Power of the First Level

Xueming raised his slender arms to examine and felt very surprised because, after most of the physical training, all the muscles had to be enlarged so that the vitality could be increased accordingly. Yet, the Divine Body Cultivation Technique was not like that since it emphasized the balanced fullness of the body... The stronger the cultivator, the more elegant and perfect the fleshy body became—according to one’s race.

Despite feeling the power that was packed in his body, Xueming still wanted to see it with his own eyes. He deliberately did not use the heat energy in his body. Two feet fixed in the Yong family’s Gut-Piercing Punch posture. As soon as the fist was swung toward his body, a whistling sound followed. And when Xueming exerted a spinning force to send his destructive energy toward the cave's entrance, there emerged a whirlwind surrounding the powerful fist that soared forward.

BOOM!!!

The tough stone that Xueming had moved to block the cave’s entrance burst into dust in the blink of an eye. Xueming gulped down his saliva before raising his recently-thrown fist to examine and discovering that it did not have any scratches.

... The Divine Physique Cultivation Technique was too amazing to understand. I had only reached the first level, but my fist power had increased more than double—from only 2,000 Jin originally. If I achieved a higher level, the augmented strength would be unimaginable.

Even Xueming's energy level was only at the second level of the basic Qi. his strength already exceeded what a cultivator with the third level of the basic Qi could deal with. But with a cultivator with the fourth level of the basic Qi, it would be different because they would be able to practice their Qi-based techniques. It meant that a cultivator with superior physical strength alone could not always conquer a cultivator with the fourth level of the basic Qi.

Despite having achieved the first level of the Divine Body Cultivation Technique, Xueming did not rush to practice the second level yet. Instead, he chose to use this strong body to fight wild animals while still avoiding the battle with wild beasts for he realized that he did not yet possess great skills. If mistakes happened, it would not be worth it. He also tried different types of attacks on boulders and chose to review the Yong family's martial postures in order to get used to the newly-received power.

Time went by until the twenty-eighth day since Xueming had escaped from the Purple Jade City. This made Xueming decided to go back to the City again to join the Black Wood Tower auction in time.

At this point, Xueming's fist already had the physical strength of 5,100 Jin, which was comparable to the peak level of a cultivator with the third level of the basic Qi. Moreover, if Xueming used the heat energy combined with the attack power, the destructive force could go up to more than 7,500 Jin.

However, due to his past experiences, Xueming did not dare to be careless with life any longer since he realized that no matter how skillful he was today if he later made a mistake and fell down in this competitive world of cultivators, people were ready to turn themselves away and aggravate the defeated like himself during childhood. Consequently, Xueming decided to keep secret about the heat energy in his body even now he could use and control it skillfully. Hence, Xueming decided to use only its reviving effect. If he weren't really desperate, he would never use this stream of heat energy to combine with his attack posture.

Another fact which even Xueming himself still did not recognize was that, since Xueming had received the True Blood of the Immortal Firebird, his blood could absorb the Qi much more than that of a normal cultivator, thus resulting in his breaking through the basic Qi cultivation level, which included the stages of absorbing the external Qi into the blood (first 3 stages), bones and organs (stage 4), and finally harmonizing with pulse points—the most important stage for a cultivator's future foundation (to be discussed later). When the body had more capacity, both cultivation and breaking through required an even greater amount of Qi energy. Also, the difficulty of breaking through would be twice as difficult, in exchange for the so-called increased density of the Qi energy.

But the ability of the Holy Blood right now did not match the body transformed because of the Divine Body Cultivation Technique. And Xueming was fortunate to have practiced the Divine Body Cultivation Technique before passing into the first level of natural Qi because that would make Xueming's basic Qi much stronger than that of the normal cultivator. This strong body would allow Xueming to benefit greatly if he could achieve the fifth level of the basic Qi—the Pulse Harmonization level—in the future. In the history of the human race, no one has ever achieved this before.

Xueming took two more days to travel until finally arriving in the Purple Jade City.

As soon as Xueming stepped into the Purple Jade City, the various forces in the City immediately moved in response. Li Biao just received reports from his subordinates who fiercely competed to be the first reporter of this news in hopes of getting rewards.

Upon learning of the news, Li Biao, without delay, ordered Jian Chen to contact the dark forces within the Purple Jade City, aiming to exterminate the thorn in his flesh like Xueming before the entrance exam day of the Azure Dragon Academy. If Xueming happened to actually become a disciple of the Academy, any action against him would become much more complicated. In addition, Li Biao had to race against time because if Xueming stayed with Zi Hui, the assassination scheme might have to be put on hold again.

On Zi Hui’s side, they had swift intelligence as well, but Zi Hui did not consider Xueming as the top priority like Li Biao did because his father, Zi Zheng, had assigned him an important mission. Therefore, he forgot about Xueming who faced an assassination attempt a month ago.

After entering the Purple Jade City, Xueming did not rush to search for a place to stay since he knew that Li Biao would definitely not let him live in peace. Moreover, during this upcoming auction, Xueming did not want to reveal his true identity because the Fire Elemental Medicine could be sold for a very high price or exchanged for other precious things, it could make him the target of a robbery. After all, his status was equivalent to a wandering cultivator and—not from a great family nor affiliated with any martial arts school. Therefore, being on the lookout would be a much wiser choice.

Moreover, because of the hustle and bustle among Li Biao's subordinates to get the job done for their boss, Xueming happened to catch some of them stalking him, which confirmed that the thought of disguising himself was the right decision.

But before Xueming could camouflage himself, he needed to find a way to get rid of these stalkers first. With that realization, Xueming immediately started to think of a plan in his mind.