Ancient Strengthening Technique

AST0082 – Golden Extract Essence

“Elder sis, give me some time, and I will definitely marry you.” Qing Shui rubbed his nose, as he put on a dependable atmosphere.

“When did I agree to marry you!” Yu He protested in a coquettish tantrum.

Following her protest, Yu He solemnly added, “Cultivate hard. Don’t just indulge in flights of fancy. Elder sister no longer wants to find a man, and has no intentions to marry. In the future, when you have some accomplishments and capabilities, there will be plenty of good women waiting for you. At that point, in your eyes, I will just be a nothing.”

Yu He’s gaze drifted outside the window, looking far off into the horizon. That lonely and helpless back view of hers caused Qing Shui to feel as if a needle had been stabbed right into his heart. But what could he do? With his meager strength, he had no rights to speak of protecting her at all.

Power, everything had to do with power. It’s fine even if Yu He doesn’t love him, but as long as he has sufficient power, then he would be able do something that would make her happier.

Qing Shui knew that everything he had said just now were just lies. Without power, anyone could promise anything. Moreover, to let such a mature woman like Yu He to fall in love with him now, even Qing Shui couldn’t believe it. Maybe she felt that he wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t mature enough, or was undependable. It’s very tough to fall in love with a man lacking in so many qualities.

There was no hatred without reason, and there certainly wouldn’t be love without reason. The majority of women in this era loved powerful men, which was just following the logic in his previous world where the majority of women who loved men with riches.

Although that last sentence by Yu He, almost caused Qing Shui to eat Yu He, right here and now.

“In the future, if I were to sneakily fall in love with a man, I would choose you. After all your skin is as smooth as jade, even causing women to feel jealous. Also, your looks are pretty good too, and more over, we are still familiar with each other. It’s just that your kissing skills are still too …….”

Qing Shui was extremely speechless, after all that was his first kiss. How could he be good at something he had never practiced before.

Qing Shui left, he wasn’t one who would coax and weedle the other party to get what he wanted, and in any case, he had to admit that the body of Yu He was something that was very appealing to him. Although his feelings for Yu He had not reached the realm of love, but at the very least, he knew that his liking for Yu He, had reached a very high level.

Love was build on the basis of liking something, if there wasn’t even any liking at the start, how could there be love? Even if one were to turn hatred into love, during that span of time there would still have to be a period of liking first!

It was already noon when he arrived back at the Qing Clan medical store. Seeing the knowing look in Qing Yi’s eyes caused Qing Shui to laugh embarrassedly.

“Our Qing Shui has grown up!” After which Qing Yi gently let out a breath, “However, there are some women that are better left untouched. Although they might be pretty, their inner-selves might really be like poisonous spiders and scorpions. You are still young, and your heart wavers easily, so do not let beauty fool your eyes. “ Qing Yi pulled Qing Shui’s hands as she calmly explained.

Qing Shui knew clearly what Qing Yi meant, she was worried that he would lose himself in the process of getting obsessed with beauty, and was worried for him. If his weakness was lust, he would be easily controlled by any beautiful scheming woman, and would end up with scars in his heart, or worse, enter into a rampage, turning into a shadow of his former self.

“Mother, don’t worry, your son is an intelligent man!” Qing Shui displayed a re-assuring smile.

“Qing Shui, how much do you understand about Yu He? Mother is not trying to interfere in your affairs. If you have the capabilities, no matter who you like, no one would dare to say that she’s a bad woman who brings ill-fate to her husband? As long as you love her, and she’s sincere towards you, mother would definitely support you. I just hope that you wouldn’t be burdened by beautiful women even before you are fully grown up.” Qing Yi reminded warmly.

Looking at Qing Yi, Qing Shui could only sigh. She had placed all her hope into the body of her son – him. Since his childhood, Qing Shui had no father, and he would never acknowledge that man as his father. No matter how helpless he was, he still indirectly caused Yu He to suffer immensely and undergo so much pressure.

In the afternoon, Qing Shui went to the Night Fragrance Court and practiced his swordplay with Wenren Wu-Shuang. His skill with the sword had sharpened during all the sparring sessions he had with Wenren Wu-Shuang. Even if her sword skills were unable to match him, she was after all a Xiantian Cultivator. Qing Shui understood the essence of the “piercing” stance of the sword. The essence was simply the word “pierce”. As long as he could concentrate all of his power onto a single point, then he could magnify the strength by a few times, maybe even over 10 times!

Just like now, when he unintentionally focused his strength onto the tip of his wooden sword, when it came into contact with the wooden sword of Wenren Wu-Shuang, he accidentally caused the sword used by her to splinter into two.

This incident caused both Qing Shui and Wenren Wu-Shuang to be dumbstruck. Qing Shui was dumbstruck because from this, because he discovered the effect and the method to properly distribute his strength, while Wenren Wu-Shuang was shocked because, other than the Iaido Technique, Qing Shui still had an additional technique. What’s more, is that this technique was also at the “realm of sword truths”.

It was also only now that Qing Shui fully understood the essence behind that move. If he was at Xiantian level, and imbued his weapon with Xiantian Qi, there would absolutely be no question that he could pierce through armor as easily as a hot knife through butter.

During the night, Qing Shui entered into the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal. Just as he was about to begin his cultivation, he suddenly saw that hard black stone which he had bought from the old man earlier, and also the branch that was planted inside the earth. There were water droplets on the surface of that slick black-colored branch, but it still showed no signs that it was going to germinate anytime soon.

Walking a few steps forward and approaching the black stone, Qing Shui grabbed the black stone that was said to be unrefinable even by normal blacksmiths, when suddenly a thought appeared in his mind. Don’t I have the primordial flame technique now?

Making his decision, Qing Shui decided to use his flame techniques on it, to see what exactly this black-looking stone was.

Activating the Qi from the 48 cycles of the Ancient Strengthening Technique, and utilizing the Ancient Yin-Yang Flames technique, a grey-colored primordial flame spark appeared in his palm causing the black-colored stone to be enveloped by the flames caused by the primordial spark.

Slowly, Qing Shui discovered that a portion of the stone actually melted, causing him to be incomparably excited.

“Indeed, my guess was right, and the Ancient Yin-Yang flame can melt everything!

He allowed the refinement process to go on until all the Qi in his body was used up. Sitting down crossed-legged, he rested while recovering back to his optimal state, before he activated the primordial flames again.

As the refinement process continued, finally, after part of the black-colored layer of the stone was melted away, there was a glint of yellowish within the black. Now, the color of the stone was a dull blackish yellow, causing Qing Shui to scratch his head in puzzlement. What the hell was this? He initially thought that it was iron-essence, but the presence of the color yellow meant that it was impossible for the black-colored stone to be iron essence!

“Bronze Essence Extract?” Qing Shui was somewhat bewildered, as he continue the refinement process.

Qing Shui spent his time wisely, and other than refining the stone, he would also spend time in cultivation, and practicing his other techniques – Solitary Rapid Fist as well as the Ghostly Steps.

After three days in the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal, Qing Shui discovered that the stone had changed color again. It went from a dull blackish yellow, to a somewhat purplish yellow!

After another three days had passed, the purplish yellow color started to transform into a golden yellow.

Now, after the golden yellow color appeared, Qing Shui could safely deduced that it was not Bronze Essence Extract.

However, what could this be? Could this be Gold Essence Extract? After all, only gold would have this sort of color.

Gold Essence Extract was the purest form of gold. Looking at the peach-size Gold Essence Extract, Qing Shui knew that in order to refine such an amount of Gold Extract, one would need at least a 100 tonnes of gold to be able to do so.

Qing Shui was thunderstruck!

Looking the priceless Gold Essence Extract, Qing Shui went slack-jawed. If a iron essence needed a 100 tonnes of iron before it could be refined, the price of the iron essence would undoubtedly be many times more than the price of the 100 tonnes of iron. This was the same for Gold Essence Extract, with just a rough estimation, he gauged that the peach-sized extract in his hands was worth at least 2 million taels of gold.