Xin skidded across the floors and jumped from one platform to another as he evaded a barrage of dark spears made of shinsu. After evading for a while, he saw a gap as an opportunity for attack and quickly dived in to deliver his punch.

Golden Metal Fist!

His fist shimmered in a golden-like color, enhancing and strengthening it beyond its normal capabilities.

With the guardian's defense opened, Xin appeared behind his back and drove his shimmering golden fist right at where his spleen should be located.

Baaaaaamm!!

A violent sound was heard as his punch sent the guardian away with a violent squall of winds. However, before Xin could even recover from his attack, many dark spears suddenly rushed at him and successfully struck him as he couldn't bring himself to dodge them, and covered him in a blast of explosion.

When Xin emerged from it, blood was flowing profusely from all over his body as bloody wounds littered his body. His body resistance was far cry from Adori, let alone Liu Guanyi.

Getting struck directly by a few of the guardian's shinsu spears could easily destroy any D-ranked regular's body. It was already impressive that he could endure them with only this level of wounds.

While Xin was panting and hardly holding onto himself, the Mirotic guardian simply stood back as he recovered from Xin's golden fist.

The guardian quickly re-summoned his signature spears and hurled them toward Xin.

Xin tried to move out of the way and did manage to evade two of the spears, but since his body was weakened by the injuries he sustained throughout the fight, he was too slow to avoid the last spear, and it hit on his back.

"Urrgh!" Xin gritted his teeth in pain as he fell headfirst onto the ground. His head rocked as blood started to come out trickling out of it.

With a little bit of dizziness, Xin tried to get up as fast as possible, but when he did, he saw that the guardian had already prepared his signature gift for him.

Seeing those darks spears flying in his way, he gritted his teeth and clenched his fists.

'No, not like this. I haven't defeated the guardian once. I must improve, I have to improve to be able to contribute to the team. I can't always be the most useless one in the team, I have to become more useful!'

As the shinsu spears were upon him, Xin reacted in the last second as he jumped to the side, but he suddenly felt a surging pain in his head, and his body didn't comply with his will as he cannot move his muscles. 'No, not like this!'

When Xin was in despair at his own weakness, a figure suddenly appeared in front of him and blocked all of the spears with ease.

The long jet black-haired man turned back and faced him with what looked like a divine smile to Xin. "No need to be too harsh on yourself, for now just rest, Xin."

Hearing Liu Guanyi's kind and reassuring words, Xin didn't know but he somehow felt at peace, and as he felt peace, his body started to give in, and his eyelids became heavy. Soon, he had fallen into slumber.

Liu Guanyi looked at Xin as he patched up his wounds with bandages. Xin had tried very hard, he understood it very well and respected him for that.

Even though he might not be able to reach his or Adori's level in his entire lifetime, it was one thing to keep putting all of his efforts to try to catch up with them. It was very admirable of him.

However, sometimes efforts and determination alone weren't enough. Liu Guanyi had experienced and understood this deeply.

If he was reincarnated in the tower without his ability to harness and control the inner energy, what would happen?

It was clear, he wouldn't be able to become as powerful as he was now. His achievements would have been a far cry from what he had now. Maybe he wouldn't even survive the test on the first floor, let alone coming this far.

With only his shinsu talent and fighting experiences, he most likely wouldn't be able to pique Adori Zahard's interest on the second floor, thus being unable to befriend her, losing a powerful ally and a seed that would potentially become a great figure that could back him in the future.

And most importantly, relying on shinsu alone wouldn't be able to make him surpass those centuries-old beings that reigned in the tower. Liu Guanyi was absolutely sure of this.

His talent and ability in controlling shinsu were way above the average, but it was an undeniable fact that it was still inferior compared to Adori, let alone those thousand years old monsters.

Liu Guanyi couldn't imagine how powerful their shinsu abilities and controls were with all the time they had in their lives to develop them. Not only that, but their bodies must also be extremely powerful too since shinsu strengthened physical faculties along with time.

To put it simply, without the existence of inner energy within him, Liu Guanyi's ambition to grow and scale to the top of the tower was impossible.

Maybe he would even need to do the same thing as the king and the ten family leaders did. Selling himself just to get that contract of immortality.

Fortunately, he didn't need to do so as he could walk on his own beautiful and interesting path to power, the Martial Way.

If shinsu could extend a person's lifespan that was normally less than a hundred years in his world to thousands of years, how long could he live with both energies supported and strengthened by his body and vitality?

If the abundance of the inner energy he had within his body as an effect from the shinsu could be used as an indicator and the standard of Rankers could live easily for thousands of years, then he too could live easily for more than ten thousands of years.