One month later.
Deep in the night within the forest of the Southern Barbaric Mountain Range.
Chen Xi had a concentrated expression, and a white light suffused on his fist as he struck a rock.
Bang!
The hard rock that was the size of a millstone burst open and sprayed out before dropping all over the ground. It could be clearly seen that the rubble were each similarly the size of a longan and were all like beads.
At this moment, Chen Xi had shockingly already attained the first level of the Grand Collapsing Fist — collapsing a rock into beads!
"So it turns out that collapsing force exploding out in an instant is exerted through instantly condensing the hidden force that's accumulated from twisting, winding, and kneading the muscles. The body is like a fully drawn bow and the fist is like an arrow that's pulled extremely tightly, and at the moment that force is exerted, it's precisely what is called 'collapse'!" Chen Xi muttered to himself, then once again assumed the stance and cultivated every move and form.
During this half a month's time, his life was monotonous yet substantial. During the day, he explored his culinary arts in the Quiet Room; at night, he followed Ji Yu to this forest to cultivate the Grand Collapsing Fist, while paying attention to meditation, tempering the body, and visualizing the Fuxi Divine Statue. Every single moment of time was fully utilized by him.
Under such a heavy load of bitter cultivation, changes silently occurred in Chen Xi's imposing manner. He was full of spirit between his brows and he was like a treasured sword, concealing a sharp aura of slaughter within. The muscles of his entire body had line by line and piece by piece become even more clearly angular, and a jade-like lustre was suffused on the surface as if boundless energy was contained within.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
His fist tore through the sky and emitted a low and sharp sound of rending the air. This was the sound of the vibration in the air caused by the strength within the muscles being condensed to a certain degree.
When this type of vibration attained a certain degree, it would have already attainted the second level of the Grand Collapsing Fist — collapsing a rock into powder. At that time, with a fist strike onto the rock, the shattered bits would be like powder and would scatter with the wind.
Sweat wound down his body and heavy gasps for breath were mixed with surges of howling wind from striking out with the fist, and it resounded for a long time in the air above the forest.
Six hours later.
Chen Xi fell flat on his back onto the ground, terribly fatigued. Every muscle in his body was aching and weak, and he was unwilling to even move a finger.
"Senior Ji Yu, my qi refinement cultivation has attained the 8th level of the Congenital Realm now, and my body refinement cultivation has already advanced to the Congenital Realm. According to this momentum, when do you think I can attain the Violet Palace Realm?" Chen Xi turned his head to gaze at Ji Yu who lay on the rattan chair and asked in a light voice.
Ji Yu was same as always, eating meat and drinking wine as he answered, "At least a year. Regardless of if it's the school of fiendgod body refinement or the school of qi refinement, developing the Violet Palace is an extremely difficult barrier. Your cultivation has already advanced swiftly enough, you don't have to cultivate so desperately."
Chen Xi sighed. "I have too many enemies. If I don't cultivate desperately, how would I become strong?"
Ji Yu replied with an 'oh,' then raised the bottle gourd of wine in his hand and asked, "Do you want to have a drink?"
Chen Xi repeatedly shook his head. "No. The energy contained within the wine is too terrifying. Even if it's able to be used by me, it caused me to be unable to cultivate my fist technique for seven days. Moreover, the explosive increase in cultivation was of no benefit towards my training, so it doesn't matter if I don't drink it."
The facts were indeed like this, since drinking a few mouthfuls of the strong wine within the bottle gourd half a month ago, although Chen Xi's body refinement cultivation had broken through to the Congenital Realm in one go, the side-effects were extremely obvious as well. The explosive increase in his strength caused him to be unable to skilfully and easily use his body. For the sake of avoiding the state of his foundation being unstable, he spent another half a month worth of time to draw upon the Thick Earthstar baleful qi and Pure Woodstar baleful qi to temper his body once again, and the arduousness of the process caused Chen Xi to have a lingering fear in his heart.
Ji Yu said rather regretfully, "It's indeed like you've said, drawing upon the assistance of external forces to break through in your cultivation is the easiest way to cause the condition of your foundation to be unstable. And this would cause you to easily suffer qi deviation when charging towards a higher Realm in the future. However, once you've attained the Violet Palace Realm and have established your Dao Foundation, then you don't have to worry about the appearance of these problems."
Actually the principle was extremely simple and Chen Xi understood it as well. Before developing the Violet Palace, regardless if it was the Postnatal Realm or the Congenital Realm, they were both there for the sake of preparing for establishing the Dao Foundation. Only when the Dao Foundation was strong and firm would he be able to go further on the path of cultivation. Even though using the assistance of external forces would allow his cultivation to advance swiftly, compared to the future journey towards the Dao, it was obviously of more harm than benefit.
"Actually, if you want to increase your strength, live battle is undoubtedly the best choice." Ji Yu suddenly spoke, then slowly said, "The abundance of experience in live battle will be of great important while facing an enemy. An expert that was tempered through life and death battles would even be able to challenge an opponent of a higher cultivation than himself."
The attainment in cultivation didn't represent that one was able to utilize this strength.
Possessing profound martial skills, but having never experienced the tempering of blood and fire would only amount to fancy fighting.
Chen Xi deeply agreed.
"Numerous demon beasts walk about within this mountain range's forest, and the deeper you go, the stronger the demon beasts will be. There's no lack of greater demons with formidable strength within the forest, but with your current strength, it's better for you to look for some Congenital Realm demon beasts to train with." Ji Yu pointed towards the depths of the forest as he suggested.
After a wild beast possessed intelligence, it would be able to swallow and absorb the spirit energy of heaven and earth to transform into a demon beast. After going through arduous cultivation, it would be able to step into the Congenital Realm like humans and continue to step onto the path to seek immortality.
According to the difference in bloodlines, demon beasts were normally divided into demon beasts and divine beasts.
When ordinary demon beasts cultivated to the Congenital Realm, they were able to freely take human form, whereas it was extremely difficult for divine beasts to take human form. Some divine beasts needed to attain the Violet Palace Realm to be able to take human form, some instead needed to attain the Golden Realm, and some even required an even higher…
However, divine beasts possessed the bloodline of primordial demons and they were born possessing intelligence and extremely high natural talent. Their strength was much more formidable than ordinary demon beasts.
"Fight and kill a Congenital Realm greater demon? I seem to have not seen one during all these days?" Chen Xi couldn't help but be startled. Battling a demon beast was no different than battling a human, and on the contrary, the imposing manner of a demon beast usually surpasses humans. Among demon beasts, a Congenital Realm greater demon that occupied a territory of its own would surely have slowly risen up from killing and battles. With the level and viciousness of its combat experience, it would usually be able to terrify its opponent to the point that their scalp went numb with a single glance, causing its opponent to be only able to exert 50% of their strength.
Ji Yu smiled then asked in response, "They dare come close to here?" His casual tone revealed boundless contempt.
Chen Xi came to a sudden understanding, he'd nearly forgotten that Ji Yu was the spirit of the manor that had lived for a million years, and his appearance is that of a Qilin with jet-black hooves and a single horn on his head. If those demon beasts dared to come close, they would simply be looking to be bashed!
Chen Xi didn't say anything further and waited for his physical strength to recover before tidying up his clothes and directly moving towards the depths of the forest.
Under the night sky, the forest was extremely dark and unusually silent. After moving forward for the time it took an incense stick to burn, Chen Xi encountered a demon beast with a strength that was barely at the initial-stage of the Postnatal Realm.
However, Chen Xi instead became cautious, as ordinary Congenital Realm cultivators didn't dare enter a dangerous place like this and a slight carelessness on his part might lead to suffering a sneak attack and dying from these ferocious and cunning demon beats.
He gradually moved deeper and deeper, killing a few more demon beasts on the way. Unfortunately, the strength of these demon beasts were weak and couldn't arouse his interest in the slightest.
He once again moved forward a few kilometres, then Chen Xi suddenly stopped in his tracks and a trace of surprise flashed at the bottom of his eyes.
"There's sounds of fighting!" Chen Xi's soul was much stronger than an ordinary cultivator with the same cultivation as him, and it was already faintly arriving at the verge of breaking through. This also allowed him to be able to catch movements that ordinary people were unable to notice.
At this moment, he'd precisely relied on the strength of his soul to hear the vague sounds of battle that resounded out from far away.
He never imagined that there actually would still be people that dared to enter deep within this mountain forest late at night… Chen Xi followed the sound and silently rushed over.
Up ahead was a seemingly empty pile of rocks. Borrowing the starlight from above, he was vaguely able to see some figures flashing about, and besides this there were sounds of frightening beast roars.
When he was still 100 steps away from the rock pile, Chen Xi took a breath then leapt up onto a large tree before hiding himself within the crown of the tree to get a good vantage point to clearly see the faraway scene.
In the empty space at the centre of the rock pile, it was a complete mess, and at this moment, two men and a woman were waving about the weapons in their hands as they jointly attacked an enormous demon beast.
This demon beast was shaped like a tiger or leopard with a body that was over 7 meters long. Its fur was like silver and its limbs were thick and strong like poles. Sharp fangs that were the shape of saws filled its entire bloody mouth, and its claws were 1 meter long and sharp like knives.
This was an adult Silverwind Leopard with a strength comparable to the perfection stage in the Postnatal Realm. Its sharp claws were like knives and its speed was extremely swift like the wind, and it was extremely skilled in stealth and sneak attacks. What caused people to feel terror the most was that the sharp claws of the Silverwind Leopard carried a toxic poison, and if an infected person wasn't treated in time the meridians in the person's body would burn into nothingness and the person would become a cripple.
Chen Xi noticed the red leaf design on the sleeves of the three people, and the name of an inferior institution appeared within his mind — Redleaf Institution.
Redleaf Institution was situated within the institution district in Pine Mist City; it closely neighbored Skystar Institution and had 300 plus disciples. Amongst the numerous institutions, its strength was able to be ranked amongst the top ten.
What caused people to delight in talking about the most was the Redleaf Institution's Dean Ye Qiu, who cultivated the Dao with a saber. The Redleaf Saber Technique he created was straightforward and simple, and it used simple moves to defeat skilful moves. According to the differentiation of grades, it could already be called a high-grade martial skill. Supposedly, the strength of Ye Qiu was formidable enough to the extent he was even able to battle the number one expert under the command of the General's Estate, Luo Chong.
The strength of the three people that were jointly attacking the Silverwind Leopard wasn't high, but their cooperation was quite tacit, and they ought to have cultivated a type of combination attack arts. The three sabers splashed out like the rain, seeming to weave an impenetrable saber net that firmly trapped the Silverwind Leopard into a corner, to the point it would only be able to struggle and wait for death.
"Courting death!" The blue clothed young man that stood in the middle suddenly shouted out explosively when he saw the Silverwind Leopard wanting to strike regardless of if it was injured, he quickly swung out three saber strikes that whistled in the air, and the swift and fierce saber energy forced the Silverwind Leopard to retreat.
His companions by his side took advantage of this opportunity to suddenly launch an attack without the slightest hesitation, and the shiny and sharp saber lights were like rain droplets as they chopped towards the Silverwind Leopard.
Behind it was the hard rocks that stood tall and erect, thus it had no path of retreat.
Something's not right!
When he saw the Silverwind Leopard about to be killed on the spot, Chen Xi who was concealed atop the tree crown instead perceived that something was off.
That Silverwind Leopard is too calm, even if it was deeply caught in a hopeless situations, its gaze is still calm and ferocious, and even emitting a trace of coldness and complacency occasionally.
There's an ambush!
How strong was Chen Xi's soul? At the instant he perceived something was not right, he'd quickly noticed that within the shadows surrounding the rocks, ten plus robust beast figures were silently approaching…
Roar! Roar! Roar!
The sounds of 10 plus beast roars mixed together was like the horn of attack, resounding out within the dense night sky.