118. Body Refining Manual

Practitioners of the path, it is often said, require immense perseverance to accomplish anything. Qi Fei, for instance, has spent the last half-year trapped in this narrow valley, unable to leave or advance, and unable to touch the bustling world outside—a confinement few could endure. Now, with about six months of leisure at his disposal, he decided to browse through all the books collected here. One day, his attention was captured by a manual on physical cultivation called the "Physical Refinement Outline."

Those who practice Daoist arts often find little need for physical conditioning. Relying on unique artifacts and wondrous mystical arts, they can defeat martial artists who focus on tempering their bodies. In the Divine Continent, the path of the martial artist has been in decline, yet everyone yearns for the legendary supernatural powers said to be attained after "shattering the void" through martial arts. It is rumored that reaching the pinnacle of martial cultivation allows one to break through the void, whereas Daoist arts merely extend one's lifespan.

Despite such temptations, true martial practitioners have always been few and far between. Qi Fei is a rare exception; he practices martial arts alongside Daoist methods. For thousands of years, no one has attempted to cultivate both simultaneously. With no historical precedent to follow, no one knows what kind of strange existence he might become, so Qi Fei must tread with extreme caution.

What pleases Qi Fei now is that this book categorizes human physical strength into five levels, from lowest to highest: Skin Refining, Bone Refining, Tendon Refining, Marrow Refining, and Essence Refining. After a cursory reading, Qi Fei realized he likely resides in the Bone Refining stage. According to the manual, the characteristics of physical cultivators eventually converge; once past the Skin Refining stage, a yellow light appears around the bones, signifying the Bone Refining stage.

The manual claims that at the peak of the Bone Refining stage, internal observation should reveal a strong, pale purple radiance from the bones, akin to what people call "celestial light." Qi Fei carefully compared this to himself and found that while the light from his bones was not intense, it possessed an undeniable, striking quality. After some thought, he concluded he had reached the early Bone Refining stage. At this level, his physical strength—which he had never truly tested—was also described: his body could withstand an impact force of roughly twenty thousand horsepower without sustaining any damage. Twenty thousand horsepower is a level of impact far beyond the reach of any martial artist below the innate realm.

Simply put, unless an opponent wields a divine weapon several times stronger than his Cold Soul Blade or possesses an earth-shattering profound-level technique, ordinary martial artists would find it difficult to harm him. Seeing this, Qi Fei gained a more intuitive understanding of his physical prowess. Delighted by his own toughness, he fantasized about the day he could rampage through crowds of ordinary martial artists, leaving them helpless against him.

Qi Fei chuckled to himself. "Heh, I imagine anyone now, no matter how powerful, would find me a massive headache!" He continued to giggle for a long while before shaking off these delusions of grandeur. He then turned his attention, with utmost seriousness, to the latter part of the manual. After all, Bone Refining is only the second stage; the subsequent stages of Tendon, Marrow, and Essence Refining are clearly many times more powerful.

Qi Fei has never been one to be satisfied with the status quo. While it is said that those who are content are always happy, one must possess the resolve to defy the heavens; only by doing so can one be revered by the world. As long as there is room for advancement, that is the direction in which he will strive. He first studied the Tendon Refining stage. As the name suggests, while Skin and Bone Refining strengthen the skin and bones, Tendon Refining goes a step deeper, fortifying the internal organs and all bodily systems. Everything from the heart, liver, and lungs to the stomach and intestines must be strengthened in this stage.

Reaching this stage provides at least enough resilience to withstand an impact of sixty thousand horsepower. To many, sixty thousand horsepower might just be a number, but through testing with Tong He, Qi Fei knows that his current full-power punch is roughly at this level. It is clear that once he reaches the Tendon Refining stage, even the masters on the Divine Continent's Immortality List would find it extremely difficult to harm him.

The next stage, Marrow Refining, is obviously even more formidable. This stage requires the strengthening of fluids within the body, such as blood and bone marrow. To succeed, one must transform all blood and marrow into a golden color. At this stage, common sharp objects can no longer cause significant harm. Qi Fei noted that the book even mentioned throwing knives; unless they are enchanted artifacts, they are considered mere scrap metal.

As for blunt force, anything below a million horsepower can be essentially ignored; it might knock him back, but it would cause no lasting injury. Of course, this weight is mostly theoretical—it is hard to imagine anyone truly striking a person with a million horsepower. Even if they could, it would require a shapeshifting artifact, which likely does not exist on the Divine Continent. Finally, the "Physical Refinement Outline" culminates in the peak stage of Essence Refining. The book states that there are no early, middle, or late phases here, as it is the ultimate state of physical existence. In this state, the body is said to reach a point of "indestructible essence," where it remains eternal and cannot be harmed by anything, no matter how powerful.

In such a state, an enemy could only hope to trap him with powerful arrays or seals, but killing him would be impossible. Achieving this stage means possessing the ultimate defense; no enemy could ever threaten him again.

"Tendon and bone eternal, only then can one endure!" Qi Fei muttered these words, sighing in deep admiration. Though it was strange that the book mentioned nothing of longevity, the term "eternal and indestructible" suggested he could truly reach a state of living as long as the heavens and earth. This was a path he had once dreamed of but could never find.

Closing the manual, Qi Fei felt his heart race with an uncontrollable excitement. For the first time, he felt an urgent, overwhelming desire to begin practicing immediately.

"Physical Refinement Outline, I shall devote my entire heart to you for these next six months!" With no hesitation, Qi Fei returned to the main hall of the cave dwelling. He activated the controls left by Tong He to engage the outer defensive array, ensuring no one would disturb him, and began his training.

Controlling the cave's array was a skill Tong He had helped him refine after he reached the innate realm. With just a thought, Qi Fei could manipulate the remaining formations. The outermost array was a protective shield he had discovered by accident, capable of cloaking the cave so that no one from the outside could even sense its existence.

It was the perfect sanctuary. With the array active and the Golden-Silver Wolf King sent to wander the valley, Qi Fei opened the manual and began to study the techniques in earnest. Unlike his previous, primitive methods of grueling physical labor, the techniques described here felt strangely profound.

Qi Fei realized that the foundational method could be summarized as "nurturing the body through force." By "force," it meant one's own potential—the "degrees" of energy that could be utilized to slowly strengthen the body. Such methods have existed since ancient times: using celestial essence to purge impurities, consuming pills to nourish meridians and bones, eating spirit wood or exotic fruits rich in energy, or even simple morning exercises and walks. To Qi Fei, these seemed more like Daoist health-preservation practices than the intense, stimulating methods he had expected.

However, these were merely preparatory. They served to bring the body to a state where one could formally begin the Skin Refining stage.

For the Skin Refining stage, the manual prescribed a series of bizarre postures. One involved supporting one's inverted body with a single index finger while bending the legs to rest on the shoulders. Another required standing on one leg with the other raised high, while the torso coiled around the standing leg like a snake. Qi Fei realized that the eight postures depicted in the book each corresponded to a different animal.

At first, he thought these poses looked simple, but reading the final summary revealed his mistake: the practitioner was required to transition between all these poses seamlessly, without a pause. The mere thought of transitioning from a horse stance to a "deer leg" pose, or the incredibly difficult "crane leg" to "elephant leg" transition, made his scalp tingle.

Qi Fei practiced for a while and realized that despite his desire to skip ahead to the Bone Refining training, he had to follow the system systematically to avoid long-term damage. He began to practice these strange poses. Having done flexibility training before, he thought it would be easy, but after holding the first horse stance for the time it takes to burn a stick of incense, he felt a burning pain in the skin two inches above his right knee. The pain intensified as time went on.

"What is this? I can squat in a horse stance for days, yet holding this pose for half an incense stick causes such burning?" Despite his confusion, he gritted his teeth and held the pose for the required half-hour. Once finished, he immediately checked the manual and was stunned to find the explanation: "If a patch of skin burns, it means that area has not yet been refined."

He felt a wave of relief and fortune. Had he skipped the Skin Refining stage, he would have encountered immense trouble later on. His previous, primitive training had allowed him to reach the Bone Refining stage by luck, but it had left his skin incompletely tempered.

He spent the entire day familiarizing himself with the eight postures. He discovered that at least twenty areas of his skin were not properly refined. "It seems that primitive training is no match for a systematic method," he muttered. He realized that many commoners, despite their innate talent, often failed to reach the heights of aristocratic children because they lacked such systematic foundations.

Grateful for the chance to correct his errors, Qi Fei decided to stay in the garden area until he had completed his training. With the deadly Eight-Winged Centipede and the White Dragon Fish consumed and turned into medicine, the garden was now a safe, natural base for his cultivation.