Desperate Straits

The banquet continued for a couple of hours before Gaofeng had finally eaten his fill of the delicacies that were offered. He had completely stuffed himself with demonic beast-meat and spiritual treasures, and thus his gains could not be said to be small. His confidence in reaching the eleventh stage of body-strengthening had now reached 100% due to the accumulation of energy that had gathered inside his flesh and blood, as well as the large increase in strength and defense he had gained from Bloodbath improving. Although he hadn't been able to make a full breakthrough in this ability, he wasn't far off either. However, he was still exhausted after a long day, and because he wanted to be in his optimal condition when breaking through, he decided to wait with breaking through until tomorrow.

But first, Gaofeng would have a good night's sleep. He was shown to his room by a servant girl, who seemed quite intimidated by his large stature, before he used the bathroom and then jumped into bed. The bed creaked underneath his weight, and Gaofeng reminded himself to be more mindful of how big and heavy he was now as to not damage furniture or other people in the future. Soon Gaofeng found himself within the comforting embrace of total darkness.

When Gaofeng awoke the day after, he couldn't help but immediately want to break through to the final eleventh level of the body-strengthening realm, and thus he entered the provided training room and sat down in a meditative position. He then started utilizing the Divine Myriad Changes to break through the shackles put on his potential. The moment he began tearing through these shackles, however, a scene manifested in his mind. He was on a great battlefield, but there were only two people here. There was Gaofeng, clad in white heavy armor, and opposing him was…himself? This version of Gaofeng was contrarily wearing a black heavy armor in the same make as Gaofeng's. Now everything clicked, as Gaofeng realized that he would have to defeat himself to advance into the illusive 11th stage.

Gaofeng initiated utilizing the Heaven-Destroying staff in addition to Shimmer. He shot forward with great speed, and the might of the staff, with the fierce intent it carried with it, clashed with the opponent. However, the opponent was himself, so how could he be surprised at this? Naturally, the Gaofeng in black utilized the exact same two moves in combination against Gaofeng, but the might it carried with it actually superseded Gaofeng's by a large degree. This manifested Gaofeng actually had the cultivation level of the 9th level of the qi-gathering stage, nearly a full realm above the true Gaofeng. The higher cultivation level would allow the illusion to more finely control qi, and thus utilize the Divine abilities way better then Gaofeng, and naturally this put Gaofeng at a great disadvantage. Other than the cultivation level, however, there didn't seem to be any differences between the two.

The clash of staffs smashed Gaofeng back, causing him to plummet into the earth, leaving a long trail on the ground. He got on his feet again in an instant, with blood seeping down his chin, but the illusion had already arrived in front of him and smashed down the enormous staff once again. This time Gaofeng didn't have enough time to fully utilize the Heaven Destroying staff, and thus he chose to instead use the Yin-Yang Dragon Fist's second move, "Destruction". He channeled his Yin and Yang elements to manifest an intricate Dragon in mere moments, and then he shot out his fist with enormous power, using the strength of his legs to push hard against the ground. Gaofeng wasn't aiming to block the staff, however, and instead actually aiming for mutual destruction. It seemed like he wanted to hit the illusion in the head, while also tanking the great blow of the Heaven Destroying staff directly. However, at the last moment, Gaofeng utilized the magnificent star-core in his body to use Shimmer. He swiftly dodged the staff strike coming from above, and managed to get into an angle which was slightly behind the illusion before he hit him with Destruction. The illusion was hit in the back of his head, but didn't take the entire brunt of the blow, as he had been able to active Shimmer as well, making the impact far less than Gaofeng had desired.

The illusion continued on the offensive, utilizing move after move. Gaofeng blocked, dodged and counterattacked the best he could, but he could never get the upper hand. Eventually Gaofeng had become badly hurt, with gaping wounds all over his body, and although Bloodbath was steadily regenerating them, it still wasn't enough to keep up with the pace at which he was gaining said wounds. The only way Gaofeng saw himself winning, was if he were able to make a critical breakthrough in either the Heaven Destroying Staff technique or the Yin-Yang Dragon Fist technique. Gaofeng believed the power such a breakthrough would bring would be enough to give himself an edge against the illusion. He quickly made his choice, and began to solely utilize the Yin-Yang Dragon Fist technique in every clash, while maintaining close vigilance of the manipulation of Yin and Yang, and how they intertwined to form the beautiful and fierce dragon manifestations.

Gaofeng continued being struck down again and again, but his sheer tenacity, as well as his fearsome physique coupled with Bloodbath, helped him stay alive. He would not fail. He absolutely refused to. When Gaofeng continued considering how he manifested the dragon, and the time it took for the dragon to be formed, Gaofeng felt he was unto something. With each new move he utilized he focused on the exact process in which Yin and Yang fused together into one, and thus turning into a power with far larger might than the two simply coexisting or being utilized alone. "AH, HAHAHA! So this is the key…" Gaofeng exclaimed as he continued battling with his illusion. The illusion remained expressionless. Although it had all of Gaofeng's abilities and powers, in the end it didn't have a complete personality. It was less dynamic and flexible than a true genius would be, and thus if Gaofeng was at the same level of cultivation as it, he would far supersede it in pure battle prowess.

Gaofeng had noticed that his Yin and Yang elements would only combine in his fist itself before manifesting the Dragon, but Gaofeng was looking for a way to actually fuse Yin and Yang at an earlier stage, as to not only be able to manifest the dragons with greater ease, but also to increase the amounts that was perfectly fused. Gaofeng, as a mere body-strengthening cultivator, didn't have the ability to finely control qi to the point of perfectly fusing the entirety of his Yin with the entirety of his Yang in the Dragon palms. Actually, it was a minority which was truly fused. Perhaps about 5%. If he could possibly increase the accuracy and duration of the refinement process, it was likely that he would be able to make that 5% into 10% or more.

He continued refining and experimenting with possible methods, until he found that it seemed like the best way to do this was to fuse his Yin and Yang at the core. Since he hadn't cultivated his Dantian yet, naturally these elements wouldn't be here. The core of the Holy Yin-Yang was the heart, and thus this was where he placed his focus while attempting to stay alive. He had already given up all forms of attack, and was simply evading and occasionally blocking incoming attacks if he couldn't dodge them. When he focused on his heart, another existence came to mind. The, up to this point, dormant Divine Myriad Changes Heart. Gaofeng attempted to revolve the Divine Myriad Changes Heart technique, but there still wasn't any change. He had attempted this multiple times since he got the technique, but all he got was silence. Continuing his attempts, one more passionate than the last, the Divine Myriad Changes Heart finally began to slightly revolve. The technique lit up the symbol on his heart with a gentle glow, which transferred to the red tattoo on his chest, and thus Gaofeng felt that the insight he was gaining into how to combine Yin and Yang was magnified and multiplied by a thousand times. Every movement was shown clearly for every step of the way, and suddenly Gaofeng felt like he could spot flaws everywhere in his usage of the technique. There was a flaw in the angle he utilized his fist, and in how he had merged slightly too much Yin qi compared to Yang qi, and how he hadn't completely recreated the full might of the Dragon… It continued on and on, with Gaofeng being able to spot more flaws as he continued utilizing the technique. These weren't all flaws which could be easily remedied, but there were some which Gaofeng could eliminate by just knowing about them.

While utilizing the Divine Myriad Changes Heart, Gaofeng felt that he was improving at an unthinkable speed, and each of his strikes now carried greater might than the previous as he continued honing the Yin-Yang Dragon Fist to the extreme. The gap between himself and the illusion was rapidly closing. If he had continued in his disadvantageous position for another while, he might have been doomed, so he wouldn't let this chance to not only live, but to achieve the illusory eleventh level, go to waste.