name the old, established Noble Clan Mansions in the prefecture came up with to make ’Flesh, Bone, and Skin’ sound better?"
Ji Xiu didn’t pay it much mind.
He had a faint feeling that the reason he seemed so ’extraordinary’...
...was, according to the Primordial Daoist Talisman’s prompts,
...most likely due to the benefits of the "Profound Blood Flood Dragon Tendons" Trait he had comprehended after Refining the Turtle and Snake Grand Foundation Stake and breaking through the body’s first so-called Flesh Secret Treasure. ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com
It was no exaggeration to say...
...that even though his tempering of his major tendons and invigorating of his flesh and blood was only at the Minor Success stage...
...but...
...based on his knowledge of the so-called Martial Artists at Great Success in Marrow Refining from the Fire Kiln...
...those people, standing before him now that he had undergone this Transformation...
...would probably not be able to defeat him.
[Tutor: Ji Xiu]
[Current Cultivation: Bone Marrow Refining Realm (Muscle Forging)]
[Martial Arts, Skill Dao: Great Success in Horse Riding, Celestial River Saber Technique, Ninth Grade Alchemy Skill, Turtle and Snake Grand Foundation Stake!]
[Traits: Waist and Horse Unity, Ten Steps One Kill, Calm Mind and Concentration, Profound Blood Flood Dragon Tendons!]
...
[Trait: Profound Blood Flood Dragon Tendons]
[The profound mystery descends, turtle and snake unite. Where one calamity ends, another begins, to vanquish all demonic essence.]
[Profound Turtle Blood and Soaring Serpent Tendons merge into one, forming the prototype of the ’Black Tortoise’. By learning the techniques of the Outer Dao and pursuing the Human Immortal Martial Dao, one who obtains this ’Divine Charm’... can be said to have shattered the first shackle of the ’Mortal Barrier’.]
[The above True Intent is derived from the Superior Pile Skill, ’Turtle and Snake Grand Foundation Stake’.]
[One who obtains this Trait will stand on legs as firm as mountains, with sinews and bones like a tiger-dragon. They will gain the right to fully cultivate the body’s first ’Secret Treasure’, far surpassing any ordinary Bone Marrow Refining Martial Artist!]
’The body’s first Secret Treasure... surpassing ordinary Bone Marrow Refining Martial Artists...’
After practicing the Turtle and Snake Grand Foundation Stake for so long, Ji Xiu had eagerly anticipated what true Trait he would comprehend after mastering the Profound Turtle Great Toad Technique and the Soaring Serpent Cloud-Chasing Technique.
Now, after a single medicinal bath, seeing the ’Profound Blood Flood Dragon Tendons’ Trait, he felt completely satisfied.
’Right now...’
’I’m terrifyingly strong!’
Just then, however, an ill-timed voice piped up.
"What the hell do you know, kid!?"
"A pretentious name?"
Ji Xiu’s words, however, seemed to have struck a nerve with Huang Xuan.
Old Huang watched Ji Xiu finish dressing, then strode forward and gripped his wrist, his expression more solemn than ever before.
"In this five-hundred-li stretch of Anning County, there are no Secret Inheritances, no ancestral shrines, and not even rumors of Martial Dao secrets. That’s why your perspective is so shallow, leading you to believe..."
"...that ’Golden Muscle and Jade Veins’ is just a name, and nothing more."
"But do you know,"
"what the three realms of the true Mortal Barrier are?" fгeewebnovёl.com
His words successfully drew Ji Xiu’s attention. Huang Xuan’s face was taut as he continued.
"The human body is frail, and so we have Cultivation."
"And Cultivation... is the act of breaking free from restraints, shattering one’s shackles, and constantly pushing past your limits, until the human body can be compared to the likes of Immortals and Divine Buddhas!"
"The Great Xuan established the Three Gates and Nine Realms to measure the strength of all Martial Artists under heaven."
"But in the ancient past,"
"when the true masters of the Martial Dao sought to rival the heavens themselves, they constantly pushed their own limits..."
"They called the so-called Three Gates and Nine Realms the ’Nine Great Limits of the Body’!"
"And the first Great Limit of the Bone Marrow Refining Realm is called ’Golden Muscle and Jade Veins’."
"It is a state achieved only by Quenching one’s sinews, blood, and flesh to their absolute peak, causing the skin to glisten with gold and the meridians to become like jade. It represents limitless potential."
"When I was in Jiangyin Prefecture, one of my master’s Direct Blood Young Masters struggled for three whole years, taking countless medicinal baths, just to break through this shackle while in the Bone Marrow Refining Realm!"
"And you achieved the rudimentary form in a single attempt..."
He took a deep breath.
"Nowadays, the world is filled with too many mediocre people, too many common Martial Artists. As a result, legends of the Nine Limits of the Body no longer circulate in small counties and towns like this."
"I myself only know bits and pieces of their Profound Mysteries..."
"But I have heard one thing."
Huang Xuan’s bony, claw-like fingers slowly tightened, as if trying to grasp the Jade Tendons beneath Ji Xiu’s skin.
"And that is," he said,
"that rumor has it, for the Power and Qi Gates, those who fail to break through Three Limits..."
"...can never in their lifetime attain the Titled Martial Dao!"
Those words.
Made Ji Xiu, who was straightening his clothes...
...freeze.
His pupils slowly contracted.
Titled Martial Dao.
It was a concept so lofty that after hearing of it just once, he had never dared to even dream of it again.
And yet, Huang Xuan’s brief explanation...
...had reignited the restless fire in his heart, as if throwing open a new door to a higher, more distant world.
’So, beyond becoming a Qi Cultivation Grandmaster...’
’Even someone like me, as insignificant as dust, struggling to survive in this five-hundred-li Anning County, can actually glimpse the so-called Titled Martial Dao, can look toward...’
’...becoming a true—’
’...Master of the Martial Dao!?’
’If that day ever comes...’
’...what would that even be like?’
The young man lowered his gaze, murmuring to himself.
He looked past the filthy wooden tub at his reflection, a person who had shed all his grime and no longer resembled his former self.
In that moment, through the reflection, he seemed to see himself on the day he was sold into servitude, tears and snot freezing on his face in the biting wind, vowing, ’I will never let myself sink this low.’
He closed his eyes.
After a long moment, he softly uttered a single phrase.
"Struggle onward."
"Struggle onward..."
"Struggle onward!"
Then, his eyes flew open, blazing with a Divine Radiance!
After a moment, the light faded, but his entire demeanor had been irrevocably changed.
’This five-hundred-li Anning County has its borders, after all.’
’And when I venture beyond them...’
’...what will the world be like?’
Huang Xuan, who was standing nearby,
watched the black-robed young man undergo what seemed like a complete Transformation in a single instant.
For a moment, he was utterly speechless.
