Chương 386: Peak Imperial stage body

The night passed quickly and the sun rose, chasing the remaining darkness with it's blazing light. From dawn till dusk, there was no movement from the tub filled with red liquid. But there was clear changes to the liquid. The bright red color had faded greatly, and a sort of murky black liquid constantly seeped from underneath the tub, darkening the liquid's color entirely. Night came and left with barely a ripple appearing on the surface of the liquid.

By the second morning, it was already extremely dark and murky, barely having a trace of red anymore. At noon, a circular ripple appeared on the surface of the liquid, then a fair arm burst out of the liquid and grabbed the side of the tub. Another arm rose and grabbed the other side, then a head full of hair slowly rose from the bottom of the tub. Murky black liquid dripped off Long Feng's skin as he slowly rose to his feet and stepped out of the tub.

He clenched his fist and sensed the overflowing strength contained within his body. His physical body was much stronger than before! His skin was extremely delicate, even fairer than those of most ladies, and his muscles were extremely well defined, not bulky, yet clearly containing an explosive force. He examined every inch of his body and couldn't help but feel the great difference from before.

Every movement he made rippled with extraordinary power, not one that came from his cultivation but a power that was buried within his very flesh, muscles and every cell in his body. His skin might appear delicate, but the toughness of his body was on another level entirely. Tanking a direct attack from a rank eight Imperial shouldn't be a problem. The greatest change though was in his vitality.

After absorbing the great amount of vitality contained within the rock ape's blood, Long Feng's body was overflowing with vitality. His blood was extremely condensed, and his strength was on an entirely new level. A casual punch achieved several hundred tons of force, extremely close to the thousand tons benchmark. Long Feng took out his mid mortal grade sword and lightly cut himself on the arm. Blood immediately flowed out, and stopped nearly instantly.

In under a minute, he watched a scab form over the wound and fall off seconds later, revealing his perfect skin and leaving not even a single scar where the wound was. This caused him to smile uncontrollably. His regenerative ability had greatly increased once again! Before, it was a natural ability to heal faster than usual. Now, it came from his great amount of vitality.

"The three roots equisite pill had an extremely shocking effects. The amount of impurities in my body were actually so much that they turned the liquid extremely dark and murky. After getting them expelled, my meridians have actually expanded to double their size and my strength has surged under the triple refining effects off the pill." The rock ape's blood was the cause of his great vitality, and it had also refined his cells on a fundamental level.

But it wouldn't have instantly resulted in his strength increasing so much without the three roots equisite pill.

"The pill is gone, but the effects will remain in my body for a while. I should take advantage if that and spend the next few days refining my body with the blood. In at most a week, my strength should reach the very peak of the Imperial realm!" Having such strength would mean being able to defeat peak Imperials with his body strength alone. When that force was combined with his cultivation, his strength would possibly be equal to that of a refined early stage deity!

He causally circulated his inner energy and was pleasantly surprised as well.

"Somehow, my foundation is much more stable as well! Looks like getting rid of my impurities and the expansion of my meridians affected my cultivation as well. That means my body tempering can stabilize my cultivation for me." That actually made sense. A cultivator wouldn't focus on tempering their body, yet it would still grow subtly after wielding the energy of the cultivator for a long time. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Just like how a deity who never tempered his body would still have a body that could withstand the attacks of an imperial. Similarly, body temperers would have a ridiculously stable foundation due to their physical strength. In short, the two paths actually mutually benefited each other.

"Looks like my path of body tempering isn't wrong after all." Long Feng smiled. He was afraid that he was chewing more than he could swallow. The last thing he wanted right now was to divide his attention between three diverse paths and end up becoming proficient in none.

"Come to think of it, I still haven't figured out which path my talent actually lies in." He thought randomly as he moved to take a bath. His soul talent was extremely good, his cultivation talent didn't need mentioning, and now, he was equally talented in body tempering. He seemed pretty all rounded, Or was it just his naive thinking? Honestly, his body tempering severely lacked compared to that of Xiao Hu with his suffocating might.

He rushed through his bath and donned his disciple robes, changing the colors to a dark blue instead of his usual black. When he was done, dusk was fast approaching. He quickly stepped out of his cave and headed straight towards Cheng Zhi's cave residence. They were supposed to have dinner together last night, but he was lost sense of time while cultivating. Since he was free tonight, he might as well join them.

He arrived at Cheng Zhi's cave and coincidentally met both Cheng Zhi and Xiao Hu preparing the meal already. Seeing Long Feng approaching from the distance, Xiao Hu grinned and leapt over while Cheng Zhi smiled warmly.

"I see you've ended your little training." He remarked.

"That's right. I lost track of time last night and I couldn't make it. I was afraid the whole snake would be eaten if I don't come over today." Long Feng replied. He laughed.

"It wouldn't be that bad. It's good that you made some good progress." Long Feng didn't hesitate to join them and they chatted and laughed while preparing the meal. After they had eaten, the three of them once again sat in the open under the cover of the night.

"You should soak in the blood two more times, then I'll get little Hu to train with you for a bit." Cheng Zhi advised.

"Xiao Hu train very well! Little fellow will become strong fellow!" Xiao Hu pipped in, showcasing his huge muscles.

"I'm curious, how did you two meet?" Long Feng couldn't help but ask.

"Oh. It's rather funny. Little Hu was being bullied back then and I stepped in to help him. Since then, he began to call me his brother. Naturally, there was no reason to reject it. The inner peak is extremely lonely, and everyone is on his own, always plotting and devising methods to surpass everyone else. Our little family is extremely unique in the inner peak, since it'll be an uphill task for others to trust each other these days." Cheng Zhi stretched his arms and explained. Long Feng nodded.

Even in the outer peak, there existed no such thing as brotherhood. It was every man to himself… if you were foolish enough to trust someone, then they would betray you when you least expected it. In any case, no one ever truly trusted others. Any alliance or brotherhood of any kind was nothing but a font, lacking any true trust.

"But I can't imagine the scene of elder brother Xiao being bullied." Long Feng suddenly chuckled.

"I mean look at him… it's already amazing that he doesn't goes around bullying others." Cheng Zhi instantly burst out laughing.

"I thought the exact same thing! Unfortunately, he wasn't as strong as he is right now back then. It's actually comical how he found you nearly the exact same way I met him." Long Feng nodded.

"I guess I was lucky." Xiao Hu merely listened to their conversation by the side, not bothering to understand anything at all. After some time, Long Feng stood up to return to his cave.

"Oh, elder brother Cheng, I might not come over for the next few days."

"Mn. Find Xiao Hu when you're done. His training is a bit… unsightly, but it's undoubtedly effective." Cheng Zhi replied. Long Feng returned to his cave and filled the tub with water once again. This time, he directly threw in about fifteen globs of blood. He deduced that ten would no longer have as great effect on him as the first time. The water turned extremely thick and dense, and a powerful vitality tumbled beneath it.

Long Feng took off his robes and buried himself within it, closing off his senses to focus solely on refining the vitality. This time, the fifteen globs of blood took him slightly longer to absorb, nearly three days of time. When he was done though, only a little amount of impurities left his body under the remaining effects of the three roots equisite pill, and his physical strength had stabilized at rank nine of the Imperial realm, nearing the absolute peak.

He used a full day to consolidate his cultivation once more before preparing a third tub of water. This time, Long Feng directly doubled the amount of blood, nearly filling half of the tub itself with blood. He already noticed that after the first time, the blood's effects were rapidly diminishing. Right now, he wanted to reach the absolute limit of the Imperial realm with his body at once, and he would need a great amount of vitality to do that.

If he had another three roots equisite pill, it would be extremely simple to achieve with the pill alone. But without it, then merely a few globs of blood wouldn't cut it. Even then as he stood staring at the dark red blood within the tub, he felt slightly weak at heart. The moment he placed his feet into it, a shock seemed to travel throughout his entire body, and his skin instantly turned red. Gritting his teeth, Long Feng fully submerged himself once again, enduring the extreme pain throughout.

For five days straight, he remained motionless while the liquid rapidly turned lighter as it's vitality was greedily devoured by every cell in his body. At some point, a ripple passed through the liquid, spreading through the air and rattling the walls of the cave. A savage force caused the air itself to become dense, and the source of that force was the tub in the center of the cave. The atmosphere of the cave shifted completely as a faintly overwhelmingly aura seeped out of the tub.

This aura wasn't unlike that of a wild beast, containing the unruly attribute that filled every inch of the rock ape's blood. Long Feng slowly stepped out of the tub, his body dripping with light red liquid. His wet hair stuck to his bare back, shining with a metallic light that was hard to miss. With his appearance, the aura reached it's peak. He clenched his fists and unleashed the full force within his body all at once, sending out a wave of pure force that froze the air in place and shook the entire cave.

"I've finally achieved a thousand tons of force…" he measured his fists with a smile as he stated. In the path of body tempering, a thousand tons of force was a bottleneck. Reaching that level meant possessing a raw power that could suppress peak Imperials, especially when unleashed using some body tempering techniques. Surpassing that level would be reminiscent of reaching the deity realm to body temperers, pushing their body strength to new heights.

The difference wasn't as simple as surpassing the thousand tons benchmark. Similar to becoming a deity from the Imperial realm, the strength surge would be dramatic. After all, for body temperers to be able to keep up with the prowess of true essence, they must also have something they could rely on. Currently, Long Feng had reached that bottleneck. No matter how much of the ordinary blood's vitality he absorbed, his physical strength wouldn't increase. At most, his vitality would keep increasing.

That was why he decisively left the tub without waiting to complete absorb the blood. If he wanted to breakthrough the bottleneck using brute force, then the best choice would be the rock ape's blood essence. There was a high change that the violent amount of vitality it contained would be enough to push his body across the line. But he didn't know if there was a special method required to breakthrough. That was something he would need to confirm from Xiao Hu.