Chapter 14: Three months passing by

After getting the Draconic Flame Rebirth technique, Yulian did not immediately begin cultivating it. In reality, he had cultivated at a fast pace in a short time. He needed to consolidate his foundation and refine himself.

To begin with, Yulian illegally downloaded the First Stage of the Nine Stage Thunder Blade off the internet. Before this, Yulian had simply trained in some basic techniques belonging to the Nine Stage Thunder Blade. To do this, Yulian carefully plotted out a scheme to download the manual. After gathering some information off the internet, Yulian went to a cyber café and downloaded the manual from sites that should be normally inaccessible. Yulian downloaded the complete, unaltered First Stage of the Nine Stage Thunder Blade manual from the internet. After carefully cutting off his trail, Yulian immediately memorized the manual, deleted all the files downloaded and began training in it.

The best way to consolidate the foundation is to temper the meridians with newly refined genetic energy. Yulian used three months to fully consolidate the foundation of the Nine Stage Thunder Blade and his Spirit Immersion technique.

Yulian had built up a good foundation in the Nine Stage Thunder Blade with the Nine Yang Thunder Fist, even reaching the level of controlling his muscles. As expected, Yulian had flying progress. If he wished to, Yulian could even train in the Second Stage of the Nine Stage Thunder Blade technique.

However, he refused due to two reasons, one being that the difficulty of finding the Second Stage on the internet was higher. Another reason was that the Second Stage forced greater strain on the muscles, and if he was injured, he would have to reveal that he was hiding his strength.

Of course, Yulian did not solely focus on the Nine Stage Thunder Blade. Every day, he meditated in his conscious realm. The golden dragon had left him his legacy in the golden sphere that rotated in his conscious realm. Even though he could no longer enter it, he took the time to meditate in front of it everyday. The awe inspiring aura of his master, the Dragon Sovereign of the 2nd Generation still lingered here. Meditating here would let him temper his heart with the aura, as well as gain greater insight into the cultivation techniques of Spirit Immersion and Five Colored Stones.

The Spirit Immersion technique he had downloaded off the internet was somewhat incomplete. Yulian’s meditations allowed him to refine the technique and increase the amount and stability of the energy cultivated.

Like this, three months went by in training and meditation.

…

Yulian was currently swinging his sword, performing the foundation techniques of the Nine Stage Thunder Blade. In his hands was a 7 foot long saber, something he began training in after he sufficiently mastered the 3 foot saber.

“Three Blades in Unity!”

“Four Thunderous Thrusts!”

“Falling Lightning Sword!”

“Thunder Rumbles in the Sky!”

Yulian’s sword danced as he trained in the four foundational techniques of the Nine Stage Thunder Blade. The power of the Nine Stage Thunder Blade sword techniques made the air vibrate as Yulian poured his Genetic Energy into his sword blows. Yulian practiced like this for 15 minutes.

Now that he had finished warming up, Yulian decided to begin his real training. His sword drawn, Yulian activated the Reaction Testing Machine. The difficulty was preset to ‘Advanced Warrior’, the highest difficulty possible.

As soon as Yulian strode into the perimeter of the training machine, he was bombarded by a hail of bullets. Calmly, he began circulating genetic energy though his body. As the potential hidden in his muscles was awakened, thunderous sounds began emanating from his body.

The ‘Lesser Thunder God Art’ was the most powerful technique in the First Stage Manual. This technique required complete comprehension of the First Stage of the Nine Stage Thunder Blade technique, in all parts. Perfect understanding of the sword technique, body technique and the agility technique was needed.

Yulian swept his sword in front of the hail, deflecting it. The remaining bullets were dodged by him. With every movement, genetic energy was drained at an alarming rate from his body, but genetic energy would recover just as quickly. The Spirit Immersion technique was no ordinary cultivation technique.

Yulian battled the hail of bullets for fifteen minutes before the non lethal bullets shot out were exhausted. A vacuum was formed from the machine, draining away the bullets.

“NIGHTMARE difficulty, Zero bullets impacted. Score: Perfect!” A emotionless female voice said the score. To begin with, Yulian had been practicing in front of the machine every single day. Today was another day when he had achieved the perfect score. It seemed that this machine couldn’t challenge him anymore.

“I am going to have to call Catalan Paulinus soon. I suppose I’ll do it… after I break through from the Spirit Immersion realm.”

He had been consolidating his foundation for three months. Since he didn’t sense any problems, it should be fine to breakthrough.

…

Yulian returned to his room. He immediately stripped off all the clothes off his body, becoming stark naked. Sitting down on his bed in a lotus posture, he immediately began circulating the energy in his body.

Ancient Chinese Mythology states that once, the four pillars of holding Heaven were broken, causing a catastrophe across Heaven and Earth. The creator of the Human Race, Goddess Nuwa forged the five colored stones to repair the pillars, so that Heaven and Earth could be once more in balance.

The Draconic Nirvana Rebirth cultivation technique emphasized a firm foundation. The Five Colored Stones realm would create a well grounded foundation for Yulian to soar to the skies!

The Five Colored Stones realm meant that one had to awaken the five elements of Fire, Metal, Wood, Earth and Water within the body by condensing the Five Colored Stones of the five elements within the dantian.

Yulian immediately began circulating the genetic energy within his body according to the instructions provided by the Draconic Nirvana Rebirth technique. Within his dantian, there was a vast sea of pure golden genetic energy. There was not a single spot of grey or even white energy. Yulian had cultivated his Spirit Immersion technique to perfection, all to create a good foundation for entering the Five Colored Stones realm!

All the pores all over Yulian’s body opened up, frantically absorbing the fire energy from the world. This was pure flame energy, not the ordinary genetic energy containing a mix of all the elements. The energy absorbed in all the pores converged as it met up in his meridians. The energy grew even more condensed and denser as it circulated through his meridian network. As it circulated, the energy purified and cleansed Yulian’s body from the inside, burning away all the waste. Finally, the energy arrived some distance away from the brilliant golden sea in his dantian.

As Yulian’s body was cleansed, the attraction rate of the fire energy seemed to increase. The energy was initially in a gaseous state, which slowly condensed to a liquid. At this moment, the condensed energy should have entered the sea of energy in his dantian, transforming the sea into flame energy. After which, the sea should have slowly condensed from liquid to solid, until it became a stone of pure flame. This would be the moment that he had arrived at the Perfection of the Fire Stone realm.

However, the golden sea seemed to repel the liquid! Yulian was completely dumbfounded by this. Thoughts about qi deviation from following the incorrect path entered his mind, a horrific fate of exploding into chunks from the backlog of energy. Yulian steered his mind away from these thoughts, and after some quick thoughts, figured out a method to salvage the situation.

To begin with, he began to circulate the flame energy though his meridians. To have a hope of surviving this, Yulian needed to assume complete control over the energy condensing within him. To increase the circulation cycle, he allowed the energy to bleed over to muscles and bones, and converge again into his meridians. The First Stage of the Nine Stage Thunder Blade had increased the power and understanding of Yulian’s muscles and bones.

Soon, the energy converging over the golden energy sea in Yulian’s dantian reached a limit in quantity. A small flame sea hovered above the golden sea. Yulian began condensing the energy together, causing the flame to converge into a smaller ball. The genetic energy would be absorbed into the pores all over his body, before being circulated through his meridians, muscles and bones, before being forced to enter the liquid ball of flame above his dantian.

Slowly but surely, the ball of flame began changing states, solidifying. The flame energy finally fully solidified, becoming a small red stone. The red stone suddenly overcame the repelling force of the golden sea, and leaving Yulian’s sea, dropped into the golden sea. Unable to control the stone, Yulian could only watch as the stone entered the depths of his energy sea.

Unwilling to give up, Yulian launched his spirit force deep into the golden sea, following the falling stone. The stone continued fall deeper… until it finally entered the bottom of the sea! At the bottom of the sea, there was a pentagonal formation with five depressions for five stones. Landing into a depression, the red stone began emitting ripples of energy as it settled down.

The red stone and the golden sea began harmonizing together, boosting Yulian’s reserves of genetic energy. Finally fully harmonized, the energy that was in frantic motion across Yulian’s body began settling down. Yulian had finally completed his breakthrough.

Before awakening from his meditative state, Yulian glanced inside his dantian for a final time. The golden sea hadn’t turned flame red, but a hint of flame energy had merged into it. The Blazing Nirvana Rebirth stated that the golden sea should have transformed into a crimson sea of flame energy. As Yulian emerged from his meditative state, he sighed. The moment he earnestly began to cultivate the Flame Nirvana Rebirth technique, he had already diverged from the path laid down by his predecessor.

…

After putting on his clothes back, Yulian decided to train. To quickly stabilize after a breakthrough, the best way was to exercise the meridians by training. He immediately ran to the Training Room, grabbed his 7 foot sword and attacked the Fist Testing Machine.

A blow only consisting of his physical force.

1368 kg!

A blow reinforced by genetic energy.

1889 kg!

A blow with the power of the Nine Stage Thunder Blade!

2756 kg!

For the final blow, Yulian activated the ultimate technique known by him, Lesser Thunder God Body. Holding the 7 foot long saber, Yulian slashed out the most destructive sword technique was aware of: Falling Lightning Sword. As Yulian thrust out, the blade shined with golden sword light.

4407 kg!

As Yulian retracted his sword, he pondered over the scores. While the strength of his physical body had not risen by a large margin, the power of his genetic energy had risen. Not only that, but Yulian’s Nine Stage Thunder Blade’s power had risen as well.

After identifying that there were no problems with his energy channels and meridians, Yulian decided that it was time to make a call.

Picking up the phone given by Jack to him, he made a call to him. “Hi Jack! I did it! My fist strength broke through above 900, I can become a fighter!”

A/N- It’s been too long! I kinda-sorta forgot about this fic under the pressure of college and was reminded when PrinceeDealer sent me credits for a new chapter. I was surprised to find positive reviews when there were previously none! Sorry, I will try to update more regularly! And this is a regular chapter, PrinceeDealer’s sponsored one will come soon!

Also some terms have been de-capitalized. This is unofficially the start of a new arc, so I changed things to resemble the original translated Swallowed Star.