CHAPTER 29

  “Impossible…”

  “Little Five… is undergoing marrow cleansing?”

  Su Xueni had not even had time to understand what was happening.

  A cold strand of sword intent emerged behind her.

  The mountain wind stirred softly.

  A figure in white robes was already standing there.

  Leng Wuqing.

  She had only been passing by.

  Her gaze fell upon Yang Feng.

  At that moment, Yang Feng was kneeling on one knee on the ground.

  His body trembled violently.

  His skin was coated with thick black sludge being forced out through his pores.

  A foul, metallic smell spread across the stone courtyard.

  But what drew the most attention was the red light flickering beneath his skin.

  A warm light.

  Not hot.

  Not violent.

  Yet filled with vigorous life.

  It pulsed rhythmically.

  As if another heart were beating inside his body.

  Leng Wuqing watched him for a moment.

  Then she spoke calmly.

  “He is cleansing his marrow.”

  She paused.

  Her gaze deepened.

  “But… not only that.”

  Su Xueni turned her head.

  “Not only?”

  Leng Wuqing continued slowly.

  “His tendons and muscles…”

  “are being tempered by a peculiar internal energy.”

  The crimson light beneath Yang Feng’s skin flared again.

  The veins along his arm tightened and swelled.

  His joints cracked audibly.

  Leng Wuqing narrowed her eyes slightly.

  “If he had only drunk the blood of a spirit crane…”

  “he might barely reach the stage of Copper Skin.”

  “That would already be the limit.”

  “But…”

  She stared directly at his body.

  Her gaze sharpened.

  “That energy…”

  “did not begin from the skin.”

  “It began deep within his body.”

  She stepped forward.

  A thread-thin strand of Sword Intent brushed across Yang Feng’s body.

  Immediately.

  The entire flow of energy inside his body became clear within her perception.

  Leng Wuqing paused slightly.

  A flash of surprise flickered in her eyes.

  “It…”

  “is moving through his bones first.”

  That deep crimson force followed the spirit meridians,

  flowed through his joints,

  seeped into the muscles,

  then spread along every tendon.

  Only after that did it reach the skin.

  It was like molten lava forging his body from the inside out.

  Leng Wuqing spoke slowly.

  “It is interfering with his entire bodily structure.”

  “Muscles.”

  “Tendons.”

  “Bones.”

  “Joints.”

  “Only after that… does it reach the skin.”

  Her gaze shifted to the black sludge flowing from Yang Feng’s body.

  “That black substance…”

  “is the turbid qi within his marrow.”

  At that moment,

  the skin on Yang Feng’s arm cracked slightly.

  A thin fracture opened.

  But there was no blood.

  Only a burst of crimson light.

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  Su Xueni inhaled sharply.

  “That’s impossible…”

  “This is—”

  But Leng Wuqing spoke before she could finish.

  For the first time, a trace of seriousness appeared in her voice.

  “Yang Feng.”

  “The power inside your body…”

  “what exactly is it?”

  Yang Feng still retained his consciousness.

  But his body trembled violently.

  His entire body burned as if he were being smelted inside a furnace.

  He clenched his teeth.

  Forcing out a single word.

  A word that made both women freeze.

  “Inner… Power…”

  Not Spiritual Power.

  Not Spiritual Qi.

  But—

  Inner Power.

  A foreign term.

  A concept that had never appeared in the cultivation world.

  Su Xueni stood frozen.

  She had never heard of such a thing.

  But Leng Wuqing was different.

  Her eyes suddenly lit up.

  In that instant, many things she had never understood before became clear.

  She finally understood why Yang Feng could circulate Spiritual Power in such a strange way, why his sword qi carried a crimson vitality, and why the Heavenly Dao had left its mark across the sky.

  What had appeared before her was not merely a strange technique, but the outline of something far greater.

  A new path had been born, a new system of power, and perhaps even a completely new doctrine of Qi.

  Leng Wuqing slowly straightened and looked down at Yang Feng with deep eyes.

  “No one can help you,” she said calmly.

  “Because no one understands that energy.”

  She paused briefly before continuing.

  “Except you, the one who gave it a name.”

  The mountain wind swept across the courtyard as the crimson glow beneath Yang Feng’s skin flared again.

  A new body was being forged from within.

  Yang Feng’s body trembled violently one last time.

  Suddenly the Origin Qi within his dantian erupted. It was no longer confined within the meridians.

  The deep crimson energy surged through his entire body at once, causing the red glow beneath his skin to shine brightly.

  Veins rose along his arms like cords of steel, and his bones released heavy cracking sounds.

  His muscles contracted and expanded repeatedly, as if an invisible force were compressing and reforging his entire body from within..

  Then the skin across his body began to split.

  Thin fractures appeared and quickly spread.

  Su Xueni gasped. “His skin...!”

  The first piece peeled away and fell onto the stone ground, followed by another, and then another.

  Layers of old gray skin filled with impurities slowly separated from his body and dropped like dry husks.

  Beneath them, a new layer of skin gradually emerged.

  It was pale bronze in color, taut and smooth, yet filled with a powerful vitality.

  The crimson light of Origin Qi passed through the new skin and reflected a faint metallic sheen.

  Leng Wuqing watched quietly, her gaze pausing for a moment.

  “Copper Skin,” she said softly.

  It was the first stage of body refinement, a threshold that many cultivators required years of harsh training to reach.

  Yet Yang Feng had completed it in a single night.

  When the final layer of old skin fell away, the Origin Qi within his body suddenly contracted.

  All the crimson energy retreated back toward his dantian like a beast that had finished feeding and returned to its lair.

  Yang Feng’s dantian trembled slightly as the Inner Power flowing through his meridians gradually stabilized and the violent upheaval finally ended.

  His body relaxed and collapsed onto the stone ground.

  He had fallen asleep again, but this time it was a deep and peaceful sleep.

  The trembling had stopped, the crimson glow had faded, and only the slow rhythm of his breathing remained.

  Su Xueni stared at the scene in disbelief.

  “How... how is this possible?”

  Leng Wuqing did not answer.

  She simply looked down at Yang Feng’s body with deep, unreadable eyes.

  Yang Feng had just completed a stage of body refinement that others might spend years struggling to reach.

  However, there was something even she had never expected.

  Whether intentionally or not, she herself had created the conditions that made this possible.

  She had brought Yang Feng to One-Sword Peak, a place where gravity was ten times stronger than the outside world.

  She had allowed him to practice his sword, carry water, and endure the pressure of gravity day after day.

  His body had been forced to adapt.

  His muscles, tendons, bones, and spirit meridians were all tempered under that pressure until the Origin Qi inside him finally found a chance to erupt.

  When it erupted, Yang Feng’s body was already prepared.

  The tenfold gravity of One-Sword Peak had become an invisible furnace.

  It was what allowed his Inner Power to cleanse his marrow and temper his body directly.

  If it had been an ordinary person, their body would have collapsed long ago. But Yang Feng had already adapted.

  Leng Wuqing watched him for a long time before turning away.

  The mountain wind passed by, gently moving the sleeves of her white robe.

  “Tomorrow,” she said quietly,

  “we will go down the mountain.”

  Behind her, Yang Feng was still sleeping deeply.

  He had no idea that starting tomorrow, the true cultivation world would open before him.

  The next morning, the mountain mist had not yet fully dispersed from the towering cliffs of the Heavenly Sword Mountains. The first rays of sunlight had only just crossed the eastern cloud layer, casting pale streaks of light over One-Sword Peak and quietly spreading across the ancient stone steps that had been worn down by mountain winds over countless years.

  In front of a cave abode built against the cliff wall, Yang Feng stood silently, lowering his head as he checked his storage pouch one last time.

  The pouch was small, not very large. Inside were only a few simple things.

  Several bottles of Guardian Bone Restoration Elixir that had already been partially used, the surfaces of the bottles slightly scratched from being carried for too long.

  An Inner Sect token whose corners had become worn, its jade color no longer as bright as it had been at the beginning.

  Two spare sets of clothes, their fabric faded after countless washes in the cold mountain streams.

  Aside from that, there were only a few miscellaneous items, things a true cultivator would probably not bother bringing when leaving the sect.

  Yang Feng looked at the pouch for a long time.

  His gaze paused on each item, as if quietly committing them to memory.

  Finally, he took a slow, deep breath and gently closed the storage pouch.

  His hand tightened slightly.

  He was nervous.

  This was not the first time he had left the Heavenly Sword Sect for a mission. In the past, he had gone down the mountain several times with other Outer Sect disciples.

  But this time was different.

  This was the first time

  he was leaving the sect to carry out a secret mission.

  And it was also the first time

  he would descend the mountain together with his master.

  Leng Wuqing.

  Yang Feng stood before the entrance of the Peak Master's cave abode, walking a few slow steps before stopping again. He tried to move as quietly as possible, as if afraid that even the smallest sound might disturb the stillness of the mountain peak in the early morning.

  But although he tried to remain calm on the outside, his heart was anything but peaceful.

  He kept telling himself to stay calm.

  Yet his heartbeat remained faster than usual.

  The mountain wind brushed past his robes, carrying with it the scent of wild grass and the familiar smell of damp stone from One-Sword Peak.

  And then, at that very moment,

  the stone door of the cave abode slowly opened.

  Yang Feng was startled.

  He immediately straightened his posture.

  A figure stepped out from inside.

  It was Leng Wuqing.

  At the moment he saw her, Yang Feng almost forgot how to breathe.

  Because the person standing before him was not entirely the same Leng Wuqing he saw every day.

  Today she had changed into her attire for leaving the mountain.

  Not luxurious.

  Not ostentatious.

  Yet it fit her so perfectly that it was difficult for anyone to look away.

  Her ivory sword robe draped down in clean folds, faint black trims running along the sleeves and hem. A belt was tied neatly around her waist, giving her posture the straight elegance of a sword that had yet to be drawn from its sheath.

  Behind her rested a long sword.

  Its killing aura was not hidden.

  But neither was it released.

  It was like a blade quietly sleeping.

  It was not the outfit she had worn more than seven years ago

  when she saved him by the riverside.

  But it was far too similar.

  So similar that the memory of a ten-year-old boy suddenly stirred within his heart.

  The first flutter of emotion.

  The first time he realized

  that a sword could be so beautiful.

  Yang Feng knew he had been staring for too long.

  He also knew he should not be looking like that.

  Leng Wuqing looked at him.

  She was not angry.

  Nor was she annoyed.

  Her gaze remained the same as always, cold and still, sharp like a blade placed between the two of them.

  “You,” she said calmly, her voice as steady as the morning mountain wind,

  “should focus on the mission.”

  Yang Feng was startled.

  He immediately withdrew his gaze.

  “Do not look at me like that,” she continued.

  “I do not like it.”

  It was not a harsh reprimand.

  Only a reminder.

  But Yang Feng still felt his heart sink slightly.

  This time,

  he did not avoid it.

  “Master,” he said slowly, every word clear,

  “today… you are very beautiful.”

  It was a very reckless sentence.

  The moment it left his mouth, even he realized how bold it was.

  He immediately lowered his head.

  “I could not help myself,” he continued,

  “forgive me for being disrespectful.”

  There were no excuses.

  No attempts to justify himself.

  Just a straightforward apology.

  Leng Wuqing turned her head slightly to the side.

  Her brows furrowed faintly.

  “I do not know,” she said slowly,

  “whether bringing you along this time… was the right decision.”