First, the seventh son of the Zhang Family (the deceased seventh son version) came knocking.

Now it was someone from Miao Liwu’s group.

This time, they even knew your room number.

What if you happened to be inside your room conducting a love transaction and got caught red-handed?

The outside world was far too dangerous.

“No, I have to escape immediately!”

This feeling of being watched was unbearable.

You didn’t wait until dawn; you left the inn under the cover of night.

You returned to your small courtyard deep in the Black Serpent Woods.

You planned to go deeper into the Black Serpent Woods, entering a true no-man’s land.

You packed all your belongings into your spatial storage.

On your way back, you also purchased a massive amount of daily supplies and materials for refining Blood Qi Pills.

Enough to supply you for twenty to thirty years.

This time, going deep into the Black Serpent Woods, you intended to revise the Wild Heaven Saber Technique.

It was a sect-level cultivation method that could be cultivated all the way to Organ Fortifying. You had no reason not to practice it.

More importantly, you had to start cultivating the Nine Condensations Profound Skill.

It was perfect timing to refine the true qi of the Skin Refining stage again while revising the Wild Heaven Saber Technique.

You didn’t know if you could refine it nine times.

Miao Liwu had only refined it six or seven times yet was invincible at the same stage.

If you could steel your heart to refine nine times, you estimated you could fight opponents several major cultivation levels above you head-on.

You were full of anticipation.

This time, you swore not to come out unless you had exhausted your supplies completely.

You headed deeper into the Black Serpent Woods.

After more than ten days, the surrounding trees were species you had never seen before.

Towering trees dozens of meters tall surrounded you.

Occasionally, bird and insect chirps mingled with various beast roars echoed through the forest.

From time to time, unknown birds and beasts came to harass you, but all were sliced cleanly in half by your blade.

After nearly another month of walking, the humid jungle began to emit poisonous miasma.

This miasma would cause ordinary people to experience fever, headaches, diarrhea, and in severe cases, even life-threatening dangers.

But as a Bone Tempering martial artist, your skin was tough and flesh thick; you felt no discomfort at all.

You could even stand in the poisonous miasma and let out an epic lung-clearing breath.

You pressed onward.

Another month passed.

One day, you encountered a giant gorilla.

The gorilla stood nearly three meters tall when upright.

Its massive muscles bulged terrifyingly.

It let out a fierce roar upon seeing you and charged thunderously toward you.

You had already slain many flying and fierce beasts along the way.

Although the gorilla’s size was unusually large, it no longer surprised you.

With a sharp sound, your Cry of the Swan Goose sliced the gorilla cleanly from head to toe.

The giant body crashed through a large cluster of trees before coming to a stop.

You surveyed the surroundings and decided to settle here.

Not far from here flowed a wide river, making water access convenient.

The terrain was flat and very suitable for building a house.

You spent twenty days constructing a house.

You also built nearly six-meter-high walls using huge stones and tall trees, reestablishing your small courtyard.

Walls of this scale were comparable to city walls.

They effectively blocked nearby wild beasts, allowing you to focus on cultivation.

You also started raising livestock like pigs, dogs, chickens, and ducks inside the courtyard.

During your building period, dozens of giant gorillas came, likely seeking revenge.

After you killed more than forty of these gorillas, the few remaining never returned.

You also cleared out the surrounding beast packs.

The fierce beasts around had learned to fear you, the terrifying upright ape.

They all fled this territory.

You successfully claimed this area as your domain.

Once everything was settled, you swallowed a Blood Qi Pill and began cultivation.

You first focused on revising the Wild Heaven Saber Technique.

Revising meant retraining from Skin Refining back up to mid-stage Bone Tempering.

However, your current mid-stage Bone Tempering level with the Dragon Roar Saber Technique was unaffected.

Moreover, since you were already mid-stage Bone Tempering, retraining would be much faster.

You cultivated for over a year.

In your fortieth year,

you advanced the Wild Heaven Saber Technique to the Skin Refining Peak.

Each slash you delivered carried an ancient, vast aura, as if under the gaze of an ancient demonic god.

The true qi in your body was dense and substantial, with no sense of floating.

You were certain that now, a single slash could kill your mid-stage Bone Tempering self who cultivated the Dragon Roar Saber Technique.

“The sect-level technique really has some power!”

You felt deeply shocked yourself.

Although top-level and sect-level techniques only sounded like they differed by one rank,

in reality, the gap was like heaven and earth.

You were so excited you rode your pig and ran around the courtyard twice.

This was just normal cultivation to the Skin Refining Peak, not even starting the Nine Condensations Profound Skill’s refining yet.

You immediately began your first true qi refinement.

At first, it didn’t go smoothly.

You kept trying repeatedly.

True qi refinement didn’t require Blood Qi Pills for assistance before success.

But you had already developed the habit of refining Blood Qi Pills every day.

After half a year, although you hadn’t completed the first refinement, since you hadn’t consumed any Blood Qi Pills, you had saved over a thousand pills.

You continued cultivating the Nine Condensations Profound Skill.

In your forty-first year,

the midday sun shone on the surrounding tall trees, their branches lush and vibrant with life.

You felt the originally solid true qi in your body suddenly shrink and condense, becoming more substantial.

You completed your first refinement.

The amount of true qi decreased but became denser, circulating through your body, nourishing every part.

Your flesh and bones were reforged and even transformed to better carry the denser true qi.

This was the subtlety of the Nine Condensations Profound Skill.

Compressing true qi wasn’t the hardest part; transforming the body was the core.

What surprised you most was that your innate bone quality had also improved slightly, allowing you to accommodate higher-quality true qi.

Although the improvement was small, with continued cultivation of the Nine Condensations Profound Skill, your body would be further transformed and optimized.

Your martial talent would grow stronger and stronger!

“This kid is so damn unstoppable?! He even created this cultivation method himself?” you murmured, doubting your own life.

“What kind of blessed child is this!”

After your shock, you worked hard to calm your mind.

After years of cultivation, your mental state had improved greatly.

Once calm, you continued refining true qi.

Swallowing a Blood Qi Pill, you restored your refined true qi to its complete state.

You began your second refinement.

Seasons passed without you knowing how many springs and autumns.

You continued silently refining true qi in the small courtyard.

In these years, you hadn’t even stepped outside the courtyard once.

Eight years later,

in your forty-ninth year, you completed your seventh true qi refinement.

You surpassed Miao Liwu’s number of refinements.

You rested for three days.

You always rested for three days after each refinement.

When the string is too tight, it needs loosening.

After three days, you continued your efforts.

But during this refinement, you hit a bottleneck.

For a full two months, you made no progress.

This was near the limit of refinement attempts; even Miao Liwu, the founder of this technique, hadn’t reached it.

Forced, you began reviewing the refinement insights Miao Liwu had sent you.

You hadn’t read them before, fearing they might affect your cultivation.

Only your own comprehension suited you best.

Now that you had stumbled and carved your own path, reading Miao Liwu’s insights wouldn’t hinder you but rather give new inspiration.

Sure enough, after reading Miao Liwu’s refinement notes, your ideas broadened significantly.

You officially began your eighth refinement.

The peach trees in your courtyard bore fruit twice, and you ate your fill both times.

In your fifty-second year, just as nightfall enveloped the dense forest,

your true qi surged turbulently inside.

The true qi became as dense as mercury.

You completed your eighth true qi refinement.

Thunder roared in your lower abdomen’s dantian; it really felt like your belly was rumbling with thunder.

You weren’t sure of your exact current strength.

But you knew that being invincible at your stage no longer described you.

Facing someone one cultivation level above you was just a single slash.

Absolutely no second slash!

If there were a second slash, it meant the blade wasn’t sharp enough, and it had nothing to do with you personally. You would bear no legal responsibility.

Even against an opponent two cultivation levels above you, you had confidence to win.

You took an unprecedented five-day rest.

During this short holiday, you wandered around the surroundings.

These years, you had been cultivating in the courtyard, and the surrounding beasts had returned to gather here again.

More than twenty giant gorillas had come back.

You ignored these gorillas and beasts.

As long as they didn’t disturb your cultivation, they were good neighbors living in harmony.

But the wild beasts of the primal forest were fiercely untamed.

Your livestock were often scared stiff by the beast roars nearby.

At first, the rooster would crow loudly every morning, straining its throat to sing.

Now it only dared to make a small, hurried crow before running back to the coop, terrified of being heard.

Five days later, you returned to the courtyard and shut the heavy six-meter-high gate.

You launched your assault on the ninth true qi refinement!