Chapter 3: The Mysterious Rock Pool

"A sound!"

In the open space, Lin Dong stared blankly at his fist as an euphoric look emerged on his small face. Yet when he lifted his head, he saw that Lin Xiao's figure was already slowly walking out of the forest.

"Heh heh, tomorrow I will show father, I am sure that he will be pleasantly surprised." Lin Dong grinned. Suddenly waves of pain emitted from his arm, he hastily lifted his sleeve only to find that his entire arm was covered in blood red marks, so much so that there were even places where the skin had peeled back as blood continuously oozed out.

"Hss......"

Previously, he was so wrapped up in practice that he did not realise, but now that he had stopped, the pain suddenly rushed forth, causing Lin Dong to grimace in pain. He knew that this pain had been caused by the practice of the Penetrating Fist: injuries due to the friction accumulated from long periods of rubbing his skin against his clothes.

"There's still some time, I guess I'll go to that place first to soak for a while......."

Lin Dong lifted his head to glance at the color of the sky before abruptly running off to the back of the mountain. Approximately 10 minutes later, a steep cliff appeared before his eyes. He scanned his surroundings cautiously, before following a path of jutting rocks down the cliff. These rocks were not easy to find, yet they formed nicely into a secret path.

Lin Dong was quite familiar with this path, thus as he carefully descended, there were no accidents. After a while, a cave that was hidden from sight by a few huge rocks appeared before him.

The cave's location was very well concealed and it was also very well hidden behind the few huge rocks around it. If one was not specifically searching for it, it would be nearly impossible to find. Moreover, in a normal situation, no one would bother doing this kind of thing.

Leaping into the cave, a cool and refreshing feeling blew away the stench and sweat on Lin Dong's body. Compared to the blistering hot weather outside, the cave was like a different world, and also a great place to take shelter from the heat.

The inside of the cave was not extremely spacious. Other than a 6-10 metre wide rock pool at the center of the cave, there was nothing else special in this cave.

Walking towards to the rock pool, one would see that it was filled with crystal clear water, and atop the water a slightly cold breeze floated back and forth.

"Splash!"

Arriving beside the rock pool, Lin Dong quickly took off his clothes, and straightaway jumped into the water. The slightly cold air caused his body to shiver for a little but he quickly adapted to the cold.

Lin Dong had found this cave by chance during his younger years. Only Qing Tan and him knew about this place. The water here was much colder than other places and at the height of summer, Lin Dong loved to come here and immerse himself in the pool. However, besides being cool and refreshing, there seemed to be no other effect.

Of course, this was not exactly accurate as every time after Lin Dong soaked in the water here, he would unknowingly feel his mind become particularly sharp and no matter what he did, he would be able to quickly enter into a concentrated state.

There did not seem to be any merit to this kind of feeling before, but now that Lin Dong had learnt the Penetrating Fist, he realized that being in a concentrated state had quite a substantial effect on his training progress. Or else, he would probably find it hard to pick up Penetrating Fist in such a short period of time, not to mention practicing it until he managed to produce a sound.

"Is it just me?"

As he laid in the rock pool, Lin Dong cupped some water in his hands and watched it slowly flow off. His small face creased, if this thing was so miraculous, he would have achieved the level of Yuan Power long ago, unlike his current slow pace.

"Once I've trained till the Tempered Body 6th Layer, I would be able to refine essence into Yuan and with Yuan Power, I would finally become a true practitioner!" Lin Dong excitedly proclaimed as he slapped the sides of his face, looking forward to that day. Nonetheless, within the younger generation of the Lin Family, there were only a handful who had reached that level.

Yuan Power was the most important thing in training. It is said that a strong practitioner would be able to cause landslides with just a sweep of his hands. This earth shattering might was difficult for Lin Dong to imagine, as he was still a tiny brat at the first stage.

And the source of this kind of might was Yuan Power. A type of miraculous force that floated between Heaven and Earth. Yet to absorb the Yuan Power from Heaven and Earth, one is required to train until a Yuan Power Seed is produced. Only then, could even more Yuan Power be absorbed into one's body.

Lin Dong leaned against the edge of the rock pool, as he relaxed, his head facing upwards with his eyes shut. His thoughts ran wild for a while before unexpectedly ,he gradually fell into a deep sleep. This period of training was too extreme for him and now that he had finally found some time to relax, his pent up exhaustion started to spread out from his bones.

As Lin Dong soundly slept, the cave once again became peaceful as the pool water gently heaved about.

"Plop......"

Amidst the silence, a disturbance suddenly started in the clear water. A dark red drop of blood rolled down from Lin Dong's injured arm and quietly fell into the pool.

As this drop of blood fell, the originally peaceful water abruptly started boiling. One by one, bubbles with faint traces of blood-like color emerged to rise up from the surface of the water before bursting around Lin Dong's resting body. Traces of faintly red colored liquid scattered in the air and as if they had a mind of their own, moved to twine around Lin Dong's body before finally quickly entering through his pores.

Just as these faintly red colored liquid seeped into Lin Dong's body, it gave rise to a sensation as if the muscles all over his body were violently compressed. Like a tide, a torrent of sweat gushed forth, converging together and then streaming into the water.

Just as the sweat riddled with black impurities seeped out from his body, Lin Dong, whose body had previously grown by a centimeter after he broke through Tempered Body 3rd Layer, felt that his body had shrunk back to its previous size. This sensation was akin to ferociously squeezing out all of the water from a wet sponge.

After approximately 10 minutes, the water in the pool stopped boiling. Just as the pool water began to calm down, Lin Dong suddenly awoke and shouted : "Hot!".

"Splash!"

As he shrieked, Lin Dong swiftly ducked his head and immersed his whole body in the pool. After a while, he finally broke the surface to catch his breath. A look of bewilderment was plastered on his face as shortly before he awoke, he felt as though he was being baked in a furnace, and the burning sensation he experienced was what caused him to involuntarily scream out.

"Why would it be so hot in here?" Lin Dong pondered as he stood in the pool for a while in order to cool himself off, before he finally decided to climb out.

Standing besides the rock pool while thinking for a while, Lin Dong wordlessly shook his head. Just as he grabbed up his clothes and started to put them on, his gaze suddenly paused at his arm.

"Huh?"

Lin Dong stared at his arm in wide disbelief. He clearly remembered that this arm was previously scarred with bloody wounds after his training, yet now all of his wounds seemed to have disappeared?

Perplexed, Lin Dong gently stroke his once wound ridden arm, suddenly, his body stiffened. An incredulous look swiftly surfaced on his face as he discovered that the skin on his arm had substantially hardened.

This kind of situation was a sign that he was rapidly approaching the Tempered Body 4th Layer.

"How......is this possible?!"

This discovery left Lin Dong dumbstruck as he stood in a daze on the spot.

TL: 丈 – Zhang is a chinese 'feet' that is equivalent to about 3.3meters, the chinese RAWs state it was about 2 to 3 feet