Standing beneath the waterfall, Fang Xing could feel even the smallest changes within the stream of water and felt a sense of danger cras.h.i.+ng down towards him from above. At that moment, he released a low howl and clenched his teeth tight before activating and rotating all of the Qi inside his body. A pair of illusory golden wings suddenly sprouted from his back and extended up against the waterfall’s current.
Rumblerumble, the thousand-pound stone with more than ten thousand pounds of force fell within almost a blink of an eye, as if dropped from the heavens.
"Hundred and Eight Thousand Swords, cleave!" Fang Xing howled as he moved up against the waterfall. The pair of wings shook as golden sword light began to form, and a closer look would reveal that the wings at his back were formed from numerous golden sword lights. With a mental command, dozens of sword lights thrust out from the wings towards the stone, sending numerous strikes against it.
Swish swish swish….
The waterfall was beautifully split like a blooming flower, and deep cuts were etched into the rock as the golden sword light collided with the giant stone. Since the stone was so heavy, however, it did not shatter and instead continued to fall right towards Fang Xing. Panic and fear began to blossom within Fang Xing’s heart, and he was nearly on the verge of running away.
Yet he did not do this. Instead, he used the very last moment to acc.u.mulate all the Qi he had.
Swish….
From the two golden wings formed another sword light. There was only a single one this time, yet it was very realistic, as though it was a genuine upper-tier Flying Sword. A tyrannical aura surrounded the sword light as it flew against the stream’s current once more.
BANG
The sword light pushed its way against the falling stone when it was only a hundred feet away from Fang Xing. With a loud explosion, the moss-covered rock was split into two pieces that fell into the bottom of the clear pond below, only narrowly missing Fang Xing in the process. The halves formed splashes that were as high as a few hundred feet tall before they broke into pieces at the bottom of the pond with a very obvious display of force. Fang Xing had ended up using all of his might in that strike and the golden wings disappeared, causing his body to start falling down the stream at the same time.
Woosh….
The golden crow swooped down, his talons grabbing hold of Fang Xing’s arm. The crow pulled Fang Xing out of the waterfall before lowering his head and sighing. "What sort of practice is this? This is just gambling with life!"
Fang Xing’s face was pale and he was only barely able to smile. "Hahaha, this is called ‘the bold die full, the timid die starving’...."
The golden crow smacked his beak. Although he didn’t say anything, he felt a sense of admiration towards Fang Xing. The crow’s cultivation level might not be that high, but his temperament was wild and untamed. In these eight or so years, he had travelled all four continents and seen all kinds of people, but someone like this boy was very rare. Especially after seeing Fang Xing’s method of cultivation practice, the crow felt a sense of hope rise up within him; perhaps this boy might be able to help him in the future, for that thing….
The golden crow wasn’t stupid. Not even for an instant did he ever want to permanently be the mount of a human, and the only reason he was well-behaved inside the Qing-Yun Sect recently was out of fear of being found by the Myriad Beasts Sect. They’d already suspected this was where he’d fled to, and he was afraid that if they did find out, he would be captured the moment he left, so he’d decided to hide out within the sect for a while before leaving. Just as he’d decided on this idea, however, Fang Xing had pa.s.sed him a secret skill from the Giant Peng Clan, a fantastic skill that could increase his flying speed by manyfold.
Because of this, the golden crow wanted to see what else the boy had to offer and decided he wouldn’t leave quite so soon. Now that he’d seen how harsh the boy was on himself when practicing, he started to feel a sense of admiration towards him as well; the boy had an extremely low level of cultivation, but he might really shoot into the sky like a genius one day! The crow went from wanting to escape to slowly wanting to stay behind and observe for a little while longer.
Of course, Fang Xing himself didn’t know all of this was going through the crow’s head when he was coming up with a training plan. In those three years, Bai Qianzhang had not only given him the most solid of foundations possible, but had also taught him the most useful of truths. Even if ordinary people decided some things were impossible to achieve, Fang Xing didn’t care—he’d just have to study it himself. Although it may seem impossible to learn the Demonic Peng King’s Ancient technique within half a year, Fang Xing felt there was a high likelihood of him achieving this goal.
The bold die full, the timid die starving. There was endless potential between life and death.
The purpose behind an easily fatal cultivation method like this was to seek the boundary between life and death. With this, it was more likely for the cultivator’s Spirit Sense to be stimulated to its maximum potential, allowing the person to obtain twice the results with half the work. This was why Fang Xing had chosen such a method to temper himself while practicing the Hundred and Eight Thousand Swords.
These same techniques were considered an innate ability for the Giant Peng Clan, so using them mimicked these legendary birds and caused a pair of golden, twenty-foot wings to appear. Although a Giant Peng could use its feathers as swords and push the technique to its peak effectiveness, it was far more difficult for Fang Xing, who had to condense Qi to the point of it actually materializing into wings of sword light. It was fortunate that even though Fang Xing was only at Spirit Stage tier six, the density of his Qi was greater than even some people in tier nine, giving him an advantage and causing the golden wings to be extremely pure.
His first practice session had been successful, but Fang Xing had immediately used up all of his Qi, so he sat down with his legs crossed while taking a sip of his spirit wine until his Qi recovered to just about enough to return to his training. This caused the crow to feel even more admiration towards him, and he began to cooperate by following every one of Fang Xing’s orders.
The same monk-like training method was repeated like this day after day. From a stone weighing a thousand pounds, to two thousand pounds, then to five thousand pounds…. Every day was a solid six hours of such training before he returned to the Valley of Hidden Dragon to sleep, only to immediately resume training once he woke. There were even a few dangerous moments where Fang Xing had failed to split the giant falling stone and had been knocked into the water below. It was fortunate that he had prepared plenty of medicinal spirit herbs, and his st.u.r.dy physique also helped to make his recovery rather quick.
With such tempering, his cultivation level also rapidly increased and he quickly reached the peak of Spirit Stage tier six. To others, the rate of his progress might have seemed just ordinary; in fact, if he were to tell someone he’d used nearly ten times more resources than normal people did just to barely reach his current level, they would look at the slow rate of progress and believe he was excessively exaggerating. Yet Fang Xing wholeheartedly understood that—with the high expectations and requirements he had for his Qi—it was already extremely good fortune that he was able to increase his cultivation level as quickly as he was.
It was also a good thing Fang Xing had enough money to squander on so many resources. From the recent trip to Mount Desolation, he had personally obtained over a thousand Illusory Soulgra.s.ses, a seventh-tier fire-element beast core, a ninth-tier earth-element beast core, as well as a very large portion of the resources that had been placed under the Duanzhen communal account. He’d also been one of the top ten disciples in terms of performance and had been rewarded with a good hundred mid-grade Spirit Stones and various pellets that had been brought over to the Valley of Hidden Dragon.
These things were actual resources that a cultivator viewed as extremely important. With them, cultivation would seem easy; without them, the same journey would be more difficult than ascending the heavens itself. Yet Fang Xing not only had plenty of cultivation resources, but also a beast tribe’s Ancient technique obtained from the Peng King. Factoring in all of this coupled with how ruthless Fang Xing was when it came to self-training, it would actually be strange if his cultivation level didn’t increase.
During this period of time, Xiao Mahn hadn’t been confined by Elder Qin’nyao and was able to visit him quite often, and Elder Qin’nyao’s att.i.tude towards Xiao Mahn seemed to have subtly relaxed, as well. In the past, Xiao Mahn had either been made to practice cultivation in seclusion or had been by Elder Qin’nyao’s side; to visit a male disciple as often as she was now had been an impossibility before.
After further study, Fang Xing couldn’t help but to sigh. Xiao Mahn’s improvements were just too great; not only did she have the same cultivation level as him at tier six, but her alchemy skills were also rather good. The higher one’s alchemy skills, the higher the grade of pellets they could reliably create. Xiao Mahn had already been preparing to practice crafting the Poji Pellet for Spirit Stage tier seven, but her esteemed s.h.i.+fu—Elder Qin’nyao—hadn’t wanted her to try a real attempt just yet since she hadn’t fully mastered the techniques.
When Fang Xing heard this, he’d generously laid out all his resources in front of Xiao Mahn for her to use, displaying his status as her young master with pride. "Practice! No need to say anything more, it’s all about practice. Your young master has plenty of resources, so take whatever you need for practice. Even if ten cauldrons’ worth of materials end up destroyed, just one cauldron of success would be enough. I’m holding back on using Poji Pellets right now, so don’t be afraid of being wasteful, just be a bit quicker!"
This time, even Xiao Mahn was astounded. She’d always been told by Elder Qin’nyao and all of her martial sisters that ordinary sect disciples had it quite hard when it came to resources, and the only reason she received so much was because of the fondness her esteemed s.h.i.+fu had for her. Elder Qin’nyao would always hand her plenty of rewards, so she didn’t need to worry about resources while cultivating until she’d reached her current tier six, where she was also developing her skills in alchemy. It was because of this impression that she’d always secretly bring Fang Xing some high-tier Beast Pellets in the earlier visits, but now it seemed her little young master didn’t seem to be worse off than her at all….
To put it bluntly, Xiao Mahn didn’t hesitate at all and took whatever she needed. Between her and Fang Xing, there was no such thing as being indirect or false pretenses, so she happily took fifty Illusory Soulgra.s.ses and three hundred mid-grade Spirit Stones. With these, she would have plenty of money to purchase enough raw ingredients to craft the seventh-tier Poji Pellet five times, allowing her the opportunity to practice without unnecessary worry.
Fang Xing had also heard from Xiao Mahn that Elder Qin’nyao had given Xu Linyun three high-quality ninth-tier Beast Pellets and was personally helping her digest them. Xu Linyun’s cultivation level had since broken into the ninth tier, and she was also practicing the modified version of the Blue-Flame Grand Smithing the sect had received from Bai Qianzhang. She was now in seclusion trying to purify her Qi a little more.
Just before Xiao Mahn was about to leave, she suddenly remembered something and asked Fang Xing with concern, "By the way, Young Master, my esteemed s.h.i.+fu said I should try to find out what techniques Grand-s.h.i.+fu Bai pa.s.sed on to you. Do you have any ideas on how I should respond to her?"