The water in the gourd was naturally water from the Earth Star Spring. Every single drop of this water was pure liquid spirit essence, and it was widely sought after no matter where one went. However, Xiang Shaoyun was drinking it like a thirsty beggar at an oasis. How wasteful indeed! Any spirit produce repeatedly consumed would see diminished returns in its effects. This was common knowledge.
That being said, Xiang Shaoyun currently was not drinking water in order to raise his strength. Rather, he wished to store its power inside his body to see if it could assist him in swiftly forming his astral cosmos sea.
Xiang Shaoyun carefully made the Earth Star Spring’s power into a ball, and then the power rushed to where his nine stars were. The body of light, which was initially about to disperse, became vibrant all of a sudden. Furthermore, a small portion of it was beginning to form a solid body, giving it a very mystical feeling.
After an unknown period of time, Xiang Shaoyun’s nine stars completely refined the strength from the Earth Star Spring, allowing him to form a tiny drop of astral liquid. Although Xiang Shaoyun had yet to gain the ability to examine the inside of his own body, he felt a strong connection to this drop of liquid, roughly allowing him to understand its shape and size.
“This…this isn’t even the size of a pinkie! Is this really the astral cosmos sea? Or did I fail?” Xiang Shaoyun began worrying. From the ancient texts he had read, forming the astral cosmos sea would be like having an ocean within one’s body, allowing one to store whatever one desired. However, as of now, he had only been able to form astral liquid barely the size of a water droplet! This was too different from what he had previously read!
“It seems I have failed. I simply forced it when I did not have sufficient strength,” Xiang Shaoyun gloomily sighed. Deciding not to remain fixated on the matter, he remained in a meditative stance for another four hours before he awoke once again.
“Even though I’ve reached the Astral Realm, I must continue to build up my physical body. The stronger my physical body is, the more astral energy I will be able to store within me. Apart from that, I still need to learn more powerful battle techniques, which will allow me to have even greater combat potential! Right now, apart from the Golden Wolf Sword Technique, the only other considerable battle technique I have right now is the Star Destroying Finger. All the other tier-1 battle techniques I’ve previously learned are now lagging behind,” Xiang Shaoyun muttered to himself.
After deciding what to do next, he once again went through the various battle techniques he had committed to memory. These were all techniques that his family had kept well hidden. Each and every one of them was much more valuable than any Martial Hall Palace technique.
After a brief period, he recalled a special technique called the Lightning Bolt Fist.
Lightning Bolt Fist—convert energy into lightning, attack like a lightning bolt; vicious and cruel, destroying all in its path.
What was so special about this particular technique was that it could evolve. How could a technique evolve?
A technique that could evolve would be a technique with multiple stages. Its weakest stage would have power equivalent to a tier-3 battle technique, whereas its strongest stage would be comparable to a tier-7 battle technique at the very least, possibly even higher. The higher the stage, the stronger its prowess in battle.
This was what was so special about the Lightning Bolt Fist.
The Lightning Bolt Fist was split into the following stages:
Stage one—converting one’s energy into lightning usable for offense, manifesting as bamboo-like strands.
Stage two—having pure lightning imbued into one’s fists, borrowing the power of nature to empower one’s two fists. This would allow one to strike out with the power of lightning at any given time, giving one a substantial increase in combat power.
Stage three—empower one’s body with the power of lightning, allowing one to borrow the power of the heavens to strike their foes at will.
With Xiang Shaoyun’s current strength, he was already more than qualified to practice the first stage of the Lightning Bolt Fist.
However, to practice it to large completion would require Xiang Shaoyun to at least reach the Transformation Realm. Since he really did not have any weaker battle techniques, he could only learn this one for now. He started committing the method to practicing the Lightning Bolt Fist to heart. Using his gift of visualization, he was also able to visualize the process of practicing the Lightning Bolt Fist, very quickly grasping its key aspects to do so.
Following that, Xiang Shaoyun began to practice his punching technique. If he wanted to thoroughly practice the Lightning Bolt Fist, his fists needed to be sufficiently tough. Otherwise, in the near future, he would suffer a backlash from attempting to control the thunder of the heavens and the earth.
Swosh! Swosh!
According to what he had learned from visualising the Lightning Bolt Fist, Xiang Shaoyun did his best to emulate what he could and sent punch after punch at a nearby tree. The latent energy within his body was also tapped into ever so slightly, making it such that his physical body was no less powerful than a tier-2 weapon.
As such, even repeatedly punching the tree bark did not give Xiang Shaoyun any sense of pain. Not only that, the moment he began integrating astral energy into his attacks, he found himself punching hole after hole into the bark, quickly destroying the tree itself.
“Looks like trees aren’t sturdy enough. I’ll have to train on rocks if I want to improve quickly!” Xiang Shaoyun briefly mused to himself before going to find a suitable rock. The hardness of trees could indeed not be compared to that of rocks. Every punch he landed on a rock would cause his hand to hurt. Furthermore, he chose not to imbue his punches with astral energy, causing spots of blood to appear all over his fists.
If it was anybody else at the same cultivation realm, their fists would have long turned into a bloody pulp. The way Xiang Shaoyun gained strength could be described as nothing less than pure masochism, a frightening level of it at that.
“Only with strong fists will I be able to better convert my energy into thunder,” Xiang Shaoyun constantly thought to himself.
After a day of practice, Xiang Shaoyun’s fists were both completely bruised. Once he finished his practice, he immediately administered medicine to his wounds and swallowed a blood mushroom to replenish his vitality. Following that, he adopted a meditative stance.
With nothing to do, Little White helped guard the area for Xiang Shaoyun, even hunting several small demonic beasts as food for the two of them. Xiang Shaoyun was very trusting towards Little White. One should never look down on Little White because of his tiny size—he was, at the very least, an Intermediate Demon beast. As long as the two of them did not encounter any Great Demons, they would not be in any danger whatsoever.
And just like that, Xiang Shaoyun remained at the Hundred Beasts Mountain Range for about half a month. He practiced his technique and cultivated during the day; during the night, he meditated and rested to recover. Occasionally, he would go out and hunt a few demonic beasts to consolidate his understandings and gain more combat experience.
His cultivation steadily rose, rising from the middle phase to the late phase of first-stage Astral Realm. This was one of the benefits of having a nine-star physique along with the miraculous nature of Overlord Conquers the Heavens. Working in tandem with each other, they greatly reduced the work required to ascend levels. Otherwise, ascending so quickly would be but a pipe dream.
If an ordinary person wanted to achieve great things in the future, they needed to put in 99 percent sweat and blood, with the remaining 1 percent left up to luck. Geniuses, on the other hand, worked with a ratio closer to 70 percent sweat and blood and 30 percent luck.
Thus, when a genius decided to put in 100 percent effort, it would be hard for them to not have any accomplishments even if they did not desire them. Xiang Shaoyun no doubt belonged to such a group of geniuses, desiring to wholeheartedly raise his strength to the best of his ability.
In order to swiftly raise his strength, Xiang Shaoyun had destroyed his fists numerous times over the course of the past half a month. Luckily, with his knowledge of how to concoct medicines, in addition to the water from the Earth Star Spring, his wounds would heal extremely quickly and effectively.
Today, as he went about his usual routine of practicing on rocks, one could faintly make out the movement of purple qi when he practiced. A wave of terrifying might rushed out of his fists like lightning—quite a sight to behold.
Bang!
The moment the clump of purple qi landed on the rock, it utterly shattered the rock into smithereens. Such raw power would be difficult to defend against even for a third-stage Astral Realm cultivator.
This was a sign that Xiang Shaoyun had attained small success with the Lightning Bolt Fist. Although he was capable of unleashing such a powerful punch, he was still left severely weakened after doing so. This went to show that forcefully trying to use high-grade battle techniques at his current strength was pushing it, even for him. If not for his solid foundation, he would not have been able to learn the skill at all.
“Two punches. At my current strength, I can only use at most two Lightning Bolt Fists. However, one fist should be enough to deal with a fourth-stage Astral Realm cultivator,” Xiang Shaoyun pondered to himself as he lay on the ground. Just as he was preparing to pack up his bag and head back to Martial Hall Palace, all of a sudden, he felt a group of people drawing close to him.