Chapter 2 (1/2)

Translator: Larbre Studio  Editor: Larbre Studio

Xu Yi moved slowly. Each move and each form was performed as heavily and as arduously as possible. His body was like that of a fit bull, sometimes striking, sometimes kicking, sometimes crashing into a tree!

But over and over again, it was just these three moves!

Once he started, his training went on for four hours. Except for when he paused to stuff some black herbs, which were a few inches long, into his mouth, he did not stop at all.

Xu Yi slowed down as he went on, as if he were carrying a ton of bricks on his back.

But the blood all around his body flowed faster and faster through his blood vessels. He was burning and roaring with life.

Suddenly, Xu Yi’s entire body seemed to have attained a mysterious state, free of pain and fatigue. All of his focus and energy was fixated on the roaring flow of blood coursing through his body.

Hu! Ha!

Xu Yi adjusted all the remaining strength in his body to attempt the move “Crashing Heaven’s Gate” once more. With his back against the trunk of a pine tree as thick as a large noodle-bowl, he slammed hard against it. Kacha! The large pine tree actually snapped!

Xu Yi fell onto the ground with a thud, lying limp like a giant prawn. His body was left without a shred of strength, but he was full of joy. The feeling flowed into him like a raging river into the sea.

It was clear that the final slam he’d just performed had at least the strength of one bull.

And the strength of one bull was a benchmark of the peak of the Body Forging stage.

Taking a while to catch his breath, Xu Yi sat up. With a horizontal chop of his arm, a piece of hardwood snapped. With the sharp end of the broken wood, he drew a vicious slash across his arm. A long, deep white mark appeared, but there was not a hint of blood.

He raised a fist and sent it smashing onto a boulder the size of a stone roller, and the boulder crumbled into smithereens!

“Skin as tough as hide! Bones as hard as steel! The Body Forging peak is indeed impressive!”

Xu Yi mumbled to himself as he looked down at his two hands.

In the Body Forging stage, the aim was to strengthen blood flow and to train the toughness of the bones and skin. When one’s skin was as tough as an old bull’s hide, bones were was hard as steel, and strength greater than that of a bull, one was considered to have met the peak of this particular stage.

Although Xu Yi had reached the peak of the Body Forging stage, he dared not stay too long in the forest.

He had just reached the peak, and the most important thing to do now was to stabilise this state.

He rushed back to his hut and took out the precious herbs that he had accumulated over the last two years, which were actually just a dozen strands of lower grade Wulong Grass. Grasping them in his hands, he sat cross-legged, immersed in a bathtub of boiling water. He calmed his mind and focused his senses, quietly feeling the sensation of heat within his palms spreading across his body.

Before this, he was still in the earlier stages of the Body Forging stage, and the energy in his blood flow was frothing and scattering in all directions. Now, under the guidance of these flows of heat, the energy began to gather itself, and in bits and pieces, the energy immersed into his bloodstream, tendons, and muscles.

By the time he got up, the water in the bathtub had become unbelievably murky. Upon careful observation of his body, he found that the hard and defined lines on his body had softened to their pre-training state.

But within this softness was frightening power!

Changing into clothes made from coarse cloth, Xu Yi took out a wooden hairpin and fixed his hair in place. He looked down at his reflection in a basin of water. Staring back at him was a thin and hardened face, with clear, defined features. This was a face that he was extremely pleased with.

Suddenly, his eyes were fixed on the two pieces of ginger on the broken wooden table. Without realising it, his thoughts began to wander.

The extreme hardship that he had gone through after making his way into this world six months ago, the inhumane self-torture that he went through, all flashed across his eyes scene by scene like a roll of film.

Over these six months, only he knew how much suffering and hardships he had to bear.

Even he would never have thought that because he feared death, because he feared leaving this world without any trace, a lazy soul like himself would actually be capable of such tenacity.