Fire Covered Star

Yu Nianzhen dodged to the left to evade Jiang Yue's punch, but the other did not relent and he twisted his body, using the momentum to land a kick on Yu Nianzhen's stomach.

It was already too late for Yu Nianzhen to dodge the kick and he immediately leaned in to reduce its force and then used the close contact to land a hit on Jiang Yue's chest before they simultaneously retreated to put some distance between them.

"Not bad." Jiang Yue said as he tried to catch his breath. His face was flushed red and his entire body was covered in sweat, but he felt refreshed after several hours of sparring.

Jiang Yue hadn't expected Yu Nianzhen to react fast enough to counter his last kick but now that he thought about it, he should have expected it.

As heirs to powerful families in their previous life, they had both been trained in martial arts since young and it was only natural that they still retained the instincts that had been honed over the years.

Yu Nianzhen patted down his clothes to shake out the dirt that had gotten on them during the spar before he spoke, "you too."

A cultivator's body was naturally stronger than the body of a person who didn't cultivate, but strength was not enough and one needed to experience combat to hone their combat awareness otherwise it wouldn't be strange to be defeated by weaker opponents.

After they began cultivating, Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue had begun to spar for several hours each morning and to their surprise, sparring not only helped them to accumulate combat awareness but it also allowed them to consolidate their strength.

With each awakened meridian, a cultivator would gain several thousand kilograms of new force value, but this force value was only their potential and not the actual force they could exert in a battle.

To exert the maximum potential force value, a cultivator not only needed a strong body and meridians but also compact qi.

Meridian awakening realm cultivators couldn't release qi and because of this, there was no way to use and deplete the qi stored in the meridians. However, Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue had found that sparring agitated the qi in the meridians which allowed the qi to penetrate their muscles, tendons, bones, and meridians to nourish them.

The effect on the body was minimal, but the main point was that this usage of qi depleted the qi in the body and every time that this happened, they would need to cultivate new qi and the new qi would be slightly purer and more compact than the previous.

It was because of this effect that Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue had taken to sparring until all the qi in their body was depleted and over time, the quality of qi that they cultivated had improved greatly which helped increase their cultivation speed.

This method of improving their qi quality was only feasible because the two were cultivating a high-grade basic breathing technique and not a peak grade basic technique.

If they cultivated a peak grade technique, the qi refined from the technique would be of the highest quality and would have no room for improvement, but the qi refined by a high-grade breathing technique still had room for improvement.

It was also possible because heaven and earth qi was relatively simple and easy to refine thus a slight improvement of the body could produce an effect on the qi that was refined. If Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue continued to utilise the usage and depletion method to improve their qi quality, it was not impossible for them to eventually manage to cultivate qi that was comparable in quality to that cultivated using a peak grade breathing technique.

However, to have that much improvement would require a lot of hard work, but the two boys were afraid of everything but hard work!

"Let's quickly replenish our qi, and then have breakfast." Yu Nianzhen suggested and Jiang Yue did not argue.

They had tied their bullock to a large tree that was close enough to the road to hear the traffic, but deep enough into the forest to ensure that other travels wouldn't easily notice them unless they were specifically looking.

Still, it wasn't safe to cultivate in the open since the outer edge of the forest had some low-level beasts and there was no guarantee that a traveller would not stop in the same place.

Luckily, their cart had a protection array that allowed them to cultivate in peace during their travels and the two were just about to get on the cart when a sudden change occurred.

The sun had just risen and the morning's dew hadn't even had time to evaporate, but all of a sudden, the world descended into darkness causing the two boys to stand still in shock.

It was so dark that they couldn't even see their own hands, let alone each other and this situation caused even the usually calm Yu Nianzhen to panic.

Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue could hear the mad howling of beasts from within the forest and underneath the howling, there was the sound of running and breaking trees as the beasts rampaged in their confusion.

"Hold my hand." Yu Nianzhen said as he extended his arm towards where he had last seen Jiang Yue.

Jiang Yue did not hesitate and he immediately held the hand before moving closer to Yu Nianzhen so that they wouldn't be separated.

The two couldn't see their bullock cart and they didn't dare to walk around carelessly lest they unintentionally walked into the forest. Instead, they stood back-to-back and focused all their senses on their surroundings.

They couldn't see, but they could hear and they hoped that they would be able to react fast enough if something or someone approached them from the forest or the road.

Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue didn't dare to relax or speak and after the time it takes incense to burn, the world changed again.

This time, a blue star appeared high in the sky and its blue light dyed the world a splendid blue that made everything look surreal.

The blue star was surrounded by a thin layer of fire, but the fire did not seem to have any effect on the world because the temperature was the same as before the world changed.

"What's going on?" Jiang Yue asked as he looked at the sky.

However, no one could answer his question because Yu Nianzhen also didn't know. He had read many books over the past five months, but none of them had mentioned such a strange phenomenon so he could only have a 'wait and see' attitude.

The two vigilantly watched the sky, but after several minutes, nothing had changed and the fiery blue star continued to illuminate the world.

"The heaven and earth qi has changed." Jiang Yue stated suddenly.

Yu Nianzhen had also noticed that the heaven and earth qi had become about twenty times more concentrated and purer.

In normal times, they could detect the heaven and earth qi even without meditation, but they needed to be in a meditative state to attract the qi into their bodies.

At the moment, though, the heaven and earth qi was so dense that it was automatically entering their bodies through their pores without a need for meditation.

The current situation was an unprecedented blessing and although the two boys did not understand what was going on, they knew that they could not waste this chance.

They immediately retreated into the cart which was protected by an array and began to cultivate.

As expected, the abundance and purity of the heaven and earth qi made it several times easier to cultivate and after several hours of cultivation, Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue not only replenished the qi they had used during their spar but also fully awakened their sixth meridian and broke through to the seventh level of the meridian awakening realm.

Yu Nianzhen was the first to break through, but Jiang Yue was not far behind and he also broke through half an hour later.

However, the two were not satisfied with stopping at one breakthrough and after stabilising the seventh level of the meridian awakening realm, they began to unblock the acupoints of their seventh meridian.

The blue star sky lasted for a day and by the time that the world returned to normal, Jiang Yue had managed to unblock six acupoints on his seventh meridian while Yu Nianzhen had unblocked five.

Although it was unfortunate that they hadn't managed to fully awaken the seventh meridian, neither was disappointed.

Awakening meridians became more difficult and more time consuming with every meridian that was awakened and being able to awaken the sixth meridian and part of the seventh meridian had already saved them more than two months of hard work.

At their usual pace, it would have taken them another half a month to fully awaken the sixth meridian and break through to the seventh level of the meridian awakening realm. Now, they only needed less than a month to fully awaken the seventh meridian and break through to the eighth level of the meridian awakening realm.

"I wonder what that was about?" Jiang Yue wondered after he got out of their bullock cart.

The world had gone back to normal and if one hadn't experienced it, they would never have known that such a strange thing had happened.

Yu Nianzhen was also at a loss and could only shrug in confusion before he spoke, "let's eat and then hurry to Fengying city."

It had been ten days since they left Stone village and they initially didn't plan to rush to Fengying city, but after what happened, they needed to hurry.

Fengying city was a large city and they weren't afraid that they wouldn't find someone who could tell them what the sudden change was about.

If they were lucky, this sort of thing would be an occasional phenomenon in the Cangxing world and if that was so, they who had a good breathing technique and exceptional cultivation talent would be able to break through to the origin forging realm much faster than they had expected.

After eating a roasted rabbit, Jiang Yue and Yu Nianzhen did not linger about and immediately set off for Fengying city.

...

Thousands of kilometres away from Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue, a young girl opened her eyes and brilliant flames burned in her eyes before they dissipated.

Her indifferent eyes looked at her right wrist and when she saw that a blue star had appeared on the inner side, a brilliant smile curled her lips causing the watching people to fall into a daze.