Duan Ke appeared in the elaborate and large courtyard. She crossed the streams and rivers to reach the manor that was standing at the end of the courtyard. Her eyes looked around for her grandfather but could not find him nearby.
Finding that her grandfather was not outside, she went up the steps of the manor and entered through the large twin doors. The inside of the manor was so luxuriously decorated that it would even put a king's palace to shame.
Duan Ke walked towards the left and entered an enormous library. There were more books than one could count in the library, along with a multitude of scrolls, bamboo slips, and jade slips kept on different shelves.
At the centre of the library, one could see a table and a few chairs. Unlike the rest of the manor, the table and chairs did not look luxurious or expensive, rather they looked very simple and could be found at any commoner's house. Duan Ke walked up to the table and saw her grandfather sitting at it on a chair.
The old man was reading a book that looked like it would wither and break any moment. The book was old and damaged, yet the old man was able to flip its pages with no problem. Once Duan Ke came up to the side of her grandfather, Jing Wei spoke without moving his eyes from the book.
"Did you find anything?"
Duan Ke waved her hand in response to her grandfather's words, making twelve corpses appear. These corpses belonged to both fierce beasts as well as spirit beasts. Even though the corpses belonged to different types of beasts and had different physiologies, they all had one thing in common. They were all pitch black in colour and emitted an unnerving aura.
Duan Ke then carefully withdrew a box that looked to be made of glass. In that box, a pitch-black blob the size of an orange was kept. The pitch-black blob was emitting an even greater unnerving aura, it was at least 10 times the intensity of the aura emitted by the strongest beast corpse.
Jing Wei turned to look towards the glass box in Duan Ke's hand.
"So, it was that 'thing' indeed." Jing Wei said.
"I found these twelve beasts in the northern forest. They were mostly spread around the deeper regions of the forest, but some of them were even present at the outer parts of the forest, with one wandering around near the edge of the forest." Duan Ke said.
Duan Ke stayed silent and let her grandfather examine all the beast corpses. Jing Wei looked around at the corpses for half an hour, after which he finally came up to the glass box.
"Where did you find this piece of that 'Thing'?" Jing Wei asked Duan Ke.
"I found it near the centre of the northern forest. It was lying inside a small pond and had tainted the water." Duan Ke replied.
"That pond was the source of the mutations then, no other traces anywhere?" Jing Wei questioned.
"Yes, that's likely it. I could not find any more traces of it, only this." Duan Ke answered.
Jing Wei nodded upon hearing Duan Ke's answer.
"Destroy it." Jing Wei declared.
Duan Ke did not speak a word before pointing to the black blob inside the glass box, which then started to burn. It burned for a minute, after which not even ashes were left behind.
Once the black blob was destroyed he turned to his granddaughter and spoke,
"Did that boy come back?"
"He came back just before me. I passed the meat of a 9th stage body tempering realm beast to him. Though he did not ask for money in exchange for the materials." Duan Ke replied and took a pause.
Jing Wei raised his eyebrows in question.
"He wanted more weapons in exchange for the materials. I let him choose some weapons from the shop. He picked a large variety of them." Duan Ke added.
Jing Wei sat down on the chair and placed his hand on his chin. He thought for a minute before asking,
"Did he not like the short sword?"
"He liked the sword. He said he wanted the weapons in case he ever lost the short sword during a fight." Duan Ke replied.
"And how did he come to that reasoning?" Jing Wei asked curiously.
Duan Ke had a slight smile on her face as she spoke this sentence.
"Your old short sword has tasted a man's blood once again, after decades."
"Oh, so he had his first kill. That was faster than I thought, but still, it's good for him that he experienced it early on and even learned a lesson from it." Jing Wei spoke with nostalgia in his eyes.
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Lin Mu was currently pulling the sled that had the weapons, and meat placed on it. It took him 20 minutes to exit the town before he could store everything in the ring. Once everything was stored in the ring, Lin Mu sprinted all the way to the hunting shack.
Once he was at the shack, he withdrew all the new weapons he had bought. He wanted to wield all of them, to get a feel for them.
'I need to practice them too now.' Lin Mu thought as he swung an axe.
He practiced using the weapons for three hours until it was time for sunset. Even though Lin Mu did not have proper training methods for each of the weapons, he still tried whatever he had seen other people do before, whether it be the town guards or the hunters.
Lin Mu then started practicing the boulder collapsing fist before cooking the new beast meat he had got today. The aroma of the 9th stage body tempering beast meat was richer than the other meats he had eaten before. Once it was completely cooked he ate it deliciously.
Done with the meal, Lin Mu sat down cross-legged to chant the calming heart sutra. He could feel the dense, vital energy being spread from his stomach. The energy was slowly spreading over his body and assimilating into his skin and muscles, with a minuscule amount assimilating into his blood vessels.
45 minutes later the vital energy had not stooped being assimilated and Lin Mu felt like his skin was completely saturated with vital energy.
'This is it my skin can't assimilate any more vital energy, it's time for me to enter the 8th stage of the body tempering realm.' Lin Mu decided.
Lin Mu focused on the small trickle of vital energy that was entering his blood vessels. The vital energy was giving off very faint waves. He focused on these very faint waves and tried to amplify them. He tried applying his experience from learning the Boulder collapsing fist and willed for the vital energy to increase.
He did not succeed in the first try. Lin Mu repeated the same procedure over and over until finally, it was like a dam had broken. A large surge of vital energy that was stored in his stomach surged out all at once and was assimilated into his blood vessels. An electrifying feeling passed through his blood vessels and he broke through to the 8th stage of the body tempering realm.
"Yes, finally success!" Lin Mu exclaimed and jumped up in joy.
The 8th stage of the body tempering realm was a bottleneck. After breaking through it, a qualitative changed happened in the body. The muscles that are tempered in the early stage of the body tempering realm become stronger and tougher, but they can't exert their full potential as they don't have the required supply of blood.
A similar situation occurs with the skin during the middle stage of the body tempering realm, but when a person finally enters the 8th stage of the body tempering realm, his vessels can finally provide the blood required to the muscles and skin.
A person who enters the late stage of the body tempering realm can exert greater strength, has increased speed and agility.
'Let's see what I can do.' Lin Mu thought.
Lin Mu started sprinting and found that he could run twice as fast as before. He then withdrew the large rock from the ring and let it fall on the ground. He tried lifting it but could not; it was still too heavy for him. Lin Mu then tried pushing it and was able to push it with some effort.
"At least I can push it now." Lin Mu thought out loud as he wiped the sweat on his brow.
'Now to try the boulder collapsing fist.' Thought Lin Mu.
Lin Mu entered the horse stance and used the breathing technique. Once his breath harmonized he started the fist routine. As soon as he reached the perfect coordination, he executed the boulder collapsing fist. A stream of energy entered his right arm and started spinning, forming a stable spiral. Lin Mu willed it and punched forward. A powerful gust of wind shot forward, shaking the trees and bushes. Leaves fell down from the trees and a whistling sound could be heard.
Lin Mu had finally mastered the boulder collapsing fist.