The medicinal herbs in the pool had been replaced three times today.

For the past month, Xu Yunfan had been using the overflowing Qi of Ginseng from the Ginseng Doll as a foundation for his cultivation. His Pure Yang Qi Skill had already surpassed the eighty-percent mark, reaching a Skill Level of 835. He was now just short of the 1,000 points needed to reach the Great Success Realm. At most, it would take another half a month for his Outer Three Harmonies to reach the Great Success Realm.

After that, breaking through to the Flesh Refining Realm would be a natural progression.

To this end, Xu Yunfan had gone without sleep for half a month. By day, he cultivated the Pure Yang Qi Skill, refining his muscles, bones, and skin until they felt bloated from being washed by his Pure Yang Inner Breath.

Then, he would take another breath of the Qi of Ginseng and practice his Thousand-Pound Mountain-Shaking Hammer Technique.

He made gratifying progress, able to execute the individual moves of the Profound Steel Hundred-Forged Body, the Red Flood Dragon Mountain Coiling Strength, and the Thousand-Pound Mountain-Shaking Hammer Technique.

At night, Xu Yunfan would use the wisp of Qi of Ginseng spat out by the grimacing Ginseng Doll to practice the Linn Character Technique. Even though it took two or three days just to increase his Skill Level by one or two points, he was still incredibly satisfied, especially compared to when it wasn’t increasing at all.

Although he had yet to truly enter the Flesh Refining Realm, his power had advanced by leaps and bounds. He was a world apart from the person he had been a month ago; his Outer Three Harmonies were just one step away from becoming fully integrated.

Half a month. At most, half a month. An optimistic estimate would be less than ten days before he could break through to the Flesh Refining Realm.

After Xu Yunfan refused the invitation from Pei Yan and Qi Huan to attend the Various Sects Martial Arts Performance, even Hong Baichuan had come to mention it to him personally. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Seeing that Xu Yunfan didn’t want to go, Hong Baichuan didn’t insist. He just said that if Xu Yunfan changed his mind, he could let him know anytime within the next half-month.

Fu Jin, for his part, didn’t want Xu Yunfan walking around outside while he was still in the Outer Three Harmonies Realm. This stage wasn’t about making progress through combat. Instead, it required one to constantly contemplate the feeling of kneading the powers of the three refinements—muscle, bone, and skin—and forging them together as one.

Qi Huan and Pei Yan had left the Celestial Craft Cave for Cyan Mountain State seven days ago.

Yan Yuwei had wanted to go, but her master had dragged her down into the mines to absorb Geng Metal Qi. In the entire Celestial Craft Cave, besides Xu Yunfan who could absorb Primordial Spirit Qi, only Yan Yuwei had managed to successfully draw in spiritual energy using the Celestial Craft Qi Absorption Technique.

This way, she might have a chance to achieve Perfection in one of the three refinements—muscle, bone, or skin. Naturally, Zhu Xu, the Hall Master of Melt Gold Hall, wouldn’t let Yan Yuwei go running off.

He had been awake day and night for over forty days, relying entirely on circulating the Linn Character Technique’s Secret Technique to lock his mind and maintain his condition.

He had now reached his limit. His entire body was wracked with subtle, uncontrollable tremors.

Although he still felt mentally sharp and his eyes shone with an electric gleam, a profound exhaustion radiated from the depths of his being. The metallic tang of blood seeping from beneath his tongue was a stark reminder: if he kept this up, his willpower would shatter completely.

He needed to sleep.

After washing himself clean, Xu Yunfan glanced at the vest the Extreme Dao Relic Shell had formed around his torso.

"Alright, you damn hag! I’m coming for you!"

Xu Yunfan fell back and was out like a light.

The moonlight shone brilliantly, spilling across the land like quicksilver and blanketing the earth in a faint, glorious sheen.

Beneath the blanket, the Extreme Dao Relic Shell, which had been wrapped around him like a vest, suddenly stirred. It unfurled with a slick smoothness, once again silently enveloping Xu Yunfan completely. A casual glance would reveal what looked like a naked woman with skin as smooth as polished jade, pressed tightly against him, unmoving.

Xu Yunfan had barely opened his eyes when the sight of an inverted mountain peak pierced his vision.

Thirty-six thousand green peaks, like spears and halberds hurled down by a god, hung with their jagged tips pointed toward a blood-red sky. At the base of the mountains, condensed ice crystals refracted an eerie, unearthly blue light.

His bronze chest heaved. He noticed that even the white mist of his breath drifted upward, defying gravity. Here, every speck of dust violated the natural laws of the world.

ZING!

The familiar ring of a sword exploded from the depths of the inverted mountain range.

The bulging veins on Xu Yunfan’s body suddenly went rigid. He watched as the mountains, which were thrust upside-down into the clouds, began to deconstruct. The peeling rock faces became scales of armor, the icy cold pools in the ravines solidified into the spine of a blade, and with a light lift of a woman’s fair hand, the entire mountain range reassembled into a colossal sword that spanned the heavens!

"You certainly know how to pick a spot."

Xu Yunfan laughed as he bent his knees and lowered his stance. Blood Qi surged through him in an instant. His muscles bulged and became sharply defined, blue veins coiling across them like roots. His entire frame swelled, growing far larger than its normal size.

Two crimson marks suddenly snaked across his raised right arm, intertwining beneath the skin like a pair of blood pythons as they spread rapidly toward the back of his hand.

The moment the woman’s Sword Pointing gesture fell, the ten-zhang-wide rock layer beneath his feet collapsed with a BOOM.

It wasn’t shattered by the impact of the sky-piercing greatsword. It was crushed by the sheer force erupting from his own body—an explosive combination of the Red Flood Dragon Mountain Coiling Strength, channeled from his spine like a great dragon, and his Pure Yang Inner Breath.

As the Sword Qi of the inverted mountain descended, Xu Yunfan’s knotted back muscles flexed. He made a grasping motion in the air, and the Thunderfire Qilin Hammer materialized in his hand. Pure Yang Inner Breath and Red Flood Dragon Mountain Coiling Strength surged and mingled with his burgeoning Blood Qi.

At that moment, the Treasure Artifact finally revealed its true might. With the force of a Reversed Celestial River, it drew a streak of fiery red across the sky, trailing a visible shockwave of turbid white qi and crackling with the Power of Thunder and Fire.

He used the recoil to surge upward against the tide, tearing a blood-red path through the millions of tons of falling rock.

A ripple of emotion finally disturbed the calm in the woman’s eyes.

He blasted right through the colossal mountain-sword. Now bathed in his own blood, Xu Yunfan’s smile only grew more savage.

He turned the abnormal gravity of this inverted world into a weapon. Kicking off a piece of shattered rock, he deliberately held back some of his force. The resulting uncontrolled spin of his body created a vortex that deflected the woman’s next three streams of Sword Qi by half an inch.

As their figures crossed, his Heavy Hammer rang out with the resonant chime of a great bell.

"Got you!"

The next instant.

The entire inverted mountain range suddenly trembled. The mountains, previously enslaved by the woman’s Sword Qi, seemed to reawaken for a moment with a sound like roaring chains. Ancient Earth Vein Qi erupted from deep within the strata, crashing into the Thunderfire Qilin Gang Qi that bloomed from his strike.

For the first time, the woman formed a Sword Seal with both hands.

As Xu Yunfan plummeted into the void between shattered mountain cores, he suddenly saw the exact spot her toes had lightly touched. It was the central nexus, the vital point controlling all the Sword Qi of the inverted mountains.

Everything went black.

’That’s just fucking cheating!’

When he woke again, Xu Yunfan didn’t hesitate for a second.

"Linn!"

The syllable vibrated from his throat, triggering a resonance throughout his entire body. The unquenchable battle lust in his eyes rapidly cooled, but the boiling Blood Qi within him still radiated waves of heat like a furnace.

His bulging muscles swiftly relaxed. The knotted sinews of his back smoothed out like a receding tide, and the prominent blue veins subsided into fine threads flowing just beneath his skin.

He raised his hand and picked up his hammer, the motion as precise as a line drawn by a master carpenter, with not an ounce of wasted effort.

The woman in white watched this, a glimmer of interest in her eyes as she quietly observed the changes in Xu Yunfan.

"Do you know that if you use the Linn Character Technique too much, you could fall into Supreme Forgetting Emotions forever?"

The woman in white spoke, her voice still tinged with cold indifference, as if she were stating an irrelevant fact.

Xu Yunfan said nothing. The moment he raised his eyes, it was as if a hundred-foot Gang Wind had been focused into his pupils.

Xu Yunfan could hear the explosive multiplication of stem cells deep within his bone marrow. He could feel the vortexes of Pure Yang Qi, drawn in and out by his pores, tearing at the very air around him.

The Thunderfire Qilin Hammer, feeling as light as a feather, moved to block the central path. He stomped down, launching himself like a cannonball straight at the woman in white.

"..."