Chapter 21 Jade Bone Bottleneck, Diary and Fierce Beast
Li Xuan's words were to Xu Yan's ears as his master's guidance: how to comprehend and how to break through the fetters.
"Catch the Spirit Spark hidden around you, comprehend every grass and tree, comprehend the natural world of Domain..."
As if in a trance, Xu Yan seemed to have some enlightenment.
"Thank you, Master, for your guidance, I understand now!"
Xu Yan said respectfully.
Seeing that he had managed to bamboozle his foolish disciple again, Li Xuan nodded in satisfaction.
For the next two days, Xu Yan didn't practice his cultivation but instead strolled around the small village, feeding chickens, planting vegetables, and at night, sitting on a rock, watching the stars in the sky.
His mind was surprisingly tranquil.
Without the obsession to break through the constraints of Bone Refinement, without the obsession with cultivation, his mind seemed to have set down its burden, and he felt relaxed all over.
At a certain moment, he even had an insight that the Domain was so marvelous.
After three days had passed, as Xu Yan was weeding and was about to leave, he suddenly noticed a segment of an earthworm emerging from the soil, then retracting back into the earth.
He also saw a little bug digging a hole in the ground.
In his mind, a flash of inspiration struck, as if a Spirit Spark had suddenly appeared.
"Cultivation of genuine meaning, blood vitality like a dragon... I understand now!"
At this moment, Xu Yan felt as if he had an epiphany, his mind lit with inspiration, instantaneously comprehending the profound meaning of the martial arts technique.
"Jade Bone, I must be able to temper it!"
"Thank you, Master, for your guidance. It's because of this that I had my epiphany, that I was able to capture the hidden Spirit Spark around me, because I comprehended the technique, understood how to break through the bottleneck!"
Xu Yan was thrilled.
The next day, before dawn, Xu Yan started to practice his cultivation again.
Li Xuan, upon seeing this, was surprised. Had this foolish disciple risen up so quickly and continued to persevere?
As long as Xu Yan didn't realize he had been deceived, it would be fine.
Once the one year period ended, the master-disciple relationship would be severed, the deception would end, and he would go live a simple life in Wu Country!
After that, he would probably never see Xu Yan again.
At this moment, Xu Yan was nurturing his blood vitality into his bones, imbuing it into the marrow. Slowly but continuously, he infused the blood vitality into his bones and marrow.
After spending three days, Xu Yan began to feel a sense of sour swelling in his bones, and that's when he started the tempering process.
During his cultivation, Xu Yan seemed to forget everything else; only the mystical Spirit Spark of the Domain floated in his mind.
Boom!
The blood vitality in his marrow roared like a dragon at that moment, and the marrow surged and bubbled as if coming to life.
At this time, Xu Yan felt an indescribable pain in all his bones.
Itchy, stabbing, and swelling...
His entire skeleton, now and then, would expand as if about to burst, then contract as if becoming finer, even compressing and solidifying the marrow.
Between expansion and contraction, even purer blood vitality was born.
Xu Yan felt as if a mysterious mood was being born within his bones.
This sensation was more painful, more unbearable than his first Bone Refinement.
Sweat kept dripping down.
Xu Yan gritted his teeth and persisted until he could hardly hold on before ceasing his practice.
"The Golden Bone has loosened up a bit..."
Xu Yan discovered that the Golden Bone, which had reached its limit and could no longer be tempered, had now become slightly loosened and grown stronger.
"I comprehended correctly, Jade Bone is not far off!"
With newfound enthusiasm, Xu Yan practiced with even more diligence over the following days.
The pain he endured grew even more intense.
Seven days later.
His splendid golden bones had actually faded in color.
While the Golden Bone had faded, the strength of the bones had improved by more than thirty percent.
Half a month later, his bones had turned back to white, but they were more than twice as hard as golden bones.
His blood had become purer and stronger.
"I'm already this powerful without achieving Jade Bones," he mused, "what heights would I reach with Jade Bones? My martial arts foundation is beyond any prodigies of yore!"
Xu Yan was brimming with excitement—the Jade Bones were no longer far off.
After ten days, Xu Yan's bones had taken on a crystalline appearance, just one step shy of flawless Jade Bones.
However, at this final step, Xu Yan once again felt resistance.
It was as if he had hit a bottleneck, unable to continue his transformation.
He was just one step away from fully forging Jade Bones, so how could Xu Yan possibly be content?
Thus, over the next two days, he persistently tempered himself, yet made no progress. It seemed that only by breaking some kind of shackle could he complete the last step of his transformation.
...
Li Xuan did not know that his foolish disciple was close to developing Jade Bones.
Having nothing to do that day, he dug out some relics from the old people in the village, mostly books.
The villagers had fled to this place for refuge, some of them literate, leaving behind books. Though not many, these were the most valued treasures of the village.
Thud!
A rolled-up cloth fell to the ground, and Li Xuan bent down to pick it up, noticing there was writing on it.
"Whose relic is this? I don't think I've seen it before."
Curious, Li Xuan unrolled the cloth.
The cloth was rather long and, once spread out, he saw it was full of writing—could it be a diary?
"Is this Da Niu's diary?"
Li Xuan looked surprised.
Da Niu, a simple brute, kept a diary?
"Da Niu died in the Evil Spirit Forest, but the tiger that killed him has already been slain—we've avenged him."
Li Xuan felt a pang of sorrow.
Da Niu was among those who left the village with him, but only Li Xuan had escaped back.
Flipping through the cloth, reading Da Niu's diary, Li Xuan treated it as idle gossip.
"Da Niu actually wanted to marry eight wives—he had lofty ambitions, what a pity."
As he read to the end of the cloth, Li Xuan suddenly froze, his expression turning solemn.
The final entries documented Da Niu's lone departure from the village, aiming to go to the city.
Outside the Evil Spirit Forest, he encountered a fierce beast!
"What Da Niu saw wasn't that tiger!"
The village had long whispered of a fearsome tiger within the Evil Spirit Forest; Li Xuan subconsciously believed that it was the only one.
Was there truly another beast besides that tiger?
"That beast was bigger than the tiger, with fiery mane and tusks over a foot long..."
Reading the description in Da Niu's diary, Li Xuan was shocked—this creature was far more terrifying than the tiger.
Why was there another fierce beast in the Evil Spirit Forest, aside from the tiger?
The tiger is the king of the forest.
In its territory, how could it allow another fierce beast to exist?
How could such a formidable creature tolerate the tiger's presence in its domain?
"The first time I heard about a fierce beast in the Evil Spirit Forest, it was Da Niu who mentioned it; he spoke of the creature more than once. When a few of us planned to leave the village, it was Da Niu who warned us of the beast, that it was too dangerous.
"Until that fellow came back, claiming he had learned the art of tiger slaying, only then did we gain the confidence to leave the village..."
Li Xuan contemplated a possibility—could the tiger be the subordinate of the fierce beast in the Evil Spirit Forest?
"My silly disciple, leading the hunt for the tiger, did they encounter that fierce beast? It seems not. Perhaps because there were many people, the beast hid and didn't show itself?"
"No, I must ask the foolish disciple; he must lead a search through the Evil Spirit Forest and ensure that beast is slain!"
Having tidied everything up, Li Xuan left his home to look for Xu Yan.