C2 One Step to Heaven

"Boom!"

In the overcast night sky, lightning flashed and thunder roared, lighting up more than half of Falling Cloud Peak.

Beneath the cliff wall, the figure of Li Chen, who was sitting cross-legged without moving, seemed to have calmed down the vital energy and blood in his body. The milky gray vortex above his head circulated slowly, continuously absorbing the surrounding natural Yuan Power as it entered into his meridians along with his breathing.

However, there was another circle of thin gray fog that was continuously gathered on the scar mark on his left cheek. There was also a layer of dark red blood light that was flickering non-stop. It seemed that something was about to rush out from within.

However, it was completely covered by the golden symbols.

Screech!

A tyrannical aura suddenly surged out, and a ball of afterimage flashed within the blood light as it suddenly shot into the sky. The afterimage trembled, transforming into a boundless afterimage that seemed like a giant bird looking at the sky as it swam amidst the thunderbolts and covered the sky.

The shadow that broke free yearned for freedom. Struggling with all his might, he rushed into the nine heavens, incessantly rushing forward amidst the waves of thunder.

After a few breaths of time, the massive mystical runes started to strangely flash before suddenly transforming into a streak of light and plummeting downwards. However, as it fell downwards, golden electric arcs crackled around its body, and in a flash, it submerged back into the scars on the surface of the Dawn.

If a powerful cultivator was here, they would definitely recognize that the illusion was very similar to the legendary phoenix beast, but it was different. It was filled with a tyrannical killing intent.

"Ahh!"

Li Chen, who had been quietly meditating, suddenly raised his head and let out a loud roar. His face was contorted with a ferocious expression, and a fishy stench pervaded the air. Traces of electric arcs flashed in the air.

However, the phantom didn't move at all. The crackling sounds were unexpectedly accompanied by golden blue arcs of electricity that resonated with the lightning in the sky. It continued for the time it took to brew a cup of tea before calming down.

At this moment, in Li Chen's mind, streams of air were flowing through his meridians. This was the symbol of a martial practitioner that he had yearned for so many years — inner breath!

As time passed, the mist started to gather slowly. Li Chen was pleasantly surprised to see that the number of his inner breathing was increasing rapidly. In less than an hour, he had broken through to the first level of the Inner Jing realm.

After an hour had passed, he could clearly hear the fluctuations coming from his body as he broke through to the second layer.

Without stopping his cultivation, he maintained the same condition as before. He exerted all his effort to channel his inner breathing into his body, causing cracking sounds to ring out continuously. After another four hours, he managed to break through to the third level.

But at this moment, the growth of his inner breath still did not stop. For some reason, the demonic core in his body made all low level warriors feel fear. The poisonous demonic Qi did not have any effect on him.

At this moment, Li Chen realized that the power of his body, which he had trained for so many years, had actually increased once again.

Perhaps it was due to the blessing of the heavens that the young man had reached the peak of the fourth level of the Inner Qi Realm just before dawn. He was only one step away from the fifth level.

Compared to Li Chen from before, the current him could truly be said to have ascended to the heavens in a single step!

Obviously, the grade of that Demonic Core was still higher than he had expected.

In fact, he could even clearly feel that the strength of his body that had been tempered by the abandoned pills over the years seemed to have undergone a metamorphosis, and had increased by more than a level.

"Ha …" Hahaha! "Monster Core, Monster Core, you must find a way to get it!"

Li Chen, who was drenched from head to toe, woke up with disbelief. Looking at his palms, he couldn't stop laughing. Only after the time it took to brew a cup of tea did he recover from the pleasant surprise.

"Get out of here!"

After taking a few deep breaths and trying his best to calm his mind, Li Chen stood up and shook his four limbs. With a cracking sound, his entire body felt extremely comfortable.

He looked around and the sky became bright. He quickly moved the two corpses into a pile of rocks to bury them. This place was very remote and was filled with stones. It was the perfect place to hide the corpses.

He tore off a piece of rag and wrapped the books with the medicine, along with a few scattered items, and stuffed them into the crack in the stone. Then, Li Chen retrieved two buckets of water from the well and walked into the courtyard with light steps.

No one would believe that this fifteen year old youth, in one night, had achieved a miracle that no one in the continent had ever seen in countless years.

And this miracle happened in such a remote mountain valley.

Such a huge commotion naturally attracted the attention of the experts within the Mysterious Cloud Sect. However, they were suppressed by the tyrannical aura and no one was able to move.

When the terrifying aura disappeared and the many experts probed, they were unable to find any traces of it.

"… …"

"Yo, you woke up pretty early!"

Halfway up the mountain, in a separate courtyard, Chen Songtai, who was serving He Kongming, saw with disdain the vat of water that was being poured onto the stage.

"Reporting to Senior Brother Chen, it's getting late. Today, Senior Brother He will be concocting pills!"

Li Chen Se's neck shrunk as he scratched his head, covering the damaged clothes in front of his chest without leaving a trace.

"Ha ha!"

Chen Songtai pursed his lips and walked out of the courtyard.

Yesterday, he purposely spoke half a day late, causing Li Chen to be unable to pick up a full cup of water. However, he didn't expect that Li Chen would be unable to get a full night's sleep.

Although Li Chen replaced him in his hard work, allowing him more time to cultivate, for someone like him who had not progressed much in the path of martial arts despite his age, there was only bullying to make people happy, especially bullying a piece of trash who would never be able to take revenge on him.

Watching him leave, Li Chen's eyes slightly narrowed. He quickly walked into his room, changed into a clean set of clothes, and hurried out.

Without pause, he brought out a box of supplementary medicines from a room close to the north side. When everything was prepared, a handsome young man in blue entered the pill room. He was the genius disciple of the Mysterious Cloud Sect who had brought him from the Third Young Miss of the Li Family — He Kongming.

"Get out!"

He Kongming looked at Li Chen coldly. He walked up to the table and picked up the herbs with faint fragrance from the jade boxes on it.

The pill furnace in front of him, which was half a person tall and had flowers, birds, fish, and bugs engraved on it, was wiped spotlessly clean and was emitting a surging wave of heat.

This was He Kongming's alchemy lab. He could only summon them after cleaning the room or when he needed to try out the pill in the morning.

"Yes sir!"

Without saying anything else, he put down the organized medicine ingredients and walked out respectfully with his head lowered, closing the door.

Standing within the courtyard, he looked up at the sky and his fists suddenly clenched and loosened. This happened three times as two unyielding rays of terrifying light shot out from his starry eyes.

The corner of his eyes twitched, as if he could hear the sound of a low gritting of teeth.

Disdain, indifference, pity, he had already seen too much. He did not want to continue like this, whether it was for himself or for her sake …

The pitiful old man who had worked so hard for the Li family for three generations had finally died from pain and was unable to be treated.

He took a deep breath and cleared his mind. Then, he walked to an empty space in the courtyard. He got into his stance, lowered his waist, and immediately began practicing a set of fist techniques.

The martial skill's name was "Tiger Roar Fist". It was a Human Stage Mid Rank martial skill that Old Li had learned back then. Although it was not of a high rank, it was heavy on killing intent and had an indomitable momentum.

Roar! Roar! Roar!

His body swayed like a tiger or the wind. A powerful aura vaguely appeared.

"This feeling is really strong!"

After a few consecutive punches, not only did Li Chen not feel any fatigue, he even showed signs of getting stronger and stronger. This was because of the initial level of inner breathing.

Inner breathing could not only strengthen one's strength and defense, it could also relieve fatigue and increase endurance. Especially since Li Chen had such a strange strength, under the support of inner breathing, his killing power was also astonishing.

Although he had never fought with a warrior before, his years of experience from being repaired by the third miss told him that with his current strength, he would definitely not lose out against a fifth level Inner Breath Realm warrior.