Martial World

Although the Tempering Marrow boundary lay above the Pulse Condensation period, one didn’t actually need to slowly reach the peak Pulse Condensation period before making a breakthrough to Tempering Marrow. To the contrary, to reach the Tempering Marrow boundary, it didn’t matter whether one was at the early Pulse Condensation period or even the late Pulse Condensation period.

In other words, Tempering Marrow and Pulse Condensation were belonged to two completely different cultivation systems.

Tempering Marrow belonged to the Realm of the Gods’ Body Transformation cultivation method.

As for the Pulse Condensation, Houtian, Xiantian, and Revolving Core realms, those belonged to the essence gathering cultivation system.

When a martial artist went from Strength Training to Flesh Training to Viscera Training to Altering Muscle and finally to Bone Forging, the true essence of one’s body permeated deeper within, becoming more and more thorough. Afterwards, once true essence penetrated the marrow, that was Tempering Marrow.

Otherwise, true essence would flood through the body’s meridians – this was called the Pulse Condensation period.

After Pulse Condensation, true essence would converge within the dantian by following along the meridians, and one would enter Houtian, Xiantian. Then, when that true essence became a core within the dantian, that would be the Revolving Core realm.

That is, the Tempering Marrow boundary ran parallel to the Pulse Condensation period.

Tempering Marrow laid the foundation for one to enter the Eight Inner Hidden Gates; this was Body Transformation.

But, once Pulse Condensation true essence penetrated through the meridians and converged into the dantian, this was laying the foundation for the essence gathering system.

However, reaching Pulse Condensation was easy, whereas Tempering Marrow was incomparably difficult. That was why normally one would reach the Pulse Condensation period first and then go onwards to the Tempering Marrow boundary.

This was what Lin Ming was doing now.

He followed the methods and principles found within the Tempering Marrow portion of the ‘Chaotic Virtues Combat Meridians’ in order to forcefully control the medicinal efficacy and slowly penetrate it into the bone, bit by bit.

The Heaven Opening Pill’s medicinal power was extremely savage and violent. If a normal martial artist consumed the Heaven Opening Pill, they could only ease the way and slowly refine it. But if someone did the same as Lin Ming and tried to bind the Heaven Opening Pill’s medicinal efficacy with their true essence and force it into the marrow, it would provoke a strong counterattack from the medicinal strength!

Lin Ming felt as if his blood had been replaced by burning lava; wherever it went, there would be a bone-biting pain!

“Lin Ming, are you alright…” As Mu Qianyu watched Lin Ming’s appearance that seemed like he was in deep suffering, she was somewhat worried. If one’s strength was insufficient, they might even die upon eating the Heaven Opening Pill. Since the ancient times, there had been Pulse Condensation period martial artists who wished to rush forwards, and after swallowing the Heaven Opening Pill they would suffer a horribly violent death because they could not fully digest the medicine’s potency.

However, Mu Qianyu hadn’t worried that this would happen to Lin Ming. After all, Lin Ming’s strength was far above that. If he were placed within a small country, his strength would be equivalent to a late Houtian martial artist and above.

But now seeing Lin Ming’s pained appearance, Mu Qianyu’s heart stopped for a moment. Lin Ming’s reaction was just too intense, it was beyond what she had imagined.

In absorbing the Heaven Opening Pill, it was useless for others to try to help. Mu Qianyu could only take a handkerchief and wipe away the sweat from Lin Ming’s forehead.

In this touch, Mu Qianyu found that Lin Ming’s forehead was burning with a raging heat.

“What’s going on?” Mu Qianyu’s eyebrows furrowed together. Was there an accident when he was trying to absorb the Heaven Opening Pill medicinal efficacy?

For a moment Mu Qianyu hesitated, thinking about whether she should use her own deep cultivation in order to forcefully compel the medicine out of Lin Ming’s body. At this moment, Lin Ming waved his hand with some difficulty, clenched his teeth and said, “I… I’m alright…”

When he opened his mouth, Mu Qianyu saw that his teeth were stained red with blood.

It wasn’t that Lin Ming couldn’t withstand the medicinal efficacy of the Heaven Opening Pill, it was only that forcing true essence to enter the marrow was simply too difficult.

Lin Ming felt like his bones were an impregnable bastion. He stiffly forced a wisp of the Heaven Opening Pill’s medicinal efficacy a bit at a time, but every time was as if his bones were being drilled into!

At first, Lin Ming had been stuck and at the peak Bone Forging stage for a long time. Finally, his true essence had naturally overflowed, resulting in a perfect breakthrough!

This course of action laid a solid foundation. But his bones had been hardened by the prolonged forging of true essence, and they were nearly perfect in density, without a single flaw.

But the more solid the skeleton was, the more difficult it was to penetrate the drug efficacy into the bone!

However, Lin Ming did not regret this a single bit.

The more difficult it was to break through, the more thorough and complete Tempering Marrow would be!

Only when the medicinal efficacy of the Heaven Opening Pill underwent purification through the dense bone would it achieve the best effect towards Tempering Marrow.

Lin Ming’s philosophy was…

In order to lay a foundation, it must be laid in the most complete and solid manner.

In order to break through a boundary, it must be go through a perfect breakthrough!

After a quarter of an hour, Lin Ming’s entire body was soaked in sweat. At this time, within his body, in his marrow, there was just the slightest tint of gold that was impossibly difficult to see!

Marrow like golden soup, that was the symbol of Tempering Marrow!

However, Lin Ming didn’t even feel the slightest bit of joy, he only felt very depressed. This was because it was an incomparably small amount!

He had used up one fifth of the Heaven Opening Pill’s medicinal efficacy, but he only managed to create such a tiny trace of Tempering Marrow that could hardly be seen. If he wanted to fully complete the process, he feared that he would need to repeat this whole process 10 or 20 thousand times. Could it be that in order to fully complete the Tempering Marrow boundary, he needed several thousand Heaven Opening Pills!?!?

Heavens!

Even if the rich and resourceful Divine Phoenix Island were to supply him with several thousand Heaven Opening Pills, he would probably die from stuffing himself with that many!

It had to be known that the Seven Profound Valleys only made between 20 and 30 Heaven Opening Pills every three years. On average, they had eight or nine Heaven Opening Pills every year. As for Divine Phoenix Island, they could make several dozen Heaven Opening Pills in one year. With this speed, it would still take Divine Phoenix Island over a hundred years to gather several thousand Heaven Opening Pills!

No matter how talented Lin Ming was, or how much of a monstrous genius he was, it would be impossible for Divine Phoenix Island to perform such an impossibly difficult feat for him and save up every single one of their Heaven Opening Pills for the next 100 years.

Not only that, but even if Divine Phoenix Island were willing, Lin Ming would not wait.

Was he destined not to fully complete the Tempering Marrow boundary?

Thinking about the Eight Inner Hidden Gates and Nine Stars of the Dao Palace recorded within the ‘Chaotic Virtues Combat Meridians’, and the images of his feet cracking the earth, and his fist shattering stars, Lin Ming was unwilling to let this go. In any event, he would not give up on the Tempering Marrow boundary. As long as he had just a bit of hope, he would still manage to find a way.

He would do it bit by bit, slowly, and inexorably!

After shoring up his resolve, Lin Ming clenched his teeth and continued to absorb the leftover efficacy of the Heaven Opening Pill.

If Lin Ming used the Heaven Opening Pill on his entire body, there might not be any effect from the Tempering Marrow.

Although Lin Ming was rich, he wasn’t wealthy to the point of gobbling up Heaven Opening Pills like candy. He couldn’t accept eating up such a rare and precious Heaven Opening Pill and not gaining even the tiniest bit of growth in his strength.

Thinking this, Lin Ming used the techniques found within the ‘Chaotic Virtues Combat Meridians’, revolving all of the true essence in his body and forcing every bit of drug efficacy into his right hand.

Since there wasn’t any effect in tempering the entire body, then he might as well focus on tempering just a single spot!

Lin Ming chose his right hand. Whether it was the Body Tearing Bone Shattering Fist or using his spear, the right hand was the most critical part.

First he would temper his right hand, and then reconsider his options.

The medicinal efficacy rushed to his right hand like a tide. Under the oppression the medicine, Lin Ming’s right hand felt as if a saber was being twisted into it. If it wasn’t for the many body transformations that he had undergone within the Sorcerer Pagoda that made his body incomparably tough, his hand might have already exploded into bloody bits.

Then Lin Ming forced the medicinal efficacy into his right hand, it was truly difficult.

His entire right hand bulged red like a bag of blood, and the blue veins on his hand throbbed like massive earthworms, fiercely wriggling. Lin Ming fell over, pressing his right hand against his body as he barely held against the pain of the medicinal efficacy tempering his marrow. Beads of sweat tumbled down his hair, flowing to the ground.

Time passed slowly, and finally an hour passed. Lin Ming had finally refined most of the Heaven Opening Pill. At this time, he felt as if he were a weak newborn baby.

His true essence consumption had been too great. Lin Ming rolled over flat on the stone altar, taking great, heaving gasps.

Fortunately, this location was unique. With every breath, a great amount of fire origin energy entered his body, quickly being absorbed into the Heretical God Seed and moistening Lin Ming’s dried meridians.

As he looked at his right hand, there was only the thinnest layer of pale gold that just skimmed over the surface of the bone marrow. Although this was far from achieving the boundary of marrow like golden soup, Lin Ming could still feel that this tiny part of his marrow was filled with an overwhelming blood vitality!

“Only a little marrow of my hand has the faintest hint of pale gold. Although there isn’t any change in my forearm, it seems to be much redder…”

Lin Ming was speaking to himself. A human had two types of marrow: the first was a yellow marrow, and the second was a red marrow. Only the red marrow could create blood.

When a baby was just born, its entire body was filled with red marrow that could create blood. But as one slowly aged, the bone cavity that held the red marrow gradually filled with fat, turning the red marrow into yellow marrow that could no longer produce blood.

The older a person was, the higher the proportion of yellow marrow would be, causing a person’s blood vitality to be insufficient. That was why a baby’s blood vitality was so much more vigorous and potent that the elderly’s.

Lin Ming’s right forearm had already changed into pure red bone marrow. If his entire body’s marrow could change to pure red bone marrow, then the power of blood vitality would be much more robust, and whether it was endurance or resilience, all would be much more formidable!

“Lin Ming, are you alright?” Seeing that Lin Ming had finally regained consciousness, Mu Qianyu let out a breath of relief, handing over her handkerchief to him. She hadn’t thought that Lin Ming would have such a brutal reaction after swallowing the Heaven Opening Pill.

“I’m alright.” Lin Ming waved his hand and took the handkerchief that Mu Qianyu handed over. He found that this piece of cloth that contained a faint heavenly fragrance had already become dirty; obviously, this was because of him.

Lin Ming awkwardly smiled, abashed. He looked down and saw that his entire body was covered in a thick layer of greasy black oil. The Heaven Opening Pill was able to wash the marrows and muscles, a miracle cure that was able to remove the foul Houtian air. After eating one, one would naturally discharge impurities.

Lin Ming couldn’t stand the sticky feeling of laying down in this grease. He said to Mu Qianyu, “I’m going to take a bath.”

“Mm, go ahead.”

At the back of Ancestor Chi Yan’s cave was a deep pool that had been excavated. Lin Ming hurried there with long steps, and when he reached it, he didn’t actually start removing his clothes to take a bath, but instead looked to see that no one was there, and then took a low-grade human-step treasure sword from his spatial ring.

Looking at the shining tip of the treasure sword, Lin Ming suddenly stretched out his right and grabbed the sword edge. He didn’t use any true essence protection but just depended on the bare flesh of his palm, firmly digging his fingers into the treasure sword, kneading and twisting.

Zhi zhi zhi –

In the silence of the bathing pool, there was only the clear screeching sound of deforming metal. Lin Ming felt some slight pain in his hand, but his hand actually wasn’t cut at all by the sword edge.

After several breaths, the low-grade human-step treasure sword was completely bent out of shape by Lin Ming. The blade had been twisted into a mess. This was a treasure sword that Huo Gong had made, and could also be considered among the top of all low-grade human-step treasures.

In other words, the toughness of Lin Ming’s right had had actually surpassed that of a low-grade human-step treasure!

Lin Ming had once depended on using Flow like Silk to ‘meet a bare blade with an empty palm’. But now, he could actually twist a treasure sword without any true essence protection.

The dynamic strength of Lin Ming’s right hand’s flesh had actually reached such a degree. If he used it with his true essence, his defensive power would truly reach a terrifying level!

Not only that, but the stronger his bodily strength was, the stronger his attack strength would be. With a single punch, he would be able to crack rocks. It could be said that when that happened, Lin Ming’s own body would become a treasure weapon.