Chapter 36: Great Evolution Body Refining Technique! Further Breakthrough!
The howling blizzard gradually settled into a gentle drift of snow around Liu Yuan.
With a mere shift of his thoughts, the three soul rings circling his body—one yellow, one purple, and one deep black—quietly dissolved into the frigid air. The radiant, precious light flowing within his Double Pupils receded into the depths of his gaze, leaving behind a deep, abyssal calm. He steadied the soul power surging through his meridians, which had grown slightly restless from jumping four entire ranks in rapid succession, and stepped toward Du Busi.
As he approached, he noticed his eccentric master was no longer roaring with his usual hearty laughter. Instead, Du Busi stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his thick brows knitted together in deep contemplation.
"Master, what occupies your mind?" Liu Yuan asked, his tone steady. "Are you dissatisfied with my display?"
Du Busi snapped out of his reverie. Those deep green eyes, sharp as a hawk's, swept up and down Liu Yuan's frame, assessing his newly refined physical state. After a long, drawn-out moment, the old monster let out a faint sigh.
"This old man is just thinking," Du Busi began, his voice carrying over the whistling wind. "Since your third soul ring is already this tyrannical, what on earth am I supposed to hunt for your fourth when you hit Rank 40?"
Liu Yuan's mouth twitched slightly. He spread his hands in a rare display of helplessness.
"Master, the heat from my third soul ring has barely cooled. Aren't you looking a bit too far down the road?"
"Far? Not in the slightest!" Du Busi snorted, jabbing a thick finger in his disciple's direction with absolute conviction. "How long did it take you, brat, to cultivate from Rank 20 to Rank 30? A blink of an eye! At this monstrous rate of advancement, you might breach Rank 40 in half a year. A year at most! Doesn't this old man need to start rummaging through the bottom of the chest right now? I have to figure out exactly which Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast is actually worthy of those eyes of yours."
Hearing this, Liu Yuan fell into a brief silence.
His master was entirely correct. The path ahead offered a vast expanse of choices for his fourth soul ring, each leading to a terrifying evolution of his combat prowess.
If he chose to dig deeper into his mental power attributes, he could hunt a soul beast possessing top-tier illusion or soul-stripping abilities, allowing him to slaughter his enemies without leaving a single trace.
Alternatively, if he wanted to maximize the absolute physical suppression granted by the Qilin Precious Technique, he could use his massive mental power to condense an indestructible, tangible armor. That path would render his close-quarters combat even more pure, violent, and utterly overwhelming.
Because the potential paths were so divergent, Liu Yuan had not yet settled on a definitive choice.
"There is no rush, Master. We will cross that bridge when we reach it," Liu Yuan said, a faint smile touching his lips. He turned his gaze toward the silver-clad wilderness, taking in the endless expanse of glaciers and snowdrifts. "The soul ring absorption is complete. Are we heading back to the sect now?"
"Head back? What do you mean, head back?" Du Busi scoffed loudly. "A natural treasure land like the Far North is a place most cultivators do not dare visit even once in a lifetime. Wouldn't it be a massive waste of heaven's resources to just pack up and leave?"
As he spoke, Du Busi reached into his robes and retrieved an ancient, unadorned manual. The book was a deep, dark cyan, its cover vaguely shimmering with a cold, metallic luster. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed it through the freezing air toward Liu Yuan.
"Take it. This is the absolute secret, unshared foundation of our Body Sect. The Great Evolution Body Refining Technique."
Du Busi crossed his arms, his massive frame blocking the biting wind. "Originally, this old man intended to wait until you reached Rank 40, when your physical body had completely matured and set, before passing this down to you. But looking at you now... since you have obtained the Qilin Precious Technique, your physical strength has already met the standard far in advance. Besides, the environment here is absolutely perfect."
Liu Yuan caught the manual. The moment his fingertips brushed the dark cyan cover, an inexplicable, deep heaviness sank into his palms, as if the book itself was forged from dense iron.
He flipped open the first page. His Double Pupils rapidly scanned the dense, complex diagrams detailing complex meridian circulation routes. Soon, his eyes locked onto a line of ancient annotations inscribed at the very end of the text:
[The Great Evolution Body Refining acts in accordance with the Heavenly Dao, yet is born to defy the natural trend. If practiced in a domain of extreme cold, extreme heat, or violent thunder, the circulation of the technique doubles in speed, and the body tempering effects increase geometrically.]
"Extreme cold..." Liu Yuan murmured. He lifted his head, his gaze sweeping over the howling polar hurricanes that tore across the icy plains—winds cold enough to instantly shatter a steel blade. A sharp, brilliant light ignited within his Double Pupils. "Master, do you intend for me to undergo body refining right here?"
"Exactly." Du Busi nodded heavily. "Although the Qilin Precious Technique is tyrannical, it is ultimately an external amplification brought about by a soul skill. Only when your own foundational physical body is tempered to the point of true indestructibility can you bear the terrifying pressure of higher-ranked soul rings."
The old monster raised a hand, pointing a finger toward the towering, jagged glaciers in the distance. "Go. Let us see if the biting winds of this Far North can sharpen the blade of your fast knife!"
"Understood!" Liu Yuan agreed without a second of hesitation.
Over the next half month, Liu Yuan and Du Busi vanished entirely into the deepest, most treacherous depths of the Far North's blizzards.
Atop the summit of a towering ice peak that had not melted for ten thousand years, Liu Yuan sat cross-legged. He had discarded his upper garments entirely, leaving his lean, heavily muscled torso exposed to the merciless elements.
He frantically circulated the Great Evolution Body Refining Technique. With precise control, he actively guided the absolute cold of the outside world—a chill deep enough to freeze a man's very soul—to seep directly into his pores. Then, using his surging soul power, he converted that agonizing frost, using it to brutally wash and temper every single bone, muscle, and fiber in his body, over and over again.
Every single day was a cycle of pure torment. Liu Yuan's skin and muscles would undergo the brutal process of being flash-frozen, cracking under the extreme temperature, only to be forcefully repaired by his vigorous vitality and soul power.
Yet, amidst this excruciating, bone-deep agony, his mind remained perfectly clear. He became increasingly aware of just how vital absolute physical strength truly was.
'Not enough. I need to be stronger!' Liu Yuan roared within his heart, his jaw locked tight against the pain.
He knew with absolute certainty that if his physical body could break through to the next realm, then when the time came to absorb his fourth soul ring, he could bypass the ten-thousand-year limit entirely. He could reach for a deep black soul ring representing forty to fifty thousand years of cultivation.
By then, the qualitative evolution of his soul skills and the massive feedback from his rank advancement would allow him to leave his so-called peerless contemporaries—and even the older generation of experts—choking on his dust at a truly terrifying speed.
Time flowed like water beneath the ice. Fifteen days passed in a flash.
On the final day, Liu Yuan, who had been sitting as motionless as a frozen stone statue, suddenly trembled. A deep aura, as lustrous as flawless jade yet carrying an indestructible weight, flashed across his bare skin before vanishing into his pores.
The lines of his muscles grew incredibly fluid and dense. Every inch of his skin now vaguely emanated a faint, heavy texture, as if his very flesh had been forged from divine metal.
More, the moment his physical body completed this minor stage breakthrough, his long-accumulated soul power naturally breached its bottleneck, flowing forward like a broken dam.
Rank 35!
In less than twenty days since his last major advancement, he had forcefully pushed his cultivation up another rank.
If word of this monstrous speed were to spread, it would be enough to make any arrogant elite who dared call themselves a genius cough up blood and die of pure shame.
"Excellent! Qi and blood flowing like dense mercury, tendons and bones snapping like rolling thunder. You have finally stepped through the door of the Great Evolution Body Refining Technique!"
Du Busi's massive figure instantly materialized beside Liu Yuan, his deep green eyes brimming with absolute satisfaction.
Liu Yuan slowly opened his eyes. The sharp, terrifying light shooting from his Double Pupils actually created visible ripples in the freezing air. He stood up, stretching his limbs. As his joints popped in a rapid, explosive sequence, he felt his entire body surging with an endless, tyrannical strength.
"Still haven't had enough?" Du Busi seemed to see right through his disciple's battle-hungry thoughts. The old monster's gaze suddenly shifted toward a vast ice field to the west, and a low chuckle rumbled in his chest.
"Perfect timing. Three miles to the west, there is a Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Gorilla that has just returned from foraging. That beast possesses infinite brute strength and excels purely in close-quarters combat. Since your cultivation and physical body have both achieved a breakthrough, go. Use it as a whetstone. Let us test exactly where your current combat prowess lies."
Hearing Du Busi's words, Liu Yuan fell silent for a moment.
He knew very well that a soul beast with ten thousand years of cultivation possessed an actual combat power roughly equivalent to a human Soul King, or even a Soul Emperor., they were still deep within the Far North. This was the beast's absolute home field. Fighting it here in the freezing snow was incredibly dangerous.
But as Liu Yuan looked closely at Du Busi, he noticed the old monster was grinning widely, his eyes glinting with amusement.
"What?" Du Busi provoked, his voice laced with a teasing edge. "Scared?"
Liu Yuan let out a cold, sharp snort. "What is there to be afraid of? With you backing me up, Master, I have absolutely nothing to fear! I will go and meet it!"
[Akarin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me and keeps these daily updates flowing!
Want to read 50 chapters ahead or just want to help keep a shameless translator alive? (My livelihood actually depends on this, haha 😭). You can support me directly here:
(P.S. Just remove the brackets and replace the [.] with a regular dot . to use the links!)
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters): patreon[.]com/AkarinTL
☕ Ko-fi (Support / Sponsor): ko-fi[.]com/AkarinTL
🔗 All My Links: linktr[.]ee/AkarinTL
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]