Chapter 180: Chapter 180: Searching for Divine Island, Qiao Jiaxi’s Breakthrough
With the map and identified markers, the search was quick.
After half a day, Ye Feng had arrived at the fourth marker.
This was a solitary city.
Before them lay broken walls and ruins, with numerous dry bones scattered on the ground, which clearly had a long history.
“How tragic!” Long Tianxing shuddered.
Ye Feng didn’t speak. He used his fan to stir up a gust of wind, sweeping away the surrounding dust, and found an archway standing in the center of the solitary city.
However, surprisingly, this archway was open for a long time, not even requiring the use of a Moonshine Stone.
Once they stepped in, they discovered an inner space with a radius of thirty miles, reaching the limit of a medium-sized Cave Heaven World.
But the ground was covered with black sand and gravel, devoid of any living beings.
Moisture, vegetation, fertile soil…
None at all!
“This world is a bit odd, as if a very terrible disaster once erupted here, leading to its destruction and turning it into a battlefield-like desolate area,” analyzed Ye Feng.
“Sect Leader, it doesn’t seem like the Divine Island is here. Let’s get out of here!” Long Tianxing suggested.
“Yeah, let’s go,” Ye Feng turned around.
That’s when things changed unexpectedly!
The exit was suddenly buried by a sea of flowing sand; the world’s black sand and gravel soared into the sky, as if to change the heavens and the earth, completely overturning everything.
“Be careful!”
Ye Feng used the power of Heroic Spirits to control a sheet of flowing sand, forming a sturdy spherical shield around them that protected both him and Long Tianxing. Outside, they could hear clinking sounds like terrible collisions happening.
The entire process lasted a long time without any signs of abating.
An hour, two hours…
Half a day passed, and they were still trapped by the attack of the flowing sand, unable to find an exit.
Misty Peak.
“Weird, it’s late at night; why haven’t the Sect Leader and Junior Brother Long come back?” Shi Lei stood in front of the Sect Leader’s Great Hall, looking at the roof, feeling as if something was missing.
Normally at this time, Ye Feng would be lying there.
But now, Ye Feng was gone, which felt very odd.
“They probably went to see that person,” Mo Ying ventured a guess, drawing the attention of the other Misty Sect disciples.
“Who?” the disciples asked.
“Who else could it be? Remember the silver-haired, blue-eyed middle-aged man who claimed to be Long Jiu in Divine Wind City? He was looking for Long Tianxing. My guess is, the Sect Leader must have taken Long Tianxing to meet with that person,” said Mo Ying.
“That makes sense!” the disciples suddenly realized.
While the disciples were discussing, Qiao Jiaxi was already practicing hard under the Thousand-Year Ancient Pine Tree.
“Divine Fist, Indestructible!”
He kept throwing punches, his body radiating a faint golden glow, like a divine spirit. He quickly gathered momentum on his body, effortlessly breaking through to two and a half times the usual force and still increasing.
“Look, Junior Brother is practicing hard again.”
“I heard he needs to raise the momentum of “Divine Fist” above three times and then also master another technique called “Sword of Qi and Blood” to enhance his control over momentum before he can break through to the sixth level of Body Refinement.”
“Three times the momentum? Isn’t that equivalent to casting a Second-Grade Spell?”
“Not that strong, but close enough!”
The disciples all watched.
Qiao Jiaxi continued to punch, his momentum steadily being compressed. Finally, under the oppressive force of the Thousand-Year Ancient Pine, he successfully surged to three times his regular momentum, giving off the feeling of facing someone at the peak of the sixth level of Body Refinement.
“He’s strong!”
The disciples exclaimed in amazement.
Even Huo Yunjie revealed a look of astonishment, thinking that Qiao Jiaxi was truly risking his life with no regard for injuries or other consequences.
Rip!
Qiao Jiaxi’s skin suddenly split open, and he was drenched in blood, collapsing onto the ground.
With his current physical condition, he simply couldn’t withstand three times the momentum.
“Junior Brother!”
The disciples quickly gathered around him.
“Don’t panic, I’m here!” Nanny Yan Ruyu walked over with grace, placing her snow-white hands half a foot away from Qiao Jiaxi, releasing pure Life Spirit Force.
In no time at all, Qiao Jiaxi’s injuries were healed.
“Divine Fist, Indestructible!” But he didn’t stop there, continuing to practice intensely.
In the entire Misty Sect, Qiao Jiaxi was the only one who hadn’t completed the assessment. Although no one said anything, he still put enormous pressure on himself.
“If you keep training like this, you’ll be injured again before long,” said Mo Ying, shaking her head.
For disciples of other sects, training like this would be suicidal.
But Misty Sect was different, with Nanny Yan Ruyu present. As long as someone doesn’t perish or their Qi Sea shatter, almost any injury could be healed quickly.
“Have you guys noticed, every time Junior Brother gets hurt and then recovers, his physique becomes stronger? For others, training this way might lead to disability, but for him, it’s a method to rapidly enhance his strength,” concluded Huo Yunjie, whose eyesight had improved significantly after mastering the Sword Drawing Technique. With a little observation, he noticed the pattern.
Mo Ying watched Qiao Jiaxi and after a moment, nodded in agreement, “Indeed, it’s true.”
Bang!
At that moment, Qiao Jiaxi was once again injured by the threefold momentum, bloodied and falling to the ground.
“Squeak, squeak!”
The Golden-Haired Little Squirrel was worried to no end.
Yan Ruyu immediately began to heal Qiao Jiaxi’s injuries.
In less than an hour, Qiao Jiaxi’s body had been burst apart by the tripled aura more than a dozen times, each time feeling an agonizing pain throughout his body. However, once Yan Ruyu healed him, he immediately felt a more substantial bloodline power accumulating within his body, waiting for the next release.
Two hours later, Qiao Jiaxi was finally able to maintain the state of tripled aura for an extended period.
At this stage, every move he made could unleash three times the power of his normal state, and even without casting spells, he could contend with the seventh layer of Qi Refinement.
“I can finally start cultivating the “Sword of Qi and Blood”.”
Qiao Jiaxi stood under the tree, panting heavily, and cast a grateful look at his fellow disciples, then bowed deeply, saying, “Thank you all, dear senior brothers and sisters for taking care of me, Jiaxi will definitely continue to work hard!”
“You kid are too fierce. If it were us training like this, we would’ve been wrecked long ago. Only you could persevere,” Shi Lei said admiringly.
“Hehe!” Qiao Jiaxi grinned and stood at the edge of the cliff, silently reciting the essentials of the “Sword of Qi and Blood”, and began to guide the aura within his body.
To cultivate the “Sword of Qi and Blood”, one must first gather their own aura to three times its normal strength, then, like performing the Sword Drawing Technique, channel this aura between both hands, and finally release it as a slash of Sword Qi.
This would be Qiao Jiaxi’s only outwardly-directed spell at present.
“Aura, condense!”
Qiao Jiaxi began to guide the golden aura onto his arms and suddenly found his hands under tremendous pressure as if pinned by a ten-thousand-pound boulder, making it very difficult even to lift his hands.
The aura burst forth once again.
Qiao Jiaxi saw that the skin on both arms was completely torn, as if shredded by countless wind blades, the pain piercing to the bone.
“Junior brother, can your physique still handle this? In my opinion, you must gather your own aura to more than four times its strength before cultivating the “Sword of Qi and Blood”to avoid backlash. As for the thrice-strength aura mentioned in the cultivation technique, it should only be the minimum requirement for practicing the “Sword of Qi and Blood”,” Mo Ying, as the most experienced among them, quickly pinpointed the difficulty Qiao Jiaxi was facing.
“Is that so?” Qiao Jiaxi was a bit disappointed.
He had finally managed to gather his aura to three times its strength, only to find he could not control it.
“No worries, I can keep healing you,” Yan Ruyu said with a smile, stroking Qiao Jiaxi’s head before healing him.
Qiao Jiaxi looked around, touched by the bright and encouraging eyes of his senior brothers and sisters.
“Alright! Then I will continue to gather my aura.”
Qiao Jiaxi started to practice the “Divine Fist”with all his might, once again enveloped by the tripled golden aura, and moreover, because of numerous trials, he could now instantly gather his aura to three times its normal level.
Time ticked by.
At this moment, Ye Feng and Long Tianxing were being bombarded with innumerable black sand grains and could not leave at all.
“Sect Leader, I’m so hungry!” Long Tianxing had reverted to human form and was lying inside the protective shield formed by the black sand, touching his shrunken belly and feeling lifeless.
“Don’t worry, I’ve brought plenty of food.”
Ye Feng laid out a small table, soon filled with various delicious foods, all packaged to go from the Sword Child’s sealing ceremony, enough for several days’ worth of eating.
“Brilliant!” Long Tianxing’s eyes lit up.
In other areas of the Three Thousand Realms.
Long Jiu was being pursued by a patch of red light, running for his life.
The other Dragonfolk Clan Elders weren’t in any danger and were still patiently searching.
Dragonfolk Ancient Town.
Long Yuxin paced back and forth in front of the gigantic gate.
“No need to worry, they will definitely return on time,” Elder Agudo said after drinking a barrel of water, then spoke slowly.
However, Long Yuxin was still worried and could not rest easy thinking about Long Tianxing inside.
In the blink of an eye, three days passed.
Atop Misty Peak.
“Quadruple aura, activate!”
Qiao Jiaxi assumed a horse stance, his fists at his waist, bellowing as he gathered his aura, making his body glow with a golden brilliance as if cloaked in golden flames, his aura reaching four times that of his usual state.
“I’ve finally succeeded!”
Qiao Jiaxi’s eyes brimmed with tears.
In these three days, to achieve a stable quadruple aura, he had been injured hundreds of times, if not a thousand. Anyone else would have suffered a mental breakdown by now, but only he, with the bloodline of the Ancient Giant God and with Yan Ruyu’s help, could grit his teeth and endure.
“Such a powerful aura!”
The fellow disciples could feel the immense Vitality Power emanating from Qiao Jiaxi, as if they were facing a peak Qi Refining Realm master, their hearts shockingly thrilled.
“Bloodline possessors are just that strong. Once Jiaxi grows up, he will definitely be a genius-level entity,” Mo Ying said with crossed arms, explaining.
Upon hearing this, the others couldn’t help but agree.
For the past three days, Qiao Jiaxi had endured hellish pain to achieve his current success.
And all of this, they had witnessed with their own eyes.
“Sword of Qi and Blood!”
Qiao Jiaxi brought his hands together, pouring three-quarters of the aura into his arms while using the remaining quarter to stabilize his body, successfully completing the condensation.
Rip!
A blinding golden Vitality Sword Qi slashed out, splitting a ten-meter tall boulder at the edge of the cliff in half, astounding everyone.
“I did it!”
Qiao Jiaxi wiped the sweat from his brow and smiled at the others, but just as he took a few steps forward, his vision darkened, and he was about to fall over when the hands of other disciples reached out to support him.
In the Three Thousand Realms.
“Ding, registered disciple Qiao Jiaxi has successfully advanced to the sixth layer of Body Refinement and can be promoted to Outer Sect Disciple. All disciples have now completed their task assessments and have been awarded a Special Small Gift Pack x1,” the system’s prompt sounded in Ye Feng’s ear.
“Jiaxi has broken through?” Ye Feng stood up.
Although he was surprised, he shifted his focus to the Special Small Gift Pack.