Inside the cave, Mu Chen assiduously cultivated internal qi.

Eleven revolutions…

The internal qi had become thick enough to fill an entire acupoint.

Twelve revolutions…

Twenty…

The internal qi had now grown to the point it could connect two acupoints.

Thirty…

Mu Chen didn't mean to stop, but he had to every now and then, to drink the wine. Every time he stopped to drink the wine, he could feel the internal qi dissipate, which left him aggrieved.

Finally, Mu Chen was so annoyed by the frequent interruption, that he chugged down all the remaining wine. Mu Chen's face flushed red like a ripe tomato and even with his physique, there was a tendency to get drunk. Even worse was the feeling of getting bloated, like he would explode any time soon.

"Hic!" Mu Chen bit his tongue and forced himself to stay awake and continue to push himself.

A hundred revolutions…

The internal qi had multiplied by a hundred times. When Mu Chen circulated it, it now flooded through the meridians connecting his several acupoints.

Two hundred…

The thread of internal qi had become a river spanning over hundreds of acupoints and meridians.

Three hundred…

When Mu Chen reached the three hundred and fifty revolutions, the situation changed. Every revolution became difficult as an invisible force was blocking the flow of his internal qi. The difficulty of completing the last few revolutions was exponentially higher than the first few.

Three hundred fifty-eight…

Three hundred fifty-nine…

"Come on," Mu Chen urged with all his will.

Like the ouroboros which ate its own tail, the front of the river met its end and the two merged into one.

Three hundred and sixty revolutions!

All of Mu Chen's acupoints and the meridians connecting them were filled with internal qi, turning into a network with no beginning or end. With each revolution, the internal qi flowed seamlessly, feeding back to itself in a closed cycle.

Mu Chen was pleased to see that the internal qi no longer dissipated. However, his happiness didn't last long.

The net of internal qi shrank inwards. With Mu Chen's heart as the center, the internal qi net closed in and squeezed around his heart.

With every beat, the net tightened.

Mu Chen's heart was fragile like every other human. Under the constriction of the net, it became difficult for his heart to function normally. His heartbeat became erratic and then it couldn't beat anymore.

"Fuck!" Mu Chen cursed. He didn't expect such a turn of events.

Did he make a mistake?

Was he going to die?

Countless thoughts flooded through Mu Chen's mind.

If it was some ordinary person in Mu Chen's position, he would have already panicked and died. Mu Chen was different. He was someone who had come back from the hands of death. And as someone able to slow his heartbeat, he knew he still had a few minutes left to find a solution.

Mu Chen was incredibly calm and patient, as he tried to figure out what went wrong. He couldn't see the next step in cultivation, but according to common sense, it shouldn't be a death trap.

Was it because of his lack of vitality?

Mu Chen dismissed the idea. Even if it was a barbarian, he would face the same predicament. Once the net constricted, their hearts would stop, and they would wait for death to approach, unless…

Unless they had an extra heart.

An Zhi had an extra heart.

Mu Chen's face twitched. He knew where he made the mistake.

When An Zhi told him barbarians of An Tribe practiced internal qi, he didn't mention the details. Other barbarians indeed cultivated internal qi, but they weren't on the same level as An Zhi. Only An Zhi had crossed this threshold, due to his unique constitution. Others knew of the dangers ahead and dared not to touch that threshold. Anyway, with the internal qi they had already cultivated, they could maintain their superiority over barbarians from other clans.

Mu Chen skipped the due process, and forcefully cultivated to the next level. He thought he was being smart but instead threw himself into a death trap—truly self-inflicted.

The situation was now desperate, but Mu Chen knew, the more desperate it was, the more he had to stay calm.

"Since the method won't work, I can only improvise," Mu Chen thought.

He still had a final card to get out of the predicament—it was his sword intent. Since his sword intent could cut through ethereal, he felt it could destroy the net. But it was the last resort. His sword intent could hurt even him. So after he had learned how to use sword sense, Mu Chen had never tried to use it to examine his own body or anyone else's. If he used it and accidentally cut his own heart, he would become the biggest joke in history.

Time was running out, but for Mu Chen who was now hyper-focused, time had slowed down to a crawl as he thought of several measures and countermeasures.

An Zhi being able to cross the threshold had something to do with him having an extra heart. Assuming this cultivation method had the prerequisite of two hearts, what role did the other heart play?

Since the other heart was important, it could only be related to something that a heart could do.

What did the heart do?

It pumped blood.

Blood. Vitality.

Mu Chen understood. The role of the other heart was to provide vitality to the locked heart. As long as he provided enough vitality, he could pass this tribulation.

Didn't he already have a source of vitality? Mu Chen took out a bloodstone. With a stroke of his finger, he cut open his chest exposing his heart. Only a bit of blood dripped since his heart wasn't beating. Mu Chen grimaced and pressed the bloodstone on his heart.

Bit by bit, the vitality of the bloodstone flowed into his heart.

Mu Chen's heart, which had stopped beating, seemed to have regained its strength. It greedily absorbed the vitality from the bloodstone and began to beat once again.

The net of internal qi grew tighter, but just like Mu Chen, his heart was unwilling to give up. It absorbed even more vitality from the bloodstone and struggled against the net of internal qi.

A tug of war seemed to have been launched between the heart and the net of internal qi, with nobody willing to give up.

Just when Mu Chen thought the stalemate would never end, the net of internal qi seemed to have reached a limit. It could no longer shrink. It was now Mu Chen's heart that was pushing against the net.

"Break for me!" Mu Chen roared and kept changing bloodstones as they depleted. His heart consumed several bloodstones in succession.

With each beat of his heart, the net was forced to expand. The net of internal qi was strained beyond the limit, but it didn't still didn't break. Instead, it merged into Mu Chen's heart.

Mu Chen felt that his heart had been stabbed by hundreds of needles—three hundred and sixty to be precise—each corresponding to the major acupoint of the body.

The stabbing pain jolted Mu Chen's heart.

Ba-da-dum!

Mu Chen's heart began beating once again with a powerful and sonorous beat, different from in the past. And along with each beat, a warm and tingling current of internal qi flooded his limbs and organs, nourishing them.

With the influx of internal qi, the wound on his chest rapidly healed and Mu Chen felt comfortable all over his body. He stood up and stretched his body. All of his previous exhaustion had faded away and his body felt light as a feather.

Mu Chen came out of his cave and slashed at a rock with his sword, slicing it into two, and immediately noticed the difference. His speed was twice as fast as before, and he didn't even use his internal qi.

Feeling the changes in his body, Mu Chen was pleasantly surprised. Before, all his internal qi leaked because it lacked a vessel, but now his heart had become the reservoir. Mu Chen felt his heart had been reborn and become several times more powerful than in the past.

The net of internal qi took the heart as the center and with every beat of his heart, it pulsed. As a test, Mu Chen circulated the internal qi in reverse. Internal qi from his heart flooded into the net, then into his limbs and muscles.

Mu Chen ran to another boulder. The boulder was much larger than him. Mu Chen crouched next to it and dug his hands into the ground. He grabbed the boulder at its base and lifted it. His internal qi was rapidly consumed but Mu Chen was able to lift the boulder with ease.

Mu Chen threw the boulder a dozen feet away, dusted the dirt off his hands, and grinned. He wasn't able to do something like that in the past. Cultivating internal qi now allowed him to perform feats beyond his physical limits. Or perhaps, he always had that strength but wasn't able to channel it. Either way, the increase in his strength was real—Mu Chen was happy.

Mu Chen grabbed his sword and practiced it in conjunction with internal qi. At first, his movements were jerky and uncontrolled, but as he trained, they became smooth and continuous and the flow of internal qi improved as he got used to it.

"An Zhi didn't lie—internal qi is really amazing," Mu Chen sighed. His physique had improved, and he had a feeling that as long as he cultivated internal qi, it would continue to grow stronger. Although there were some unexpected ups and downs during the cultivation, the worst was already behind—Mu Chen was eager to learn more.

"Huh?" Mu Chen felt his heart throb. After practicing for such a long period, internal qi had suffused throughout his body, heightening his senses. Because he was focused on his training with his sword, he didn't realize it at first.

Mu Chen closed his eyes, concentrating on his heart. Soon he entered a strange state. His eyes were closed, yet instead of darkness, it was filled with colors. Like fireflies, they sparkled in the dark, the biggest was like a raging volcano in the night and it came from within the cave.

"This is… vitality?" Mu Chen opened his eyes. He knelt and picked up a blade of grass and crushed it. The trace of vitality in the blade of grass disappeared, like a spark that had been extinguished. Every living being had vitality. In the past, Mu Chen would have never felt it. But now, it was as if a brand new world had opened to him.

"With this, I should be able to locate enemies without alerting them," Mu Chen mused. Compared to using a sword sense, this was much more discreet.

Mu Chen was very satisfied with his new abilities. Cultivating internal qi gave him a lot of surprises. Mu Chen was eager to learn more and headed back inside the cave. He circulated his internal qi to limit and forced it outside his body. A faint red mist gathered in his hand. Compared with An Zhi's, his' was barely visible like a heat haze. Mu Chen didn't care and poured the internal qi into the scroll. Even his sword sense couldn't penetrate the scroll, however, his internal qi met no resistance.

As more of Mu Chen's internal qi poured into the scroll, the scroll started to gleam in response and archaic characters appeared on its leather surface. Fortunately, the characters had a lot in common with the standard text in circulation, Mu Chen was able to understand it.

Mu Chen became engrossed in reading the scroll. However, the more he read, the more he frowned. Finally, he couldn't sit still and stood up.

"This An Zhi. What is he up to?"